Author's Note: I have a wonderful beta, but I'm too impatient to wait to post, because I want to post chapter five on Christmas, and keep posting every few days until it's done. I'm not good at smut, emotions and children are what I feel I write best :) I hope you enjoy this chapter! Thank you all for all of the reviews and for reading. I love sharing this with you! Merry Christmas! Happy holidays! Seasons greetings!
Chapter 4 - In the Bleak MidWinter
The next several days passed quietly. Aside from church, which Scarlett wasn't terribly comfortable with, there wasn't much to be done. They were still a family in mourning. Rhett had more freedom, as did the children. But as a grieving mother, Scarlett was not allowed to do much of anything or go anywhere, yet the rules had been far more strict when she'd been in mourning for her previous husbands. It seemed absolutely wrong that the mourning period for a child of Bonnie's age was less than if she had been Wade's age. Yes, many babies didn't make it to the year mark, but Bonnie had been a thriving person full of life and vitality. Scarlette's heart grieved far more for Bonnie than Charles, who she had hardly even known or for fussy Frank. There were musicales and concerts going on in the city, but the Butlers would be looked down upon for attending them while still mourning Bonnie. It simply was not done, and for all of the times she had thrown aside societal expectations with Rhett's encouragement, she could not do this. This grief she felt deep in her soul. The black clothing was only an extension of the grief she felt in her heart.
Thankfully, the children loved watching the ships in the harbor, for which the house was conveniently located. They could watch out their bedroom windows or from the porch or yard.
Scarlett's aunts tried to insist that she attend mass with them at St. Mary's during their brief time at the Butler home, since the services that they had attended prior to the war had been at St. John the Baptist which had been destroyed by fire in 1861, though the shell of the building and the spire still stood. Scarlett had vague memories of the building when she had visited with her mother as a child. And she struggled with the decision of where she should attend, but finally decided to go with Rhett and his mother at St. Stephens.
Though Scarlett had been raised Catholic, and some of those lessons would be forever ingrained in her thoughts, she was not particularly tied to her faith. She knew the Hail Mary and the Our Father, having been forced to say them many times as a child in penance. And having grown up in the country, she had generally only said her prayers with her parents and not regularly attended mass. There had been no parish in Clayton County, and to her knowledge there still wasn't. They only attended mass when they were in Atlanta or visiting Charleston to see her aunts or Savannah to see Grandfather Robillard. She had been to midnight mass at several points during the years, and she mostly recalled how long those services were. She hoped that an Episcpol service would be shorter, not only for her sake, but she struggled to imagine Ella sitting through a long service.
When Sunday morning dawned, Scarlett rose and got the children ready for the service, hoping that her meager knowledge of the services would be sufficient for them to understand what was going on. Surely they were not that altogether too different from what she had attended. They rarely attended mass in Atlanta, and Rhett had only taken them to church a few times with him. She dressed in black from her head to her toes, choosing to wear her veil for the service, while Wade and Rhett wore simple mourning armbands, and Ella wore a simple dove gray dress trimmed with black.
They walked to the church, which was several blocks from the battery, for Rhett had explained that only white trash had money for a carriage. And he didn't want his mother to face backlash for their use of a conveyance. It was quite a distance farther away than St. Mary's, which did make Scarlett question her decision. The building was underwhelming from the outside. It certainly didn't look like a proper cathedral, as she had expected. In fact, it blended so completely with the surrounding buildings on the narrow street that she might have missed it, if Rhett hadn't been leading them. It was a squarish building with three arches on the front, the center arch vaulted above the door. The roof was flat, and there was no spire or steeple. It was a simple building far removed from Scarlett's idea of what a church should look like. In some ways it resembled the old train station in Atlanta, where she had tried to find Dr. Meade when Melanie was giving birth to Beau.
When she stepped inside, she was soothed by the simplicity of the architecture. This building was about being closer to God, not about having the grandest building to flaunt wealth. The warm December light poured through the windows. It wasn't terribly large, and it was clear that each family had their usual pew where Rhett heard without any hesitation, and she followed him to theirs, and he let her in first, followed by Ella. The clean lines and columns felt less austere than the Cathedrals where she had attended as a child. It birthed a little hope in her chest, and she hoped that wherever Bonnie was that it was even more beautiful than this. But mostly she prayed that Bonnie was at peace.
