There would never again be a moment as long as this one. Or as humid. Or as humiliating. Scarlett stood in the middle of the squat cabin, a pale, slender figure draped in a cotton, threadbare sheet, watching in shameful wonder as two tall, regal women, one black, one white, one in simple, work clothes, one in finest fashion, sashayed into the brightness of the room and shut the wooden door, the latch thudding behind them with an echoing finality. Perspiration appeared on her face as tiny pearls as she pulled the sheet higher over her bosom, and held her arm across her budding womb. If she could only keep her cool, and not betray her anxious mind or guilty conscious.
Immediately and wordlessly, Rebekkah approached, a heavy carpet bag in hand, while Rhett's mother remained near the door, fanning herself with an elegantly-gloved hand. Something had clearly gone awry. Something precipitated by Scarlett's own rambling, broken promise. This would not be her undoing. She braced her shoulders and gulped, the words finally forming over her tongue. "Where is Rhett? What has happened?"
Rebekkah's thickly-lashed eyes fastened on Scarlett, with a mixture of pity and rebuke in the dark orbs. "All you need know is yo' husband is alive, and so is Mista' Kingsley. Though neither is as lively as they was before the dawn."
That reply had only multiplied the questions soaring through Scarlett's brain, dozens of questions with serrated wings that ripped as they flew. "Is Rhett injured? Did he attack his father? Can I go to him?"
Her voice broke down with her rising fear. The sweet high from last night fully plummeted to the floor. She spun her vivid gaze from Rebekkah's serious frown to the silent, aloof scrutiny of Rhett's mother, neither offering her more truth.
"In good time, Miz Scarlett," Rebekkah soothed. "Fo' the moment, you need to get yo'self dressed and in a hurry."
"I will do no such thing, until I have some answers."
"The sooner you dress. The sooner you see yo' husband, and get yo' answers."
Scarlett scowled, undecided, when Rhett's mother ended the tussle of wills, in that low, coastal drawl which would accept nothing but immediate submission, "Listen to Rebekkah, my dear, and you shall have your questions satisfied. You will disappoint me, if you do otherwise."
If Eleanor had used any word other than disappoint, in a tone of that reminded Scarlett achingly of Ellen, she would have gone on digging her heels into the floorboards, as it was, she uncharacteristically calmed, for the moment. Rebekkah reached out to draw away the makeshift covering, and Scarlett shrank back, her eyes flashing to her mother-in-law. Undressing in front of her maid, or disrobing down to her shimmy around a swarm of other maidens for an afternoon nap were normal, expected occurrences, but baring her complete nakedness to the stranger who had birthed her husband and was wed to the most despicable man she had ever met, was a degradation she refused to endure.
Eleanor perceived the spike of discomfort in Scarlett's flushed, florid face, and with a casual glance at the curve of thigh exposed in a slit of the sheets, swung around toward the opposite wall. Her skirts still swaying from the speed of her turn-about, she said, "I am mindful of the curiosity of this moment, and the modesty which must reside in your unjaded heart, but rest assured, my dear, I have seen more flesh than you have seen months, and quite possibly, weeks."
This reassurance did little to appease Scarlett's mood, and when Rebekkah motioned to strip her of her decency for a second time, she yanked forcefully back. "I am perfectly capable of putting my undergarments on without any assistance," she declared, feverish again from head to toe."But so help me, I will do nothing until you tell me what is going on!"
Neither Mrs. Butler nor Rebekkah replied with anything other than distracted attention. There was a barely repressed sense of urgency about the two women that made their eyes dart out the window, or their heads to swivel at the flutter of a bird in the trees, craning their necks at the slightest whisper of wind in the leaves. None of which made any sense to Scarlett—Rebekkah's and Eleanor's entrance as big a mystery to her as anything else.
"Why are you acting as if the calvary is about to storm in here?" Scarlett asked, directing her question at Rebekkah, with whom she felt more at ease. "How did you even arrive? Rhett said that visitors didn't dare risk the tide or the mosquitos during this time of year."
