Chapter XVIII
England will never help the Confederacy. England never bets on the underdog. That's why she's England.
Rhett explained these facts to her over and again, their entire trip to London. Scarlett, like most Southerners, had her heart set on England coming to the South's rescue and helping them to finally lick the Yankees. Rhett was more honest, more worldly and more willing to face the ugly truth than Scarlett, but he was determined to make the point with her before they arrived.
"All England will be good for, come the end of the War, is as buyers for the goods us smart ones have stored away during the war. The English mills may be screaming out for cotton, but England would rather let her people starve than join themselves in our war. I've warehouses full of cotton locked away, and I believe I can command whatever price I desire for it, such are the desperate straits they've found themselves in."
Rhett had taken in Scarlett's vague expression and quickly changed the subject.
"Forget business, I bought you here so that you might have fun and I intend that you shall have it."
And have fun Scarlett did, more fun than she had in months. Her husband of old was back, and if, very occasionally, his eyes were clouded with a desperation she did not understand, he hid it very well.
Their time in England was brief, filled with shopping and dancing and long nights spent in their hotel room, wrapped around each other in bed. Rhett was every inch the besotted husband and Scarlett was glad to have him back, not only for the fal-lal's and jewels he bought for her, but for his attention and care. Everything was back as it ought to be and Scarlett was relieved.
The Nassau they returned to however was very different from the one they had left.
Nassau, the party city that Scarlett had come to love, had fallen silent, for the news from home was the worst any could imagine. There had been hard fighting in Pennsylvania, near a little town named Gettysburg, a great battle with all Lee's army massed. The news was uncertain and slow in coming. Suspense grew and the beginnings of dread slowly crept over the coastal town. Nearly every Southerner in Nassau had someone they cared about at the front and, being so far away, the town waited with bated breath, feeling with certainty that bad tidings were coming their way.
The fifth of July saw these premonitions realized. Vicksburg had fallen, and practically the Mississippi River, from St. Louis to New Orleans was now in the hands of the Yankees. Scarlett and Rhett exchanged looks of deep concern at this news, for their soon to be ward was ensconced in New Orleans and they could only hope and pray that he was safe.
The Confederacy had been cut in two, but hope still lay in Gettysburg. The only news from home was of heavy fighting and Scarlett found herself often at Sacred Heart, alongside her sister, brother in law and husband, desperately praying for the safety of those she knew and loved. Prayer, she would later confess to Rhett, seemed useless, but from Nassau, what else was there to do?
Eventually the casualty lists came, and the crowds of Nassau met them at the docks. Rhett pushed his way through the crowd and came back with two copies in his hands, immediately throwing one to Careen and Brent and taking one for him and Scarlett.
Scarlett's eyes eagerly scanned the names there. So many friends! So many beaux! Her eyes easily alighted upon the familiar names printed there. Darcy Meade, Raif Calvert, Joe Fontaine, Lafe Munroe and...
"No!" Scarlett exclaimed. There couldn't be two Tarleton names printed on that list. But there they were. "Tarleton – Stuart, Corporal. Tarleton – Thomas, private."
Beside her, Scarlett sought the reassuring arms of her husband, afraid to look in the direction of her sister and brother in law. There they were, Careen white faced, eyes wide with shock, clinging desperately to Brent's arm and he, his eyes wide, hollow and vacant. His baby brother and his twin, dead, gone, buried God only knew where in Virginia. Tears streamed from Scarlett's eyes as she remember the lazy, long-legged Stu, his love of gossip and absurd practical jokes, rarely seen without his twin brother at his side, now parted for ever by the spectre of death.
"Home," Rhett said immediately, clasping Brent bracingly on the shoulder and steering him towards the carriage. Scarlett reached for her sister and, holding her hands tightly in her own, pulled her towards the carriage.
The O'Hara sisters sat beside each other, openly weeping in the carriage that moved them quickly towards their house. Tears slipped continuously from Scarlett's eyes, as she thought of Darcy and Raif, Joe and Lafe, Stu and Tom, all friends, all beaux, all good men, fighting in a war they believed in with every fibre of their beings, all dead on some God-forsaken battlefield in bloody Virginia.
Opposite them, sat their husbands, Brent's haunted eyes blank, Rhett's as hard as steel. Upon returning home, they silently filed from the carriage. Careen and Brent immediately returned inside, but Rhett and Scarlett lingered, for Wade Hamilton was awaiting them.
"I'm sorry Scarlett," he bowed over her shaking hand immediately. "Many of your friends?"
"Just about everyone," Scarlett's voice was a broken whisper. "Nearly every family in the County – and Brent's brothers."
Hamilton's usually inscrutable expression was angry now, in a way Scarlett had never seen. His carefully blank façade was gone and his pale blue eyes burned with a strange intensity that lit his features in a way that was almost savage.
"This bloody war," he shook his head sadly. "Forgive me. What I would do if I... but never mind. And Bennet?"
Scarlett's eyes widened, for, in her haste to find out about her friends, she had never once considered Rhett's. She knew the answer to Hamilton's question before Rhett had spoken a word however.
"Gone," Rhett replied in an embittered tone Scarlett had not heard from him before.
