The fallout from Scarlett's waltz with Rockwell was not nearly as hard on her as it was on Eulalie. For two days her aunt fretted, biting her nails, teasing her wispy hair until it resembled the cottony downs of dandelions, and constantly muttering curses to her niece. "What will they say about Eulalie Steele now?" her aunt constantly worried, out loud and indignant.
Scarlett found she did not care what they might say about her. She did not mind the absence of gawking visitors. It was a relief to be separated from their patronizing airs, a breath of fresh, crisp air to be removed from their disapproving company and nasally conversation. She hummed about the house, her skirts flouncing with the rhythm of the recent reels, her hips sashaying to the melodies that lingered pleasantly in her mind. She drummed her fingers to these distant echoes, tuning out Eulalie's incessant scoldings. And if she could only get her wish to return home soon, all would be well.
To her growing horror, however, she discovered that her willowy aunt had a backbone. No matter how Scarlett pled. No matter how she pouted. No matter what she did, Eulalie adamantly opposed her return to Tara and inflexibly claimed she would do all in her power to put a stop to it. Normally such threats would glide right over Scarlett, as water over a duck. She was well acquainted with battles of will, Mammy had been a worthy opponent and an excellent trainer, but Eulalie's obstinacy appeared to know no bounds or possess any weakening. And what was more, Scarlett sensed she had Rebekkah on her side.
The night of the ball as Rebekkah had helped her out of her dress, she had asked Scarlett how she had enjoyed herself, wondered about the fancy frocks that the other young misses had worn, and as a bland aside, had mused that Rockwell had been bound to notice her.
"This green here always was his favorite color as a child," she had said, folding the dress across her arms and staring blankly up at Scarlett.
Scarlett had been in the middle of a luxuriant, feline stretch and her arms had fallen heavily to her sides at Rebekkah's comment. There was always something in that bold, striking face, an alertness, a cleverness, a knowledge about things and people that pushed Scarlett to the edge and seized her frighteningly brazen self with an unfamiliar, unwelcome vulnerability.
"News travels fast around these parts," Scarlett had at last coolly replied.
"Like fire in a dry meadow," Rebekkah had answered back. "And from all I know, you done set some things ablazin' with Mista' Rockwell tonight. There gonna be some things badly burned, you mark my word. There gonna be more'n just smoke, that for sure."
Giving Scarlett a curt nod, she had then walked out of the room. Scarlett had slumped down onto her bed, her brow wrinkling with a childish pucker. Her eyes had closed a little less easily that night, visions of unknown devastation and destruction clouding her mind and disrupting sleep.
When she had awoken the following morning, however, most of the unnamed worry had been cleared away. Her heart had swelled with the fun of the party, with the high of her triumph. And she had been able to banish Rebekkah's dark words to the recesses of her mind.
Except as Eulalie's chastisements grew in volume and insistence every passing hour, Scarlett could not help but see that Rebekkah's allegiances were quietly shifting to aiding Scarlett's aunt in her desires, rather than helping Scarlett with hers. However sneaky or pathetic Scarlett chose to be, Rebekkah would not engage with her when she whined about Eulalie or proclaimed her intent to return home to Tara. Even a soul as stubborn and headstrong as Scarlett worried that the combined forces of her regal, quiet maid and her tenacious, wily aunt might actually succeed in deterring her from getting what she wanted. And as with anything her heart set its wishes on, the more she felt denied, the more desperately she wanted it. Fears about Ellen were all but forgotten as fears of never seeing the subtle, sloping hills and piney, fragrant dark of her home cropped up in her dreams one night. She must go home—she would go home.
"No, Scarlett," Eulalie clipped, three mornings after the ball, as they sat at home in the front parlor. "No."
"I don't mean today, Aunt 'Lalie."
"Well, not today, and certainly not any day in the near future." Eulalie's fingers flew flawlessly over her needlepoint, her thread whipping through the air and the needle jamming into the fabric.
"You can't tell me to stay here."
"Oh, watch me. You are not cutting ties and scurrying back home. You have dug yourself a fine hole right here in Charleston, and I will not be part of watching you dig yourself into a full grave by running home."
"I'm not running home—"
"It won't matter why you are going away, only that you are going away. I am not going to discuss this further."
Scarlett threw her needlepoint down into the basket and crossed her arms. "I don't see what all the fuss is about. It's not as if I walked down the street naked or threw myself at some unmarried man. I danced with my husband's brother—when both our spouses were not present. How is that so scandalous?"
