A Desperate Moment Continued
Author's Note: I want to sincerely apologize. In writing this story, I have blended my own text with that of MArgaret Mitchell's. Before publishing the recent updates, I did go through and try to make it more appropriate and palatable for the modern reader- removing derogatory and outdated words. But I didn't think to revise the original chapter that I posted over a decade ago. And unfortunately, I was not as careful back then to remove inflammatory words. There was language in that chapter that wasn't appropriate when I posted it, but even less so now. It has been removed and the chapter amended. But I did offend someone, and I offer a sincere apology for the oversight. Please enjoy this chapter. The next is already ready, but the two combined would have been an incredibly long chapter.
A warm breeze was blowing and delicate clouds were skimming across the sky when Scarlett and Mammy stepped from the train in Atlanta the next afternoon. The depot had not been rebuilt since the burning of the city, and they alighted amid cinders and mud a few yards above the blackened ruins which marked the site. Out of sheer habit, Scarlett looked about for Uncle Peter driving Pitty's carriage, for she had always been met by them when returning from Tara to Atlanta during the war years. Naturally, Peter wasn't there for she had given Aunt Pitty no warning of her coming and, moreover, she remembered that one of the old lady's letters had dealt tearfully with the death of the old nag Peter had "'quired" in Macon to bring her back to Atlanta after the surrender. She looked about the rutted and cut-up space around the depot for an old friend or acquaintance who might drive them to Aunt Pitty's house, but she recognized no one. It was not surprising for it was likely that none of her old friends owned carriages now, as times were so hard it was difficult to feed and lodge humans, much less animals. Most of Pitty's friends, like herself, were afoot these days.
The desolation around the train took her back to that morning in 1862 when she had come to Atlanta as a young widow, swathed in crepe and wild with boredom with baby Wade and Prissy in tow. She recalled how crowded this space had been with wagons and carriages and ambulances and how noisy with drivers swearing and yelling and people calling greetings to friends. She sighed for the light-hearted excitement of the war days and sighed again at the thought of walking all the way to Aunt Pitty's house. She hoped that once on Peachtree Street, she might find an acquaintance who would give them a ride.
Mammy resolutely picked up the carpetbag which held Scarlett's meager clothing and tucked the neat bandanna bundle that contained her own belongings under her arm and shepherded Scarlett across the wet expanse of cinders. Scarlett did not argue the matter, much as she preferred to ride, for she wished no disagreement with Mammy. Ever since yesterday afternoon, there had been an alert suspicious look in her eyes which Scarlett did not like. At least Mammy knew that Scarlett was going to visit Rhett, because she would have made things difficult if she was unaware of the situation. Mammy grumbled about the situation for she did not like Rhett's poor reputation, and Scarlett did not intend to rouse Mammy's fighting blood before it was absolutely necessary.
As they walked along the narrow sidewalk toward Peachtree, Scarlett was dismayed and sorrowful, for Atlanta looked so devastated and different from what she remembered. It was like walking into a nightmare landscape where little was even recognizable of the city she had left only 18 months prior. They passed beside what had been the Atlanta Hotel where Rhett and Uncle Henry had lived and of that elegant establishment there remained only a shell, a part of the blackened walls. The warehouses which had bordered the train tracks for a quarter of a mile and held tons of military supplies had not been rebuilt and their rectangular foundations looked dreary under the dark sky. Without the wall of buildings on either side and with the car shed gone, the railroad tracks seemed bare and exposed. Somewhere amid these ruins, undistinguishable from the others, lay what remained of her own warehouse on the property Charles had left her. Uncle Henry had paid last year's taxes on it for her. She'd have to repay that money some time. That was something else to worry about.And she mentally added it to her own list of burdens to bear.
As they turned the corner into Peachtree Street and she looked toward Five Points, she cried out with shock and her steps momentarially faltered. Despite all Frank had told her about the town burning to the ground, she had never really visualized complete destruction. In her mind the town she loved so well still stood full of close-packed buildings and fine houses. But this Peachtree Street she was looking upon was so denuded of landmarks it was as unfamiliar as if she had never seen it before. This muddy street down which she had driven a thousand times during the war, along which she had fled when shells burst over her during the siege, this street she had last seen in the heat and hurry and anguish of the day of the retreat, was so strange looking she felt like crying.