"The mosquitoes are indeed a severe deterrent," replied Rhett's mother, her face trained dutifully at the wall. "As is the summer tide, which is why we walked across the short bridge which spans from the island to the outer fields of the Butler plantation. My eldest must have been overly eager to enjoy the company of his young bride, quite forgetting to mention that choice, little fact."
For a minute Scarlett was numb, that empty deadness winnowing out her feelings, even the mortification of this strangely incongruous interview, and then she glimpsed that gleam of pity in Rebekkah's gaze expand out over her entire expression, and the numbness reanimated as indignation. This was too much. Even as recent as yesterday afternoon, she would not have been so injuriously shocked by this magnitude of an omission. In fact, she might have anticipated it. Not now! Not after last night.
Despite the doubts she had entertained upon waking this morning, doubts about the singularity of what she had shared with Rhett last night, deep down she had considered it impossible that he had ever known a night of passion and vulnerability and intimacy as they had experienced together. Part of her complete surrender of self and inhibitions had been due to her belief in the absolute seclusion of their location. She would not have been able to cry out his name in that shattering volume, or forget her nudity as he carried her to the bed, pausing to kiss her beside the uncurtained window, with her legs wrapped around his hips and her fingers scraping his back, had she known someone could have been peering into their most private acts, someone traveling no farther than a short walk across a bridge.
From hairline to heel she blushed now at the memories of her pathetic abandonment, memories rapidly shriveling into bitter regrets, because as incomprehensible and unpredictable as Rhett had always been to her, still was and would ever be to her—she at last understood this one thing about him.
All of last night, from the moment she had broken down and confessed to him her conversation with Kingsley Butler, he had planned on confronting his father. He had planned on using her body to bolster his own sense of importance or confidence or whatever vile, heady thing that men took from women when they slaked their animal desires on a female form in order to warm their blood for battle. Scarlett may not know what to call that thing, or hadn't grasped the full measure of its meaning until now, but she had always known it had existed. During her maidenhood, Cade or Brent or Stu had always craved her kisses with more fervency, demanded her affection with more tenacity, right before running off for a hunt or a backyard brawl or a confrontation with some rascal. Imagine how much greater Rhett's need had been, plotting to face a foe as formidable as his father. No wonder he had taken and taken and taken from her. And lovesick fool that she was, she had willingly provided!
Misuse coupled with the rage, a misuse made that much cheaper, as she sensed the bubbling of life in her body, that infinitesimal stirring that would bind him to her forever. If he had only told her what he had planned on doing! If he had not forced her into this insurmountable shame. She did not mind that he had confronted his father, glad even that he may have been compelled to avenge her for his father's callous insults and bawdy insinuations, but the dishonesty in the throes of such intimacy, and the ulterior motives in exhausting her ardor, lay on her as molten steel. Searing, heavy, and unendurable.
Rebekkah and Eleanor had watched her as the impact of Rhett's deception had ricocheted through her body, rippling across her face in ugly shades of green, watched her with a keen, alert gleam in their eyes. She was an exotic and unknown creature to them, particularly to the woman whose son she had married. None of this interest in her rare appeal and evocative energy registered to Scarlett. None of it could she see. The world titling in hues of black and red was all she beheld in the swimming vision of her terrible anger.
The time for stewing had passed. Wherever Rhett was, Scarlett intended on going to him. Her eyes snapped into focus, and she snatched at the clothes which Rebekkah had withdrawn from her bag. "Take me to my husband," she declared. The sheet was flung to the ground, the billow whipping loudly as it folded downward. What did a thing like modesty matter now? With an unrefined but tragic air, she jerkily put on her underclothes.
After the two women afforded Scarlett a few private moments to wash and freshen up, she allowed Rebekkah to assist her with her corset and dress—an oddly fine and ephemeral choice for such a muggy, mean morning. This was an afternoon dress, for a belle in search of several beaux. A charming dress she had never beheld before, of an older but classic style, and whose deep amethyst hue complemented the pure emerald of her eye, and whose low-cut chest line framed the curves of the top of her alabaster breasts with perfection. In spite of the heat and the horror, she twirled around the room once the dress had been fitted. She didn't even grumble that Rebekkah had only been able to tighten her stays to twenty inches. No matter the width of the waist, this dress clung and caressed her with all the care of a lover, a lover as attentive as her husband had been last night and twice as honest. "Take me to Rhett," she repeated her command as the soft skirts rustled silently downward following her pirouette.