"More and more, Scarlett," she fumed, not bothering to glance up at her niece, her needle stabbing through the material. "I am under the impression that you and your ruthless husband are cut from the same, cheap cloth. You have no regard for decency, no sense for what is right and wrong, no compunction whatsoever for your faults."
Scarlett's eyes snapped, green balls of fury. "If I had done anything actually wrong, maybe I would feel sorry for it—but I didn't. Rockwell came to me. I didn't seek him out."
"Yes," replied her aunt, shooting her a sharp, beady glare. "And that is what is most disturbing about this entire mess. I would expect nothing less from Rhett, or you, really, but Rockwell—he has always been such a good boy. This is so unlike him."
"Well, I consider the whole affair a tempest in a teapot," Scarlett said coldly, swiping back up her needlepoint and loudly flapping out the fabric over her lap. As far as she was concerned this discussion was over. Whatever Eulalie professed, she couldn't keep her under lock and key. She would go home to Tara, and if her aunt was going to persist in her prickly behavior, she would go home tomorrow, with Rebekkah or not.
Tomorrow came and went without her leaving, though. Came and went without any visitors, came and went with the same irksome disproval of Rebekkah in the background, the same tedious perturbation of her aunt, Eulalie's feathery hair barely moving as she nodded at Scarlett in the halls, choosing to punish her with the silent treatment, or her pale face firing red as she ceaselessly chided her. Scarlett smarted under the constant strain, the girl she saw framed in the mirrors and windows turning into a stranger, with a surly glare and an immoveable pout. Aunt Pauline would be better than this—at least Uncle Carey would be there as some sort of buffer.
Finally on the fifth day, Scarlett jumped up while they waited in the parlor for the nonexistent callers and Eulalie blustered on as a chicken with a rock in its beak. The sky crackled with the fog of an incoming lightening shower, the same electric energy scudding into Scarlett's green eyes. She placed her hands on her hips and announced: "I'm leaving today, this very minute. I don't have to stay here and listen to you complain about me. I'll walk to the train station if need be!"
She twirled around, gearing to storm out of the parlor and yell for the high-and-mighty Rebekkah to pack her trunks, when to her shock, the parlor door opened from the other side and she nearly crashed into the three people standing at the threshold.
"Gracious," she gasped, clutching her hand to her breast, her manners swiftly rising up to cover her anger. "I nearly walked right through you all."
She flicked her head back to Eulalie while Melanie, Honey, and Charles recollected themselves and mumbled a staggering, unified apology for startling her. Eulalie craned her neck to see who was calling, a smug smile flitting over her thin lips at the sight, and settled waggingly back into her chair. Scarlett strode back into the parlor and the blushing visitors finished handing over their shawls and umbrellas to Isaac, their feet shuffling into the room on Scarlett's snapping heels. With all the hubbub of Rockwell, she had completely forgotten that she had seen Charles Hamilton or that he had threatened her with the promise of his sister and cousins paying a call. Now she was genuinely glad for their interruption—her happiness at their appearance completely selfish. Eulalie couldn't complain Scarlett had destroyed everything when such wholesome, harmless folk as the Wilkes and Hamiltons called on her.
Spreading her widest, brightest smile, Scarlett sat down and for the next half hour poured all her charm onto the bewildered, bashful Charles, Melanie, and Honey. India had not been feeling well today, they all claimed, and regretted she couldn't come out this morning. Scarlett cried out her alarm, waving her dainty hand and dimpling her chagrin, not believing a word of it. India hated her, which was no hardship to Scarlett. Cooing, batting her lashes, exclaiming compliments she hardly knew she was saying, her unsuspecting victims did not know what had hit them. Eulalie offered her two cents every now and again, but the floor was dedicated to her bubbling, disingenuous niece.
Scarlett babbled on and on, her voice pleasant and her chatter sweet, thinking how tiresome it would be to have to spend every day with any of them. Melanie was as quiet and demure as a mouse, an insulting reminder that the only man who had turned Scarlett down had preferred that plain heart-shaped face and flat, girlish figure to her. Honey had always irritated Scarlett, how she would so desperately attach herself to any man who might accidentally wink at her. Married and she could still make Charles more interested in her than Honey could on her best day, in her best dress. Marriage had not tempered her instincts to prowl, either. Being a natural huntress, she instinctively doubted the sincerity of any other woman, viewing them all as her competition. Not enough time had passed for her to quell the urge to prey upon such an easy target as Charles Hamilton, especially with Honey's pathetic flirtations egging her on. So, almost unknowingly, she fawned over Charles, teasing him with her fascinating eyes, green wells of light.