"I'm sorry, my friend," Hamilton replied, clapping Rhett bracingly about the arm. "Every one it seems has had bad news. And the end is not upon us. The lists we have received today are incomplete; there'll be a longer list tomorrow. General Lee must have lost, it seems he's retreated back to Maryland."
Scarlett's vision swam and for a moment, she feared she might faint. She grasped Rhett's arm painfully, thinking of her remaining friends, of Ashley and of Cade Calvert and Tony and Alex Fontaine, they might be lying dead right not, and here she was, none the wiser. Rhett was right, had been right all along, the Confederacy was going to get licked, what would happen to Tara and her family when it did?
Her knees buckled and Rhett's arms coming around her waist were her only support.
"My God," she whispered, her throat raw with unsuppressed emotion. "My God."
"Inside," Rhett murmured to her, supporting her weight until they were inside and she was seated in the front sitting room, a glass of brandy pressed into her cold, trembling hands.
"I'll have to get to New Orleans and pick up the baby," she overheard Rhett telling Hamilton, from where they stood bent over the brandy decanter.
"It will be dangerous," Hamilton responded. "Almost impossible I should say. New Orleans is occupied now, since Vicksburg fell. You'll have to approach from land, for the blockade is too deep now to get a boat through. You may be able to run in and out of Charleston or Savannah, as we've been doing."
Fear gripped Scarlett's heart at the thought of Rhett putting himself in danger in such a way. The house was already full of the acrid smell of clothes boiling in homemade black dye, for, in the kitchen, the cook was dying Brent and Careen's things black.
"I hate this war!" Scarlett exclaimed suddenly. "I've always hated it. It stole my beaux and my dances and my fun when I was a belle and now it's stealing my friends and family and the country I love. Rhett, why do there have to be wars? It would have been so much better for the Yankees to pay for the darkies – or even for us to give them the darkies free of charge than to have this happen!"
"It isn't the darkies, Scarlett. They're just the excuse. There'll always be wars because men love wars. Women don't, but men do – yea, passing the love of women," Rhett's voice and hands were soothing, though Scarlett did not want to be soothed. "Don't fret my dear, over your family, they shall be safe. When I am in Atlanta collecting Bennet's son, I shall ensure it."
"I'm going with you," Scarlett said fiercely, her green eyes flashing darkly.
"My beautiful, determined, stupid little darling," Rhett drew her into his embrace. "We'll talk about it when emotions aren't running so high. For now, take your brandy my darling, and go to bed."
Unusually compliant, Scarlett agreed, kissing her husband and pressing her hand into Wade's. Then, left alone, Hamilton and Rhett sat before the decanter, in heavy, companionable silence.
"You won't actually let her go, will you?" Wade Hamilton asked eventually.
"How long have you known Scarlett?" Rhett grinned fleetingly. "I could dissuade her if I really tried, but I'd rather take her now, and let her see how bad it is, then having to stop her in a few months time, when the South is aflame. I'll bring us in at night and leave her in Atlanta while I travel on to New Orleans. If I'm lucky, friends of mine might be able to get the child to me in Bay Minette or Greenville."
"You'll do what you feel you must," Hamilton nodded, though it was clear to Rhett that he disagreed heartily with the idea. "I shall manage things from this end, particularly if you think you can get some cotton out with you."
"I'll make sure of it," Rhett agreed. "I'll take a fleet in with me and see to the dispersion of the goods while we're there. I won't have this trip be a complete blow to the business."
"I never thought you would," Hamilton agreed. "What will Tarleton do, do you think?"
"Tarleton will stay right here," a heavy voice from the doorway interrupter. There stood Brent, in only shirtsleeves and pants, his eyes red-rimmed and beleaguered, his shoulders stooped, as if the wait of the world lay upon them. "I might be a useless, one-armed cripple, but I'm the only Tarleton left to contribute to the war effort, so I'm staying here and working my arse off, if that suits you gentlemen?"
"I've never argued with any man working," Hamilton responded, standing and pouring Brent a drink. "But if you should rather go home to your family..."
"What point is there now? What good can I do there? No, I'd rather stay here and make some contribution," Brent shrugged. "And as much as I'd like to get to Virginia and squeeze the life out of as many fucking Yankees as possible... Whoever would have thought that being left without a hand would have saved my life?"
His eyes were despairing and he knocked back his drink in one gulp.
"There's thousands of dead Confederates, your brothers amongst them, lying dead in the fields of Virginia," Rhett said lowly. "But there's millions more starving in their homes, desperate for supplies. Those, we can help. Make helping them your goal, rather than avenging your brothers."
Brent nodded and, with a second drink in hand, wandered back upstairs, in search of his wife.
"If I didn't know you better I'd say you were a loyal Confederate after such a speech," Hamilton laughed without humor at Rhett.
"The funny thing is Hamilton, the longer this God forsaken war drags on, the more my sentimentality for the South grows. Perhaps I'm ashamed for not dying on a bloody battlefield like every other Southern gentleman; perhaps I'm becoming tenderhearted in my old age. Whatever it is, all of a sudden, as I sit safely here in this lovely manor house in safe Nassau, I'm struck by the realization that my running the blockades is now less about profit, and more about fighting for the Bonnie Blue Flag."
Rhett laughed then, a low, hollow sound, ringing with wretchedness –
"For the Southern Rights, hurrah!"