Everything had gone grey. She had to shield her face every time the curtains were drawn back for even the weakest rays of sunlight seared her eyes and would rend her cold, white flesh. Her body no longer burned with fever or throbbed with pain, but it had become a dead weight that she wished she could just slough off.
She sometimes had to blink hard to keep her eyes focused on Rhett's face even when he was right in front of her. The first time it happened, he had stopped talking immediately and put a hand on her shoulder and started saying her name while trying to capture her gaze with his. When that didn't work, he put his hand under her chin and lifted it so that she was looking him directly in the eyes and she had held onto that hand with both of her own until she was able to steady herself. Even her thoughts were heavy, if such a thing were possible. They would fall like stones before she had a chance to complete them and she sometimes had to pause to remember what she had been saying to keep from rambling like Ella.
Doctor Meade had been in the room during one of these spells and Scarlett saw the expression of disapproval he had always worn when laying eyes on her melt off his face and he looked at her as if he were seeing someone else. As he stood to leave, he gave Rhett a meaningful look, a look that wasn't lost on Scarlett. Both men went outside, leaving the door open a crack. They're treating me like some invalid, she thought, as she twisted the sheets in her hands. She tried her best to keep an even face as they whispered, but when the phrase "female hysteria" floated through the door, Scarlett wanted to leap out of the bed and grab hold of his sagging neck, to slap him, to rake her nails across that insufferably pompous, deflated windbag of a face. How dare you?! You keep your mouth shut, you old goat, or I will show you what hysteria is!
But the old man had come back into the room alone and stood there by a now sullen-faced Scarlett and he took a moment to fiddle with his old pocketwatch and shuffle before clearing his throat:
"Scarlett, I won't pretend that I've...approved of all that you've done and all those that you've kept company with, but Miss Melly saw something in you and I'd like to believe that it's there...because she always had."
A crease appeared between her brows and she looked up at him.
"And," he added, twisting that pathetic excuse of a goatee in his gnarled fingers, "you still have your daughter to think of...and your duty to her."
Why, he's speaking to me like I'm, like I'm bound for the grave!
"Why Doctor Meade," she replied with a twisted smile, "I had no idea you were so sentimental, but there's really no need for all this. You know how much I care for my children." If you want to know what things like duty and honor are worth, go talk to that blond fool dawdling about outside.
But when she finally had a moment to herself, she held her head in her hands, digging her fingernails into her scalp: what on earth had that sham of a doctor put in that broth?! She felt weak, useless, exposed, even more so than when that bearded deserter had come across her when she had only been a half-starved, barefoot girl with nothing more than an old pistol that jammed more often than it fired to defend herself and no one but a sickly woman as her alternate.
And there seemed to be no feeling left in her body save for her tongue. The entire left side of her face was still warm and tender to the touch, but the rest of her seemed to have gone completely numb. But her lips...they burned...and her tongue had become a hot, heavy, slimy mollusk that seemed to swell whenever she spoke. No amount of water provided relief; the flame would only lick higher and higher, scorching her throat and burning her lungs. Her tongue seemed to be weighing down her jaw, her head, her being.
After a few weaving attempts to grope her way to the lavatory, Scarlett was sorely tempted by the idea of taking permanent residence in her bed, but then she thought of her mother and Melanie, so young and strong and full of life, reduced to shrunken, yellowing corpses and of those foolish, gallant young men reduced to screaming, writhing babes calling for their mothers in their beds of rot and pain and she found that she had to get out of bed, she had to, even though she had to grit her teeth to do so to keep a pirate's curses from streaming from her lips. The first time she had tried to rise from her nest with this resolve in mind, he had immediately tried to lift her, but she impatiently pushed him away. He then offered her his shoulder and for a few moments, she eyed him suspiciously and, clenching her jaw, determinedly brushed him away. In the end, he had to support her because her legs had given out after a few tentative steps. He kept trying to put his arm round the back of her knees, leading Scarlett to remark dryly: "If you're going to do that, then there's no point to all of this. I can walk. I've done it before." She pulled away from his grasp. "I've been doing it for years," she muttered as she grabbed onto the doorframe.