"I had no idea you would be calling as well, Mr. Hamilton," she declared.
"I didn't think I would be able to, Mrs. Butler, but Commander Hampton isn't in need of me this morning—not that he's ever really in need of me…"
"Charles," Melanie warmly cut in. "You are being overly modest with Mrs. Butler. You know very well how much the commander depends upon you."
Her brown eyes glowed with sisterly pride, and she turned to Scarlett. "I know it is probably silly to you, considering that your husband is already risking his life out on the open sea at this very minute, but we are deeply proud of the responsibility placed upon Charles before the war has even begun."
"Why it's not silly at all," Scarlett cheerily lied. "It's downright wonderful what he's been able to accomplish."
Charles' face bled puce, his gaze swimming with unchecked, naïve adoration for the soft, pretty woman before him. He knew his affection for Scarlett would never be reciprocated, and in his innocence, he never dreamed of anything beyond her acknowledgment and praise. Chaste fantasies of knights valiantly showing their love and devotion for the untouchable queen ignited across his imagination. Blushing he fiddled with his cufflinks as Melanie happily listed off his merits, and Honey smirked rather foolishly at him from across the room. In the haze of his admiration he failed to see the glazed, absent glean in Scarlett's sly eyes.
Just then Rebekkah walked in with a tray laden with sweets and a brimming pitcher of lemonade. Bored to tears, Scarlett couldn't wait to do something other than listen to Melanie Wilkes boast about her brother. Rebekkah smiled at her as she passed by, like she had read Scarlett's mind, and started pouring drinks.
Scarlett should have known something was wrong when she heard the glass shatter behind her. Rebekkah was always graceful, always careful. Almost awkwardly, though, she excused herself, her voice quivering, and speedily exited the parlor in search of the broom. The conversation picked up again, with Eulalie asking Melanie what her Aunt Pittypat was doing while Charles and she were away. Scarlett had never met the lady, and didn't care what the old spinster was doing or which relatives she was staying with in Macon. Uninterested she plucked daintily at her dress, pretending to remove some lint. Her head was bowed, her false bravado wilted by boredom, when Isaac came through the door and ushered in some additional callers. Her aunt yelped ephemerally and Scarlett looked up, her eyes trailed curiously from Eulalie to the parlor door. She started, her fragile calm within shattering as surely as the glass had shattered when Rebekkah had dropped it. Even Charles, Melanie, and Honey grew quiet, their pale lashes fluttering this way and that, their quick minds searching for an explanation for the sudden pulse in the room.
Two ladies—a woman and a girl—were strolling into Eulalie's cramped, overstuffed parlor. Their presence overtook the entire room. They were large, larger than life or limb or certainly the confines of this effeminate, dreary day room. They were unmistakably Rhett's mother and sister.
Scarlett gaped at them, her face as pale as under the grip of the ague, her limbs wobbling from the chill of fevered alarm. Eleanor Butler was radiant, age adding elegance to her allure. Her light brown hair was streaked with silver, her eyes were the shade of a blue midnight sky, and her skin shimmered with the most fascinating blend of creamy gold. Tall of stature, she carried herself with a graceful, unassuming command. Rosemary was merely a younger, more slender version of her mother. And if Scarlett hadn't known already that Rhett's sister was Carreen's age, she would have guessed by her height and figure that she was a year or two older than herself. She took in their faces, their forms, immediately seeing how well Rockwell fit in with the two women, not seeing much of Rhett. They were beautiful, more beautiful than she was. Envy and contempt and above all trepidation whipped through her mind and body. She summoned her courage, her head going up.
"Eleanor, Rosemary—I didn't know you were in town, yet," Eulalie exclaimed, standing up.
"We came up a few days ago, since Rockwell had a short furlough. We had always planned on arriving in time for the Willard's ball, but were...delayed from coming to that at the last minute."
Rhett's mother's azure gaze had been fixed on Scarlett, and when she finished, she strode right up to her and bent down to kiss her cheek. "Please, if you need anything, let me know," she whispered. "Use Rebekkah, she will find a way to reach me."