Though many new buildings had sprung up in the year since Sherman marched out of the burning town and the Confederates returned, there were still wide vacant lots around Five Points where heaps of smudged broken bricks lay amid a jumble of rubbish and dead weeds. There were the remains of a few buildings she remembered, roofless brick walls through which the dull daylight shone, glassless windows gaping, chimneys towering lonesomely, similar to the ones that still towered over the blackened shell of Twelve Oaks. She was thankful that Tara had been spared of that ignominy, but it only strengthened her resolution to save her home. There was so little of life before the war to which she could cling. Here and there her eyes gladly picked out a familiar store which had partly survived shell and fire and had been repaired, the fresh red of new brick glaring bright against the smut of the old walls. On new store fronts and new office windows she saw a few welcome names of men she knew, but more often the names were unfamiliar, especially the dozens of shingles of strange doctors and lawyers and cotton merchants. Once she had known practically everyone in Atlanta. The sight of so many strange names depressed her. But many new buildings were going up all along the street-- dozens of them and several were three stories high! Everywhere building was going on, as she looked down the street, trying to adjust her mind to the new Atlanta. The blithe sound of hammers and saws rang out, as scaffolding rose towering around her as men climbed ladders with hods of bricks on their shoulders and tools hanging from their belts. She looked down the street she loved so well and her eyes misted a little.
"They burned you," she thought, "They laid you flat. But they didn't lick you. They couldn't lick you. You'll grow back just as big and sassy as you used to be!" And again she tied her own survival to Atlanta's own. For if Atlanta could rise from the ashes of the war, so would she. She was heartened by the thought as she strode along, even growing confident that if Rhett failed her, she would still find a way to save Tara and her family. She would not be defeated.
As she walked along Peachtree, followed by Mammy, she found the sidewalks just as crowded as they were at the height of the war and there was the same air of rush and bustle about the resurrecting town which had made her blood sing when she came here, so long ago, on her first visit to Aunt Pitty. There seemed to be just as many vehicles wallowing in the mud holes as there had been then, except that there were no Confederate ambulances, and just as many horses and mules tethered to hitching racks in front of the wooden awnings of the stores. Though the sidewalks were jammed, the faces she saw were as unfamiliar as the signs overhead, new people, many rough-looking men and tawdrily dressed women.
"It's nicer where it isn't so crowded. When we get across Five Points, it won't be so bad." She offered encouragingly to Mammy, who had not offered a word of complaint on their trek from the train station.
They continued to pick their way across the slippery stepping stones that bridged the mud of Decatur Street and continued up Peachtree, through a thinning crowd.
Up Peachtree came a closed carriage and Scarlett went to the curb eagerly to see if she knew the occupant, for Aunt Pitty's house was still several blocks away. A woman's head appeared for a moment at the window— a too bright red head beneath a fine fur hat and Scarlett took a step back as mutual recognition leaped into both faces. It was Belle Watling and Scarlett had a glimpse of nostrils distended with dislike before she disappeared again. Strange that Belle's should be the first familiar face she saw.
"Who was dat?" questioned Mammy suspiciously. "She acted like she knowed you. Ah ain' never seed hair that color in my life. Not even in the Tarletons. It look—well, it look dyed to me!"
"It is," said Scarlett shortly, walking faster.
"Do you know a dyed-haired woman? I asked you who she is."
"She's the town bad woman," said Scarlett briefly, with a snap in her tone, "and I give you my word I don't know her, so hush."
"Gawdlmighty!" breathed Mammy, her jaw dropping. "She sho dressed up fine and got a fine carriage and coachman," she muttered. "I don't know what the Lawd thinkin' 'bout lettin' the bad women flurrish like that when us good folks is hungry and most barefoot."
"The Lord stopped thinking about us years ago," said Scarlett savagely, unrepentant in her sacrilegious thoughts and words. "And don't go telling me Mother is turning in her grave to hear me say it, either." She wanted to feel superior and virtuous about Belle but she could not. Belle might be the only way that Rhett could help her, and the thought disgusted her.
They passed where the Meade house had stood, a nearly empty lot, followed by the bare lot of the Whitings, and then a repaired and rebuilt home of the Elsings and then the Bonnell's. Scarlett sighed in relief at the site of the new slate roof of Aunt Pitty's house with its red-brick walls, and Scarlett's heart throbbed. How good of the Lord not to level it beyond repair! Coming out of the front yard was Uncle Peter, a market basket on his arm, and when he saw Scarlett and Mammy trudging along, a wide, incredulous smile split his black face.