Rebekkah glanced at Eleanor, before advancing on Scarlett. "Why don' you sit down at that table chair, and I can do yo' hair somethin' nice and quick befo' we leave." As an added measure of placating, she withdrew two honey-cakes from the carpet bag and handed them to Scarlett. Tearing into one of them, Scarlett nodded and sat down, mumbling with her ravenous mouth full, "I know what you're doing, and it isn't going to work."
Despite her protestation, she hadn't the faintest idea what any of this meant—the alluring dress, the secretive looks constantly cutting between Eleanor and Rebekkah, the ceaseless, unnerving undercurrent of worry and hurry that was momentarily belied but never banished by this break to style her hair and satisfy her starving belly. And she wanted to try and salvage some of her dignity, make Ellen proud of her manners and grace under pressure, to impress upon her mother-in-law that her son had married a true and respectable lady. At the thought, she slowed her eating, nibbling with a daintiness that would bowl Mammy over from surprise.
When her thick hair had likewise submitted into a simple but cooling bun, Scarlett stood, and with a forced calm, politely refused to budge until someone finally enlightened her on something!
"Where is Rhett?" she asked in as sweet a voice as she could coax through the annoyance. If nothing else, she would know this. A look passed between Rhett's mother and Rebekkah, something Scarlett could not perceive was decided, and Rebekkah at last answered her, wearing that expression of compassion mixed with consternation.
"He is at the Big House. It is not 'specially far from here, Miz Scarlett."
Scarlett failed to disguise her bewildered astonishment. "Why didn't he come to me himself?"
"He can' do that."
"And why ever not?"
Another silent conversation between the two women, another exclusion of Scarlett's interests or opinions. The black eyes, so breathtakingly like Rhett's eyes, held onto her for a minute, the wheels grinding behind them with rivers of experience and knowledge she would, could never learn for herself. "Mista' Rhett sent fo' me," Rebekkah said carefully, each word enunciated with patient precision, "and told Miz Eleanor where you was. We met up not far from here, but Mista' Rhett had to stay on to sort things out wit ' Mista' Kingsley. He didn' need to come fetch you, since we were ready to help. I know these parts as well as anyone."
"So it isn't because he's badly injured that he sent for you, instead of coming himself?"
"No, strictly speaking, it weren' for no injury that kep' him from you, Miz Scarlett."
"That is good, I suppose," she said lamely. In spite of her indignant wrath, relief swirled within her.
The state of her ignorance slightly improved, they exited the cabin. The balm of the summer morning swelled around them, the sea-saturated air kissing their exposed skin and dampening their clothes. Scarlett accepted the parasol from Rebekkah and trudged slightly behind Rhett's mother and her maid as they tiptoed with their skirts lifted through the crowded woods and onto the beach, to a pebbled path running alongside the tree line. The angular shade of the trees moved above her and the sea slapped lovingly onto the sand twenty feet to her right. Scarlett scanned with clear eyes the beauty of the island which had been masked by night on her arrival. Isolation and happy non-use hung about the overgrown branches and mossy pebbles of the path. The swarms of mosquitoes were manageable this late in the morning, carrying on with the same welcomed neglect.
Within minutes they arrived at the bridge, and Scarlett crossed it with a renewed sense of abuse. No wonder Eleanor and Rebekkah had walked to her, in spite of the bugs and scorching sun. It had taken all of five minutes—seven tops—from exiting the cabin door to stepping foot onto the land of her husband's lost inheritance. An inheritance whose breadth of magnitude and depth of wealth, Scarlett began to sense as the fields and fields of rice, and even some rows of cotton, spanned out before her eyes— and that was not all. Orchards of lush, leafy fruit trees and a hillside of tobacco plants, which when she dared to finally break the absolute silence of the walk, were confirmed to her by Rebekkah as the outer reaches of the opposite borders of Rhett's cast-off kingdom. But beyond the scope of the crops, the most shocking mark of the greatness Rhett had forfeited, as was the case in all aspects of her southern civilization, was measured and manifest in lives. Black lives.
