Disclaimer: I own nothing regarding GWTW
Author's Notes: Thank you for all the reviews and feedback.
After newreader2022 and lescrlett's reviews, I couldn't resist. I didn't try very hard.
Belle was the original target, but I couldn't help throwing some humiliation on Dolly.
Chapter Five
Scarlett went to The Painted Lady, but she didn't wait outside. No, she walked in as bold as punch. She was wearing a black dress and full widow's weeds that she had taken from the store for the occasion. Because of her veil it was extremely difficult to make out her face. She looked around the bar and smiled. There was red wallpaper, red curtains, and lots and lots of mirrors. She smiled and thought, 'Belle has good taste.'
Scarlett walked up to the bar and said, "May I see Belle?" Moses looked suspiciously at her, and she added, "I'm an old friend."
Moses decided the woman was a whore and that she wanted to see Belle about a job. He said, "Sure. Give me a minute."
Belle came out of the back and tried to see through the veil Scarlett had over her face. Scarlett laid sixty fives on the bar and said, "Here is your three hundred dollars back. Too bad I didn't take your advice and stay far, far, away from the man. I'm leaving Atlanta within the next six months. I am starting a new life."
With those words Scarlett turned around and walked out of the bar. With any luck Belle would get arrested for passing counterfeit bills. She stopped herself from laughing, but she couldn't stop herself from smiling. For the next several months just the thought of Belle made Scarlett laugh. Quite the turnaround from when Rhett was living in Atlanta.
Belle wondered if the woman had been Mrs. Butler. Probably. Belle wondered why the woman had given her the money. Probably as some sort of gesture to rid her of memories of Rhett. Rich people could be so stupid with their money.
Belle wondered if she owed Rhett the loyalty to tell Rhett's lawyer. Belle smiled. What was she going to tell Mr. Powe? That a mystery woman walked into the bar and gave her three hundred dollars. Belle couldn't say for sure that the woman was Mrs. Butler. Belle decided not to say a word to anyone. Besides, Mr. Powe might take the money for some reason.
The truth was that Belle couldn't swear the woman was Mrs. Butler although the comment certainly made Belle think so. Belle finally decided she didn't owe Rhett any more loyalty than he had to her. To him she was just a whore to use and then discard. He hadn't even told her goodbye on his way out of town. She would not have known he had left town if Mr. Powe had not come by to collect Rhett's share of the profits.
Belle decided she would just keep the money.
Scarlett took the entire outfit back to the store the next day. She had put it on display and put it on sale. She wanted the dress and hat to belong to somebody else as quickly as possible. She would have burned it, but she was afraid Hugh would ask questions about the missing dress. Besides, she wanted to get the cost of the dress back at least. She had gone home and burned the newspaper article.
Later in the week, Scarlett saw Rene driving the little pie truck. She thought of a mean thing to do to Mrs. Merriwether. Scarlett hailed Rene down and bought two pies from him. She gave him one of the fives. She did the same thing for the next three weeks.
A month later Scarlett heard from Hugh that one of the Tellers at the bank had noticed that Mrs. Merriwether was trying to give him a counterfeit five-dollar bill. The Teller confiscated the bill thus Dolly lost five dollars. After that the Teller began to thoroughly inspect Dolly's bills. When another counterfeit bill was discovered, the Teller took it to a vice-president. The vice-president, Harry Truman, questioned Dolly. As the older woman left the bank she was as red as a tomato. When Dolly tried to deposit the last five-dollar bill, Harry rushed over to the Teller she was trying to give her deposit to. The two men looked at every bill in the pile. They, of course, found the fake one. Dolly had to stand there the entire time while being thoroughly humiliated. Finally, Harry accepted the other bills. After that day, Rene had to start making the deposits. Scarlett guessed one of the fake fives had made it through.
Two months later Belle was being investigated. It seems they found some printing plates in her barn. After the men from the Treasury Department found the plates, while violating Belle's constitutional rights, they had searched through her stash and found fifty of the fake fives.
Scarlett had made sure the Treasury Department investigated a recent rash of fake five-dollar bills in the Atlanta area by mailing a letter to them. She had told the treasury agents to look in the hayloft of the barn behind The Painted Lady for the plates. Right where Scarlett had hidden them. She had done it the same day she gave Belle the three hundred dollars.
Scarlett had not implicated Mrs. Merriweather in her letter, but she gleefully laughed when she heard that treasury agents had called at Dolly's home and interrogated her for several hours. No charges were filed against Dolly. Probably because she was a lady. Nonetheless, it was an experience that Dolly would never live down.
The men investigating the crime believed the note was from a woman, but Belle Wattling had been a whore. There were probably numerous women in Atlanta that she had wronged. More women than they could possibly count. There was no way they would be able to track her down. In truth, they didn't want to put the energy out to look for their informer. They knew the woman was being vindictive, but what woman wouldn't be if her husband had used the services of a whore. The Treasury agents decided that laundering the counterfeit bills through a whore house was a fairly good plan. No man was going to admit where he got the fake money.
The best part to Scarlett was that Belle knew who had framed her for the crime. No, the best part was that she had used Rhett's money to frame Belle.
It didn't matter to the men investigating the crime if Belle was guilty or not, they had enough evidence to send her away for a year to two years. As far as they were concerned – Case closed.
