Chapter 24
As I was writing the below bit in the hospital, I kept thinking: I'm so grateful to all the frontline hospital workers right now. So if you are one, thanks. This chapter is for you.
Army hospitals were not made for the healthy—or the faint of heart. They stunk of fetid flesh, tangy vapors, and cold sweat. Unearthly sounds crowded the walls, wails that drove sane minds to madness, and mad minds to death. Scarlett sat in the putrid gloom of the converted church, fanning herself with a half-done letter she had been asked to transcribe, praying Melanie or her bossy friend Mrs. Merriwether would leave her alone for another few minutes, if not for the rest of her life. The soldier who had rasped out the words had drifted off into a fitful sleep, and Scarlett saw no reason to alert anyone to her lack of occupation.
Perspiration trickled down her spine, and she cupped her hand to her nose to try and choke less on the heavy air. "Great balls of fire!" she thundered to herself. "What came over me last night? I should have cried rather than agree to come here." She had just determined to abandon her post and slip out the front doors, when Melanie bustled over to her.
Her heart-shaped face beat as red as blood, but she smiled warmly, and after asking how her friend was fairing, excitedly announced that her brother had finally woken up. Scarlett grimaced an ugly smile and trailed after Melanie toward a quieter, tented-off section of the hospital for the longer convalescents.
Her green eyes immediately latched onto the pink, grinning face of Charles Hamilton. He was bearded and his curly hair flopped down around his shoulders, but beyond that, there was something different about him, something raw and real in his large, brown eyes that aged him. "Why, he almost looks like a man!" Scarlett thought wonderingly. "He almost looks handsome—scruffiness aside." He bashfully but brightly smiled at Scarlett, his gaze unwaveringly direct, as she walked toward him, sweeping her skirts around a half dozen beds with men missing about a half dozen limbs. Charles was no exception. He was missing his right arm, and according to his sister and Aunt Pitty, would be relegated to fighting the war from the home front rather than the battlefront, a change of scene his womenfolk were only too glad to endure.
Scarlett sat down on a chair beside his bed, while Melanie settled herself directly onto her brother's cot. A window hung open above them, a sweet breeze blowing through this corner of the hospital, refreshing Scarlett as a long sigh.
"It is too kind of you to visit me, Mrs. Butler," Charles said. "When Melly told me you were here and waiting for me, I couldn't believe it."
"Nonsense, Mr. Hamilton. Wild horses couldn't keep me away from thanking one of our greatest heroes," she flirted automatically.
Charles laughed shyly at the tease, coughing a little. Melanie's brow creased for a moment before wiping clear. She handed her brother a glass of water, and began chirping about some of the news Scarlett had shared with her last night. Scarlett was grateful for the respite from manufacturing conversation with a man for whom she shared little real connection. Through lowered lashes, she studied the soldier, trying but failing to pinpoint what exactly had altered in Charles to make him suddenly attractive to her. With a laugh still on his lips, he caught Scarlett examining him, a fresh flush blooming over his whiskered cheeks, and a fine one brushing over her face. Confused, each looked the other way.
"Scarlett. I forgot to tell you!" Melanie exclaimed suddenly, shaking the awkward moment away in her tremulous voice. "Charlie is coming home today. The doctors say there isn't a thing more they can do for him that my Aunt Pitty or I can't do for him. Charlie walked around the hospital block only this morning. Isn't that wonderful news?"
"I promise to say a prayer of thanks just for his homecoming," Scarlett flippantly replied.
"A prayer is wonderful, but Charlie, Scarlett also brought you a gift."
"She did?" He flicked his big eyes to her. "Oh, I would never presume to expect one."
Scarlett was about to protest, frantic that she might have forgotten a present she was meant to have purchased for Charles, when Melanie slid Rosemary's letter from the pocket in her nurse's apron. Scarlett blew out her breath as Charles sucked his in. He bowed his head, fingering the envelope.
"Thank you, Mrs. Butler. This is the greatest gift you could ever bring me. I don't know how I can ever repay you. I will be in your debt always."
"Oh, don't be so kind, Mr. Hamilton. It was the least I could do. You're sure to make me blush if you keep on flattering me silly. And what is more—you'll trick me into thinking that all soldiers are as gentlemanly as you are, and I'll be disappointed for life when they prove otherwise."
