Note: Some maturish allusions.
Perhaps it was the weighty exchange between Rhett and her mother, or that she had climbed the stairs and into bed alone, strangely sick of heart, or a combination of the two, but Scarlett dreamed that nightmare from before: Ellen transforming into Mammy this time, Scarlett's child body sprouting grotesquely into her woman form, and the storm rolling in with darkness and foreboding, the clouds billowing in the shape of Rhett's father over the red Georgian clay. She woke with a start and reached out for the strong arms and unyielding chest of her husband, wanting him as much she had wearied of him earlier, but he was not there. Heart pounding and skin slick with sweat, she clutched at the emptiness beside her. The specters of the dream lurked about her in the moonlight. She had not hidden the fact from Rhett that he was the reason for her precipitate bedtime, expressly shunning her husband's affections for the first time since coming home. Her need for him overcame her annoyance, and she scrambled from her bed and into the hallway, sliding into her wrapper.
Laughter from distinctly male voices drifted to her on the landing, jarring with her groggy, fearful mood. The brogue of her pa rose above the din of masculine murmurs. "What on earth are they doing up at this ungodly hour? They're going to wake the whole house!" she thought, amusement shedding some of her sleepiness and fright. She tightened the wrapper about her and tiptoed down the staircase, that faulty board creaking as a rodent's squeal. The light from the drawing room cut across the wooden floor in a yellow triangle and she paused at the doorway, catching not only the lilt of Gerald or the bass of Rhett, but the friendly flat-nasal of Jim Tarleton.
"And so what did you do next?" the Tarleton patriarch asked.
"What could I do?" Rhett replied. "I cut the man from nose to navel. He got a piece of me before he fell to the earth. A very shiny crescent scar on my abdomen is his only lasting mark."
"Tis not the end of the tale, methinks. Did you get that free drink the barkeep promised you for ridding the town of the fellow?"
"More than that. The man tried to sale me his saloon, throwing his daughter in as a bargain."
"Oh-ho. I knew you'd be holding out some of the best bits."
"You didn't take the man up on his offer, I'm assuming."
"I was barely twenty-two. What would I do with a bar in a gold mine?"
"Tis bars of gold you be looking for instead, is that so? I'd wager a rascally buck like yourself must have come up with some uses with the bar wench."
"If I had, I certainly have more sense than to boast about it to my wife's father, or her near neighbor and friend."
"Ach! Don't be putting a tie on your tongue for the likes of us. Jim here knows all of my misdeeds, and as for availing yourself of some fun with a quick piece of baggage when you t'weren't hardly more than a wee lad, there can't be anything wrong with that. Why! Her own father t'was the man to shove the tart in your face."
Jim Tarleton mumbled something Scarlett must have misunderstood, the picture inspired by his words scattering her skin with a peppery blush; her pa and husband roared at the low-spoken, confusing joke. She hesitated in the dim of the hidden threshold, thinking she ought to trudge on up to bed despite her enjoyment in eavesdropping on the men. It was such a rare opportunity for a young woman like her to experience the unpolished conversation of the opposite sex, and she relished the rawness of their speech and the rough, frank way of their banter. It was how she wished people would always talk. Gerald was much more outspoken and less careful with his words than her mother liked (or condoned) but even amongst his own daughters, he kept back the more jagged points of his language. Rhett could be downright taciturn with her. "It's high time I eavesdrop on him. Goodness knows he's done enough of that with me," Scarlett thought savagely, satisfying any more qualms about making her presence known or retreating, her nightmare quite forgotten.
Leaning against the door frame, she gathered that Mr. Tarleton had made a late night call on his way back from Jonesboro with some news of the twins and the other boys from the county. There had been a skirmish between the "Troop," and some Yankee contingent, ending in a victory for the home lads and a decimation of their enemies. The visit had led to drinks and the drinks had led to a round of poker; Scarlett wondered detachedly if her husband would play as nice at cards as he had been with his manners, or if her pa and the owner of Fairhill would be paying for that fine wardrobe her husband kept teasing as a carrot for her to act as unladylike as possible.
