Disclaimer: Margaret Mitchell owns "Gone With the Wind" and all its characters. I own a handful of OC's and a story idea. Book-verse. Not "Scarlett" compliant.

To Mrs. Meade's delight, and after too long of a search, in her estimation, the Doctor hired a partner. To her dismay, he was a Northerner.

"Why, Doctor? Of all the fine Southern men you could have had."

"What Southern men are you referring to, wife? You know how long I looked. All the fine Southern doctors either work alone or already have a partner. And whoever heard of more than two doctors in a practice? That's simply absurd. Besides, he's not a Northerner. He's a Canadian."

"Oh..." That information didn't raise this unknown doctor in her estimation. She remembered all too well how Canada helped the escaped slaves during the prewar days--gave them refuge and protection--the implied criticism of the South in these actions was too pointed to ignore. Mrs. Meade had mellowed over the years--slowly and almost imperceptibly, she had come to decide that perhaps slavery was wrong after all. But Canada's moral superiority still rankled.

However, the proprieties must be maintained and she decided to invite Dr. Andrew Grant--for that was his name--for supper to welcome him to Atlanta and her husband's medical practice.

That supper proved to be a lively one.

"Did you hear, Dr. Meade, that they administered a rabies vaccination to a little boy in France who was mauled by a rabid dog?" Dr. Grant asked in a booming voice as he helped himself to another serving of corn. "And the boy survived."

Dr. Meade glanced at the women. His wife was making a face at the mention of medical procedures at the table. Dandridge was looking down at her chicken and gravy with a little surreptitious smile tugging at her lips.

"Yes, Dr. Grant. I read it in my medical journal. But I'm afraid we may bore the ladies with talk about work."

Dr. Grant inclined his head towards Mrs. Meade first, then Marybeth. "Ladies, I apologize. I'm afraid I get a little too enthusiastic about my practice and forget who I'm with."

"It's quite all right," answered Mrs. Meade coolly.

"However, I must beg your indulgence for another topic I've been discussing with Dr. Meade," Dr. Grant continued. "The matter of installing a telephone."

"I'm not sure what that has to do with us," replied Mrs. Meade, irritated at the continued work talk--but what could one expect from somebody not raised in the gentility of Southern manners? "If my husband wishes to install a telephone in his office, that's his business."

"Well, it depends on how you look at it. He definitely must have one in his office. But he doesn't spend all his time there--you should have one here, too. It's really the only sensible thing to do. All the other doctors have done it, and your younger patients will appreciate being able to contact you as soon as they need you."

"I'm sure you have a good point," Dr. Meade said. "But we've never had a telephone before and my patients have no trouble contacting me."

"Ah, but times are changing, and so are people's attitudes. Nowadays, a frantic young mother with a croupy baby wants to know you're only a telephone call away."

Marybeth studied Dr. Grant from under her lashes as he worked to convince Dr. Meade. His face was unlined, but he was completely gray. His manner was jovial, quick to laugh. He spoke in a voice that carried. She guessed it was because he was used to treating older patients who were hard of hearing.

"Well," Doctor Meade paused. "What do you think, Mrs. Meade?"

Mrs. Meade looked dubious. "It seems so...newfangled. You talk as if we only take care of young people. But our older patients don't mind that we don't have one. And we get by just fine."

Andrew noticed her use of "we" and winked at Marybeth.

"What do you think, Miss Marybeth?" He asked. "Would you like a telephone in the kitchen?"

"It's not my decision to make," she demurred with a little wave of her hand.

"Go right ahead, Marybeth," encouraged Mrs. Meade. "What do you think?"

"Oh, lets see," her brow crinkled as she thought. "A lot of people we know have telephones, of course, but not everybody...The Whitings, don't, for instance, and neither do the Bonnells. But Virgie Simmons' family has one, and the Butler mansion has one," here she blushed a little as Dr. Meade raised his eyebrow at her. "And...oh, I know! the Picards have two--one in the bakery and one at their house. And Mrs. Merriwether has one, also."

"That's right, that's right. And Dolly is forever complaining that when the wretched thing rings she has to pick it up," concluded Mrs. Meade triumphantly to her husband.

"Well, that's true, of course," Marybeth conceded.

"I take it you've never used one before?" Dr. Grant asked Marybeth.

She shook her head.

"Then here's another consideration for you, Dr. Meade--here is this modern young lady who's never spoken on the telephone in her whole life. How will she keep up with her friends?"

