The last vestiges of spring had melted into the heat of summer. The air indoors was stifling for much of the afternoon and sleep was becoming a challenge at night. Almost everyone rested during the heat of the day only stirring in the later afternoon to finish the chores. Scarlett sat on the front porch, fanning herself, enjoying the quiet of the air around her. The buzz of bees could be heard in a group of trees nearby and the chirping of a few birds came from a tree nearer the house. The children were playing under a cluster of tress along the drive, enjoying the protection from the sun.
Rhett and Will had ridden over to the Fontaines. Tony had told them about a cousin from Macon who had come to stay with them. His family had lost everything during the War and he'd struggled to get by since. He'd come to Clayton County hoping his cousins could help him. To Rhett, he sounded like a good person for the new store.
Scarlett didn't know where Suellen was. She'd kept her distance since 'the incident,' which was just fine with Scarlett. She'd never liked her younger sister and now the feeling was even stronger.
She sighed and brushed her stomach with her hand, smiling at the feel of the bump below it. Rhett had confessed to her a few days ago that he'd not been very pleased with the prospect of fatherhood again but his feelings had changed. He'd smiled sincerely and rubbed her belly, as his eyes shown with excitement. "This time we'll be different," he said.
Scarlett was startled out of her reverie by the sound of horse hooves on the lane. It was too soon for Rhett to be coming back and as she watched, she wondered whom it might be. Soon a buggy came into sight, one that she didn't recognize. As it came nearer, she recognized Major James and he had a woman with him. Scarlett stood to greet him as he pulled close to the porch. It was then that Scarlett recognized his passenger. "Carreen?"
Scarlett stood confused as she watched the Major help her youngest sister down. She gasped as she grasped her sister's feeble condition and then hastened to help the Major with her. She was at the train station," he explained. "She said that she wanted to go home…to Tara. Do you know her?"
"Yes, she is my baby sister. But I don't understand what has happened...," Scarlett answered as they guided Carreen into the house.
"Well, I took the liberty of sending Sergeant Gregory to find the doctor and bring him here. She looks as if she needs one."
"Yes, yes…I'm grateful to you for your help, Major." Mammy happened into the hallway and cried out, "Miss Carreen…" and then rustled to her, taking Major James' place at her baby's side. "Oh my chile…what happem to you?" They left the Major standing at the bottom of the steps as the two women guided Carreen to her old room.
"She has a fever," Doctor Gilbert explained almost two hours later. "She's half starved and says she can't keep food down. I suggest a weak broth for now, just to put a little nourishment into her. And we need to get the fever down. If you'll bring rags and cool water, we can use that to help."
Mammy nodded as the doctor finished and shuffled out of the door to get the water. Scarlett stood at the foot of the bed, staring at her sister. "How did this happen to her? She was in Charleston…at the convent…I don't understand."
Dr. Gilbert raised an eyebrow when the convent was mentioned. "Convent?"
"Yes, she…left to become a nun some years ago. Her beau was killed during the war and after that, well…she was never the same. She decided she wanted to be a nun…"
"I'll stay here, if I may, through the night while we fight this fever." The doctor was speaking to Scarlett but his eyes were on Carreen.
"Of course, Doctor. And thank you. She …she's very precious to me, even though I haven't seen her since she left."
Many questions were running through Scarlett's mind about her sister's sudden reappearance. But there would be no answers until Carreen was well enough to tell her story. Forcing herself to be patient, Scarlett slipped from the room to go downstairs and prepare for taking care of Carreen.
She stood in the kitchen, talking with Mammy and Dilcey about how they would deal with an around the clock watch on the patient, and doctor, when Suellen walked in. "More mouths to feed, I suppose," Suellen snarled. How much more work do you intend to thrust on us, dear sister?" Scarlett was in no mood to tolerate Suellen's nastiness and frowned as she turned towards the bitter sister. Mammy scooted her large frame between the two. "Won't do no good fer you two ta go at each odder. Yo baby sister is next ta dying looks to me and she need help. Ain't fittin' fer you ta ack like you's still chillin."
"I agree," Rhett spoke softly from the doorway. "Scarlett, I though we agreed you would stay out of the kitchen," he said solemnly.
"But Rhett, Carreen came back and she is ill. The doctor is with her now and I …I just came to talk with Dilcey and Mammy about how we can help."
"You, my dear, can help best by taking care of yourself and not adding to their burden."
"Of course," barked Suellen, "Scarlett is too fragile to do any real work around here. She just lounges around while the rest of us work our fingers to the bone."
Rhett's glare turned to anger as his eyes flashed in Suellen's direction. "Scarlett wouldn't be so fragile if you hadn't knocked her down. And who, may I ask, kept your body and soul together when you were flat on your back with the fever. Scarlett came home tired and hungry and still put your needs first, and continued to do so throughout the war and after. And she has poured a lot of money into Tara so that you can have a nice place to live and Will can have a livelihood. Hold your tongue, Suellen, or I'll retrieve that whip from Will."
Mammy grunted and nodded in approval. Dilcey had backed away from the fray and stood, watching and waiting. "Don' you fret none, Miz Scarlett, I knows what ta do," Mammy said. "You jes' go set down a while and den go sit wid Miz Carreen."
Rhett extended his hand, signaling to Scarlett to go with him. Quietly she joined him, grasping his warm hand and walking with him through the house. "Rhett, it's so perplexing, I don't understand why Carreen is back…and she'd too ill to say anything."
He settled her in a chair on the porch and then sat next to her. "Yes, I'm sure you have many questions, my pet." His voice was soothing. "You'll just have to wait, however, until she can explain. In the meantime, Mammy's right. You need to take it easy and perhaps sit with her for awhile at a time. But nothing too strenuous, understand?"