"Now you're flattering me silly, Mrs. Butler."
He glanced at her, a sincerity in his expression that cut straight to her heart, and for once, she was the one rendered speechless during their conversations. Baffled, Scarlett was relieved when Melanie urged her to leave for her hotel a little early, telling her rather baldly that she looked peckish. Scarlett nodded goodbye to her former beau, already forgetting about him as his sister led her through the hospital. Melanie kissed Scarlett lovingly on the cheek and shooed her away near the entrance, giving dulcet-toned directives before the wide oak doors had swung shut.
The exciting chaos of the main square was as vibrant and entrapping on this day as it had been yesterday afternoon, and Scarlett skipped the offer of a cab to walk through the side fares and explore the downtown. She could see the rooftop of the hotel scrape the sky a couple blocks away, and trusted her strong sense of direction to guide her back to her rooms. Wandering unchaperoned through the shouts of the marketers and colors of the street vendors gave her a heady sense of independence she had never truly experienced. Bright fabrics and bold ribbons caught her eye, and she purchased a spool of the prettiest ribbon to add to a sun bonnet she had brought with her from Tara.
The sun rode high in the early September blue, and a few swirls scudded overhead, tempting to cotton into thicker rain clouds within the hour. Scarlett didn't fancy getting caught in an autumn shower, and felt the soreness and filth of the morning on her skin and clothes. The promise of a bath and a change of wardrobe turned her feet toward the hotel. She had just passed through a narrow alley, guessing it would shorten her path in half, when she pulled up short. Far fewer people covered the walkways on this cross street, and wider swaths separated the buildings. A neglected air clung to the entire block, an air of the sordid and forbidden, but none of these changes had caused her to freeze.
Across the way, bright as the day, Rhett was helping a woman into a carriage. The woman had the most shocking shade of red hair Scarlett had ever seen, a red of pure fire, and even from her distance, she could perceive the thick layer of paint on the bold face. Scarlett had never laid eyes on a bad woman before, never beheld a single picture of one, but she had heard tell of them in hushed conversations since her girlhood days, and knew she was seeing one now. She stared at the woman, at her gaudy silk dress, and her scandalously scooped neckline, at her voluminous cleavage spilling out of the insufficient bodice, and in silent disgust, witnessed Rhett kiss that woman on her rouged lips and whisper something into her jeweled ear. The carriage pulled away, and grinning broadly, her husband watched it disappear down the street, before spinning on his heel and walking in the opposite direction.
Scarlett skittered back into the dim of the alley, flattening herself against a brick building as soon as Rhett had begun to move. Her heart pounded in her chest; her stomach sloshed with an angry unease. Her husband had told her that he had business at a bank to deal with this morning, listing off his affairs right after he had slaked his needs with her body, holding her naked self to him, playing with her hair, and smoking his cigar. The cad. The vile, dishonest cad.
A deep, powerful longing overtook her. She wished she had never wandered from the brilliant marketplace. She wished she had never left the god-forsaken hospital. She wished she had never, never met or married or fallen in love with that scoundrel Rhett Butler. Above all, she wished that she could erase forever from her mind the image of the man she loved, the father of her child, the husband to whom she had sworn her life and body, that man, that skunk, that image of him pressing his lips—the same lips with which he kissed her—onto the mouth of a common, yes, a common whore. But she couldn't erase any of it. She couldn't erase any of him. No matter what she wanted in this moment, this terrible, sickening moment.
Her head rocked with a painful throb, and her eyes filled with tears, tears of sadness, tears of confusion, tears of bottomless rage. She couldn't latch onto a single feeling long enough to sort it out. One second, she wanted to curl into a ball and cry for the love she had mistakenly believed he was on the cusp of declaring for her. The next, she fumbled in the dark ignorance of her mind, grasping to understand why a married man would seek comfort in the arms of a bad woman, why her husband would choose to spend a morning in such disgusting company. Did he love that woman? Did he need her? Did she provide something his wife could not? Scarlett blushed with mortification at that secret fear, and what hidden, unsavory things a creature like that would know about pleasing a man. Quickly, when such humiliations threatened to drag her down, a boiling, hot wrath would yank her back up. How dare he! How could he! How dare he!