But after sinking back into her bed, wincing and covered with sweat, she realized that she felt...tired. She could feel this cold lethargy seeping into her bones, into the very core of her. Was she really only thirty? No...her twenty-ninth birthday had not even come to pass...or had it? What did birthdays matter when she could feel her age in her bones? But she remembered that someone had cared very much about birthdays, a girl, that spitfire of a girl, that pretty, spirited young filly, the one who had sat on that porch as proudly as any princess sandwiched between two tall, handsome laughing dead men...had that really been her? No, that had been someone else, from another life... from another time...
Not once did Tara come up during their conversations, and Scarlett was relieved although she knew she shouldn't be. When she thought of Tara now, she no longer saw the gentle, rolling hills, that blood red soil that was as much her flesh as it was Tara's, and her idyllic, golden girlhood, but only thought of Suellen's smirking face and that pasty hand incessantly rubbing her belly, as if to further accentuate that ever-thickening waistline. Why couldn't you have gone to that convent instead of Carreen? I'm sure Will agrees with me although he would never admit it; that boy you're about to give him has probably been the only thing making him hold his tongue.
Ashley and India had quietly shuffled back to that hideous excuse of a house with a very groggy Beau in tow, but there apparently were still stragglers. When Scarlett caught yet another glimpse of Pitty peering in the doorway, it was the final straw.
"Rhett, I am so very very, very very tired of the whole town nosing into my business; everyone's always keeping track of who goes in and out of this house, tallying up how much furniture I'm buying, what Ella is wearing...I sometimes have half a mind to sell this house and move."
"You can't sell something that isn't yours."
She gave him a withering look. You know, I sometimes rue the day I met you. No man has ever given me a greater headache save for that blond fool and even he has the courtesy to keep quiet these days.
She leaned heavily against the headboard. "You know what I mean."
Despite the occasional barbed comment, their conversations mostly consisted of friendly banter. Although his comments were often spiced with the flavor of that old insolence, his voice was no longer tinged with malice...it was so very much like those days when they had merely been overly friendly acquaintances...those good old days...
But her heart could not rest easy. She watched him underneath her lashes when she thought he wasn't looking, and she watched him with her eyes narrowed and mouth pushed to one side...or at least as much as the swelling allowed and she wasn't sure whether she liked what she was seeing. She noticed that he would never leave her room unless Doctor Meade asked him too or if his mother took him aside. And if Ella ever wandered in, he would find some way of getting her to leave with Grandma. The last time something like this happened, it was mostly Melanie, Mammy, and the old goat who were around and when you were here, you acted as if you'd rather be anywhere else. I hope you're not here because you feel guilty; we can't have that now, can we?
And he would sometimes look at her in that peculiar way, his eyes tracing the lines of her face, hovering over each of her features, and lingering the longest over her lips. When this happened, a hot flush no longer colored her cheeks and that tingling sensation that had once danced up and down along the length of her spine was gone; it had been replaced with a warm, comforting sensation that was wholly unfamiliar after seeing nothing but apathy and outright hostility for so long. He was being...nice, and although she relished the taste of that after so much bitterness, she sensed there was something under that husbandly act and she was sure that she knew exactly what it was...and had an uncanny feeling that he knew she knew. And as each hour went by, she could sense a little more of that self-restraint slipping. They were still dancing and weaving with their words, waiting for the other to slip up, to provide an opening, one that Scarlett did not want to give but knew she would have to.
So you've been trying to butter me up in the hopes that I will loosen my tongue. You coward. Why do you even bother with this? Like it worked out so well for you the first time around. Why not be forward with me for once? It can't be any more frightening than your average duel. You sometimes leave me wondering how a woman could have given birth to someone like you.
He was sitting on the bed as these thoughts crossed her mind and he saw that she was looking at him as if he were the lowest form of life. His face hardened. He abruptly stood, towering over her...as he always had.
"It seems that some things will never change. So it's my fault again, is it?"
She gave a start, her face going starkly white. When she didn't respond, his face tightened even further and he strode towards the door.
"I did."
He stopped dead in his tracks and turned to look at her.
Scarlett was looking out the window, her expression pensive, detached. She locked eyes with him.
"I did. I did at first. It was so easy...as it had been that other time."