"Don't be taking his silence for any change of opinion, mind you," her pa admonished Mr. Tarleton when the gentleman commented on Rhett's apparent reversal of loyalties since his infamous pronouncements at the Wilkes' barbecue. "He'll be selling his own soul if he thinks it'll buy him riches. T'weren't an awakening of the heart, not just yet, that made me son-in-law watch his tongue with you, Jim, only a mindfulness for me tender feelings."
"You still believe the South will fall, sir? Our men are worth scores more as soldiers than the Yankee bastards. Look at what a handful of the men we know did to three times as many northern sons of bitches."
A long pause , broken up by a few shuffles of cards and clinks of glassware thudding on the table top, before that smooth drawl of her husband eased into the sweet ambience. "I believe money wins wars, not men. The Yankees don't have the skill of our men, but they have double the manpower and far more than that of funds."
"But we have money!"
"For now."
"Hogwash and bull shit, sir. Do you reckon the world will no longer need cotton or rice in the future?"
"I reckon that at some point it won't matter what the world needs, only what it can get."
"But you plan to run blockade. You have already cut past the blue devils. Out of Charleston and now plan on doing the same in New Orleans, with your sights set on, er, Williamston—"
"Wilmington," Rhett supplied.
"Yes, yes! You have one sloop riding out to Liverpool as we speak; if your word is to be taken as truth."
"And if Lady Luck and the Lady of the Sea are on my side, I'll have more than that—none of which relates to the South's ability to pay out more gold than the Yankees."
"Are you confessing to war profiteering, son?"
"I'm admitting to taking full advantage of a system that took full advantage of me when kicked out of it as a young man."
"The Confederacy will prove you wrong. Naysayers have already been silenced."
"Oh we may outmaneuver them yet, while they outman us, but the end will always come to the same inevitable conclusion. War is the opposite of poker. A poor gambler with a quick mind and a bad hand can make himself a rich man if he plays his cards right. The same cannot be said of the stakes on battlefields. And especially not when the deck is stacked against one side, as it is for us."
"I've grown to like you some Mr. Butler, and I know from your own scars and stories that you ain't no yellow-bellied coward, so I'm fixing to write you off as a dunce, although you seem to have your head screwed on straight. I can't see it any other way. Men win wars! By god—our grandfathers fought the damn British and won. Excepting you Gerald, who fought and killed a red coat—"
"I be calling them Orangemen, to be fair, and Jim, look here, don't be getting your trousers in a twist over what Rhett says when loose-lipped from brandy. He's a southerner and thinks like us for all his mercenary talk and highfaluting airs. Mark my words, he'll come round one day or another— though I've been telling him he must be half a Scotsman to care for riches the way he does. So give the lad some time to fill his coffers whilst he slips in and out of harbors and he'll be singing a tune for his southern homeland ere long."
"I appreciate your faith in my eventual conversion, Mr. O'Hara, even if I do not share in it."
"T'would you demonstrate your appreciation with a touch of mercy for me purse."
"I think I may have to fold for the night after this hand—else your son-in-law is liable to swindle me of one of my wife's horses."
"Best keep him playing, Rhett. I've been hankering for one of Mrs. Tarleton's stallions for years. Show your old father-in-law a kindness and win me that black colt Nelly foaled not a few months back."
"If I manage that, I'm afraid I'll keep it for myself."
"Tis nothing but a shame for a man set for the seas to claim a stallion meant for the land and riding."
"Ho now. No one is getting the colt. Beatrice would have my hide. I'm going to call it a night, with at least some of my coin in my pocket and pride in myself."
Scarlett yawned. The novelty of eavesdropping was wearing off, and her boredom with the war talk had made her drowsy. The glimpses into her husband's business had been the only reason she had remained rooted in her spot. He told her so little of his daily comings and goings, and almost nothing of his blockading or money-making ventures—the last of which interested her more than she might have supposed. Her eyes drooped and when she blinked them back open, she smacked her back into the door frame and yelped.
Rhett stood before her, an odd look on his face. He wore a careless grin, with a glossy gaze and a slight sway to his stance. She realized this was the first time she had seen him good and drunk.
"Psst! Who be sneaking around in the shadows my laddie?" Gerald called from the room.
