Rhett told Scarlett the next morning that they would be leaving Tara tomorrow. She frowned at the expected but unwelcome news. The moment he announced their departure, she knew the truth of her heart on it. The truth came unbidden, and she accepted it wholly. How to tell her husband that she no longer wanted to go to New Orleans? How to tell him that even if he needed to be off sailing the high seas and running blockade, she saw no reason for her to languish oceanside for his return? He could consider his journey beginning and ending at Tara. Absent-mindedly, she rubbed her belly and blew out her breath.
They were lying in bed, tangled in sheets and each other. Rhett's drunken, strange caresses had kept her wondering late into the night, but when the couple had woken a few hours later in each other's arms, her husband had taken full advantage of their intertwined positions, sating his own pleasure with double the ardor. In the after glow of their sunrise coupling, Rhett was diligently combing his fingers through her silky, straight locks, humming a familiar tune that her pa sang when red with brandy, and at her second unwitting sigh, placed his large hand over her hand and belly, forcing her to look him in the eye. The drink from last night barely touched his face, the puffiness under his lashes slight and pale.
"What ails you now, my pet?"
"Nothing ails me,"'she easily lied.
"No? So that wrinkle between your brow is a permanent mark of age and hardship?"
She smoothed the small crease with her fingers, suddenly worried about non-existent lines on her face. "Oh you would say something horrible. And as for hardships. Fiddle-dee-dee. You're my only hardship."
"There's more truth to that than either of us cares to admit." He smiled softly, lifting their hands and kissing her belly. Scarlett never understood the appeal, but Rhett rarely went more than a few minutes without touching her there, by his lips or his hands, while lounging in bed together, unless they were making love. Then he touched her everywhere.
"Why do you do that?" she asked when he kissed her womb again.
"Because I can."
"Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should."
"What nonsense! Always remember, dear, if you think you can experience something new and gratifying, you owe it to yourself to try."
"I don't think other husbands fawn over their wives' waistlines."
"I don't give a damn what other husbands do or don't do to their wives."
"Maybe you should."
"To what end? I never counted myself as a marrying man, and the fact that I wound up as one should be enough to appease the caprice of any societal demands on my conduct, particularly behind closed doors." As usual, she had no reply to his responses that rang true but inappropriate to her notions of right and wrong. He kissed her there for a third time, resting her hand back on her belly and removing his to reach for a half-smoked cigar. The sound of him lighting the end sizzled, and the room filled with the tangy smoke.
"We will make a stop in Atlanta for a few days," he said in between puffs, "and you can make good on your promise to my sister, as well as see your sweet friend Mrs. Wilkes."
"I never promised Rosemary anything, and as for Melly—I don't think I like the way you mentioned her."
"Isn't she your sweet friend?"
"There, you did it again."
"What's that?"
"Make the word friend sound like a dirty word."
He chuckled lightly. "The word friend can signify any number of things. You take from it what you will."
"There isn't anything wrong with my friendship with Melly. She's a goose but I don't see why you should make me feel bad about her. It wasn't as if womenfolk in Charleston were falling over themselves to be kind to me."
"I have nothing against Mrs. Wilkes. In fact, I think I may genuinely admire her. Speaking as one who knows, choosing your company comes with some meaningful drawbacks, all of which require a certain forgetfulness of self."
Scarlett scowled at this unflattering aside on her companionship, but her attention was only partially on the conversation. She didn't want to go anywhere, and discussing who she would be seeing on a trip she did not intend on taking, aggravated her more than any actual words spoken or halfway heard.
He doused his cigar nub in a water glass and picked up where he had left off: "Mrs. Wilkes strikes me as the sort of young woman who would be enamored of your present physical predicament, much more than whatever you feel for it."
"My what?"
"Your pregnancy, darling. I did try and be delicate with your aversion to the word, as much as I cannot control your mild aversion to the thing itself."
"I don't have an aversion to it."
"Indeed, Mrs. Butler? Then pray what do you have?"
"Oh, hush up," she said distractedly.