I could kiss the old black fool, I'm so glad to see him, thought Scarlett, joyfully and she called: "Run get Auntie's swoon bottle, Peter! It's really me!"
That night the inevitable hominy and dried peas were on Aunt Pitty's supper table and, as Scarlett ate them, she made a vow that these two dishes would never appear on her table when she had money again. And, no matter what price she had to pay, she was going to have money again, more than just enough to pay the taxes on Tara. Somehow, some day she was going to have plenty of money if she had to commit murder to get it.
In the yellow lamplight of the dining room, she asked Pitty about her finances, hoping against hope that Charles' family might be able to lend her the money she needed despite the meager fare on the table that spoke of deprivation and scarcity. The questions were none too subtle but Pitty, in her pleasure at having a member of the family to talk to, did not even notice the bald way the questions were put. She plunged with tears into the details of her misfortunes. She just didn't know where it all had gone but everything had slipped away. At least, that was what Brother Henry told her. He hadn't been able to pay the taxes on her estate. Everything except the house she was living in was gone and Pitty did not stop to think that the house had never been hers but was the joint property of Melanie and Scarlett. Brother Henry could just barely pay taxes on this house. He gave her a little something every month to live on and, though it was very humiliating to take money from him, she had to do it.
"Brother Henry says he doesn't know how he'll make ends meet with the load he's carrying and the taxes so high but, of course, he's probably lying and has loads of money and just won't give me much."
But carlett knew Uncle Henry wasn't lying. The few letters she had had from him in connection with Charles' property showed that. The old lawyer was battling valiantly to save the house and the one piece of downtown property where the warehouse had been, so Wade and Scarlett would have something left from the wreckage. Scarlett knew he was carrying these taxes for her at a great sacrifice. "Of course, he hasn't any money," thought Scarlett grimly. "Well, check him and Aunt Pitty off my list. There's nobody left but Rhett." Her spirits sagged that had so briefly been buoyed by the strength of Atltan's rebirth.
So Scarlett steered the conversation to the man in question, "Have you heard from Rhett Butler, Aunt Pitty? Frank Kennedy visited us out at Tara and said that he was in jail."
Aunt Pittypat tittered, "Just to think that Captain Butler was here just a few weeks ago and brought me the loveliest quail you ever saw for a present and he was asking about you and saying he feared he had offended you during the siege and you would never forgive him."
"How long will he be in jail?"
"Nobody knows. Perhaps till they hang him, but maybe they won't be able to prove the killing on him, after all...But Hugh Elsing told me he didn't think they'd hang Captain Butler because the Yankees think he does know where the money is and just won't tell. They are trying to make him tell."
"The money?" Scarlett tried to appear nonchalant and only vaguely interested.
"Didn't you know? Didn't I write you? My dear, you have been buried at Tara, haven't you?" She offered in a sweet yet condescending way. "Captain Butler came back here with a fine horse and carriage and his pockets full of money, when all the rest of us didn't know where our next meal was coming from. Everybody was bursting to know how he managed to save his money, but no one had the courage to ask him—except me and he just laughed and said: 'In no honest way, you may be sure.' You know how hard it is to get anything sensible out of him."
"But of course, he made his money out of the blockade—" Scarlett rose to his defense, not stopping to think why she should feel so protective of him.
"Of course, he did, honey, some of it. But that's not a drop in the bucket to what that man has really got. Everybody, including the Yankees, believes he's got millions of dollars in gold belonging to the Confederate government hid out somewhere."
"Millions—in gold?" Her mind was reeling. Rhett had more money than she had even imagined. If it was true then the 300 for the taxes was nothing at all to him.
"Well, honey, where did all our Confederate gold go to? Somebody got it and Captain Butler must be one of the somebodies. The Yankees thought President Davis had it when he left Richmond but when they captured the poor man he had hardly a cent. There just wasn't any money in the treasury when the war was over and everybody thinks some of the blockade runners got it and are keeping quiet about it."
"Millions—in gold! But how—"she sputtered.