"My own bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh," Rhett replied, winking and propelling her through the threshold, with a tight grip on her shoulder. Mr. Tarleton and her pa greeted her in opposite tones but matching exclamations of her name. Rhett kissed her on the cheek and walked to the game table. Nothing in his speech revealed his depth of intoxication, and only a faint curve in his step gave it up.
"Now see here Puss, spying on your husband and your father 'tis no better than when your sister tattled on me about jumping me horse over the fence. What be the meaning of this? T'wasn't anything but a bit of fun and a solid showing of your scamp of a husband's way with cards."
"I wasn't spying. You were making enough of a racket, I came looking to ask you to lower your voices is all."
"Well then, be a good wife and girl and go on back to bed. We'll do a better job of taming our excitement, and be finishing up nigh on a quarter hour."
"Deepest apologies, Scarlett, sugar. Mind, I can't help but confess my delight in seeing you."
Scarlett smiled demurely for the father of her former beaux. In another time, she might have married one of his sons. He might have been her kin.
"It's a delight to see you, too, no matter the time or the length of time." To charm was automatic for her; she could literally do it half asleep.
"Fair is fair, Missy. If you swear not to tell your mother how much your husband thieved from me, you can stay put for our last hand." He patted the seat next to him. Fatigued, Scarlett knew she could not refuse such a singular and generous offer, scooting up alongside her father and husband. Her pa tapped her on the knee and vowed she would bring him luck.
"I may not grant you much by way of compassion, Mr. O'Hara, but I'll cede all good fortune my wife may afford to you for my final call."
"And what of me?" Mr. Tarleton asked with a smile, his nose as red as his hair.
"You shan't be regretting how you folded so soon. Your woman will thank you for your temperance."
"I can't agree that I have any right to be called temperate. I may be lighter in my purse but I'm ten pounds heavier with your brandy. I'll stay on, though, to see who wins the last hand, and now that fair Scarlett is within my view."
"And to add up how much you owe to her husband."
"I'll permit Mr. Butler to tabulate the cost of the evening."
"Tosh! Let me Katie Scarlett do the numbers for you. Don't you be fooled by her sweet face. She can put figures together quicker than her husband can win at poker."
Mr. Tarleton hid his surprise behind a cough, and listed off the amounts of his losses. Scarlett added them up while her father swore and threw down his cards, losing to Rhett's high aces. Apparently she had not been the lucky charm he had needed. She gave the smiling man across the table his total, in a careless voice which belied the accuracy, and in between blasphemes from Gerald and insincere regrets from Rhett.
"I'll be damned—pardon my language, my dear. I didn't know anyone as pretty as you could have something behind the beauty." Mr. Tarleton slapped the table. "Go on, Gerald, tell your daughter your bets and allow her to calculate your humiliation."
"Tis unnecessary. I've been keeping me own tally in me head. I'm done in from gambling."
Mr. Tarleton commiserated kindly with his neighbor and, kissing Scarlett on the cheek in farewell, took his leave. He weaved towards the front door, muttering about sleeping in the stables and shushing Gerald's attempts to send someone along to bring him safely home. "I'm not so very drunk and my horse is stone sober. She'll get me to Fairhill." Her pa may doubt the rider, but it would be a new world indeed wherein he questioned one of Mrs. Tarleton 's steeds.
Rhett sat silently beside her, as if drink deadened him in the way it enlivened her father. He was such an unusual man compared to the men she knew, different from the hot-tempered Calverts and the jocular Tarletons, from the rambunctious Fontaines and the plain-spoken Munroes. Sometimes she wished he would be like those wild, simple creatures she had been reared and raised alongside. She rested her chin on her hand, humored by the back and forth between her pa and Mr. Tarleton coming from the doorway, aware of the steadiness of her husband's gaze on her.
"Sweet Mother Mary!" Gerald exclaimed returning to the drawing room. "If Mrs. O'Hara t'were to discover me failure here tonight, she'd be ruined of heart. Tis ashamed I am that I was taken in. Teaches an old fool like me not to duke it out with a young buck."
"Oh pa! How you do run on! You know Rhett used to play on the riverboats."
"Aye, and anyone so at home on water t'weren't to be trusted. Me own mother used to say be wary of sailors, they prefer the ground beneath them to shift."