An idea was percolating in her young mind. The baby had presented her with some marvelous excuses. Here was another opportunity. Whatever Rhett had accused her of feeling for her condition was not true. Why did other women complain so much about carrying a child? People lavished over her every comfort, taking care to pamper her. Now that the first weeks of sickness were over, she hardly felt that she was growing a baby at all! Unless, of course, she saw her unclad figure in the mirror, and then she could not think so flippantly about what it was doing to her body. Twenty inches and counting! But still—all she need do is mention her very valid concerns over being so far from home when her time to birth the baby arrived. Even Rhett would relent.
She was shaken from her plotting by her husband's sudden lips on her mouth, a hard, probing kiss that momentarily swiped all wishes for separating from him away. He tasted of cigars and cinnamon, a strangely exotic flavor. "Scarlett, what plan are you hatching in your delectable mind?" he whispered, eyes sparkling and mouth curved in a jeer.
He was in a good mood; she might as well tell him now that she wouldn't be joining him on the road. "Rhett, I've been thinking and I've decided that what's best for me, and well for, for the baby, is to stay here at Tara, especially as I no longer have Rebekkah to help me out and I can't see Mammy being able to leave here with everything going on for the war effort. It just makes sense for me to keep on at home."
"What about your aspirations to do my books?"
Scarlett hadn't considered that, but instantly shrugged any concerns away. "I can do the books just as easily inland as I can beside the docks—better even." She failed to see Rhett's grin at her nonchalance about his livelihood. She was too busy smirking at her neat, little plans.
"I see you have thoroughly thought this out."
"I have, Rhett. I truly have."
"Aside from the issue of hiring you as my accountant, you may be onto something. I might've been thinking the same thing, in fact."
She pulled back from his closeness, trying to better gauge his expression. "So you don't intend on me coming with you?"
"No, I mean for you to come back. The travel this far south is much less disrupted and more predictable than I thought it would be by this point, and I will need to depart for my next run by no later than end of September. I cannot imagine anything dire will change between now and then to imperil you from traveling back home, and as for a maid, I have made arrangements for that."
"Oh, well, alright."
Gearing up for a lengthy combat, she experienced an odd deflation at the unexpected but welcome reaction. His plan was better than her own had been. This way she could avail herself of all the freedoms and fun which beckoned to her in New Orleans, and still return to Tara with weeks to spare before her blossoming shape would prohibit her from going out in public. She might convince him of her use as his accountant, too. Her ability to persuade him would be much more apparent when in his presence, where her eyes and dimples and charm could work their magic. Rhett watched her with an acuity which was lost on her, dryly remarking that he almost regretted agreeing with her so readily.
"Shouldn't you be glad that we didn't get into a spat?"
"No," he said simply.
"Most husbands—"
"Didn't we cover this already? Perhaps you weren't listening. You rarely do."
"Must you always assume the worst of me?"
"If I want to assume the truth then I do. Don't bother pretending to be affronted. You and I are alike in this way. We are always scheming; we always have some ulterior motive."
"I do not!"
"Forgive me, wasn't it you who only minutes ago attempted to get what you wanted through the beguiling uses of motherhood?" When she puckered her forehead in consternation he laughed outright. "Just for that pretty scowl, when we arrive in New Orleans, I will buy you a charming new bonnet in the French Quarter by the most talented milliner outside of Paris."
That was enough to set her mood aright again, her frustration in this regard purchased without any more effort than the promise of an expensive gift.
"Do we have to go to Atlanta?" she asked, yawning. "I could mail your sister's silly letter."
"True, but then you would miss out on the thrill of fanning the flames of forbidden love between my sister and her suitor. No, we had better go."
Scarlett turned a strangely shrewd eye on her husband, recalling his words from moments ago. He hadn't intimated by look or word anything else, but she had a strong intuition that for whatever reason, he had his own reasons for stopping off in Atlanta. And when she said as much, he merely laughed at her again. Pressing the point only made him chuckle harder. Soon she gave up, stretched too thin about other things, her mind thrown back to the worries which had disturbed her sleep, wrestling with the idea of whether or not she could work up the gumption to talk to her mother about Phillipe.