Laboring in the rice paddies, toiling amid the cotton plants and tobacco fields, climbing and pruning as distant wisps amongst peach trees, black faces and bodies and hands were there. Too many souls for her to count. None of whom by eye flutter or head turn acknowledged her fleeting presence, although Scarlett thought she caught a glance or two pass between Rebekkah and a few of those in the field. Their rich voices rose in song and murmurs of words, not nearly as loud or as sharp as the call of the taskmasters who roamed amongst them, whose shriveled faces and barking commands Scarlett winced at to see and to hear. There had been taskmasters at Tara, of course—surly, rough men whose filthy feet rarely crossed her household's threshold, but they had been her taskmasters, part and parcel of the scenery. These men—too old to join up in the war—had a distinctly crueler look to them, or so she flattered herself, the savagery of others so much easier to perceive and to condemn. She met the beady eye of one of these harsh, hardened men as she trailed the outskirts of a cotton field, his disdain for her equal if not greater than her own, as he sneered and spit a greasy stream of tobacco from his scabbed lips. Embarrassed, she whipped her head away and marked her gaze to the back of Rebekkah's braid until they cleared away from the farm lands.
The path finally opened to a broader lane and she was able to walk abreast with the other two women. They turned a corner in the sometimes shaded lane, the fragrant magnolias and pines providing an inconsistent shelter and occasional cool, and the footpath stretched even wider, expanding into a sight Scarlett could only describe as a rudimentary but orderly city. These were the huts and buildings where those numberless concourses of field laborers and farm hands and tree climbers slept and ate and lived, for those brief moments of rest. Passing shops of blacksmiths, leather tanners, carpenters, horse farriers, and on and on, strict plots of gardens and lines of simple straw and stick homes, she thought of the size and populations of the plantations back home, appreciating that even combined, their numbers would be dwarfed, their complexities demoted to simplicities.
There were more eyes which would only look to Rebekkah, a few brief bows to the mistress of the Big House, spindly children who hid behind the small shelters, buckets or some other tool hand, the young made to work same as the old, but much as it had been on her first trip through town in Charleston, not one soul—black or white, for even amongst the slave quarters and village, taskmasters loomed in towers and lurked in the thoroughfare—made notice of Scarlett. Recalling Rhett's bland insistence that she consider herself as the wife of Cain, she began to wonder if among her husband's former people, that might be more than nonsense and drivel.
She could not be at ease here, attributing her discomfort to her own situation, and not the thing that it really was—the awareness that had begun to awaken in her from the moment she had realized who Rebekkah was, an awareness of what she must be, and how her existence must feel to the other woman at her side, an awareness that only resurfaced in her mind by forced recollection, as at least half of the souls tasked to work in the village as tradesmen or domestic and menial helpers, were the same shade of color, or even a shade lighter, as Rebekkah. Scarlett did not remark on any similarities beyond skin tone—no striking brows or hawkish profiles that matched the features of the Butler patriarch, but there were dozens and dozens of those leering, white men with bull whips and shotguns who could easily fit the bill, they would never claim, of father.
All this orderliness and tranquility, she thought dully, told a lie. The distinction between the two factions of people around her was false, imposed by the guns and whips which kept the division intact. The thought rankled her, rankled her in a way she couldn't quite define. And it was with hurried steps, she moved beyond the village, up a grassy hillside where the horses made pasture, to pause in a grove of sycamore trees that fenced off the rear yard of the Big House, the massive, palatial home peeking at her through the painted trunks and verdant branches.
Speckled with moisture, of her own making and of the day's bounty, Scarlett wiped at her face, and set her parasol against a tree. She was expectant that more of her questions would at last be answered, questions which she had not forgotten, but had been unable to voice in the hot and on their swift hike from the beach cabin. All three women panted in the tranquil of the trees, catching their breath, their gazes of blue and green and black bouncing around at each other. Without prompting, Rebekkah handed flasks of water to Eleanor and Scarlett, treating herself to one also, from the well of her bag. The water was warm but delicious to Scarlett. She watched Rebekkah dump half of her flask over her head, and shining at the idea, was about to do the same to herself when Eleanor's spotless glove stopped her wrist.