Smiling, Scarlett exhaled. "Yes Rhett."
A low, rumbling chuckle erupted from deep within him. She looked at him quizzically. "Oh, it's just amusing to hear you give in so easily, my sweet. It is so totally against your nature," he replied. "But Rhett, you are right…and besides, I am trying to be a better wife."
"Well, my love, I am happy to hear that you are listening to good sense. But I wouldn't want you to be too good. It's is your high spirited feistiness that attracted me to you in the first place." Scarlett giggled and leaned into him. "Pa always said woe to the man that tried to tame me. You're the only man that has done it." They settled into a comfortable silence for a few minutes.
Finally, Scarlett remembered the reason Rhett had been away from the house that afternoon. "How was your visit at the Fontaines?"
Rhett scowled. "Tony was the only one who could sit in the same room with me…that is until he brought his cousin in. The women…they…well, they were happy enough to see Will but one look at me and…well, they had other things to do."
The sadness in his voice hurt Scarlett. "Oh Rhett, I'm sorry. I suppose I've gotten so used to the scars that I don't even see them anymore. To me you have the same devilishly handsome face you did that first day at Twelve Oaks, although a little older, I suppose."
"Yes, my dear…and you make me forget them. But…others…" He sighed and stared across the yard, his expression far away. Then his attention snapped back to her. "But the cousin, Adrian Carter, will be a good choice for the store, I believe. He was a supply officer in the Army before the War and then joined the Confederate Army. After the war, he returned home to the family farm but there wasn't much left…just some slave quarters and a few outbuildings. He and his family were actually living in the slave quarters. Now that he has a job, he'll send for them. He has a wife and three or four children, I believe. His brother will stay to work the farm and Adrian plans to send him funds as he can to help."
"That's wonderful, Rhett. We can stay long enough to see the store built and opened and Will can keep an eye on things once we leave."
"Yes, but then where will we go, Scarlett? I have no wish to go back to Charleston."
"I…I don't know. We'll think about that. I suppose we could go back to Atlanta…or maybe travel some…I just don't know."
Meanwhile in Atlanta, the pillars of the Old Guard had gathered for afternoon tea. "I had a letter from my cousin, Alicia Rhett," Mrs. Bonner said. She attends church at the convent there and tells me that Carreen O'Hara has disappeared from the convent. The nuns are very upset; apparently she told one of the sisters that she had a new calling and then she just disappeared."
"Carreen? Isn't she the youngest of the sisters?" asked Mrs. Meade.
"Yes…oh yes," fluttered Pittypat Hamilton. "Suellen is the middle girl and then there is Carreen."
"I wonder where she might have gone?" Said Mrs. Elsing quietly.
"No doubt she'll turn up at Tara. Those O'Hara's set such a store by that place…" quipped Mrs. Meade.
"I wonder if that's where Scarlett and that horrible husband of hers got to," mused Mrs. Bonner.
Dr. Gilbert kept a careful watch on Carreen. She was a pretty girl, even with her hair shorn for the habit of a nun. He wasn't well versed in the life of nuns, but he was reasonably certain that whatever had prompted her to come back to the family home had not been approved by her superiors. Nuns, as he understood it, were forever locked away behind the walls of a convent unless they belonged to one of the orders charged with teaching or caring for the ill. He had encountered a few at various hospitals over the years and they had always been quietly efficient and always in the background. He couldn't recall one ever even speaking to him. He had been brought up in the Catholic Church, but there had only been a priest at his church. He'd taken little interest in the workings of the church, attending only because his parents willed it and breaking away as soon as he was on his own. While he believed in God, the church only seemed to be a building full of religious piety and little real comfort or care. He'd found his comfort in his wife and since her death, seemed to have lost his way. He went where the Army sent him, not caring about his surroundings or even contact with other people. The only thing he seemed to care about was his patients and they were always temporary relationships at best. Major James had befriended him, forcing him to be more sociable and less introverted. And slowly, he had begun to think about a future.
Carreen stirred, restless in her fever and he moved to refresh the wet rag over her forehead. Feeling her cheeks and then reaching below the covers to check her legs, he was satisfied that the fever was slowly coming down. He chastised himself, reasoning that he could leave this part of the young woman's care to the household, but something within him insisted that he stay. She had yet to even open her eyes and look at him, yet something about her that compelled him to care for her.
"You is mighty kind to watch over her yoself," Mammy said as she walked in carrying a fresh bowl of cool water. "Not many doctors be willing ta do dat…"
Peter Gilbert looked up at the family servant and smiled. "I'll leave once I am sure the fever is under control. But she is so weak; I just want to say to be sure…"
"Yes suh, and I's glad you stayin'. I knows you'll give her the right kinda care."
It was a strained night at Tara as the women took turns sitting with Carreen, giving the doctor a few hours to sleep and the occasional break for fresh air and a cup of coffee. Will stayed up as late as he could but headed for bed eventually, citing an early morning in the fields as his reason. Scarlett eventually sent Mammy to bed, saying they would need her fresh and rested in the morning. Scarlett stayed awake, near her baby sister, fretting. Rhett stayed up also, letting Scarlett out of his sight for only her brief stints in Carreen's room watching her while others took a break. Finally, around dawn, he insisted that she lie down for a while. The doctor concurred and promised to call them if things changed. After watching the Butlers disappear behind their bedroom door, Peter Gilbert sighed and returned to his place next to Carreen's bed.
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Hope you are enjoying the new direction. So what do you think is up with Careen? ANd what about the good doctor? I'll be interested to read what you think.