Scarlett and Rhett remained quiet in the stillness of the early morning for some time, birds twittering outside the window and the house hardly stirring, while he smoked a fresh cigar and she wondered. Occasionally Rhett would stroke her belly or play with the ends of her hair. Before rising, she had made up her mind —she would say something to Ellen before leaving. Maybe not today, but tonight, certainly before they left in the morning. With the troubling conversation postponed a little while, she smiled and lightly jumped out of bed, singing the lyrics to that tune Rhett had been humming earlier.
"I'll tell me ma, when I get home
The boys won't leave the girls alone
Pulled me hair, and stole my comb
But that's alright, till I go home."
~0~
Ellen showed no sign of distress or discomfort, no outward mark of her long, troubled night; nothing to indicate a restive sleep of distant recollections that bowed the head and aged the soul. She moved about the house and grounds with the same high brow and squared shoulders, not a hint of purple shadows underneath her deep eyes. Between Rhett and she persisted the detached grace on her side and the deliberate respect on his. In the drawing room, during meal time, or in the library, Scarlett watched her mother with a guarded curiosity, straining but failing to see any whisper of what Ellen's thoughts might be. When her mother caught her daughter's unusually inspecting eye, she smiled in that regal, far-off way and went on with whatever task she was sure to be completing.
The news of their departure was met with a range of feelings, from the indifference of her sisters to the indignation of Mammy, and a somewhat louder but less trenchant incredulity of her pa. He vowed that he needed Rhett's expertise a wee bit longer, though his card playing a wee bit less, and couldn't accept that soon he would be abandoned with nothing but a bevy of lasses once more. Ellen remained resolute and silent when the conversation occurred, soothing her husband, while neither siding with nor against her son-in-law's plans. Gerald capitulated after a quarter hour, dragging Rhett along with him for one more ride through the brambles before the sun went down. Scarlett watched their figures disappear into the woodland through the drawing room window, almost startling to realize that she had been left alone with her mother.
Ellen wove a needle expertly through a mesh round, monogramming an embroidered handkerchief. "Is that for pa?" Scarlett asked, her skirts swaying as she wound her way to her mother's perch on the sofa.
"No, my dear. These are for your husband."
"For Rhett?"
"He mentioned the other day that he would be ordering some whilst in Atlanta, I thought I might spare him the necessity of buying them from a merchant."
Scarlett sat down with a long sigh, fingering the folds of her dress. This small act of kindness, unasked and unassuming, was the sort of goodness she hoped to one day be able to emulate, but for now, only reminded Scarlett of how different her impulses could be from those of Ellen. Shouldn't the wife be the one to think of such things? Shouldn't she have put forth the effort so that Rhett would not need to rely on a stranger? Scarlett flicked some more at her skirts, confounded by self-reflections that painted her in unflattering ways, and which pushed her to unthinkingly ask the question she had shied away from voicing for days and days.
"Did you love Philippe when you married pa?"
The needle instantly stopped swaying, and Ellen raised her large, brown eyes to her daughter. There was something Scarlett had never seen in her mother's cool gaze—fire. The unnatural heat colored the deep hue to a lighter chestnut. A blush of regret began trickling up Scarlett's neck. She had never intended on blurting out anything as obvious. The fire dimmed; a mask of polite indifference returned. The needle began to swoop elegantly through the folds of cloth. There was something familiar about the softening of her mother's features, something which made Scarlett think of Twelve Oaks, though she could not say why.
"Where did you hear that name, my dear?" Ellen asked in a quiet, even voice, a voice tenured with much more control than Scarlett's own tremulous one as she fumbled to reply.
"I heard it from, why, from Aunt Lalie, mother."
"I see." Another flawless swoop of the needle, her mother's thick hair shimmering in the afternoon glow as she kept her head bowed. Scarlett could not refrain from fidgeting like a young child who has been discovered in the larder feasting on sweets. "I confess myself somewhat taken aback by my sister's frankness with you. I had not believed her to speak of old confidences with such meager restraint."