I know I've done you wrong, but you can't just say what you said to me that night and then just come back and carry on as if nothing happened. You have no idea what happened to me, what happened to us, after you had made that choice that night to walk out that door...and I suppose if I had come home that night with Ashley's name and divorce on my lips instead of that "profession of love," we all could have gone to the gutter for all you cared. For all your quips, you came back because you still believe that there is something left. I am going to prove you wrong. I am going to change your mind. I am going to change it...again. But this time, I will accomplish that in a few minutes and not twelve years.
When Scarlett began to speak, she could hardly recognize herself: was that really her voice? How smooth and steady and cool she sounded...
"He kept asking for you...every day, every night...he kept asking for you...I didn't know what to tell him...or perhaps I didn't want to tell him...you told me the other night that you had promised to come back to...keep the gossip down...I don't know if you were having a laugh when you had said that, because after Melanie died and you...left, I'd say that's when the gossip truly began. I have to admit, for the longest time, I didn't even remember that you had said that. I remembered some of what you said more than...the other things...particularly that last bit...it was all I could hear for months. Whenever one of those fat elephants opened her mouth or when Doctor Meade and your red whore looked at me in that way, it was all I heard and, in many ways, the children heard that as well...perhaps not from your mouth, but from others'."
But I'm...strong, she thought, a ghost of a smile twisting the blue lips as she absentmindedly rubbed her neck. I could bear it, but my son could not. He had all of his father's weakness and none of Melanie's strength. I have never understood your fondness of children: the nasty little beasts...they can be just as cruel, and perhaps even more so, than adults because they can say the damnedest things with the sweetest faces and the most darling of lisps and hide behind their parents in the rare occasion anyone calls them out.
"I told him that he could switch schools, that I could do that for him so easily, but he refused. He told me that everything would be alright.." and now she had to blink back the tears, "My son, telling me that everything was going to be alright..."
"But one night," she said, and her voice shook, "I couldn't stand it anymore...and I suppose he couldn't either. I, I don't remember everything I had said...," she rubbed her forehead with her fingertips, her eyes squeezed shut. "I, I don't even remember everything he had said, but I do know he told me that he was going to go after you...that he hated it here, that he hated...I, I told him that he could go wherever he wanted for all I cared and that I didn't care if he never came back and I, I think I told him, I think I told him, that, that I didn't care about him...that I never did."
The words were pouring from her mouth like vomit, but that night was a muddled mess, a tangled web of malformed memories. She recalled snatches of her angry shouting and his shrill piping, but the rest was a haze; the only clear image she had from that altercation was his face, but as she tried to conjure it to her mind, his features kept turning into Melanie's. But she remembered how it began; it had started when she had kissed him on the cheek when he had come home and the stench of brandy was especially strong on her lips...he had been angry at that...no...that wasn't it. It had begun when Ella had come out of her room with her dress torn...had Ella been crying?
"I, I didn't mean it, I had only meant...but he was only a boy, a child, he had barely turned twelve...what was he supposed to think hearing that, hearing that from me? I think, I think I had said those things because, because I thought you weren't coming back, that you were gone for good."
"God," she said, her voice breaking, "I don't know why he decided to run into the street that night; he had always gone to Melly's whenever we've had a row-"
She froze, feeling what remained of the blood drain from her face as the seed of a poisonous flower blossomed in the back of her mind...perhaps she had always suspected, had always known since it happened. Her heart was galloping in her chest and she could taste the bile at the back of her throat. She slowly turned to face her husband, her eyes blazing in her white face. He was completely immobile; it was as if every feature had been petrified. No, I mustn't think of that now. If I do, I won't be able to finish...I won't be able to do...anything.
"I tried to go after him, I did," she said, nodding frantically. "I ran as fast as I could, but I'm always too late, aren't I, Rhett?"
Scarlett had just step foot on the landing when she felt a feeling of foreboding wash over her, chilling her blood. It was a feeling she had felt only once before. She slowly turned and her eyes locked onto the door, that door. No. No. She gathered up her skirts and flew. Never had the stairs been so endless, never, not even then. And as she flew, she remembered that she had been here before, that she had done another futile run down those stairs towards the door, that door. Forward and forward she moved, faster and faster she ran, but this time she was running, not for her husband, not for her son, but for herself. Her hand went round the knob. She opened it.