"We must keep you presentable, and freshen you up a bit as is, my dear. Do not make more work for us by wetting down your hair."
Eleanor Butler smiled at her, before releasing her wrist, and collecting the flask to return to Rebekkah. Stunned for a thick minute, Scarlett watched the unflappable lady—for as certainly as Rhett was a scoundrel, his mother was a lady—smooth her grey-streaked, sandy hair and fluff her tidy, blue dress, and brush the cheeks of her flawless, warm complexion. Scarlett's astonishment passed quickly, and she said, daring the two women with her eyes ablaze, courtesies forgot. "Mrs. Butler, if you or Rebekkah do not tell me what in thundernation is really going on here—I'm going to start to scream!"
"I 'spect you better be the one to tell her of it, Miz Eleanor. You was there, afta all," Rebekkah suggested after a tense moment, her arms wrapped over her bag, the slope of resignation on her spine.
Eleanor examined Scarlett, the azure of her eyes as mysterious and deep as the sky, and flicking a wisp of dust from Scarlett's sleeve, spoke, with a frankness forged from a life of subtlety and lies, that when allowed to own the truth of a matter, cut through sinew and bone as easily as sharpened scissors through silk.
"Since my husband was a young boy, he has risen with the sun and taken a morning constitutional, weather conditions not excepting. Occasionally I will join him on these promenades. By chance I was with him this morning when Rhett approached us from out of the woods, as a ghost come to torment me. I was extremely startled to see my eldest son, his father less so. They have never known an easy relationship, my dear, and that truth you must understand. These are old wounds, deep, deep wounds that have been re-opened. You are not to blame; your unexpected intrusion into our lives is not your own doing. Had Rhett returned to Charleston as a single man to run the blockade, we likely would have never crossed paths again—or very, very infrequently, and by design. We do not move in the same spheres of society; we haven't for many years. But he did not come home to Charleston a free man, did he?"
Eleanor smiled archly at her, a note of awe in her voice, a note of almost envy, the sound of a mother who must release the care of her son to the care of his bride, before she is prepared to relinquish the responsibility, the sound of a mother whose son was stolen from her years ago, only for him to be returned, within view but not within reach—this symphony of notes for which envy was the only one Scarlett heard.
As the pause dragged long in the interminable weight of the summer morning, Scarlett shook her head uncertainly. That simple gesture must have been what Rhett's mother had been waiting for, because she continued on in that refined melody of speech."You cannot imagine our complete surprise at your strange reality. You see, we never believed Rhett would marry, certainly not the granddaughter of Pierre Robillard, not my truest friend's niece, not a young girl expecting and deserving to be received, not one who could successfully navigate such a feat, but to our amazement and chagrin has managed to get a foothold into the thresholds of our own class and near kin."
Scarlett frowned—she wouldn't call her foray into Charleston's cream of the crop as a earth-cracking success. "They barely invite me to anything, Mrs. Butler, and no one will pay me a call at my hotel."
"They see you, Scarlett. They acknowledge you. This is an old town, and we move apace of the aged. Do not underestimate what you have accomplished." The blue eyes appraised her with a shrewdness wasted on Scarlett. "And it is not true that no one has paid you a call at your hotel. My husband did so only yesterday afternoon."
"Respectfully, Mrs. Butler," Scarlett said, straining to check the angry words itching in her mouth. "That was not what I would term a friendly call."
"Respectfully, my darling Mrs. Butler, he is not a friendly man." Eleanor shrugged in a regal fashion. "This is my supposition, but I believe Rhett approached us this morning with no other intent than to assure my husband of your imminent departure, and to remind him of the finality of the sale of Rebekkah. That she not be harassed for his father's regrets over giving her up. Unfortunately, my son has never been able to hold back his wicked tongue when provoked by his father, and his father has rarely been able to remain unprovoked by his son. Words were exchanged, insinuations made, and conflict ensued."
"What sort of conflict?" Scarlett croaked, unable to speak around that sudden lump in her throat, sensing the meat of the matter was about to be revealed.
