Thanks once more for your thoughts. 'Tis a complex web we weave, but there is method to my madness, I promise. FirthsDarcy, your review made me laugh out loud. You have the most awesome way of anticipating the things I leave out (sometimes to get back to them later, sometimes to just leave them dangling). Anna, Diana ...you're quite right, as usual about Scarlett's lack of (re) action to Rhett's little ploy, and wondered about it. I hope this answers your question. Charlotte, glad you like your namesakes. I like her, too.
I also got a good giggle about the guest that commented why angular-faced people can't have epic love stories. So true. It's because the *epic* part of epic love is projection ... and we project so much more successfully into handsome/beautiful slates. However, even epic lovers eventually have to deal with reality, and Who They Really Are. Which is often where they fail.
No, his lie is not what you think. Nor is hers.
Dawn rose over a moon-like landscape filled with mud, debris, and the remains of buildings that had been entirely swept from their foundations.
At the first ray of light, search-parties arrived from the surrounding villages, armed with dogs, shovels and ropes, and wagons with which to transport the survivors to safety. Flash-floods were not uncommon in the mountains, though rarely this destructive. The villagers had suspected the worst - having heard the pitiful screams of the trapped ring through the night for about half an hour after the floodwater struck- before silence had descended on the night once more. As they approached the village, even the most hardened mountain-dwellers were aghast at the sheer extent of the destruction. Their eyes followed the malevolent track of the flood up the mountainside, and sighed involuntarily.
It felt like a scourge of the Heavens – what had at other times and in other places been called the Wrath of God.
There was no time to lose for potential survivors trapped under debris, or locked in their houses. Quickly, the rescuers swarmed out, releasing sturdy, shorthaired mountain dogs, trained to rescue people trapped under snowdrifts. They did not yet know that out of the three hundred inhabitants, employees and visitors that had gone to sleep on the night of the 12th, not even half would be recovered alive.
Up at the fourth floor of their hotel, Scarlett slowly moved her aching limbs.
Rose stirred beside her. None of the grown-ups had slept at all, each maintaining their silent vigil, perhaps lost in their own thoughts and regrets.
"We should go down, and see whether the water reached our floor level, " Scarlett said, softly. "If it didn't, we'll be able find dry clothing." She tried for a wry laugh, but it came out sounding more like a hiccup. "I…..very much doubt we can stay here."
Rose nodded. She glanced around the room, and then got up, somewhat stiffly. She took them all in with her eyes. Scarlett. Ella, Cherry, Chase, Miss Addy, Charlotte. Dan. Gerry.
Rhett had not reappeared during the night.
"Wait here," Rose told them. Two older men in nightclothes untangled themselves from their covers from the other side of the room to join her. Under normal circumstances, she would have been mortified to let strangers see her in her wrapper. Now, she did not even spare it a thought.
"You may wanna wait until later, lady," one of the men told her, as they left the room together. His accent was American – Midwestern, by the sound of it. Rose felt a sudden, aching homesickness for Texas. The corners of his eyes were crinkled with concern. "We don't know what we'll find down there."
Steady brown eyes stared into blue. "I know. I'm ….a medical student. From Glasgow."
"Are you, now." If he was surprised, he did not show it. But he protested her presence no further.
She returned some twenty minutes later, without the men. She was bearing a suitcase. Scarlett looked up as she entered. Her eyes were glazed with a strange emotion.
"The third floor flooded, but only by a few feet. Our things …..those that were up in the closets - are dry. I've ….brought clothes for everyone."
"We can all just go down, then….." Scarlett's voice trailed off, seeing the expression on Rose's face.
"There are …..bodies in the hallway," Rose said softly, for her ears only. "Probably caught on the staircase, or one of the other floors, when the crest peaked. There are search parties abreast in what's left of the village. The two …gentlemen that were here with us have gone down to let them know where we are."
"Is your father …."