Minutes stitched by into hours. The clouds covered the sky. When the rain began to fall, she basked in its cool fury, unfeeling to its sting, relishing the crisp cleansing of its wetness. Somehow she found herself on the porch of Melanie's brick house, knocking woodenly on the door, a fevered chill on her skin. The grizzled Uncle Peter opened the door, and hollered for some warm blankets and fresh towels. Scarlett sank to her knees, barley aware of the flurry her bedraggled appearance had caused. She passed out in the old man's arms as he carried her up the stairs.
Unsurprisingly, she dreamed of her nightmare again, the slashing rain, the oversized clothes, the face of her mother, and the menacing, swift storm which promised to destroy all she held dear. Frightened and disoriented, she awoke in tangle of unfamiliar sheets and in an unfamiliar room. A fire flickered in a white brick hearth, a lamp glowed beside the bed, and someone with shadowy eyes and a stubbled face sat on an armchair in the corner.
As soon as her gaze fell upon him, Rhett leapt from his post and crushed her into him. He kissed her on the head and rocked her, muttering his husky thanks that she had finally come out of her sleep. With a sigh, he padded her cheeks and forehead with his large palms, his eyes roving hungrily over her face, announcing that her fever had broken.
"Honey," he cupped her jaw and smiled kindly, "do you have any idea what happened? Or why you ended up here? Dr. Meade—the doctor in town—he said sometimes fits like this can happen to pregnant women, but he worried you might have caught the grippe going around the hospital." He flashed his knuckles to her forehead again. "Thank God that doesn't seem to be the case. It's a quarter after one and your skin has already cooled."
During all of this petting and fawning, Scarlett had remained in a numb confusion, grogginess and the terror of the dream dumbing her mind, but when he leaned in to kiss her, it was as if he had moved to strike her, and she turned her head away.
"I don't want you here," she said coldly. "Please go."
Crouched onto the bed, Rhett sat back on his legs and his hands dropped into his lap. "Scarlett, dear, do you know where you are?" His voice vibrated strangely, almost anxiously. "Do you know who I am?"
She was no longer the least bit sleepy. Scorn and indignation coursed in her veins as liquid fire. She twirled off her mattress, staggering with ungainly grace, catching herself on the mantle. Rhett immediately jumped up to help her but she held up her arm. Tousled strands of hair webbed her vision, and thirst shredded her throat, but she said in a voice as crystal and clear as ice: "If you try to touch me again, Rhett Butler, I will scream at the top of my lungs. So help me, I will."
He pulled back, alarm stiffening his body. "Scarlett, I think I need to go fetch the doctor. You aren't yourself right now, honey."
She smoothed back her hair and straightened her spine. "I am perfectly myself. You are the one who is confused."
Something in her expression must have convinced him that she was right of mind, because he relaxed his rigid pose and folded his arms, tilting his head at her. The firelight breathed a warmth into his sharp face.
"For a moment there, I really believed I had married my Bertha, but you aren't addled in the brain, are you, my dear? You're angry—angrier than I've ever seen you. Well this ought to be interesting." And he laughed. Tipsy with rage, she didn't hear the thrill of relief in his tone, only the insult of his amusement. She snapped into a hot tempest.
"You scoundrel! You dog! You no-good..." Words failed her, and she grabbed a small figurine off the mantle, flinging it at him with all the force she had.
He escaped her assault by a hair's breadth, arching back in the nick of time. The figurine smashed into the wall, exploding into dust and shards. Rhett looked at it and looked at her. "Darling, do try and keep it down. You'll frighten Mrs. Wilkes and Miss Hamilton—not to mention terrorize your former beau."
The jab about Charles deflated some of her ire, landing with a fine prick in her mood. Fear of humiliation was always a strong motivator for an ego as large as hers was. She waited with a tight glance at the door to hear if anyone had stirred from their beds, but when all was quiet in the hall, she shot her heated gaze back to Rhett.
"I said I don't want you here. Get out! Get out of this room now!" she seethed in a harsh whisper.
Rhett whistled a low, long note. "I would dearly love to leave and avoid any more attack on my person, or potential injury to my head. It might not be the finest head in the world, but it is the only one I have. Before I do any such thing, however, could you trouble yourself to explain what on earth I did to incur your wrath? As appealing as you are alit with so much passion, I can't risk this sort of mortal peril on a regular basis."