"Didn't Captain Butler take thousands of bales of cotton to England and Nassau to sell for the Confederate government?" asked Pitty triumphantly. "Well, when the blockade got too tight, he couldn't bring in the guns and he couldn't have spent one one-hundredth of the cotton money on them anyway, so there were simply millions of dollars in English banks put there by Captain Butler and other blockaders, waiting till the blockade loosened. And you can't tell me they banked that money in the name of the Confederacy. They put it in their own names and it's still there...Everybody has been talking about it, and when the Yankees arrested Captain Butler for killing this darky they must have heard the rumor, because they've been at him to tell them where the money is. You see, all of our Confederate funds belong to the Yankees now—at least, the Yankees think so. But Captain Butler says he doesn't know anything…" Pity paused in her diatribe, noticing how pale Scarlett had grown. "Dear, you look so oddly! Do you feel faint? Have I upset you by talking like this? I knew he was once a beau of yours but I thought you'd fallen out long ago. Personally, I never approved of him, for he's such a scamp—"
"I had a quarrel with him during the siege, after you went to Macon, but he came to see me after he visited you, but Where— where is he?" Scarlett asked trying to tamp down her need to know.
"In the firehouse over near the public square!"
"In the firehouse?"
Aunt Pitty crowed with laughter. "Yes, he's in the firehouse. The Yankees use it for a military jail now. The Yankees are camped in huts all round the city hall in the square and the firehouse is just down the street, so that's where Captain Butler is. And Scarlett, I heard the funniest thing yesterday about Captain Butler. I forget who told me. You know how well groomed he always was—really a dandy—and they've been keeping him in the firehouse and not letting him bathe and every day he's been insisting that he wanted a bath and finally they led him out of his cell onto the square and there was a long horse trough where the whole regiment had bathed in the same water! And they told him he could bathe there and he said No, that he preferred his own brand of Southern dirt to Yankee dirt and—"
Scarlett heard the cheerful babbling voice going on and on but she did not hear the words. In her mind there were only two thoughts, Rhett had more money than she had even hoped and he was in jail. She was stunned at the thought of so much money, money beyond her calculations or ability to spend. Her need for money was too pressing, too desperate, for her to bother about his ultimate fate for long, as long as she could get the money… If she could somehow manage to marry him while he was in jail, all those millions would be hers and hers alone should he be executed. And if marriage was not possible, perhaps she could get a loan from him by promising to marry him when he was released or by promising—oh promising anything! And if they hanged him, her day of settlement would never come.
For a moment her imagination flamed at the thought of being made a widow by the kindly intervention of the Yankee government. Millions in gold! She could repair Tara and hire hands and plant miles and miles of cotton. And she could have pretty clothes and all she wanted to eat and so could Suellen and Carreen. And Wade could have nourishing food to fill out his thin cheeks and warm clothes and a governess and afterward go to the university...and not grow up barefooted and ignorant like a Cracker. And a good doctor could look after Pa! But then the reality of Rhett's demise slowly eroded at that warmth and giddiness. She thought of his slow hot kisses and the way that she felt invincible in his arms, as though nothing bad could come. She thought of how she could be frank and honest with him, and most of all how she would miss him in her life, and how over the time since she left Atlanta she had fought against missing him.
Aunt Pittypat's monologue broke off suddenly as she said inquiringly: "Yes, Mammy?" and Scarlett, coming back from dreams, saw Mammy standing in the doorway, her hands under her apron and in her eyes an alert piercing look. She wondered how long Mammy had been standing there and how much she had heard and observed. Probably everything, to judge by the gleam in her old eyes.
"Miss Scarlett look like she's tired. I 'spect she better go to bed."
"I am tired," said Scarlett, rising and meeting Mammy's eyes with a childlike, helpless look, "and I'm afraid I'm catching a cold too. I know that a lady should never go down to that terrible jail, but Rhett was so often so kind to me. He is one of the main reasons that I came to town. He told me that he would be back to Tara, and he had never returned."
"How thoughtless I've been," cried the plump old lady, hopping from her chair and patting Scarlett's arm. "Just chattering on and not thinking of you. Honey, you should wait to visit Captain Butler until he is released. You shall stay in bed all tomorrow and rest up and we can gossip together— Oh, dear, no! I can't be with you. I've promised to sit with Mrs. Bonnell tomorrow. She is down with la grippe and so is her cook. Mammy, I'm so glad you are here. You must go over with me in the morning and help me." Mammy hurried Scarlett up the dark stairs, muttering fussing over her. As she climbed the stairs, the faint rumbling of thunder began and, standing on the well-remembered landing, she thought how like the siege cannon it sounded. She shivered. Forever, thunder would mean the rumble of cannons and war to her.