Rose shook her head. "No. I looked. On all floors. There is no sign of him." She didn't describe how difficult it had been to identify the faces of the victims as not her father. Or what water does to a body during drowning. Of course, for all they knew, he could have been trapped, and swept outside.
The faint clamor of voices outside grew louder. Scarlett took a deep breath. "Let's all get dressed. Quickly. We need to do what we can to get out of here." No one who had been through a war, as she had, could be unaware of the dangers of polluted water, and death, and lack of sanitation. As far as she was concerned, they could not leave here quickly enough.
About ten minutes later, just as Scarlett smoothed her dress into place, there were footsteps in the hall. A man in uniform, a local gendarme, clanged into the room, surveyed them, and started chattering at them in quick French. Rose chattered back, as did some of the others.
"What is he saying?" Scarlett asked Charlotte, who was standing next to her.
"He asks if we are ok. He says stay here until they call us. Not to go down yet. He says we are …..safe."
They want to move- or cover- the bodies first, Scarlett thought. Her dispassionate gaze fell on the children, who were still unusually silent. On the faces of Chase, and Ella. Just as well.
~~oo~~
An hour later, they were in a pony-wagon headed for a nearby village, ten miles away, upstream from the glacier-water. Chase and Rose had elected to remain behind, to assist with the rescue efforts, and to look for Rhett. Cherry was also staying, refusing to be separated from her mistress. "If Miss Rose's stayin,' I's staying too," she announced, in a tone that shut down all protests.
"Don't go," Ella had pleaded with her husband. "Come with us. Rose needs to stay, I understand, to help, and look for Daddy. But you have to stay with me."
"I can't." There was none of his habitual shyness in his drawn, worn-out face. "There might be people still trapped, and they will need every able-bodied man. If nothing else, I am that."
"Rose", Scarlett had said, imploringly, adding her voice to Ella's. "You come, then. Please. Chase will find Rhett. One person is enough." Look at what the war did to me, she silently added. Do you want that?
"I'm only a student of medicine, but I'm probably the best they have, right now." The gendarmes had found no sign of Dr. Bouchard, the village physician. "I can't go, mother. You know that."
Charlotte, who'd already climbed on the carriage, started to climb back down as well. "Charlotte!" Ella said, scandalized. She tried not to think of the bodies being carried through the streets behind them. She only wanted to get away from all the horror.
"Perhaps, they also need another able-bodied woman. I can help."
"All right," Scarlett sighed, heavily, seeing that further protest was pointless. She herself had been that young, once. "I suppose more wagons will come over the course of the day. If you find your father ….if he is injured …..bring him to the village. And let me know ….."
"I will," said Rose.
They turned, and walked away. Scarlett watched them, helpless in face of their determination. Unlike most of them, she was bitterly familiar with the real price of heroics. And she was not wrong: as the war had altered Scarlett, the four young people plodding through the mud to join the other rescuers would also emerge forever altered from this catastrophe.
~~oo~~
As the wagon left Saint Gervais behind, the sun burst out of its hiding place behind deceptively white clouds, and the familiar, pristine beauty of the Alps was reinstated. Nature opened its blossoms, sent forth its birds into the trees and gallant chamois onto the mountainside, as if last night's catastrophe had never happened.
They installed themselves in a new, much smaller hotel, where a round-faced and very concerned landlady bustled about, doing everything she could for their comfort. Scarlett went through the necessary motions of settling in the children, but with an expression on her face not unlike the frozen water that had burst open so disastrously last night.
Around noon, yet another carriage arrived in front of the hotel. Ella, who had been meeting all new arrivals, and bringing back news from the rescue efforts, had expected to hear more of the staggering, ever-mounting casualty numbers. Instead, she saw her husband descend. And Rhett.
"Daddy!" she called, running to the carriage as quickly as she could. Her heart was bursting with relief, her eyes filling with tears. Seconds later, she was hugging him to her, unmindful of the fact that he was wet, and cold, and that his teeth were chattering.