"Dr. Grant," Marybeth laughed. "Please don't put me in the middle of this. You'll only serve to get me into trouble."

But Dr. Meade looked thoughtful. "I'll think about it," he declared.

After the main course was finished, Marybeth was deputed to show Dr. Grant around the garden.

"If you don't mind my saying," she said as they walked carefully along the marigold border, "you speak with a Yankee accent."

"Does that surprise you?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact."

"Miss Marybeth, we Canadians have an accent that's very similar. However, if you listen closely you can find the differences. But I must ask--do you and Mrs. Meade work this garden? It's like a little Paradise."

"Mrs. Meade is responsible. I'm just the foot soldier--she tells me what to plant and where. But she does have some fine specimens." One bush in particular caught her attention and she hooked her arm through his to take him to see it. "Have you ever seen this plant?"

He shook his head. "I don't believe I have. That's an unusual flower--velvety, but look at the shape of those petals. Thin and curved."

"And that's not all. Every once in a while it releases a scent--there it is!"

"Like wine...and apples."

"That's right! It's called Carolina allspice." She broke off a bloom and handed it to him. He sniffed it and put it in his buttonhole.

"How are you related to the Meades?" He asked.

"I'm not. I work for them. I help Betsy in the kitchen and with the housework. I suppose you could call me the maid."

Andrew nodded as he tried to assimilate this new fact. She called herself a maid, and yet she took meals with the family. Besides, she was white and he hadn't dreamed that a family in Georgia would hire a white maid. Maybe things in the South were done differently than he'd been raised to believe. "How long have you worked for them?"

"Just over a year."

"Aha! Just over a year ago was when I graduated from Hahnemann Medical College. That's in Philadelphia. Then I spent a year working in the slums, at an office where they offer free medical care to the poor. But I've been looking for a regular practice almost since I graduated."

Marybeth's heart ached. Philadelphia was not so very far from where she'd grown up. Not very far from her home and family. She carefully arranged her expression so as not to react to what he said. Besides, he'd mentioned something else that genuinely surprised her. "I didn't realize you graduated only last year."

He flashed a grin at her. "How old do you think I am?"

She realized she blundered and reddened. "Well, I..."

"I'm 28."

"Oh..."

"This," he pointed to his hair. "Confuses everybody. But we turn gray in my family very early. This happened by the time I was 23."

Marybeth nodded. Wade was 23. She tried to picture him with gray hair, but failed. However, she was still embarrassed and anxious to change the subject. "But why come South?"

"I wanted to broaden my horizons a bit. I started in Canada, then studied in Philadelphia, now I'm joining a practice in Atlanta." He laughed. "Maybe I'll just spend my life migrating south. By the time I'm 80 I should be living at Cape Horn!"

oOoOoOo

"Mrs. Meade, what are you doing?" Asked Dr. Meade.

She jumped and looked furtively at him from the garden-facing window here she was spying, but recovered herself quickly. "Shh. Come here and look."

He peered out the window. "Yes? So what? She's showing him around the garden--just like you told her to."

"That doctor you hired is taken with her. But he can't have her."

"What do you mean?" He asked, confused.

"I mean, she's going to marry Wade."

"Thunderation, woman! Wade hasn't asked for her and even if he did it's her choice, isn't it?"

"Of course it's her choice. But I don't want this Dr. Grant messing anything up between them before she gets to choose."

He raised his eyebrow at her. "Matchmaking doesn't become you, Mrs. Meade."

She waved him away. "Every decent, well bred woman of my age is duty-bound to make sure the young folks make smart matches. I'm supposed to be doing this. Wade Hamilton is a smart match for her. Andrew Grant is not."

"I think you're creating a tempest in a teapot. Dandridge's feelings for Wade are abundantly clear."

"This is women's business--it doesn't matter what you think. Besides, I invited Wade to have dessert with us."

The Doctor shook his head. "Where did your obsession with them come from, anyway? Why must you forever be pushing her at Wade? You seem to forget that they found each other even without you."

Mrs. Meade continued to look out the window, but her voice grew softer. "Because ever since she came to work for us, I've felt she's a lost soul. Rudderless and alone. She doesn't talk about herself, or her life. Not ever! It isn't natural--all young girls like to talk about themselves. Everything I know about her--and it's not very much--I had to pry out of her.