Scarlett opened her mouth, unable to articulate a reply. Oh! Why had she let slip the secret with so little care? What was it that she wanted to learn? This was miserable!
"I'm sorry, mother. I should not have said anything. Please let's talk about other things."
Ellen lifted her needle high in the air, trailing her gaze along the fluttering thread, flicking her eyes in her daughter's direction. Scarlett would never know what her mother had seen on her young face, would never understand the mirror reflection of her own buried heartache in those wild, lusty green irises, would never guess at the envy which momentarily seized upon her mother's long-since defeated spirit, she only heard the voice of her dear mother tremble with animation for the first and last time in her life, the sweet vibration mesmerizing her with the skill of an expert musician.
"Philippe was the most daring, beautiful soul. I loved him from childhood to womanhood, and when he died, a part of me went away with him, but whatever remained, has loved and lived for your father and for my children. Your husband reminds me somewhat of him, which frightens me for you, my dear." For the first, her mother looked directly at the rapt, still face of her daughter. "I can see now what worried my family about my cousin. They were right to be afraid, but they were wrong to keep me from him. He loved me, as your husband loves you. And as you should be with Mr. Butler, I should have been with Philippe. I meant to run away with him. I intended on eloping—no matter the consequence or scandal. He would not have died in New Orleans if I had been by his side."
Without another word, Ellen lowered her head again and returned to her needlework. Scarlett sat as still as a stone now, her outward composure a pretense which masked the chaos of her thoughts. Uncertain of her mood, she fled as quickly as her feet would carry her when her mother kindly but definitively dismissed her from the room. Breathless, she bounded up the stairs and into her bedroom, heart racing and skin clammy.
Whatever she had expected from her mother had not been that. The eventual forthrightness would haunt Scarlett as much as the initial shock in those deep brown eyes. Over all her confused reaction rested a sense of welcome camaraderie, a knowledge that her mother understood her love for Rhett, even if it frightened her, even if it alienated her from her daughter. Scarlett tried to do something which she usually failed at—she attempted to envision herself in someone else's place. What would she do if someone tried to separate her from Rhett? What would she do if someone told her she could not love him? If he died while living apart from her?
A shiver ran over her flesh; a weight pushed down in her gut. Would she be able to carry on the way her mother had? Would she be able to make a new life for herself when her hopes and dreams had crumbled in her hands? If her world dissolved around her into nothing but wisps and ashes, could she press onward and build herself a different one?
Wrapped in a sweet security of home and happiness, of a privileged and sheltered existence, Scarlett could not imagine a life wherein all her pillars tumbled to the ground. Her imagination lacked the creativity to foresee an unknown destruction. After a painful quarter hour, she could only say one thing with any amount of certainty—she would not let Rhett leave her without confessing his love for her. Because he must love her. Hadn't her mother said as much? And her mother was never wrong, her faith in Ellen's infallibility restored.
Gathering her skirts about her waist in an effort to cool down, Scarlett was about to strip off her stockings when Mammy entered the room, carrying folded laundry and humming lightly. One look from her sharp, wise eye, and Scarlett dropped her petticoats in a burst and a shrug of frustration. A heady recklessness seized her. What could Mammy say about her behavior now? Scarlett knew how scandalously her own mother had been tempted to act at her age, an emboldening and intoxicating realization. Smirking on the sly, she hiked back up her dress pleats, and began fanning them with exaggerated flare right in front of the open drapes.
"Ef you got the sweats, Miss Scarlett, it'd be a heap better' ef you stan' way back from that window. No need to show them legs off to the whole world."
"Fiddle-dee-dee, I'm in my own room. No one can see me anyhow."
"An' what you s'pose yer husband gwine say ef'n he the one to march up that drive an' see his wife barin' her body fer all of God's chillun?"
"Rhett? Why, I'd imagine he'd be rather pleased to catch a glimpse of me," she daringly said, almost drunk on the last hour's events.
"Even ef Cap'n Butler ain' a proper gempump, he still done come from solid folk an' he gwine wanna a wife that is a lady."