"Quite the hero," Chase reported, with feigned lightness. "Waited until the water level dropped, then dashed outside as soon as he could see. Saved more than a couple of people from certain death. Joined up with the first rescue parties that arrived. And wouldn't hear of rest, but had to help with the digging, until he collapsed, and they made me take him away."
Scarlett, hearing the voices, ran outside as well. When she saw Rhett, she swallowed her relief into a dark cavern of her chest. "Hello," she said, blankly. He didn't answer her. Perhaps, because he couldn't.
Chase helped him stagger into the bedroom, which was thankfully on the ground floor. He was clearly beyond the limits of his endurance.
Scarlett helped him out of the wet clothes. He was still shivering uncontrollably. His forehead was burning hot.
"Are you sad I didn't drown?" he rasped. She couldn't tell if he was mocking her.
"Don't be silly," she replied, briskly, tucking the blankets around him. "I'm very happy you're safe." And she was.
The others arrived just before nightfall, with grey, silent faces, covered in mud. Eighty-nine bodies had been recovered, including a number of children drowned in their sleep. The numbers were expected to rise.
Rhett had become feverish, and incoherent.
They tended him for three days – Scarlett, Charlotte and Rose took turns with his care.
He was restless, tormented in his false sleep. "Bonnie! Bonnie!" he called out, in feverish dreams. It was the only name he called for. When it happened, Charlotte shriveled up with compassion. Unbeknownst to either Rose or Scarlett, the confession of his ploy had, far from injuring him, elevated him in her eyes to the status of a tragic, romantic figure- which would have amused Rhett greatly, had he known.
Every time he called out, Rose became whiter.
Scarlett's frozen face was thoughtful.
Rhett had been right to be confused over the last few months. Scarlett herself could not have answered where her strange apathy had come from, or what it meant. She could trace its origins to around the time of Ella's miscarriage, but knew somehow it contained things far older, and deeper. Later centuries might have tagged it with crude labels, but they wouldn't have mattered to her. All she knew was that she felt numb. It was a similar, yet distinct, feeling from the strange disconnect she had felt after Bonnie's death. And it frightened her.
Rhett had, at first slyly, then with increasing directness, attempted to draw her out. She had resisted utterly, not out of cruelty, or because she wanted to punish him, but because there were no words attached to this numbness. It was like a Kraken that extended from her heart to her limbs, weighing everything down, gathering everything in.
His awkward ploy with the Athenian woman – which had occurred after weeks of him growing increasingly desperate before her – would not have pierced through the armor of her numbness even had she really thought him unfaithful. She had been angry, briefly, when he confessed – not, strangely enough, at him, but at the threat to the numbness, of which she was growing increasingly protective. She had vented that anger in a brief burst of profanity, but sank back into the apathy almost as soon as it had left her lips.
It was not a question of believing. As Rhett in September of 1873 had believed her declaration of love, she now believed in the declaration of his innocence. And as for him then, it was of little moment to her now.
The only change in the aftermath was his attitude. He seemed to understand, finally, that there was nothing tangible she was holding back. His attempts to entice her to talk, while never ceasing completely, became increasingly sporadic, and half-hearted.
And now, in his fevered state, he was calling, not for her, but for Bonnie. She thought of Rhett, waiting, while she hovered between life and death after her miscarriage. She had called for him, even if he hadn't known it. He wasn't calling for her.
What did that mean?
~~oo~~
Rose was dreaming.
Thad had fallen behind with her during the next day's walk by the lake. The boys had gamboled ahead, and the grown-ups were making energetic strides, spurred by the beauty of their surroundings and the mild, warm weather.
"Did you sleep well?"
She stared at him. He had never 'made conversation' with her before.
"No", she glowered. He gave a short, odd, laugh. She stopped, and let the words she'd been holding back tumble from her lips. "I still don't understand why we can't be alone anymore. I'm ….taller now, maybe, but I'm not any different than I was six months ago. You're not any different. So why?" She had realized, last night, that she loved him. But he did not know – would never know, if she could help it.