She decided that attending with Rhett had been the right move. Rhett sat between Wade and Ella, while his mother sat at one end of the pew, with Scarlett opposite from her, as Ella snuggled into her side. Thankfully, unlike mass, the service was in English, and Scarlett didn't have to try and remember her faulty latin to understand. That alone was enough reason to choose to attend with Rhett rather than attend Mass, if he wanted the children to be in church. The music was beautiful, swelling around them with the other parishioners, the pipe organ combined with stringed instruments. A Christmas carol that she didn't recognize was sang.
"What Child is this who, laid to rest,
On Mary's lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet,
While shepherds watch are keeping?
This, this is Christ the King,
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing;
Haste, haste to bring Him laud,
The Babe, the Son of Mary."
The words of the songs gave her pause. She remembered times holding her children while they slept. The steadying weight of them in her arms or cradled against her chest. They were the sweetest when they were sleeping. Unbidden, memories of Bonnie first as an infant, perfect and beautiful, sweet, warm breath puffing out of rosebud lips, but then overridden by images of Bonnie silent and still, though still looking as if she were merely sleeping. Scarlett bit her lip, and gave up a silent thanks that she had worn her veil today–for it hid her watering eyes. Bonnie had been perfect and unmoving as one of her precious baby dolls that were now forever cast aside.
There had been moments, sweet and precious, when she had held her babies, and marveled at their tiny hands and feet. The moments had been brief and fleeting. Becoming a mother, she has first been too young and immature for the role, and then when Ella has been born, she has been so gripped by fear from the war that she hasn't been able to stay still. And then both of those times in her life, she had been disconnected emotionally from the fathers of the children. But Bonnie has been different. She still hasn't wanted what a pregnancy did to her body, but she has been financially more secure and farther removed from the terrors of the war. And Bonnie has been so pretty, such a good baby. And then for that brief period of time when she had known about the other baby, she had looked forward to those precious moments of holding him, rocking with him cracked to her chest. Just absorbing the baby's sweetness and peace. The peace was missing.
Everything was making her miss them. And she hated dwelling on her losses. The songs were all carols, and she struggled with any that mentioned a baby, which at Christmas was a common theme. She struggled to keep her composure. She kept thinking of her missing children, and thought of the children from the train, especially the boy, for she had no other child with which to compare him. As she tried to divert her thoughts she became aware of all of the children around her that were close to the ages of Bonnie and the baby. It seemed everywhere she looked, there was a little boy of about two or little girls with dark curls of four or five. It was difficult for her mind to focus on anything else. She wondered how everyone else around her seemed to be going on as if nothing had changed, and yet in this year, her life had irrevocably been changed.
It was a relief when the service ended, and they were dismissed. Service was shorter than if she had attended with her aunts, and for that she was thankful. No one spoke to her, and she wasn't bothered by the lack of interaction. Her mourning clothes served as a barrier of protection from meaningless chatter. She wondered if people knew about Bonnie, surely they did as Rhett's family was tied to this congregation.
Evelyn led them out of the pew, and then Rhett waited for her and Ella to step out into the aisle. He walked just a half step behind her, his hand hovering over the small of her back. His presence in the moment strengthened her. She hated being in Charleston, for she hated the increased strictness of their rules. She hated the memories of every other time she had visited. She hated the lectures from her aunts, of which she was sure one was eminent. Somehow, something she had done was wrong. It always was. But she was willing to face them to spend the time with Rhett for this Christmas. And for once being in Charleston was better than facing Christmas in Atlanta with all of the ghosts of years past.
The walk felt much longer returning to the house than it had been going. The streets were narrow, and the blocks were filled with houses that seemed to tower over them. Every so often, there were still scars from the war on the city. Scarlett's feet were quite sore from all of the walking by the time that they arrived back at Mother Butler's. Dinner was ready for them and waiting when they arrived back home. It was a quiet affair, and Scarlett again picked at her food. At this Rhett seemed to notice, and though the change was not a large one, she noticed that his words were less accusatory. Some of the bitterness had leached from them in the moments of comfort on that first full day in Charleston. After the meal, everyone retreated to their own rooms, leaving Rhett and Scarlett in the bedroom together.