"Of the father, son kind," Eleanor replied unhelpfully, before moving on. "Your breach into our societal circle, is not the only way you have encroached upon our peace. How shall I put this without scandalizing your provincial delicacy? We never expected our irreligious Rhett to wed this Catholic coquette to deflower, this wild but untouched rosebud, so young and inexperienced in the ways of the world, it believes its thorns will protect it from being plucked, and, my dear, my Rhett is not the only Butler man who wants to pluck you. Not by half."
Rhett's mother paused here again, allowing Scarlett to ingest the meaning of her imagery, which with a paling of her lips and bleeding of her cheeks, she eventually did. Dense as she was with metaphors, this one was known and clear enough to decode. Scarlett had never been spoken to in this way, certainly not by a woman whom she knew to be a lady, and that zest for finding Rhett and braving the day mellowed under the threat of a new dark mortification. Was this about her silly dance with Rockwell? God's nightgown! It had been one dance, in the company of hundreds, every old biddy and nosy busybody witnessing for themselves the innocent waltz. But Scarlett's assumption proved the older woman's accusation of her Edenic ignorance, her grasp of the potency of her seduction eerily similar to Eve's lack of awareness for the beauty of her nakedness. Eleanor Butler guessed at her narrowness of mind, and resting her hand on Scarlett's cheek, leveled her with this truth.
"Mr. Butler made it clear to Rhett of his unexpected interest in you, my dear. And Rhett made it clear to his father that his interest in you would not be tolerated." That numbness was returning to Scarlett, a hollowing out of her core, with a reeling, biting sensation in her ability to think clearly or act normally. An icy unease froze over her, indifferent to the balmy air.
"What do you mean by interest?" she asked in a faraway voice.
Eleanor patted Scarlett's clammy cheek once and stepped back, her hand falling to her side, her blue eyes raking Scarlett over with detached scrutiny. "My husband is a very complicated man, as is yours," she said. "Between the two, they have their fair share of demons—which they have chosen to deal with in entirely different ways. Since his boyhood, Rhett chose to give himself over to his specific demons—preferring to lead an honest, heathen life in hell than to remain unworthy in heaven. His father chose the opposite. He wants to be good, and so he fights his demons, locking them away deep, and while the struggle has made him stronger of mettle than his son, it can grow wearisome and make him much, much weaker, so weak that he surrenders to the demons at times, and as anyone can tell you, hidden pockets of hell have a way of festering once exposed. Do you understand what I'm saying, my dear?"
Eyes wide, Scarlett shook her head. No! How could she possibly understand any of this? Was her mother-in-law actually saying these things to her, about her husband, about her son, about herself? About demons and hell and heaven inside a person? She didn't understand any of it. Heaven was where God and his angels lived—where one day, no matter the revelations she had learned about her mother's youth, Ellen would live. Hell was a nasty, fiery, pit that belonged to the devil and Yankees, and according to her pa, the English and all Protestants, as well.
"Oh, but my dear, you are no more than a girl, aren't you?"
"Miz Scarlett don' understand but what she sees in front of her Miz Eleanor. You gonna need to be clear as day, and no messin' with talk of things as they seem but only things as they are."
Scarlett glanced at Rebekkah, and while she didn't like what the woman had said, she had at least understood it, but she was tired of being spoken at as if she were a child. The whole lot of Butlers gaped and ogled at her, talking at her in riddles and pictures, instead of speaking plainly. Young and inexperienced she was, but she was not dumb.
Once again, the hot flames of fury were licking at her, burning away all other emotions. She no longer cared about making a genteel impression on Rhett's mother. That ship had sailed—right along with her pride. She no longer cared about anything but seeing her husband—blackhearted cad that he was.
"What do you mean by an interest in me?" Scarlet demanded. "Are you suggesting that—do you mean to say—" She could not even form the words.
"I mean an interest, my dear. Only my husband knows to what extent. I have seen that to mean something as innocuous as an admiration of a singing voice to a fleeting obsession of fleshly pleasures. Whatever the interest, you must be prepared for whichever form it takes and not bow your will to his. Because no matter the end goal of the pursuit, as harmless as some of those attractions may be, the desire is always to break you."
This was too much for Scarlett's simple, young mind, a soul of forthrightness and pure passions who cared not at all for games of this kind, games she was not slated or favored to win.