"Rose." There were no mores in their culture that could have bridged the gap in understanding between them. Her love was, as of yet, even less corporal than Scarlett's infatuation for Ashley had ever been. But there was something between them now. Years of closeness wiped out by something she had neither anticipated nor desired.
He took a deep breath. "Give me your hand."
"Why?" she scowled. Perhaps she hoped that, by being childish, and contrary, things would go back to the way they had been?
He held out his own. "Please."
Reluctantly, she laid her right hand in his.
A strange, electrical sensation shot through her, like a circuit closing. He dropped her hand like a hot coal, and took a step back. An uneven, staggering step, completely devoid of his usual grace. He pushed back his black curls with a quick, tense motion.
"What was that, " she whispered, confused. She knew his body. They had climbed all over him ever since they were children. He had bounced them about on his shoulders –tickled them mercilessly- swung them around until they were dizzy. She did not connect it to her love. His body had never done this before.
"God." The strange look on his face had, if anything, gotten stranger. "This is worse than I thought," he murmured.
"What did I do wrong now?" she asked, anxiously.
"Nothing, Rosey." He stared at her, his eyes skimming the soft curves she had grown while she was gone. She felt suddenly self-conscious.
"I'm going to go to Houston for a bit."
"But why?" She was really afraid, now. "You said you'd be here for the entire week!"
"I know. I'm sorry. But you see….."
She did not see. Not at all. "May I come, too?" she pressed, heedlessly. She had accompanied him in the past, as had the boys.
"No." His body was tense with flight instinct, poised only to get away. That, she could read with ease. Her eyes fell.
"It would be exceedingly dull, Rosey. Just a lot of meetings and paperwork."
"I understand," she said, morosely. They were not friends anymore, that much was clear. She started moving away. She didn't turn again. When she caught up with the group, she felt her mother's eyes rest on her, and then swirl to him. With something like fear.
~~oo~~
Rose sat beside him when he woke up. She saw his black eyes open, and see her.
"How bad it it?" he whispered. When she didn't reply, he attempted a grin, that came out more like a grimace.
"You were delirious." she said. "Exhaustion, and the cold from the glacier water. But you're over the worst of it, I think. Your fever broke."
"Is…your mother all right? And everyone?"
"Yes."
His eyes closed with relief, then reopened. " You wouldn't lie to me?"
The blue eyes regarded him dispassionately. "I've only knowingly lied to you once in my life, Daddy."
"Me, too." he said, softly.
She exhaled a breath that was almost a sigh. "I know." She adjusted the blankets, and added, in a steady tone, "But rest assured, they are all safe."
She was able to feed him soup, before he finally fell into a restful slumber.
"I think I'm going to leave," Scarlett announced, suddenly, over the supper table. "As soon as he's out of danger."
"Leave? Where?"
"I don't know. Probably …..probably Tara." A strange sensation stirred in her, almost like the echo of a feeling. Tara. "I'll take the boys. And send for Perry."
Rose regarded her thoughtfully. "All right."
~~oo~~
The next morning, Scarlett left for the train station, her youngest sons in tow. She left as Rhett had left Atlanta that fateful day in September, over nineteen years ago, drawn by the faint light of Tara as he had been drawn long ago by the faint glamour of the Old Days.
She had always wondered. Her straightforward, unanalytical mind had never entirely grasped how he could have left them. She, who had stayed with Melanie – whom she had hated – because she had promised Ashley. And because it was her duty. She, who had cared for her family at Tara after the war, even though she had felt very little affection for them at the time.
For all her protestations to the contrary, she had never understood how he could have left the children.
And now, for the first time, she understood. How his life with her could have seemed like little more than a comedy that was long over. A comedy upon which someone had simply forgotten to draw the curtain. And how he could have turned his back on the empty stage, and left without a backwards glance.