Eleanor leaned away then, the sweet scent of citrus and lavender mingling past Scarlett. She lightly touched Scarlett's flushed cheek. "Rockwell was absolutely right, my dear, you have the most striking eyes—but are nothing more than a child. My darling Rhett, whatever did you do?"
Dumbstruck Scarlett stared up at her mother-in-law, aware of the trembling eyes of everyone else on her as well. She had been prepared for anything, for a rebuke, for a rebuff, but not for affection. Not for this. Eleanor smiled softly and turned away, leaving Scarlett to feel a sudden letdown, a descent of nerves as tingling as the ascent had been. The warmth of the greeting froze her more than any amount of venom would have.
Eleanor glided back over to Rosemary, looking about the room with polite, hurried interest. "I do apologize for interrupting your visit 'Lalie. I had not thought you would be entertaining so many guests."
"Yes, well, they are not my guests, but Scarlett's," her aunt quivered, slow to recover.
"Please if they are Scarlett's friends, they must be at least my acquaintances. I cannot stay long—we are expected at Helena's."
Something passed between the two older women, the two old friends. Scarlett saw it, as if a clear bird had flown through the air. But she did not understand it.
Eulalie made the introductions, mechanically drawing out to whom the Hamiltons were related in Charleston and where they would be staying during their visit. Eleanor and the other women nodded demurely at one another, their expressions a touch too aware of the intimacy of the scene they had just witnessed or participated in. Melanie especially seemed mortified, her eyes the sizes of saucers filled with dark coffee. Every fair cheek was stroked with color, every eye fast to dart away. Only Charles kept his gaze lifted, lifted and immobile. His oblong face dripped with awe at Rosemary, his mouth open and nearly drooling. Scarlett glared at his obvious, pathetic yearning. A superficial jealousy nudged at her, through the veil of her surprise and confusion. Once a man was her beau, he was always her beau.
Eleanor and Rosemary left as rapidly as they had come. Charles clumsily sat back down, barely intelligible in his farewell. He was silent for the remainder of the visit, as silent as Scarlett was. Heavy thoughts bogged down her mind, making her wriggle with self-doubt and a strange tremor of something like hope. Rhett's mother had sought her out, had approached her, had attempted to make her at ease and welcome her into the family, in her own way. But she was no closer to understanding Eleanor Butler, as she was to understanding either one of Eleanor's sons. Scarlett's brows lowered in perplexed worry, as Melanie, Honey and Eulalie carried along the stilted conversation for a few minutes more. She felt lost, lost and alone. She wanted answers. She wanted comfort. She wanted Tara. Home had never seemed so peaceful nor so far away.
Melanie, Honey, and Charles rose to go. Scarlett avoided looking at Charles, her jealousy sinking but not completely dying under the stress of her melancholic mood. Honey and he walked to the parlor door, but Melanie, her hands shaking slightly, walked up to her and shyly kissed her on the cheek.
"I…I hope we may see you soon Mrs. Butler—I do not know for certain how long I will be staying in Charleston, but I do hope we can become better friends while I am here."
Scarlett had nothing to say to that, although a small softening tendered her heart at the outreach of friendship. Alone or ignored now for so many weeks, an extension of genuine kindness touched her more than it would have formerly. Bemused she smiled back at Melanie.
Their guests left, abandoning Scarlett to the irritations of her aunt and of her mind. Eulalie plopped back down onto her chair, a satisfied crinkle around her eyes. She started humming as she searched around her sewing basket. Scarlett sat down and sighed. Rebekkah came through the swinging door and skirted past her. Her long body curved down behind the sofa as she began sweeping up the jagged bits of glass. Tremulously she glanced Scarlett's way. The dark eyes met the green with an uncanny likeness. A memory of a bold smile, a laughing eye, and a strong, unyielding chest rushed back to Scarlett. Her brow darkened more. She wanted her husband.
~Souffle~
Last night Scarlett had gone to bed early with a headache, the dull throb of worry the cause. She woke up with the same blaring pain. It had radiated downward throughout the night, settling somewhere in her abdomen. Sun soaked through the curtains and the call of gulls through the window. She pulled herself up, wondering if she should just lie in the bed all day. Her head spun from the effort. Her stomach lurched. Scrambling out from the covers she ran across the room and barely made it to a pail. She retched and retched, tears streaming down her cheeks and her nose prickling. She felt cool hands gathering the hair away from her face and fuzzily looked at Rebekkah who was crouched beside her.
"I…I think I'm ill," she groaned, shakily reclining against a wall.