"I have nothing to say to you, and could care less what happens to your head."
"All the same. I think you are stuck with me for the time being. At the insistence of your friends, and more importantly, the urging of Dr. Meade, I checked out of the hotel this evening and brought our trunks here. I would have to change."
Rhett gestured at his dressing gown, and Scarlett realized that he must not be lying about moving their things to Melanie's house. He wouldn't be in his silk pajamas otherwise. Too bad for him!
"You could walk down the street in nothing but your boots and cravat. It's all the same to me, so long as you're out of my sight."
"As new and adventurous as that suggestion might be, I think I will pass and remain here with you."
She crossed her arms. "You will leave."
"It's the middle of the night, just where do you expect me to go?"
He grinned at her then, with that same wide smile he had flashed as he had watched his red-haired woman ride off in the carriage. "I'm sure you'll think of someplace." Scarlett sneered. "I'm sure she's waiting for you this very instant."
A flutter of bemusement sharpened to understanding, and Rhett's dark eyes widened momentarily, before shrinking into his familiar, infuriating mask. "Scarlett," he asked softly. "What did you hear about me this morning?"
"Hear? Hear? I didn't hear anything." Her nose prickled and tears stung the corners of her eyes. She would not cry in front of him. She would not give him the satisfaction. She took two measured breaths and with a dazzling gaze of checked rage, confronted her husband: "I saw everything. I saw you with, with that woman. You helped her into a carriage, and you," here she paused, chewing on her lip, batting back the tide struggling to wash over her, "you kissed her Rhett. You kissed her! On the mouth! With the mouth you use to kiss me! And then you smiled like a, a damn fool after she had gone. It was mortifying. It was despicable. You're despicable. I'm going home to Tara. I'm never going to see you again. Now go! Just go away. I hate you. I really do."
Despite her determination, she was sobbing by the time she had finished, her final words garbling into incomprehensible mewling. The room tilted around her, and she faltered to the floor. She wept. She wept for her dashed dreams, for her broken heart, for her anger which she could never surrender. His betrayal cut her. Young as she was, she might never heal. The scars from youth fade more quickly, but slice more deeply. Rhett had approached her and kneeled down at the first sob, but she had shirked away from his touch, and continued to shun his comfort. She didn't want him. She couldn't want him. She would ignore that hollow need to throw herself into his strong arms, beat her fists into his broad chest, and rest her weary head on his sure, steady shoulders. How cruel life was! The one she desired, was the one who had destroyed her.
A knock sounded on the bedroom door, breaking through her aching. Scarlett gasped and unbent her head, smearing the damp from her cheeks. Melanie's meek voice bled through the wood, asking if everything was alright, if there was anything she might do. Rhett hurried to the door and opened it a sliver. In a rush, he told Melly some lie, some truth, something which Scarlett could not hear. Her friend must have been satisfied by it, because she walked away and Rhett shut the door.
For a curious minute, he did not turn around. Scarlett stared up at his back, his large, imposing back, a back built for bearing burdens, a back so often bronzed by the sun at sea, a back which she had seen mutilated and bleeding. He could hurt as well as he had been hurt. Skunk. Cad. It was no good. Her fight had gone out in the wave of her sorrow. How could he be so cruel? What was he thinking? What could he possibly say? Why did she care?
"Scarlett, are you ready to listen?" he asked when at last he faced her.
Nothing in his expression soothed her; nothing she could read there, but after the flood of emotion which had felled her to the floor, she discovered to her empty amazement that puddles of hope remained in the scattered devastation of her heart, a stubborn kind of hope which hurt almost as deeply as despair. She glanced away the last tear which dangled on her thick lashes, and pushed herself up from the floor, squaring her shoulders, lifting her head, a simple elegance to her gallantry which touched her husband to a depth she would never believe.
Rhett hesitated to go to her, his hands almost sliding out from his dressing gown pockets, his feet almost running to her side. Instead, he balled his hands into fists and stood his ground, Scarlett noticing nothing beyond her own pain.
"What can you possibly say to me to make this right, Rhett?" she asked with a sniffle.
"To begin with, I can try and convince you that there was nothing wrong with it in the first place."
