Thank you again for all your wonderful thoughts and reviews. Thanks particularly to AnnaPanag from Greece who suggested Smyrna as a destination for the Butlers, and graciously supplied me with information (all errors are totally mine). I hope you enjoy.
After only a few weeks in her new domicile, Rose would have been challenged to recall more than the most superficial details of her life in Charleston. The gloomy Scottish weather may have contributed to the impression of having stepped off the ship into another world. Everything was foreign at first – the stone houses, the narrow streets, even the clothes and the broad, rolling accents.
Her host, a gallant Scot who had made his fortune during the war, perfectly embodied the famed Scottish hospitality by making sure nothing was lacking for her comfort. His wife, a warm, angular woman, had allocated large rooms for both Rose and Cherry on the East wing of the house, as well as a small dressing chamber for Rose's personal use, filled with all the vanity items a young girl could desire. In addition, there was a trio of cheerful youngsters between the ages of five and eight, the offspring of her host's younger daughter, who visited frequently, and helped contain the hole in her chest left behind by the absence of her oft-maligned brothers.
And she was busy. Busier than she had ever been even at the height of the Charleston Season.
In the morning, there were lectures, often starting at seven in the morning. Anatomy, physiology, and the new, emerging field of microbiology. In the afternoons, she and the other students helped out at the city hospital, treating charity patients from the lowest rung of society. Had anyone told her two years ago that she'd spend several hours treating the inmates of a local bawdy house for venereal diseases she would have laughed, and advised them to put more water into their wine.
"I had no idea," Rose told Cherry one evening, dropping down into a chair next to the dresser. She'd washed up thoroughly, but on some nights no amount of washing seemed to get rid of the stench, or the grime.
"No. Ah expects ya wouldn't 'ave," Cherry agreed, with just that hint of coolness in her voice that had become commonplace between them. "Ah'd no idea either. No idea this place'd be so …..chilly."
Rose regarded her thoughtfully, a hint of her former warmth peaking through her resentful facade. "I know. I presume this ….isn't quite what you expected. And I know you're dreadfully conspicuous here, what with there not being any other colored people. Perhaps you should have stayed in Charleston, or gone with the others on the trip around Europe instead."
"Ah's asked by Mister Rhett, and ah elected to come along," Cherry said, doggedly. "Ah's been with you since we both were in swaddlin' clothes, Miss Rose, and Ah ain't gonna run out on 'u now. Even if Ah's been treated unfairly."
The warmth dissipated, and a touch of the hauteur that had so aggravated Belle Watling crept into Rose's voice. "That is a matter of debate."
"No, it ain't, neither," Cherry said, rearranging the brushes on the dresser with a smack. "You's never tole me nothing about bein' sweet on Mister Thad. So it ain't right to judge me fer somethin' Ah'd no idea 'bout. If a gal wants ter put 'er claim on a man, she's gotta tell folks. That goes fer you fine ladies 'same as fer us. Ah'da gone nowhere near 'im 'ad Ah known."
A flush crept into Rose's pale cheeks. "When you ….what did he say?" she whispered, miserably. The hauteur was gone, as was the stalwart medical student who had washed out boils with peroxide for the better part of the afternoon.
Cherry threw her a look, and then took pity on her. "He says "You's a very nice girl, Cherry, but you's yer father's daughter, and Ah's in love with someone else."
The blue eyes spilled over, and her small chest wrecked with sobs. Cherry went to her, and hugged her tightly. She shook her head while she held her.
"I'm …..sorry," Rose whispered.
"Don' trouble yer lil' head about it, Miss Rose. You's just a young'un, " Cherry said, with all the superiority of not even two year's seniority. "I fergets that sometimes, 'cuz you talk so wise all the time."
Rose untangled herself, and wiped her face with her handkerchief. "Look at me, bawling like a baby."
Cherry shook her head. "You should write to 'im."
The perfect black crescents rose in derision. "Everybody says that."
Cherry rolled her eyes. "That's cuz everybody's right."