Rebekkah frowned at her, slowly unbending upwards. "I don' know if you are ill Miz' Scarlett."
"What? Of course I am. It must be all the fish I'm eating." She swiped the droplets of sick from her mouth, silently adding the cause must be all the worry she'd experienced since Rhett's mother and sister had paid her a call.
Rebekkah studied her, pursing her lips. She seemed to be debating something. She blew out her breath and crossed her arms, saying shortly: "You ain' ill Miz' Scarlett. I reckon you are 'specting a baby."
Her head lightened with dizziness and her gut sloshed with bile. Scarlett felt like she was going to throw up again. A baby? A baby? That was the last thing she had wanted!
"No…no, I can't…" The fear in her voice cracked into pleading. "I can't be with a baby, Rebekkah. I can't be. Rhett's been…
A glimmer of empathy moved briefly across Rebekkah's face, and then the same bland regality smoothed back over it. "Don' you know nothin' child? You don' know right away. It takes time for a woman's body to know it growin' a baby."
Scarlett's fingers touched her mouth, her sour breath scorching her skin. A deadening, diving certainty sunk down into her core, into her heart. She knew Rebekkah was right. She was carrying a child. This on top of everything else—the visit, the ball, the weeks away from home—was too much. Angry, desperate ears prickled into the corners of her eyes. Her lungs hitched and she started to sob, to howl.
"I don't want a baby! I don't want—Oh, this is terrible! It just can't be true. It just can't be!"
"Hush," Rebekkah said, dropping back down. "The window's open child! Do you want the whole neighborhood hearing you?"
"I don't care," Scarlett snarled, greasing the wet away from her face. "I don't care who hears me. I hate this stupid town. I'm not having this stupid baby."
"Oh, and jes' what do you think you're gonna do?"
"I don't know. I…I want to see my mother."
"You're mother ain' gonna stop you from havin' this baby, Miz' Scarlett. Nothin' is. You gonna have this baby whether you wanna or not."
Scarlett glared at Rebekkah, at that golden brown face, at those coal-black eyes. Her young face splotched with heat and tears. Why did life have to be so complicated? Why couldn't she just go back to being Scarlett O'Hara, with parents who adored her and beaux hanging on to her every word and her own bed and her own room and her own life? She had given up everything, everything on an impulse. Oh! Curse Rhett! Now her body wouldn't even be her own. Her tiny waist would bugle. Her limbs would plump up. And for months and months she would have to hide indoors, while life went on without her. This wasn't fair. But she wouldn't put up with anything more than she had to. Her eyes grew cold, her face hard, her voice icy.
"I want to go home. I am going home."
Rebekkah looked her up and down, that knowing gleam in her gaze. "I don' think that's a good idea, 'specially now that you're 'specting.
"I don't care what you think is a good idea or not. If I have to have this baby, I'm going to be at Tara—where at least I'll be able to go outside as long as I want."
"I think Mista' Rhett wouldn' 'preciate you travelin' while a war's goin' on when you are carryin' his baby."
"Great balls of fire! Rhett is not around, is he? He left me money for a train ticket. Eulalie may not like it either, or you, but Eulalie's not the boss of me and last I checked, you are to do as I say."
"Yes, ma'am, but I done promised Mista' Rhett I'd look after you when he was gone, even ifn' I had to do somethin' you wouldn' like."
"I don't understand. Why are Eulalie and you conspiring against me? Why can't I go home now? All you two have done is to try and thwart me, ever since…"
"Since you was a fool and danced with Mista' Rockwell."
"Well, please explain to me, as I am such a fool, why it was so terrible to do something as natural as dancing with my brother-in-law?"
Rebekkah chewed on her fat bottom lip, chewing on her words. Scarlett's rage started to waver, as curiosity rose up to squash it. For days now she had been at a loss to understand why her dance had been such a scandal. Some shock, some disapproval, but not this amount of backlash. Finally Rebekkah stopped chewing, stopped hedging, and her knees creaking, she stood up.
"Did Miz' Eleanor say anythin' to you Miz Scarlett?"
"Rhett's mother?" she asked confusedly.
"Yes'm. Did she say anythin' particular to you?"
"I…I guess."
"What'd Miz' Eleanor say?"
"She told me you could help, if, if I needed to reach her, you could help."