Her mouth fell open from shock and fresh offense. Nothing wrong? Nothing wrong? Her arms crossed tightly across her body, her fingers digging into her skin. She couldn't respond. What was she to say? She had known she had married a man who wasn't a gentleman, who had no honor, but she had thought that during these past few months he had gained some common decency, a desire to mend his ways. What a lovesick ninny she had been! That angry fire rekindled, and she glared at him, remembering to cool her voice.
"You can't talk your way out of this one, Rhett Butler. I saw what I saw. You kissed another woman in the middle of the day, in front of God and everyone. And not just any woman. A bad woman. A...a filthy piece of white trash with dyed hair."
"Scarlett, I am sorry, more than you can possibly know, that you witnessed me saying farewell to a friend. For that is all she is to me—a friend of many years, and one who I am in a position to help."
"Farewell to a friend? A friend with the likes of her?"
"Few in this world would be shocked that a professional gambler would be friends with a prostitute."
He did not raise his voice or emphasize the word prostitute, but hearing him confirm the illicit status of the woman struck her as a blow in the gut, and she actually stumbled back into the corner chair. He came to her again, and grabbed her hands in an iron grip, refusing to release her fingers.
"Listen to me, my dear. You must listen."
"I mustn't be damned to you! Now don't touch me. Don't you touch me, you varmint, you—"
"Allow me to spare you the trouble of searching for words bad enough to call me, by calling myself a few choice ones. I'm a bastard Scarlett, a lying, worthless son of a bitch, and you're right to be angry with me for deceiving you about my purpose in coming to Atlanta. I did you a disservice, and myself a greater one. I should have told you I had outstanding business to settle with an old friend, who happened to be a woman."
Scarlett had stopped struggling to break her hands free, but she scowled at him with a malice to match his crime. "I may be a girl from Clayton County, but I'm not a fool. Men aren't friends with, with bad women, Rhett Butler. Men aren't even friends with good women! And if they were, they wouldn't go around kissing them."
"This is one point on which I cannot merely agree to disagree."
"And this is one point on which you can talk until you're hoarse. It won't change a thing."
She tried again to wrench herself from his grasp but he encased her wrists and held her hands to her chest. She bucked once or twice more, abandoning her attempt for a second time. Exhaustion weighed her down, but she could still glare at him, still pierce him with emerald slits of rage and curse at him in a gravely whisper.
"God's nightgown! I'm not about to be bullied by you! I'm not about to let you win this time, Rhett Butler."
Her husband swore savagely under his breath, that in any other circumstance would have caused her to blush from hairline to hemline, but which now only inspired envy in her heart that she could not call forth the same barbaric language. Following another blaspheme, Rhett tightened his grip on her hands and forced her to look at him. An energy Scarlett was too furious to see enlivened his face, a tremor she was too distracted to feel stole through his arms. He spoke to her in a low, urgent voice. If it had been any other man, any other person, she would have called it pleading, but not with Rhett. Even in desperation, a desperation she had not recognized, he commanded.
"I know you are too young and bullish to understand something as complicated as my history with Miss Watling—"
"I don't want to hear her name."
"All the same, I will tell you it. Miss Watling is a talented business woman. Before I even met you, I had agreed to open some doors for her. I couldn't renege on a deal. Frankly, she's a good investment and it would have been short-sighted to do so."
"I don't care to hear your mercenary reasons for consorting with the likes of that woman!"
"Today I concluded that agreement I made months ago—years really," he went on, as if she hadn't spoken, as if she hadn't tried wriggle away from him once more. "The kiss you saw was a passionless peck, Scarlett. A salutation, as chaste as any kiss can be with a woman of Miss Watling's profession. As much as you may not like to hear it, considering her form of employment, it was the equivalent of a handshake, possibly even a hand wave."
"You smiled at her. Grinning ear to ear as she drove off. Looking like a moon-faced school boy!"
At the recollection of her husband's odious admiration, she tore her hands away from him at last. And because she could think of nothing else, she slapped him across the face with a windswept wrath. He inhaled quickly. The sharp strum of her palm against his hard cheek echoed in the still room, the crackle of the fire the only other sound. Red streaks peppered over his olive skin as the imprint of her hand slowly took shape. To her utter surprise, Rhett slumped down onto his knees and bowed his head. Combing his fingers roughly through his hair, a dark laugh began to rumble out from his chest, shaking his sloped shoulders.