"If he loves me, he will come find me." When she saw the look on Cherry's face, she added, "won't he?"
"Man like that won't come chasin' after you twice. Not without some encouragement that he won't be makin' a fool of hisself again." At the expression on Rose's face, she added encouragingly, "Ain't so hard. You says, "Ah's sorry Ah doubts you an' Ah just want yer ta know Ah still care. Don' take more'n a sentence, an' you's done. An' he'll know."
"I can't."
"Then you's gonna lose 'im ter sum girl 'n Texas that's bit more …..accommodatin' '"
She saw the flash in Rose's eyes, but it wasn't enough.
"They don' teach y'all nuthin' 'bout life, do they. Yer knows how ter say "yessir"if a man proposes, but yer don' learn nuthin' beyond that."
~~oo~~
A few hours later, she stood by the curtains of her window, as her father had done so many years ago, looking out over the silent city, searching for an invisible sea.
"Rose," Thad had said, a smile breaking out over his face. He hadn't seen her for almost six months.
She had flown towards him, and he had scooped her up, like he always did, and she started laughing, expecting to be swung around. But instead, his body had stiffened slightly, and he had set her down.
"You've grown," he's said softly, almost as if to himself. Her eyes had searched his face with confusion, but he hadn't elaborated, and instead turned to greet her mother and the boys. She remembered the sharp stab of hurt.
Later that night, she'd gone in search for him. They had place in the back of the stables where they would often sit for hours, looking at the stars, and talking.
He was there. He had apparently been waiting for her. He was sitting, his back against the stable wall, one leg drawn up.
"I'm glad you came," she said, with forced brightness, as she slid down next to him, wanting to push past that strange barrier between them.
His eyes had been black in the moonlight. "Rosey. Remember when we said that there'd come a time when you'd be too old to be alone with men who're not your father or brothers?"
She'd nodded. That time seemed far away, a time when she'd be almost a woman.
"You've grown so much in the last few months that I believe ...we may have reached that point."
"But why," she had asked, with complete bewilderment, a sob rising in her throat. "Don't you want to talk to me anymore?"
"We can still talk, Rosey. There just have to be other people around as well."
Her confusion mounted. "But …..we'll never be able to really talk with them around! All I'll be able to do is talk about the weather, and …..and…" A silver tear escaped, and trailed down her cheek. "Don't you like me anymore?"
He caught the tear with the knuckle of his index finger. "I do like you, Rosey, very much. But relationships change, as the people in them change. You're not a child anymore, and I can no longer treat you as one. You're also not a woman yet. When you are, we'll have a chance to explore what that may mean for us. For now, I'm afraid it means chaperones, and all the other tedious things we discussed."
She had only heard that he no longer wanted to see her. That the world as she'd known it, a world that had depended so much on him as her confidant, her friend ….. was irrevocably gone. Because her body had betrayed her once more.
He made a movement, as if to draw her against him for a last time. Instead, he merely rose with his usual fluid grace. "Good night, Rosey. We can't meet here again, but I'll try to catch you when we all go riding - or in the house. And we will ...talk more. But now, I really must go."
She had watched him walk away, tearless and in silence. His shadow melted into the night and still she sat unmoving, her body flooding with previously unknown, unnamed emotions. She sat for hours, the stars and all the universe revolving around her as she wept, for the last time in her life, like a child.
~~oo~~
During the second week in Smyrna, Scarlett was able to talk Ella into taking a walk for the first time. Ella had resisted the pleasures of Paris, refusing to be tempted by the dresses and bonnets and elegance of the capital. Rhett had taken Charlotte and Chase and the boys to the Eiffel tower and Notre Dame, the Louvre and the Jardin des Tuileries, and Chase had attempted to amuse Ella with his descriptions, but to no effect.
When not even Gerry's descriptions of the artwork he'd encountered ("Ella! In the 'seum there's a picture of a Lady, that's the most famous picture ever Dad says, and she sort of smiles, except she looks like a man!") failed to amuse her - they decided on a change of scenery.