"Why weren't you eating?" he questioned as soon as the door shut.
"I just don't feel like eating. I'm just not terribly hungry." she reasoned, as she began undressing for her Sunday afternoon nap.
"When are you not hungry?" he quizzed.
"Great balls of fire, Rhett! What kind of question is that? It happens at times. Maybe I just needed time to stop being so afraid that each meal would be my last. You said that you were hungry in the war, didn't it make you want to hoard food so that you wouldn't have to be hungry again? I watched Wade wither before my eyes, so that I started giving him my portions. And besides there are other things that I'm more afraid of.' She added softly.
"What are you afraid of? You've never let anything stop you, not laws, not propriety, and you've nothing to fear now," he retorted.
"O fiddle Dee Dee. That shows you didn't know me as well as you thought you did, if you thought I was afraid of nothing. I"ve always just put on a brave face and soldiered through because I had to keep going.
"I find that difficult to believe," he countered, watching her carefully, not too different from the old cat at the mouse hole look. But he was deeply studying her, trying to learn something new about this woman he'd known and loved for over a decade.
"I'm afraid of losing those I love. That is what I've always been afraid of, at least since the war. And I've been living in this nightmare where those losses have become a reality. I lost the boys I grew up with- Brent and Stuart and Boyd and Tom and Cade and Alex and so many other county boys, so many of them childhood playmates, and then my mother and then my father. And then I lost the baby, and I know that I shouldn't have been attached, not that early, but I was. And then we lost Bonnie and Melanie. I won't even try to include my previous two husbands in that count, though that affected me too. I didn't want to be a bad wife to them. I've lost too many people in the last decade. So I'm petrified that something is going to happen and take one of the children from me. I'm doing everything I can to keep them safe. I guess eventually I'll run out of people I love to fear losing, but until that happens, each loss makes me more afraid," she admitted, fire and grief intermingling and blazing in her eyes.
"Change your clothes," he commanded out of the blue.
She stared at him in confusion. "What? Why?" She looked down at her mourning dress. "All of my clothes are basically the same. I didn't pack anything else. They are all mourning dresses, black, with black trim, similarly styled. What am I even supposed to change into, and if they are all the same, why would it matter?"
"Last night you gave me some absolution, and I think I need to give you something in return. I'm taking you out on the boat. You've seen how freeing and refreshing it is looking at the ocean, and I think you need freedom. You can't be free in public. You can't be free in front of the children, and you are so determined to be perfect for my mother that you can't be free with her or anywhere else. My mother doesn't need you to be perfect. And she doesn't blame you for my failings. She sees right through my excuses, as she always has. But I don't think you've been allowed to be free for most of your life, not since you were a little girl at Tara. Maybe that freedom is part of why you love it so much there. You're held down by rules, and society's opinions, and I tried to teach you to throw all of that off. That was what I meant when you could live without a reputation, but that turned out horribly. So I'm going to help you find freedom some way that will be appropriate," he explained. "And they still have the idea that a man should control his wife, so despite the fact that we are in mourning, I will be the one ordering you to go sailing with me. You're so tense that I'm afraid that at any moment you will snap. I'll be right back."
He left the bedroom for a short while and returned with some garments hanging over his arm. "I got some simpler clothes from the maid, and some pants to go under them from Wade."
She protested for a moment at the propriety of the clothes, but eventually gave in to his request. What did she have to lose? "I'll go with you, but how am I to get to the docks dressed in those?"
"Conveniently, the sea wall is at the end of this property, just behind the house. I've got a small boat docked out there, waiting for us. I was already planning on going out today, it is one of the only ways I've found that helps me. Mother will watch Wade and Ella, she assured me that she doesn't mind. She loves spending time with them."