"To be taken in by my own damn expression. God, I wish you understood the irony of this situation. For the first time since meeting you, I wish you could see into my mind." He turned his face up to her then, his lips halfway between a laugh and a frown. "I smiled because I was thinking of you, Scarlett. I was thinking what a lucky fool I was that a scoundrel like me could go find rest and warmth in the arms of a wife who loved him—and didn't need to seek it from the cheap counterfeit of a whore's bed."
"You were thinking of me?"
Rhett smiled briefly. "Darling, you are all I have thought about since the day I saw you bewitching the boy who happens to be asleep under this very roof. I wanted you the instant I laid eyes on you. I knew I had to make you mine the moment you stomped your foot and threw that damnable vase. Sometimes I wonder what would have become of my sanity if I hadn't stumbled into marrying you. Or if, heaven forbid, you had married St. Charlie down the hall. I know I would never have stopped wanting you. I know I would never have been able to forget you. And now? If I were to lose you?" He rubbed his hand across his eyes. "Good lord, Scarlett. I cannot imagine it."
Scarlett didn't know what to say or do next. This was the only time in their short marriage when Rhett had spoken to her with unchecked honesty, spoken to her as one human being speaks to another. She did not doubt his truthfulness; she had never heard that note of authenticity in his voice before but she had instantly responded to it, instantly trusted it. Her hardened heart began to crack toward him, her anger to recede. Yet something kept her from fully giving in. It was that thing which had nibbled at her since their very first night together, the thing with sharpened teeth now that she had seen Rhett embrace the dyed-hair woman.
"Did you used to look for, for comfort in that woman's bed?" she asked in a small voice, lowering her gaze to her lap.
Rhett exhaled and said, "Yes, and other women like her."
Scarlett's heart twisted and her stomach clenched. Hearing the truth she had suspected all along did not make it any easier to digest. If he had shared his nights with that woman—and how many other women—had he given his heart to them? Was there one woman who still claimed his love? Was that why he had never answered her declarations with promises of his own? It had not escaped her notice that during his confession of wanting her and making her his, he had not mentioned the word love. She opened her mouth to ask him if he had strayed to his former habits since their union, but could not articulate the horrific words. And so the question hung there in the room.
"Is it better to drive a fellow-creature to despair than to transgress a mere human law?" Rhett muttered to himself as he stood. Scarlett knew he must be quoting something, but didn't bother to wonder where it came from, or what it meant. His shadow loomed over her; he loomed over her, as he had since the moment she had agreed to marry him.
"If you still want me to go tonight, I will," he said.
"No," she answered immediately. "No, I don't want that."
She might not know what to think or how to feel about her husband right now, but she knew she wanted him near, and not in someone else's bed.
Absent-mindedly cradling her womb, she stood up. The heat from Rhett's body matched the exhaust of the hearth, and in his black eyes, she thought she saw a kind of flame flicker in their depths. Would he really be pining for her if she had not married him? Would he really be thinking of her if she had married Charles? Unimaginative Scarlett didn't tax her mind to invent possibilities that could never become realities. She did, however, begin to plot a way to make her husband unequivocally fall in love with her.
And while she hadn't meant a word of it earlier in the day, she ended up keeping her promise to say a prayer of thanks that Charles Hamilton had come home.
Note: First, I love how often this board is updated. I wish I could devote more time to reviewing and reading other authors' stories. I am trying to stay somewhat up on them. Second, to all my reviewers, especially those of you who have stuck with me for YEARS, thank you. I love reading your insights. I appreciate those who take the time to write any length of review, and am always inspired by your thoughtful analysis. Third, in response to my last author's note, your kindness and words of support have been a real boon to me. I have good days and I have bad days, and honestly, on the bad days I am utterly useless in real life and much more productive in writing fanfiction. (That's not always the case when I'm pumping out lots of stories, sometimes the words just come easily and the stories write themselves.) Thanks. Happy New Year. There's a beautiful blanket of powder piling high outside my window, one of those lovely, silent snowfalls that infuse the night with the "luster of daylight." It's the small things that count.
Finally: Please review. I feel as if this was a bit choppy. But I so wanted to get it posted.
As always, I had thought I would get more of the plot out in this chapter. But their conversation took longer than planned. But badabing. I love Belle's character and have wanted to put her in the story for sometime. And I have a soft spot for Charles. As you will see.