"Why have you brought me here?" she asked hotly, waving her arms at the grove."Why am I wearing this dress? Why did you two barge into the cabin acting like deer with a pack of bloodhounds chasing them, and then idle away spinning stories outside here, fifty yards from where you told me Rhett was?"
Supremely unflustered, Eleanor dabbed at her dewy brow. "My, but you have a temper, dear. All the better! It will spare you tears. Lord knows I have grown callous over the years, but believe me, there was a time, I could not speak of these things without weeping for a week."
"Mrs. Butler—"
"Please do dispense with formality. I have seen your lovely, unclad breasts, dear. Call me Eleanor or Mother or anything but Mrs. Butler."
Taken back again by her mother-in-law's odd morality and frankness, Scarlett sputtered to find her words, to ground her feet. Blessedly Rebekkah took the reins this time. "I'm gonna begin with the simplest question, Miz Scarlett. Mista' Rhett had told his mother that you didn' have a stitch of clothing to wear, 'cept what God gave you, and she tol' the cook who tol' me to bring you some clothes, 'cluding some unmentionables. I was already steamin' with worry since you didn't come home last night like Mista' Rhett had tol' me you was fixin' to do, and plumb forgot 'bout a dress. Miz Eleanor lent you that dress from way back when."
With fresh eyes, Scarlett glanced down at the dainty, purple dress, then at its true owner. "Thank you," she said rather meekly.
Eleanor answered with a slight bow. "I have held onto it all these years, hopeful that Rosemary might fill it out, but she has grown too big for it already, and her bosom not big enough. The color suits you much better than either of us." Her blue eyes rolled to Rebekkah. "Better get on with the more difficult bits. I don't expect we have much time."
"Spect you right, Miz Eleanor," she muttered, then turned back to Scarlett, who waited with a furrow between her striking brows and that hollow pit in her gut. "This morning, we done come in such a hurry to catch you befo' Mista Kingsley's men done find you."
"Find me?" she asked, her thirst a desert on her tongue. "What do you mean? Why would men be sent to look for me?"
"Because my husband, after some interrogation of the plantation's eyes and ears, discovered that Rhett had traveled from across the bridge, and decided to send a search party for you, in case you were stranded on the island, with no protector, as your husband was under our hospitality."
Every word spoken had sounded noble and natural, but for the chill of the tone, a chill that wound up Scarlett's spine as a rusty wire. Rebekkah trudged on before she could ask the questions she didn't even know how to articulate.
"As soon as Miz Eleanor and I met up, we done hurry like the wind to fetch you and make you fit for company. Once we got back cross the bridge, we knew no one would come for you. Mista' Kingsley likes his rules. Ain' no one gonna touch us in the broad of day on the main pathways. Not with Miz Eleanor by yo' side. Things like that only happen in secret round here. 'Course he know by now that we here. I 'spect there are eyes watching us right now."
A shiver passed over Scarlett, her eyes shifting nervously in the direction of the house. "Well why did you bring me here at all? Why not take me somewhere else? Back to Charleston?"
Rebekkah's brows folded high into her head. "An' just how you think you gonna get there? Ain' no way off the island this time o' year and this time o' day but by the bridge. Mista' Rhett told you a half truth, not a half lie. We done had a choice to get you first or let Mista' Kingsley's men get you first. Truth be told, I done spect some more gratitude. Or do you 'magine you'd like some o' those white men you saw in the fields strapping you cross their saddles with nothin' but a sheet on yo' backside?"
Angry affront crackled in Scarlett' green eyes, but a more righteous fury set the stone of Rebekkah's visage to pure flint, and she hit Scarlett with sharp pebbles of truth. "I told you yesterday not to speak a word to Mista' Rhett. I told you after Mista' Kingsley's call that you knew what was comin' for you, but that was foolhardy of me. You don' know what's ever comin' for you, do you? And now we all in a mess of trouble and Mista' Rhett—"
"Rebekkah," Eleanor cut in, a warning in her mellow voice that even Scarlett could hear. "My son has made it clear that there are certain aspects of this morning's events which he wishes to tell personally to his wife."
Rebekkah's large lips squished in to a thin line and she nodded. "Yes'm. I know. I was catchin' a head of steam."