When Scarlett had heard about Belle's fate, she thought, 'Stupid people were so easy to manipulate.'
Scarlett knew that was why she had failed with Rhett. He had not been a stupid person. Therefore, she had not been able to manipulate him.
Belle's prison sentence was good enough for Scarlett. By the time Belle got out of prison, her business would be in shambles. Scarlett hoped Rhett was still a half owner and took a loss on the collapse of The Painted Lady. The only thing that would be better was if Rhett would learn why his business went into ruin.
Scarlett loved Rhett true enough, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to punish him for being unfaithful to her. With an old whore no less. Causing him to lose money was an appropriate punishment.
When Ashley invited Scarlett to Christmas dinner, the first year of Gerry's life she had turned him down.
Scarlett, Wade, and Ella attending the memorial service at Melly's grave was bad enough. Scarlett had been close to tears the entire time they were at the cemetery. The ceremony had brought back all her shame, sorrow, and guilt. She couldn't deal with that again.
Scarlett, also, couldn't deal with everyone talking about Melanie and probably Charlie too, like they had been saints. They had been good people, but they had their faults like everyone else.
Scarlett had given the excuse that she just wasn't in the mood to celebrate that year. Ashley had accepted her reason and did not push.
Scarlett took Mammy, Pork, Dilcey, Prissy, and the children to Tara for a couple of days. It wasn't great, but it was better than being with the Wilkeses and Hamiltons. She continued going to Tara for Christmas for the next several years. It was the perfect excuse for not going to Hamilton House.
The year before Christmas dinner had been at the mansion. It had been an awkward affair with everyone trying to pretend to be happy, everyone but Rhett. He had drunk his dinner and sat there making snide comments at everyone's expense except the children.
Scarlett never socialized with the Wilkeses or the Hamiltons. They were part of the past. She saw Ashley once a week when she checked the books at his sawmills. If he had cleared expenses, she never said a word, if he didn't, she encouraged him to try to do better. They never had any personal conversations. They were not friends any more. The truth was they never had been friends. They had nothing in common. He had been a man she had foolishly idolized, and she had been a woman whose worship he couldn't live without.
Although Scarlett never visited Hamilton House, she made Wade go visit his relatives once a month for Sunday dinner. When he did, he would leave a monetary donation somewhere in the parlor.
Wade and Beau had drifted apart. Beau was a boy who had lost his mother and was being tutored at home by his Aunt India. Wade was a boy who had long ago lost his father and was attending one of the best schools in Atlanta. The only thing the boys had in common was their grief over Melanie Wilkes. Neither boy wanted to be with the other one because their presence brought up their grief fresh anew. To make it even more awkward between the boys, none of Beau's friends were allowed to play with Wade.
Being shunned was something Wade preferred to avoid. It didn't embarrass him but made him mad. They were shunning him because of his mother. He knew that some of his mother's actions were questionable, but he also knew that she had been feeding everyone from Atlanta to Charleston. She still was.
Christmas was a sad time for Rhett. It made him miss both Bonnie and Scarlett. He missed Wade and Ella. Over the last five years he had gotten used to being part of a family and enjoying family celebrations. He wondered if Scarlett had Christmas dinner with the Hamiltons and the Wilkeses. They had always celebrated together.
The woman Rhett had been calling on invited him and his son to have Christmas dinner with her family. Rhett had turned her down. He didn't want that much involvement with her or her family. He also didn't want her meeting Kenny.
When Kenny turned one, Rhett decided that he would not have Mary wean the boy from the breast. He knew that was when Bonnie had been weaned, but Rhett thought the boy needed to be held by a woman. Bonnie had been held a lot by Mammy. Mary took good care of the boy. Rhett thought she was grateful that he had gotten her out of the South.
Mary had been grateful that Mr. Butler got her out of the South, but she had assumed that when Kenny turned one her job would be over with. That was when most mothers wanted their child weaned. Therefore, she had lined up another job and left the Butler household. When Mary had gotten the note that she was needed for the baby, she packed up her clothes and left the household. She told Hazel, the maid, she was leaving. She had wanted to avoid Mr. Butler speaking to her in a mocking tone.
Mary wanted to get out of Mr. Butler's employment because she had seen him fire people for minor infractions.
Admittedly, all of this could have been avoided if Rhett had informed Mary of his plans, but the man rarely informed anyone of his plans and certainly not a servant.
Thus, began the revolving door of nursemaids. Rhett had not been happy with Mary, and he would have fired her at least a dozen times if he had known where to get another wet nurse, so she was smart to get out of his employment.
Rhett had found out the employment agency did not have wet nurses on their rolls. He had found out that women found wet nurses through other women or through a midwife. Neither one did he have access to. He could have asked the woman he was calling on at the time, but he didn't want her any more involved in his life than she already was.
The wet nurse debacle made him miss Scarlett. She had always handled all their staffing needs. After a year of running a household, he realized that Scarlett did more around the house than he had ever given her credit for. He had found out that cigars didn't magically appear in his humidor. Wine bottles didn't just appear in the house. He had gotten where he cringed when he saw the cook enter his office. How did one decide what to serve for dinner and supper all the time? Especially for meals that were a week away. He had considered getting a housekeeper, but he had decided not to because he just knew she would be pestering him all the time.