She didn't see get to see him flung like a rag doll and land with a dull crunch as his bones gave way, but she did arrive in time to hear her son's head crack open like a ripe melon, the sound reverberating through her bones and the chill, autumn air as clearly as a gunshot. And then it was silent. The only sounds in the world were the thundering of her heart as it galloped in her ears and her shuddering breaths. She didn't hear the rearing, screaming horses, the flailing, shouting men. She didn't see the curious faces that had appeared behind windows and the eyes that had peeked partially opened doors. She only saw what was lying under the carriage wheels. She wasn't aware that she had started moving, but she was getting closer. Closer. Closer. A fine red mist permeated the air, forming a damp veil over her eyes and the metallic tang of iron was heavy on her tongue. She hadn't known that a body could produce so much blood, especially one as small as this one; it was as if it had been through the juicer. Thin, red worms and their thicker, more voluptuous brothers, snaked their way through the dirt and she could feel the stick of the wheels as they creaked over the expanding puddle of red.
From the neck up there was no face: it had hair like Wade's, the same curls, but it was all dyed a deep crimson so she couldn't be sure. The red fingers beckoned her to come even closer and, like a dumb thing, she obeyed...the clothes…it was wearing the same clothes...but he wasn't the only one with that uniform. She knew because she had gone with him to purchase those clothes, had gone to the school, his school, and had seen other little boys wearing those clothes.
There was a tinkling crunch under her foot; there was a small, white object partially embedded in the dirt. She picked it up, examining it under the flickering street lamp: it was smooth, glowing with a dull sheen like a polished shell. It appeared to be a molar, a human molar, or part of one; the root was still attached and the jagged edge was tipped with blood. She held it between her first finger and thumb. She worked the soft pads of her fingertips around the ridges, wondering what a tooth could be doing out in the street. She was thinking that perhaps a child had lost his tooth when she realized she couldn't breathe, that she had stopped breathing, and she opened her mouth to take a breath but what came out was a rattling scream, and then another. And another. And another. Each scream was ripped from her body and shattered in the air around her, the shards digging into her flesh, digging into her. Her fingernails digging deep gouges into her face, she screamed and screamed and found that she couldn't stop screaming as she watched the thirsty dirt greedily drink her son's blood, her blood. Even when her throat had finally given out, the screaming hadn't stopped; Ella had joined in with her thin wail. Clamping a hand over Ella's face, Scarlett half carried, half dragged the child back into the house.
She didn't remember where she had left Ella but she did remember that once she reached her own bedroom, the world had started to spin, her knees had given way, and she grabbed hold of the nearest wastebasket and retched weakly into it, feeling that, with every shuddering heave, she was giving up more and more of her essence. When she was through, she had stared into the wastebasket, into her own sick, with her slick hands glued to the sides and strands of hair plastered to her skin. As she watched a thick strand of saliva dangle tantalizingly from her lips, she wondered where she was…and who it was she had seen lying under those wheels.
There wasn't a sound in the room. It was as if the entire world had gone still, the silence wrapping its fingers around their throats. From the corner of her eye, Scarlett could see that he hadn't moved an inch.
I hope I'm not boring you. It's a rather dull tale, isn't it?
"So if you or...," she gestured to the doorway, "anyone else is wondering why there hadn't been a viewing, it was because there wasn't much left to see." Her voice was flat now, tired, without expression.
They had to hose some of him off the carriage. At least they were kind enough to put a fresh layer of dirt over the spot, but it wasn't enough. The crows, ravenous with the smell of blood and death, had encircled the spot, picking at it with curved beaks that cut as sharply as knives. They had seen her watching from the window and smiled at her with those red smiles. Our daughter got a clean break, but my son wasn't so fortunate, but at least it had been quick. It hadn't hurt. I asked the undertaker...and anyone else who would know because I had to be sure.
I wanted to kill the driver for carrying such a heavy load and for not stopping in time. I wanted to kill you for not being there, but most of all, I had wanted to...but not the horses, never the horses, because it is never the horse's fault; it's people, stupid people for it was stupid, Rhett...it was stupid, allowing her to jump when you knew she wasn't ready...but you had done that out of love...you had only wanted her to be happy. What I had said to him, what I had said to you, I had done all that out of hate. It was all I could feel. It was all I wanted to feel for if I couldn't feel that, then I would become like you and I couldn't have that. I wanted it to be your fault, and so it had been...those first few days...but...it didn't matter that you had gone; it didn't matter even if you had never come back. I should never have said those things to him. I should never have said those things to my son.