It was Rhett who had suggested Smyrna, the city on the Aegean Cost that was called the Paris of the South. The voyage entailed time at sea, with little to do for Ella but bask in the Mediterranean sun, and ended in a world that was just foreign enough, and familiar enough, to tempt even the most downcast of spirits. Scarlett, who regretted the lost Parisian sightseeing less than the lack of sparkle in Ella's eyes, had agreed immediately.
After an uneventful journey he had installed them all in one of the colorful hotels that dotted the city, and ordered large servings of fresh fruit to Ella's room every morning.
Charlotte was still sitting at the breakfast table of the hotel when her brother appeared.
"Where is Ella," he asked, concern immediately suffusing his features.
"Out walking with Aunt Scarlett."
"Oh." He was surprised. "That's good."
Charlotte looked at him, a strange expression flitting over her face. He was four years her senior, but she had always felt as protective of him as an older sister. Her mother, well aware of this fact, had capitalized upon it when she told her she wanted to accompany Chase and Ella to Paris to meet the Butlers as soon as Ella was well enough to travel.
"Playing nursemaid," Charlotte had grumbled.
"Well! You cannot think I would send them alone, scatterbrained as they are. They'd be likely to end up in China!"
Charlotte, who secretly agreed with her mother's assessment, had protested no further. Although she could not admit it openly, she was as relieved as Ella to escape, if only for a brief time, from Rosemary's punitive tongue.
Now they were here, in this gay, colorful city at the end of their world, whose utter unexpectedness gently mocked both their erudition and their understanding. Though nominally under Ottoman Rule, the Greek influence was blatant and palpable. There were cobbled streets and overhanging buildings in an architectural style utterly foreign to them. The women were elegant, and carried themselves so splendidly that they alone would have sufficed to earn their town the title "Paris of the South". There were boutiques and tea-houses and luxury good of very kind overflowing the stores, as a result of the vibrant Mediterranean trade. There were Mosques where the muezzin called to prayer five times a day: at dawn, at the midday, about the middle of the afternoon, just after sunset, and at night fall.
Scarlett had initially complained about the noise, but after a few days, its chanting rhythm had submerged into her bloodstream, and she ceased to hear it with her ears. Years later, she would find herself unknowingly pausing at the time of Maghrib or Isha, and feel that incantation rise once more in her body - only to sink back into the protoplasm, where it mingled with an ancient grief.
~~oo~~
They had walked on the beach. And walked. The waves were gently lapping against the shore. The temperature was warm, but not hot. There was no wind. There was an expression of serenity in Ella's features that had been all but absent from her face since the miscarriage. It was as if her whole being suddenly felt weightless, as if she had been returned, for a brief moment, into that floating, bodiless time before birth, before she had been cast out into a bewildering world all too often destined to hurt her.
"Mother," she called. Scarlett stopped.
"When you fell."
Scarlett's heart stopped briefly, then stumbled forward in an irregular rhythm. "Yes."
"You lost a baby. Like me."
Scarlett nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
"I remember."
"You were so young….." Scarlett said, feebly.
"I didn't understand. Mother. I didn't understand."
And she walked up to her, and suddenly threw her arms around her, her hands clutching at the fabric of her mother's dress. And Scarlett cried as she held her, cried as she had never allowed herself to cry over that lost child. And it was peculiar, she thought, with the remaining part of her brain, that it was Ella who would understand.
~~oo~~
That night, she came into the bedroom with an expression that she'd not worn before. Rhett watched her, but didn't comment. He noticed the hesitation in her kiss, as he had always noticed most things about her.
"How was the walk," he said.
"Fine." She was elsewhere in her mind, but made the effort to rouse herself. "Ella seems a little brighter."
"Good." He pulled her to him, suddenly, and put his chin on her hair in a possessive gesture. "Don't think you can flee now, Scarlett. I couldn't bear it."
"Why would I flee," she asked, with those faraway eyes that turned inwards.
He could only hold her tighter.
He was still awake many hours later. He still held her.
"No", he said once, into the darkness.