Good night everyone!
I would like to thank you for your comments, feedback. It's so nice and means a world to me. It inspires me to write more. I think I write all the time now: at home, before I go to bed, in the morning in the park, when I drink my coffee, during the day, if something comes to mind. I don't know if it's right to post updates so often from a writer's point of view:) From a reader's perspective, it's understandable to want to know what's next.
Enjoy reading!:)
P.S.I think I got carried away describing Rhett's feelings, now I have to somehow rehabilitate him in your eyes, dear readers:))
I just see him as a tough guy who will never admit, even at gunpoint, not even to himself, that he did something wrong, hurried up and generally misses his wife and kids. Especially his wife. Of course, it's easier to put it down to the physical attraction he's never stopped feeling for our Scarlett.
Okay, well, it's time to end the "tough guy game", but gradually, it's not that easy. Rhett's never easy, but that's why we love him, isn't it?)
P.P.S. I know it's not good to joke about illnesses, but I just had to let Scarlett joke:)
I own nothing in regard to GWTW.
Chapter 14.
There was silence in the living room. Mrs. Butler went over to Rhett and took the box with necklace from him and, as if by accident, handed him the note. He took it and went deep into reading it too.
While he was reading, Miss Eleanor looked at Peter incomprehensibly, and he replied, "This was brought in today, on errand of Scarlett. She's gone somewhere. I don't understand anything," Peter suddenly began to exclaim, "I don't understand anything! What is this departure, where are the children? For how long? No details at all. And she hasn't written to me since the beginning of May! Neither she nor the children! What's going on?"
Rhett had finished reading the note and was pale, but pulling himself together he began to speak, "Mother ,Peter, maybe something happened to one of her relatives? I don't quite understand about the leaving. Maybe she's gone to Tara for a long time, moved with the children? Maybe to Savannah, her elderly grandfather's there, maybe they're there?"
"Why did she return the jewellery so abruptly, son?" Mrs Butler asked worriedly and said what was on everyone's mind but they were afraid to admit it, "it looks like a person has summed it up and cut all ties..."
"I don't believe it," Peter said bitterly, "We all had very good relationship," here he stopped and looked Rhett straight in the eye.
"Rhett, you didn't hurt her when you were in Atlanta in April, did you? Did you?" he asked seriously.
Rhett looked at him sternly and for the first time felt anger and a prick of jealousy.
"Peter," he said clearly, "don't make such a suggestion. In case you're wondering, yes, I saw Scarlett, in fact I personally stopped by her store to check that she was okay and I was hoping to see the children. But, they were in Tara," he fell silent, then continued in an even more confident voice.
"Actually, Scarlett and I came to an agreement that we wanted to keep out relationship as a friendship for the sake of the children. And for us. She was agree, in fact our whole last meeting was pleasant," he concluded.
"Then I don't understand anything," Peter waved his hands.
"I'm going to Atlanta," Rhett said firmly, "I'll leave early tomorrow morning," he looked at Peter's questioning look and said, "I'll manage alone, Peter, it's about my wife and children."
No one in the parlour corrected Rhett and without waiting for answers he nodded and walked quickly out, slamming the front door. He drove to the train station.
Miss Eleanor took a deep breath, picked up the note from the table, put it in the box and looked affectionately at Peter.
"If there is any news, let me know, Dear. I'll go up to my room and have dinner there."
With these words she went off to her room, and Peter remained in the parlour, going from corner to corner.
Miss Eleanor sat in her room and pondered. She needed to intervene, she needed to keep in touch with Scarlett. These indirect connections through her aunts were not enough. Something had happened to the poor girl, something had broken her so badly that she had packed up the children and gone away without leaving any address or place.
Miss Eleanor felt sadness and bitterness and a little irritation. "Well, why does that stubborn girl always do everything her own way? Why is she in such a hurry? She leaves without giving a reason, she gets a divorce, she signs those papers, returns that jewellery, now she runs away. How stubborn she is, like Rhett..." Mrs Butler ran her hand tiredly over her face.
"We've to do something, there's no use sitting around sighing now. But what, what... If only I had written to her, then, at the end of November. I had noticed that Rhett clearly cared. That all he needed was time." Eleanor's thoughts went round and round for a long time, sitting up long into the evening, remembering her confused and angry eldest son, who had already bought himself a ticket to Atlanta for the morning. "Something has to be done...Someone has to help us..." Mrs Butler continued to think.
Rhett arrived early in the morning in Atlanta, which was still waking up sluggishly after another hot night. The train was slow; he'd been travelling for almost twenty-four hours and was very tired.