But I wonder now, if you had let Bonnie jump that day because I hadn't wanted her to, because you knew I didn't love you. Perhaps that was why I had said those things to you; perhaps that was why I had left you there with her and I wonder if...in the deepest, darkest corner of whatever's left of your heart, you knew all that as well, and if that was why you decided to come back...but I was still wrong. I could have stopped you that day, but I let you laugh and raise that bar. And I know that you loved her, Rhett, so much so that you would have strangled me first before allowing anyone to lay a hand on her.
But you were right, as you always were. I suppose my apologies were as good to you that night as they are to him now. I failed him and Melanie as well. It's funny...how the things we wished for have all come true. It's unfortunate that Ashley could never get his head out of the clouds or those Shakespeare books...he had a comedy playing out in front of him this whole time, free of charge...
Scarlett realized she had abruptly stopped talking. She wondered how long she had been staring into space like some brainless peahen.
He was carved from stone. It was as if she were the only one in the room.
"You and Ashley once told me that I wasn't afraid of anything. Never has a greater lie been told about me, about anyone...Rhett, you told me that night that you had been afraid the morning after Ashley's party." She turned to face him then, leaning towards him with a sudden fervor with her eyes burning like green fire.
"I was afraid too. I was afraid that you would come back and say to me what I had said to you those nights...when you had been alone with Bonnie...or perhaps you wouldn't come back at all because...because you no longer cared. I didn't know which I was more afraid of, but I was afraid...so much so that I had almost gone back to Tara. I had almost left Wade behind...but I didn't. I chose to stay. I waited here, I waited here...for you," she whispered.
"When I answered that door, I was so scared I couldn't feel anything, but I stayed because...because, after all, I thought that it would only be fair and that it would finally even the score...if such a thing could ever be evened out...but if that's what you are here for, if that's what you're going to say now, I can tell you that you're too late. I don't need you or anyone else to tell me what I already know, and I already know, Rhett, because he's told me. He tells me every night...and he's told Ella as well."
"You aren't a murderer, Rhett."
"I am."
He moved so quickly that she jumped, the back of her head bumping against the headboard, her hands pulling the sheets up as if to ward off a blow. She gave a startled gasp of surprise mixed with residual pain as he held her face in his hands, his kisses falling like the softest of spring rain on her still intact cheek but throughout it all, she sat there wrapped in his embrace like a dumb, wooden thing. There was no sign of life on her face save for her quivering eyes. She closed them.
She heard the soft ticking of the clock, the sound of the dog sucking and chewing on a rawhide bone, the whisper of slippered feet on thick plush carpets, and her own erratic murmur of a heartbeat, and when she opened them, she saw nothing but those velvet curtains...how threadbare they looked...perhaps she would have them replaced...
But when she felt him begin to pull away, she held on to him with all her remaining strength, held on to him as if he were the only thing between her and death. She wrapped her arms round his neck, her hands cupping the back of his head as she blindly nuzzled his face, pressing her lips, her forehead, and the tip of her nose to his stubble. As she caressed his hair and kissed him just above the ear, she remembered how she had done just that to a little girl as she was saying goodbye and had hoped to do to another little boy and when she realized that she would never be able to do so, she felt them burn like vinegar as they streamed down her cheeks. She gave a sigh and that felt so good that she gave another and another until the sighs were no longer sighs, but anguished cries that tore through what remained of her flesh, what remained of her...
...
Rhett Butler lay on the bed, not a trace of sleep in those dark eyes. They would flicker to the ceiling, as clear as the Dead Sea, but a shadow would cloud them every time he looked to his side: over his arm, Scarlett O'Hara slept like the dead, her face pressed against his, her warm breath reassuring caresses on his cheek. Half-dried tear tracks glistened on her cheeks like liquid stardust, but her expression was serene. She slept with her lips parted, her chest rising and falling with deep, even breaths, and with her daughter tucked under one arm like a football. And she slept on, sweetly, peacefully, seemingly freed from the nightmares.