Scarlett took down her hair and then braided it into a single heavy plait that hung down to her waist. She dressed in the clothes that Rhett had handed her, adding boy's trousers under the simple dark skirt he'd borrowed from the maid. He'd also brought her different shoes. "I noticed that you were starting to limp a little on the way back from St. Stephens. Your shoes aren't practical for wearing here. We rely too much on foot travel. I thought you needed something more appropriate for today's outing."
And before she knew it, he was helping her on to the deck of his boat. She watched him, who also had changed into casual clothes more conducive for sailing. The material was thin and fine, clearly expensively made, and she could see his muscles rippling under the fabric. He moved confidently about the boat, though she couldn't name what he was doing. He seemed more relaxed than she had seen him in months, possibly years, and the years etched in the lines in his face seemed to fall away. There was freedom in his movements and the lines of his body as prepared the boat and eventually cast off.
The water shimmered around them, the light dancing and refracting off of it. The air was crisp and salty. The breeze tugged at Scarlett's braid, as it filled the sail and worked around them. As the sail billowed, pushing the boat forward, she felt the surging of the boat as it rose and fell with the waves. The water lapped gently at the boat, and Rhett confidently maneuvered the boat until it seemed that there was nothing but water surrounding them, just an endless horizon of blue. For a moment Scarlett realized that it would be possible for Rhett to get rid of her out here. But she dismissed it easily, she trusted Rhett, at least that far.
He secured the sail so that the boat was no longer moving and dropped the anchor. He finally came to Scarlett and took her hands, pulled her to her feet. "All right. There is no one to hear us. No one to perform for. We are for the moment completely free. You can tell whoever you want to go to hell now."
She stared at him in disbelief, "We're not free. At least I'm not free. And most of the time, you're the one I most want to tell to go to hell," she admitted.
"All right then, tell me to go to hell. You've been tiptoeing around me for years, but especially the last six months. And I've realized that to some degree, you are entitled to say what you need to say. You're drowning in black again, and instead of setting you free from it, I was the one to shroud you in it. I told you once I hated the practice of forcing windows to wear all black, and though I do understand it better now, I still don't think it helps for society to force more darkness on those grieving, when the grief is so completely ingrained and flowing from us. I didn't need morning clothes to show that I'm in mourning. And anyone around me can see and feel it." His eyes weren't mocking. He was serious, but he was still more relaxed with the wind freely blowing through his hair. "So go on. If it were a little warmer, I'd threaten to throw you overboard."
She lifted her chin, trying to find a place to start, unsure of what to say. Finally she gave in, "You weren't fair," she offered hesitantly.
"When was I not fair," he responded easily, pulling a reaction from her.
She looked him dead in the eye, "the night Melanie died. You blamed me for everything, and accepted blame for nothing. I shouldn't have to bear the collapse of our marriage on my shoulders."
"I accept that. I expected and deserved worse, but you're still holding back," he goaded. "You've got to let the universe have it. Tell me to go to hell. Tell everyone to go to hell."
"Go to Hell, Rhett Butler," she ground out, pulling her hands free from his.
"Say it like you mean it. There's got to be more in there than that. You've been holding yourself together with bailing wire and twine and sheer willpower for most of the time that I've known you." He cupped her face, "you're going to shatter if you don't let go of some of the load that you've been carrying."
"I can't let go, as you request, or I'll never be able to pick up all of the pieces" she huffed. "You're telling me to say what I want to say to you, but I can't say it all, or you'll just send me back to Atlanta on the next train and ruin Christmas for Wade and Ella. I can't do what I want or say what I want because I am trying to win my place back in society without the aid of Melanie Wilkes. I have no one to champion my cause. And they were hesitant despite her vehement defense of me. There are times when I want to be around people that know me and knew my family, I want to feel like I belong somewhere, and share memories of what we've gone through. Right now, I belong nowhere. Anything I do here, will surely reach Atlanta. And they all hate me. I've never quite fit in; I never did. And the only people that I could depend on regardless of what was going on in my life was you and Melanie and Mammy. And Melanie is dead, and you've left, and Mammy went back to Tara, and I think she plans to stay at Tara until she dies. So I have no one. I can't talk to anyone. My only companions are Wade and Ella, and Wade hardly talks to me or to anyone, and Ella is only seven. I can't confide in her. She wouldn't understand, even if it was appropriate, which it isn't. So what am I supposed to do, Rhett. What am I supposed to do?" Her voice had risen as she began talking until she was almost screaming and pleading with him. She stared at him in horror at how much she had said, and worse was the realization that there was so much more to say.