It was July heat and the air was sweltering. As he drove through the quiet streets toward Peachtree Street, he suddenly remembered very clearly that July morning when he and Bonnie had returned from Charleston. Then his memories moved on and invariably stopped at the phrase, "Cheer up,maybe you'll have a miscarriage." He closed his eyes in despair. For the rest of his life he would never forgive himself for those ugly words. Those words had cost them a child and almost cost her her life.
He didn't remember them discussing it with her.
As she laid there, delirious, he'd been too drunk and scared to go in to see her.
What the hell was he waiting for...
"When she"ll call for me...". Even in his mind, that phrase sounded absurd.
It was another gaping wound in his soul and he knew he needed to talk to her about it, apologize and try to move on and forgive himself. Just like with Bonnie. He couldn't bring himself to go to the cemetery at the end of May, he was at Dunmore Landing that day, he wasn't drunk. He remembered Scarlett's words that night in November, that he would have to learn to live with this pain.
He remembered her speech about having to live for herself and the children. And who should he live for? The children had grown so distant from him, now they were gone. And there was her note to his mother. Not only she had not given him happiness, but he had not made the woman he loved happy.
He sighed heavily, brushed a strand of hair away from his forehead and looked out the carriage window. They were almost there. He came home.
After paying the coachman, he got out and adjusted his light linen waistcoat, his light linen trousers were already quite wrinkled. "All right," he thought, "we can deal with that later."
He picked up his travelling bag, put on his light-coloured hat and went determinedly towards the place he called "home".
But a great surprise and disappointment awaited him. A sleepy maid answered his knock at the door. He was surprised to see another young girl instead of Prissy.
"Excuse me," he began, "are you the new maid?"
The girl looked at him incomprehensibly for a few seconds, and then, smiling, replied, "Ah, you're looking for the past mistress of the house, aren't you, sir?"
At these words Rhett's eyes grew wide with surprise and he asked hoarsely, "Mrs Ba..., I mean Miss O'Hara, she doesn't live here anymore?"
"No sir, she sold the house a couple months ago, we moved in here at the beginning of May. Is there anything I can help you with?"
Rhett shook his head and turned silent, he was shocked and at a loss for words. It hadn't occurred to him that Scarlett couldn't be in their home. That 'their house' was no longer 'their'. Somehow, in the back of his mind, he always knew and was sure that she would be waiting for him here.
His head was spinning, the time was only 8 am, but he knew who he was heading to next.
He was at Henry Hamilton's office in half an hour; the lawyer wasn't there yet, but one of his assistants was, who let Rhett into the office.
Rhett sat down in the leather chair and began to count the minutes. There was confusion in his soul, he couldn't believe what was happening, it seemed like some nightmare he couldn't get out of.
When he heard the sound of footsteps in the corridor, he stood up. Just then the door opened and Henry Hamilton entered the room. He was surprised and annoyed to see Rhett in his office. After the divorce papers and the gossip that had forced her niece to leave the town Henry was so angry at him.
With a brief nod, he walked to his seat at the desk, sat down, and gestured for Rhett to sit across from him.
"What did you want, Rhett?" the elderly lawyer asked tiredly but firmly.
Rhett, seeing how hostile he was, pulled himself together and asked seriously.
"Henry, what's going on? I was in Peachtree Street just now. Turns out I don't have a home in this town anymore," he grinned bitterly and looked at him expectantly.
"Miss O'Hara had sold HER house and with the children and her cousin have gone on a long 'holiday', is that all, Rhett?" he said looking him in the eye.
"You let your niece go nowhere with a stranger, Henry?" Rhett was getting angrier and angrier
"She's not fifteen years old already, Captain Butler! And may I remind you that it was you who divorced my niece, condemning her and her children to gossip and ridicule!"
"She never cared for reputation, Henry, you know that as well as I do," he told him caustically.
"You yourself, Mr Butler, led her down that path. She was young and inexperienced and frightened. She only listened to someone who she thought was strong, who had plenty of means, money and a desire to protect her, to be there for her, but Rhett, you didn't do any of that. You led her alone, by the hand, to the other side of the river, and the society she was a part of stayed on the other side. She trusted you, but you left her there alone. I don't want to justify what she's done, Rhett. She did a lot of stupid things. And even she'd done fewer, a woman coudn't be forgiven a tiny mistake, you know that.