Eleanor inhaled deeply, and placed a gentle hand on Scarlett's forearm. "You have a fiery nature, my dear. Hot-blooded souls are not always courageous souls. What of your fire? Is there more in the flames than a temper? I'd like to think so. I'd like to think you are brave. You married Rhett, after all. Tell me, Scarlett, what is it that makes you burn with a passion for living like you do—sucking the very air out of the room with your heat?"
It was that curious turn of phrase that tugged at Scarlett's mind, a memory of another day when she had believed her world had ended, another moment when all had seemed lost in mortification and heartbreak. Ashley had spoken those precise words to her when he had declined her offer of love. She hadn't understood it at the time, and the span of a couple months hadn't changed anything for her, but she latched onto the phrase right now, out of instinct and dread.
"I am brave, Eleanor. As god as my witness, I swear I am."
Eleanor smiled in a way that did not bless her eyes or warm her face . "I am glad to hear it because you are in this grove to catch your breath, and prepare yourself for the most important conversation of your life."
With a nod to Rebekkah, who remained silent and stony in the grove, Eleanor looped her arm through Scarlett's elbow and led her to the sprawling, French-style house, a mammoth rectangle of pale peach, with arched entrances and curling eaves. To prove the oath fresh on her lips, Scarlett went along with her mother-in-law, feeling as though she had been tricked into making such a silly vow and fooled into following through on it so immediately. As they entered the cool of the entryway, an endlessly high, marble-hewn place of welcome and intimidation, she asked Eleanor why speaking to Rhett would be the most important conversation of her life.
"You will not be speaking to Rhett, first," the soft voice drawled, as the speaker fidgeted again over Scarlett's hair and dress. "You will be pleading on Rhett's behalf before his father."
Kingsley Butler? Plead on behalf of Rhett to Kingsley Butler? Shock stuck Scarlett's tongue to the roof of her mouth for what seemed like the dozenth instance in mere hours. Dazedly, she tracked her young gaze over the obvious wealth and understated grace, at the picturesque southern ideal which surrounded her, landing on her own figure, staring down at the pretty, evocative dress which enhanced her feminine appeal, and experienced for the second time today the strange realization that what is seen, is not often what is true.
Added note: For whatever reason, reviews are not being posted on the site. This delay has happened before, and they will all appear en masse one day soon. BUT I still am getting your reviews in my email inbox. So please review bc I can and do read them. Cheers!
Note: Not another contrived cliffhanger?! I know. I'm sorry. But I will actually get the next chapter up within a week, too. I had thought it could all be one chapter, but the women took too long chatting in the grove. And I kinda wanted to give them their due. I've wanted to highlight my Eleanor for, well, I guess years.
Is Scarlett too aware? Too temperamental? I wonder what she would be like thrown into this mix with Rhett as her only true guide, so unjaded and untested, no loss to speak of—even in the original we have her for no more than a few chapters and around a 100 pages where she isn't a widow and a mother. I think of her love for Ashley early on and how it shaped her and think of how that young love would take a different shape if transferred onto one as mercurial as Rhett.
I've been reading bits of the novel to brush up on my "Mitchellisms" as I call them. To try and get the voice of the characters and ugh! Rhett and Scarlett kill me every time. Why? Why couldn't they be together? Bah! Thanks so much for the reviews. I never anticipated such a response! You made my heart very happy. And yes! The Wind Done Gone is fabulous satire and poignant parody. What do people think of the newer titles? I'm curious. RBP is horrible, and I believe Rhett would smirk and jeer at it. I like the idea of the expansion of Mammy's character in Ruth's Journey, although wish it had gone much further.
To the Guest who asked: La Donna e mobile is the title of a canzone from Verdi's Rigoletta, meaning the Woman is fickle, and you'll recognize the tune, likely. It's in a bunch of commercials and things and was very popular from the moment it was performed in 1851. I like to think Rhett went to Italy and heard it live at some encore performance during the 1850s. If you sign in, I try to respond to your review via the site's PM. I don't know. Is that still a thing? I'm dated on this site, but I so prefer it to other sites. Cheers! Stay safe and sane and healthy.