"I'd be more than willing to put off my payment until the next turn at the card table, Mr. O'Hara."
"T'would rather lose me life than me honor. A debt forgotten is no debt paid. Best be retiring to me bed whilst I still have me clothes on me back." He lovingly kissed Scarlett on top of her head, inhaling into her hair and telling her she smelled of an Irish morning abloom with roses. "What Jim said is true, Puss. No man would peg such a lovely head with having more than hay between the ears. I'll be tickled if your own husband knew your talent at arithmetic."
"It comes as a surprise, though not a shock." Rhett's glassy eyes carried something between mockery and satisfaction.
"You won't be holding it against her if she's quicker than you with numbers. She's a fool enough about most other things, you may keep your pride without much fuss."
"I'll keep my pride more easily if she is better than me at calculations. You already consider me an outsider, I might as well admit to that truth."
"A liberal-minded man, so you be. Hear that Puss? Maybe he'll hire you as a bookkeeper, t'weren't more than an hour ago he be complaining about losing his accounts man in Charleston. See here, Rhett, show me how strange you be and let your wife run your money."
Scarlett didn't know why, but she couldn't quite meet Rhett's gaze. Although she knew her pa was about ten sheets past the wind at this point, the detritus of empty bottles and tipped over tumblers evidence of a night of fast-flowing spirits, and would likely forget ever mentioning her inclination toward math or certainly praising her for it, something invigorating burst within her at the idea of earning her own money and moving independently in a man's world. Rhett always acted so superior to her and used words and phrases she didn't understand, half the time to purposefully make her feel ignorant she believed, and this would be an opportunity to show him that she wasn't another straw-stuffed dunderhead. Why! She could be his partner. He would be obliged to open up to her, to treat her as his equal and prove all his talk about wanting a woman with a brain and a wife free of her prisons.
"I'll consider it," Rhett replied at last. She braved looking at him, and almost believed he meant it.
Gerald meandered from the room, whistling a ditty beloved by his alcohol- soaked tongue. Scarlett and Rhett followed after his heavy, uneven footfalls, neither one acknowledging that they trailed her father to stop him from tumbling down the stairs.
Soon alone in their bed with the lamps extinguished, the hush of night created a blanket of security for Scarlett to express her excitement at the idea of bookkeeping for Rhett. He had stripped and fallen on top her almost immediately, the intentions of his caresses deliberate, the drink making his movements slow and his scent musky. He laughed at her confession, not cruelly, to her relief. Emboldened, she began telling him of how well she would do and how he could rely on her; how she had always possessed a mind for numbers and knew she could help him out.
"Darling," Rhett said, after failing to shut her up with his persistent kisses, "are you determined to keep talking about this?"
"I want you to know that I'm more than willing to be of some—"
"I'll take that as a yes. Very well. Carry on, you have other, less chatty lips."
Scarlett had no idea what he meant, and might have asked him to clarify, if he had not ducked his head underneath the comforter and enlightened her without any words, though using his mouth all the same. She flushed from his touch, decidedly unable to keep talking, realizing that she had not misheard Mr. Tarleton's joke in the least.
When Rhett re-emerged, he whispered, "Sweet, sweet," into her ear before passing out beside her. Scarlett stared at him, wondering if he would remember any of tonight, doubting she would ever forget it. Or get rid of the blush still warm on her skin. It wasn't until she nestled her head against his steadily rising and falling chest that she recalled what had stirred her from her slumber and what would prevent her from reclaiming it.
Why had he said those things to her mother? There were no two ways about it. Her husband had a wicked tongue.
Note:
Thanks for the reviews. Romabeachgirl you paid me some very nice compliments in your reviews, and one that sticks out is how I must plan out for my stories. I wish I did a better job of that! Apart from this chapter, whose outline has only ever been in my head, I'm terrible at planning and pacing. I always know what I want from the characters and move the plot around to fit that; and I usually have the end chapter written by the first few chapters. Not with Souffle. I have no idea the end game here in terms of plot. But if the characters get to where I want; I sure hope the plot is caught up. Any suggestions of where this should end? I'll take them. Cheers!