Rhett stared at Henry, thinking long and hard about what to say. He couldn't find the words. He realized that there was some truth in her uncle's words, that since that evening at the Bazaar he had been systematically instilling in her that reputation was not important, and she must have trusted him to follow him willingly. Perhaps in her eyes he was an authority, a wealthy and confident man... But, yes, he left her there alone when he started thinking about Bonnie's future. "Was Wade and Ella's future any less important?" he asked himself bitterly. After all, he clearly wasn't thinking about her reputation, proposing to her when she'd barely buried old Frank.
It was difficult, painful and bitter all at once, and he wanted to throw it away and forget it.
And the thought again... How many times he had purposely humiliated her by leaving their carriage at the main entrance to Belle's saloon. And the situation with the signboard of her store...
"But she didn't care for me, it was always Ashley," he thought bitterly. But would he have let her care? Wouldn't he laugh in her face with fear and uncertainty?
No, it was unbearable. Thinking about all this was unbearable.
Rhett looked down at the desk in front of him, the sunlight already penetrating the office, and he noticed the fine dust on the lid of the inkwell. He suddenly pictured Scarlett clearly, her small hands, with their thin fingers, taking a pen, dipping it into that inkwell, and then she was signing those damn divorce papers. With a firm hand, her lower lip tucked slightly, as she often did when she was writing something...
Henry's words brought him back to reality:"Anyway, after the situation with Wade, she didn't want to stay in this town, even though Colum had handled everything on a high level, it was too much for her. She was worried about her children's feelings." Henry said sadly, but then added proudly, "but I'm proud of Wade, the way he taught that little fool Raul Picard a lesson. A son of his mother, no doubt," finished Henry with a smile.
"What do you mean, Henry? What was that situation?" asked Rhett surprised.
And he'd told him about all the dirty rumours that had been going around town and had reached even his ears. Told him how Wade had gotten into a fight, the confusion his niece had lived in afterwards, how straight she'd kept her back but hardly ever smiled in public. How she had planned their long 'holiday' as she called it, with quiet determination.
"As a matter of fact, Rhett, she just ran away. It's not a 'holiday', it's an 'escape'. She didn't want her children involved in these gossip and rumours. And to answer your main question, Rhett, which you still haven't asked, but which is why you're here," Rhett looked up at Henry as he continued, "no, I don't know where she is. I haven't the faintest idea. She left the address of a good friend of her cousin, he servants in the church in Savannah. He's their confidant and through him they correspond. Including me. That's it." At this he concluded his long speech and turned away to the window.
Rhett didn't remember how he thanked Henry and walked out of his office. He was lost in his own thoughts. There was no question of where to stay, but he knew he'd never go to Belle's again. She was one of the others who had spread the rumours, she had even written to him in Paris. This unpleasant realization made him feel slightly nauseous.
Taking a deep breath, he went to the hotel. After checking in, tidying himself up, he ordered lunch and decided to consider his next steps.
He sat staring out the window. Anger and despair, that was the cocktail of feelings that raged in his soul. He was angry with her, it seemed, for everything! She'd known in April that she'd leave and she'd kept silent. She had lied to him so easily about friendship and he couldn't read her. She took the children away from him. She didn't tell him anything about what was going on in town, for God's sake!
He knew she didn't want to show him weakness, and what could he do, they were nobody to each other.
He thought he would go to Tara first, Will was there, her brother-in-law who could give him more information and also Mammy, who had always been her confidant.
The next step would be Savannah and that priest who was a friend of her cousin. If he would agree to meet with him, of course. If he'd be there at all.
That still left her grandfather, but he doubted the man had any information. Scarlett hadn't liked him and had cut all ties after the war.
Two weeks later he came home. Mrs Butler was shocked to see her eldest son so lost, embittered with a terribly sad look in his eyes.
He had a quick and private word with Peter, and would not answer Rosemary's many questions. Gathering his things quickly, he left for Dunmore Landing. He felt that he was at an impasse and for the first time he recognized it to himself.
Life and summer in Ireland went on as usual, the days were busy but quiet and flew by.
Colum took Scarlett and the children to meet part of her family, the O'Hara relatives. Scarlett was delighted, these people were very open and easy going, they told many stories and memories, including stories about her father. Those were happy days.
There in the little village, on the green hills of her father's homeland, under a sky as blue as was the colour of her youngest daughter's eyes, in the little church, Colum held a service in memory of her loved ones.
Scarlett was worried as she left that she wouldn't be at the cemetery on the Bonnie's anniversary. She had asked the Hamilton family to bring flowers and was sure it was done. But the feeling of leaving her child alone quietly plagued her soul.