"And then there's Wade. We know everything about him. We watched him grow up, just as we watched Charlie grow up before him. And yet, with his misfortune of having Scarlett for a mother--and her indifferent care of him--he seems very out of things. Haven't you noticed? He's like us, and yet he's not. And he's not adaptable like his sister. Ella fits in anywhere, but Wade, for all he's liked by his peers, has never quite been one of them...They need each other."

"I give up," Dr. Meade muttered. His wife had astounded him once more. She saw right to the heart of the matter, seen things which he had missed. Wade and Dandridge really were like two lost souls. No wonder there was such deep affection between them. They completed each other--two halves of a whole.

oOoOoOo

And just as Mrs. Meade had predicted (and to Andrew Grant's disappointment), Marybeth's tour of the garden was cut short by the appearance of another man, one who he quickly realized was Marybeth's beau. She didn't hang on his arm or giggle nervously, but the sudden light in her eyes when she saw him enter the garden and the shy pride in her voice when she introduced Wade Hampton Hamilton made the matter plain. This sweet slip of a girl was already spoken for. Mentally, Andrew shrugged. You win some, you lose some. Yet he couldn't help but entertain a faint wistfulness about what might have been.

After dessert was served, they sat out on the front porch in the twilight, the men smoking and enjoying brandy, the ladies swishing their fans in the heat. The evening ran rather late, and before he left, Andrew needed to discuss some matters of business with the Doctor privately. When he finally emerged through the front door some time later, he was conscious of the two young lovers in a dimly lit area of the front yard, her hand in his and her eyes lowered as he whispered (so he assumed) loverlike endearments to her. They were too quiet to hear--and he didn't wish to hear them anyway. He walked by, pretending not to notice. But as he drove away, he could hear their goodbyes at the carriage block, and Wade's carriage rumbling away.

oOoOoOo

A few days later, in the heat of the afternoon, the women of the Meade household were gathered in the kitchen. The workmen had just left, and on the wall by the back door hung a new addition to the house--a telephone.

Mrs. Meade and Betsy stared at it dubiously, but Marybeth was smiling, alive to its possibilities.

Betsy was the first to speak. "So, Miz Meade. Whut we do now?"

Mrs. Meade stared at the alien object gracing her wall as if she expected it to jump up and bite her. She shook her head. "How I wish the office telephone were installed first. Then the Doctor could call us and we could see how it worked."

"Whut happens when it rings? Whut we do then?" Betsy persisted.

"Pick it up, of course," laughed Marybeth.

The older women turned to look at her.

"The man from the telephone company showed us how it works. It doesn't look so hard," continued Marybeth. "Besides, you can't fight progress," she added a little defensively as they continued to just look at her.

Mrs. Meade and Betsy shook their heads at each other. "Mus' be nice to be a chile'" Betsy muttered derisively. Marybeth put her hands on her hips and was about to retort when Mrs. Meade intervened to keep the peace.

"Marybeth dear, why don't you show us how it's done."

She suspected Mrs. Meade was making fun of her. So she threw her shoulders back, tossed her head, and stalked across the kitchen and picked up the earpiece. Almost immediately she heard the thin voice of the operator at the exchange.

Suddenly she felt self-conscious. Here she was, talking into a box nailed to the wall, with Mrs. Meade and Betsy staring at her. Her palms started to sweat and her voice was shaky as she requested the Butler residence.

In a few moments, she heard Ella's voice in her ear. Tinny and a little crackly, to be sure, but unmistakably Ella. Marybeth started to giggle.

"Ella, it's me, Marybeth," she shouted, trying to stifle her nervous laughter.

"Why hello there! Why are you shouting?"

"Uhm..." that was a stumper. Why was she shouting? But it only served to make her laugh harder. "So..." gasp, "...you..." gasp, giggle, "...can hear me!" and she whooped with laugher.

"Marybeth, the whole point of a telephone is so you can talk at a normal tone of voice but still be heard far away." It was obvious Ella was grinning.

"I...feel silly...talking...into a box," giggled Marybeth.

Ella sighed heavily. "You are such a goose."

"Yes, I know. I have to hang up now."

Accordingly, she hung up and sank into one of the kitchen chairs, fishing in her pocket for her handkerchief. She was laughing so hard tears squeezed from the corners of her eyes.

"Will we have to go through such a spectacle every time you use the telephone?" Mrs. Meade asked sarcastically.

"It's quite possible," Marybeth retorted.

"Lawd ha' mercy," mumbled Betsy.