Rebekkah nodded and raised her eyes to a distant point on the faraway wall. "Mammy Jo—who done trained me and raised all the Butler children, 'cluding Mista' Kingsley—used to always say that Mista' Rhett was like water. He was so slippery as a child, still is. But Mista' Rockwell and Mista' Kingsley…now they like the earth. They don' move around much. They is planted and stubborn and steady. 'Cept when they does move, it's somethin' that everyone can feel. It'll shake down houses and uproot trees."
Rebekkah's words were passing over Scarlett's tired, dizzy brain. She hated when people talked in pretty riddles like this, ever clutching at the wisps created by their ethereal words, never being able to wrap her fists around them and make sense of them. Rebekkah let out a long sigh and starred down at her, seeing the bewilderment in Scarlett's green eyes.
"Sorry Miz' Scarlett, but it helps me to think 'bout them like this. But it doesn' do you no good, does it? Well, what you need to understan' is that Mista' Rockwell didn't just dance with you the other day, he done shook the earth."
"How?"
"When Mista' Rhett came home to buy me, Mista' Kingsley…well, he weren't very happy about it. He wasn' willin' to give me up, you see. But Miz' Eleanor stepped in—which she don' normally do—and, and she persuaded her husband to sell me to her son. Now that's not the end of it, 'cause at the time, I was carin' for Mista' Rockwell's children. I was their mammy. Mista' Rockwell got right mad at his mother. He usually so cool, too. But he was right mad. He done told Miz' Eleanor that he was tired of her mopin' about his good-for-nothin' brother and that he weren' gonna stop until he drove him back out of town, back to the gutters of New Orleans, ifn' I remember it right. Miz' Eleanor was already shook up from seeing Mista' Rhett after all these years. Your aunt came and comforted her, tol' her she would do what she could do make things right. But I saw it, saw it in their eyes that they were scared for what Mista' Rockwell would do. Like I said, when the earth decides to move, it can damage more than it was aiming to take down."
"So…so you think Rockwell's…" Scarlett's voice trailed off. She didn't have a clue what she should say. The Butler family was a complex, changing beast, she sensed. And like a beast, unpredictable and irrational. She plastered her hands to her queasy stomach. On top of her own revulsion and reluctance, she would have to bring a babe into the middle of this feud?
"You can' go home, Miz' Scarlett." Rebekkah's voice ached with the secrets she had shared. "That'll just make things worse right now. Mista' Rockwell started somethin' by dancin' with you, and only he knows 'xaclty what that somethin' is. But you can be sure as the day is hot that it ain' nothin' but trouble."
"So what am I supposed to do about all this?"
"You is supposed to stay here and not make things worse by startin' rumors why you had to run off home right after Mista' Rockwell danced with you. It woudn' have been nothin' if you had gone home first, but now…well, now you should think of your husband and his child, 'fore you think of yourself." Rebekkah rubbed her hands along her skirts. "I only hope Mista' Kinglsey doesn' find out that Miz' Eleanor came and saw you. I got a bad feelin' 'bout her visit. Woudn' do no one no good if Mista' Kinglsey gets more involved than he already is."
Turning around she bustled back over to the heap of clothes on the floor and the cold tray of breakfast slanted on the bed. She balanced it all in her arms and rolling down her mouth told Scarlett she'd go get some tea to settle her stomach.
Slouched onto the floor, Scarlett watched her go. She didn't want to stay here. She didn't want to have this baby. But she didn't want to let Rockwell win, either. A steely blankness overcame her and out of a dry, impersonal wonder, she asked, "Rebekkah, what do you think I am?"
Rebekkah halted at the door, her brows lifting. "What'd you mean?"
"Am I water or earth or…"
A shadow of a smile crossed over her brown face. "Oh, you are fire, Miz' Scarlett. You are nothin' but fire."
And laughing softly, she stepped out into the hall.
Note: Well this chapter took more time to work out. Ummm...people have asked about Rhett's family. This is some of my reason. Also, if you're wondering, Rhett wasn't around when Rockwell came. I thought that was implied, but I thought I'd clarify. Rebekkah followed him a day later. And as a side note, apart from using the name Eleanor I have no intention of following any of the characters in Ripley's book or RBP for that matter. Next chapter Rhett comes back in town...Oh and I didn't want Scarlett to be pregnant, but as silly as this is, knowing that she got pregnant at the same time with Charles, I couldn't make her suddenly less fertile. I think that even if Rhett did know about preventative options, he wouldn't have used them on his wife, certainly not his 16 year old, virginal wife. Thanks for the reviews.