"See," he grinned. "And that wasn't even the tip of the iceberg."
"How can you be so blase? I told you that I have no one, and your response is to be happy about it? My only friend other than you died, and you left me— Not that you've been my friend since I was married to Frank. I once looked forward to riding to the mills with you. Now I'm terrified that I'm going to say the wrong thing, and you won't even lash out at me. Now it is impersonal kindness, no more than you would give a complete stranger, not the mother of your children, even if they are gone. I don't understand what happened. I've never been good at making friends, never been good at connecting with other women, and when I met you, it was like a breath of fresh air. I could finally say what I was thinking, I could be myself. But once we were married, you just turned and used it against me. We didn't even have the whole honeymoon before you started treating me like that." Her shoulders sagged in defeat. "And I'm afraid to even say our daughter's name, because I know that you miss her so much. But I miss her too. I know she loved you best. No one can begin to question that. But I don't even know if she loved me. And I just want her back." Scarlett sat down again and fiddled with the fabric of the skirt, twisting it between her fingers.
He sat down beside her, though he was perched on the edge of the seat. "I'm not happy that you are alone. I don't think happiness exists for me anymore. I feel nothing. I'm an empty shell, a burned out vessel without a rudder. I don't know how I haven't sunken to the depths of the ocean floor already. When Bonnie died, she took everything. I'm numb. Nothing feels real, but I finally saw that you are drowning as much as I am. And you helped me in my grief, a little. And I'm relieved that you can let it out. As much as it hurts, I want to hear Bonnie's name. I want to remember her. It hurts more to forget. It agonizes me to pretend as though she didn't exist. And seeing you with those children from the train, it was as though these last months of grief were a horrible nightmare. For a moment there, I was questioning my own sanity. You were holding our son, and our daughter was leaning against you. I wished that this was a nightmare. I wish that I could wake up and find that the scene in the train station had been real. That Bonnie and the baby were really in your arms, waiting for me to retrieve you from the station."
She gasped softly, a shuddering breath as she recalled the feelings that the boy had stirred. "It felt so right to be holding him. I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. At first I didn't understand why I was so drawn to them, until I saw their faces. And yet I still kept my distance. I was trying so hard not to watch them, but the little boy, Johnny, he came up to me and patted my leg and told me to pick him up. And I couldn't ignore him; I could deny him nothing. And then I fell asleep with him snuggled against me, while Ella and Rebecca played. When their mother took him, I went into the lavatory and broke down," she admitted, as tears began pooling in her eyes. "But I didn't want you to see them. As much as it hurt me, I didn't want you to share in it. You were already broken enough."
"Scarlett," Rhett offered softly, "We're both broken at the losses we've endured. But Bonnie loved you so much, and she knew you loved her. Those months we spent in Charleston she asked for you constantly. She wanted her mother, and I was wrong. And my mother reminded me on a daily basis that I needed to go home." He leaned his elbows on his knees and ruefully drug his hands through his hair staring off into the distance, "every time I looked at you after Bonnie died, I could see her. She always made me think of you before the war and poverty had touched you. I could see how much I was hurting you, but I was frozen in the loss and pain. But mostly I felt so guilty for killing her, and I knew that if I didn't leave, it wouldn't be long before you had to plan my funeral as well."
She hesitantly reached out a hand and gently rubbed it up and down his arm. "I am sorry, Rhett. I'm sorry that I didn't understand…."
He turned to her quickly and pulled her into his arms, quick like lightning on a hot summer night, crackling across the sky with uncontainable energy. " How could you understand? I didn't let you understand. I didn't want you to understand, but I wanted to punish you for not understanding." He dropped a soft kiss on her forehead, and they sat in the bright sunshine as he held her, letting a little of the bleakness fade from the midwinter day, letting a little of the darkness or if their hearts and opening up to healing and forgiveness.