This stung a little too close to home, and Scarlett bent a rueful gaze at her oldest challenger. "I'm as much of a lady as mother was at my age—and more too, at least I'm not about to run off to New Orleans before I'm married to the man I love."
Too late, she realized she had crossed some fragile boundary. Mammy stalked right up to her, a fresh keenness in her eyes. She planted her impressive frame squarely in Scarlett's space, hands on hips, a towering breadth of suspicion and judgement. Scarlett was instantly subdued, her skirts billowing heavily from her fingertips.
"Jes' what you think you know 'bout Miss Ellen at yer' age, Miss Scarlett?"
"That's none of your concern."
"That so? Ah kin see it in yer unearthly green eyes that you think you know some things. Ah done hope you got the good sense not ter go flappin' yer' jaw 'bout it to' po' Miss Ellen."
"Whatever I may or may not know about mother or what we may or may not have discussed is not your concern, either."
"Fool chile!" Mammy exclaimed, a fury in her ebony face which Scarlett had never before seen. "So you done somehow learnt 'bout Mista Philippe an lak the chile that you is, you spoke of things that you don' know nothin' 'bout, stirrin' up all kinds of trouble in Miss Ellen's tender heart."
Ruffled by Mammy's accusations, Scarlett's anger roused and she reclaimed her voice. "I don't need to explain myself to you. I can speak to my mother about what I want. I'm not a child!"
"You is a chile and you will always be a chile. Jes' lak yer pa. Don' you know how hard it was fer Miss Ellen to leave Mista Philippe in the past? An' you go blabbin' yer mouth lak nothin' you say gwine hurt? Lak speakin' of her dead love won' cut her ?"
"If Mother didn't mind talking about her past for a moment, I don't see why you mind. It's not as if you loved Philippe. What do you know about love anyway? Now I'm tired and want to lay down before supper. Help me undress and don't say another word—or I'll tell mother that you've been mean to me and she won't like that one bit."
Mammy held her ground, barreling on with a reply as if Scarlett had been speaking to the wind. "So you think you know what love is now, Miss Scarlett. That so? You think you got it all figured out? Ah know more 'bout love than you migh'n think. I know that you kin love no one unless you willin' ter put that person before yer own wants an' wishes an' wills. Ah know that even as a young misses, yer mother had a heart set on sacrifice that you don' got an' that you ain' never gwine have ef you don' work lak yer life depend on it. Cause lawdy chile, the life of yer soul depend on it. Ef you wanna learn to love, you better work at it. Ain' no doubt 'bout that. No doubt at all. An' Ah don' know how you think you will learn from Cap'n Butler. He worse than you. He don' know how to love no one an' nothin'." Something in her ancient face softened, and she laid a gentle hand on Scarlett. "Now turn 'round' chile. You do look lak you need yo'seff a rest."
Compliant as she had been defiant, she submitted to the swift ministrations of Mammy's deft skills in unlacing her stays and fluffing her bed for an afternoon nap. Laying her head on the cool pillow, she watched Mammy move toward the door and asked the only question that mattered now.
"Mammy, do you think Rhett can learn to love?"
The black eyes wavered brown in the low afternoon light as she turned to answer. "Ah don' know chile, but Ah hope. An' hope's all anybody's got in times lak these."
Note: Sorry for the delay! It's been busy. Thanks for the reviews. My only real note is on some comments about Rhett in a couple reviews: I'd say that I try not to judge Rhett too anachronistically for his misogyny, and I don't think my portrayal of him is anymore or less caustic than the original. I just think that we see him as a bit more rounded since we have met his dysfunctional family. I think Rhett is as charming as he is cryptic, as cruel as he is elegant. And to take most of what he says with a grain of salt, as his tongue is usually attached to his cheek.
Finally, I played with longer versions of the Ellen conversation that I just didn't think rang true. Often we want so much more than we get in these types of discussions and I think this one may require a series of interactions, which I look forward to explore as the story progresses.
Please review and I hope the next chapter is up soon. Be well, and if not well, then I pray you are able to feel better.