STILL ABSORBED, MR. BUTLER?
"Yes." Rhett remembered. "There were a pack of us at West Point. George Christopher Casemont, he was our fearless leader...old Casey. He died later, at Antietem. It was Casey, Rod, Flynn, myself, and a peculiar chap we called The Squirrel."
"That's marvelous." Wade grinned, trying to imagine Uncle Rhett acting up at the Academy as a twenty year old cadet...before he was expelled.
"And we thought we were the cat's meow, but our hero was a lunatic upperclassman-Philippe Robillard. Just a year older. What a hell raiser. But a bit disturbed. I think he had the mania that alienists describe."
"Oh?" Wade asked, as he sipped claret.
"Yes, he was almost your great-grandfather, Wade, if things work that way."
"Really?" Wade almost fell off the barstool at the White Horse Saloon.
"I met your great-grandmother, Ellen Robillard, who was a second cousin of Phil's, at a recital. It was obvious that she and Philippe were smitten. But Ellen was a far more serious person than her daughter turned out to be, and after Philippe was killed in a brawl, Ellen rebelliously married our Mick on the make, Gerald O'Hara."
Wade felt he should bristle at this insult to his paternal grandfather, but he was tipsy..."So you never told Mother you knew Grandmother's old beau?"
"No, there was no need, really. Like most self-centered, unaware young women, Scarlett believed the world began with her birth, and I saw no reason to disturb that comfortable delusion."
Rhett's eyes narrowed as he discussed Wade's mother, and sometimes Wade wondered if he might not murder her, the obsession was that strong.
"Perhaps you really should divorce Mother and marry again." Wade said carefully. "It might be good to seek...greener pastures."
"I think of your mother as my absorption...or aberration" Rhett said comfortably. His brow had relaxed. "And my sanctions on her income may drive her to good sense maybe. or maybe not."
A NOVEL CONCEPT OF FUNDRAISING
Scarlett was bug eyed. "But-but you're part of the Sisters of the Madrigal Choir. Y'all are the pre-eminent convent of Charleston."
Sister Mary Athanasius smiled at her actual sister, who she had not seen in a quarter of a century. The serenity in her eyes was unmistakable.
"Scarlett, orphanages and, I'm afraid, homes Confederate widows are expensive to sustain. The money lies in Yankee banks, and occasionally trains."
"But-but who do you think you are, Butch Cassidy?" Scarlett thought of Jesse James, who she'd met once before his untimely death at the hands of Bob Ford.
Scarlett had read about the "Demonic Damsels" as they were referred to in the press. The masked women had taken down the Exchange Bank on West Hancock Street in Milledgeville, and more recently, the Century Trust Company right here in Buckhead.
Three Pinkerton detectives had been shot in their skirmishes with the damsels in an attempted ambush when the ladies had robbed the Southern Pacific Railroad's bank train, as well.
"We've also thought of contributing to the cause of women's suffrage." Caroline Irene O'Hara said, smiling.
Scarlett was grasping at straws. "Careen, what would Brent, the lost love of your life, say about this?"
"Scarlett, who do you think taught me to shoot?"
From the depths of her habit, Sister Mary Athanasius took out a Colt Navy Revolver and spun the cylinder. It looked massive in her tiny white hand.
It was actually quite remarkable. Careen had been sixteen when Scarlett had last seen her, and now she was, what-thirty-seven? And she still didn't look more than nineteen or so.
Scarlett looked around the visiting room of the Madrigal Choir Convent's West Hall.
As Careen spun the gun about, another lady in a habit opened the door, and looked in at them. She'd been introduced to Scarlett as Sister Josephine, or something.
"Did you ask yet, Sister Mary Athanasius?" Sister Josephine dimpled at them both.
God, she's a child, couldn't be more than twenty, Scarlett ruminated.
"Give me time, Sister Jo." Careen winked, and the younger nun closed the door once more.
" Scarlett, you need money, I understand, and from what I've gleaned, your husband is director of Timonium Guaranty Associates. What do you know about it?"