She shared her worries with Colum and he reassured her that her daughter was in a better world. He offered to conduct a service that made Scarlett feel better. She cried quietly for everyone she had lost, but they were pure tears.
She thought back to Rhett and wondered how he had got over that day. Who had helped him to share those sorrowful memories. Oh, she wanted to be there for him, trying to ease his pain, their pain.To comfort him, to be there for him as the mother of his dead child. But he wouldn't allow it, he didn't like to show weakness, and anyway, he might not believe in her, in her emotions.
After staying in the village with relatives for a few days, they returned home.
The races in Dublin were truly a sight to behold, and Scarlett was happy that Colum had talked them into going.Despite the status of the event, it was easy to be here, people were friendly. There was a fair nearby, and the atmosphere was like Christmas, even though Christmas was still four months away. September was just coming into its own.
"Christmas in Ireland...," she thought, trying not to think of the past bitter holiday a year ago.
"At least I tried to make the children have a holiday. And this year was better than the last. It gave us Colum and family," here she smiled fondly, remembering her cousin and all the O'Hara relatives.
Scarlett decided to watch the competition in the bleachers while Wade and Ella and Colum went to get sweets and gifts.
"By God, Colum, you spoil them so much!", she told him reproachfully.
He only laughed back, and then added seriously, "Dear Cousin, you know as well as I do that they deserve it. You know..."
Here Scarlett usually remembered the past hard years, years of despair, nightmares, and agreed with Colum.
In her mind, Scarlett was thinking about how to please the rest of her family in America for Christmas this year, and Ashley and Beau, the Hamilton relatives too. Presents had to be sent to everyone.
"I wish we could come ourselves or invite Beau here. Too little time has passed, I don't want him to find us.Although why would he be looking for us... Maybe next year..."
"May I sit down, Miss...?" a polite male voice asked and Scarlett turned around.
An elderly man stood beside her and smilingly waited for permission to sit down.
"Of course," she replied smiling.
"I'm sorry," he said, taking a seat next to her, "I missed your name, Miss or Mrs."
"Miss O'Hara. My name is Scarlett O'Hara."
He smiled a mysterious smile and continued.
"Nice to meet you Miss O'Hara, and my name is Richard O'Connol. You can just call me Richard, that's what all my friends do."
"Are we friends?" said Scarlett, smiling.
"I know your Uncle O'Hara, we have business with him in Savannah."
Here Scarlett turned pale and asked,
"So are you from America?"
"I live in two countries, Miss. I have business in America, I have a horse related business. Six months I live there, six months here in Dublin."
Scarlett inwardly calmed down and continued with a polite smile.
"It must be hard to live like that, living in two countries? Your spouse must not be happy?"
"I'm a widower, Dear. My spouse was a southerner, from Savannah. We lived in the South with her, we didn't leave during the war, my business was mostly in the South then. We survived the war, but it took a toll on my dear wife's health. She died shortly after the war ended."
"My condolences, that's too bad. Do you have any children?"
"Unfortunately God did not bless us with children, we were each other's closest people."
"Forgive me for that curiosity," Scarlett apologized.
"That's okay, it's just that it's your turn to answer my questions, Miss O'Hara," he smiled cheerfully and winked at her.
"So, Miss O'Hara. Why on earth did I catch such a beautiful lady alone? Are you single?"
"I'm a widow too, Mr. O'Connol."
"My condolences, when did your husband die?"
"Mr. O'Connol, hmmm..." Scarlett took a short pause and continued "you see, I am a thrice widow."
At this Mr. O'Connol looked up at her in surprise and she continued.
"My first husband was killed at the very beginning of the war, I was 17. I have a son, he is now 12 years old. My second husband was killed in a firefight after the war. I'm left with a daughter, she's almost 8 now." Here Scarlett paused and mentally considered what to say about Rhett. That she was a widow and her third husband had died, she'd learned to say. But the reason... A thought occurred to her that almost made her giggle, but she restrained herself. Mr. O'Connol looked at her expectantly, but there was a twinkle in his eye, too.
"Well, my third husband died three years ago of a disease...Dysentery," she said quietly.
Mr. O'Connol hummed and she thought he hid a smile. Scarlett got angry and said sternly:"I'm sorry, is something wrong?"
Richard looked at her and said with a serious expression, but his eyes were smiling:"No, Ms. O'Hara, I'm sorry. My condolences. Three times," he fell silent and then added, lowering his voice: "It's just that I thought I wouldn't want to be your husband number four."
He looked at Scarlett and she at him and they laughed quietly, trying not to draw attention to themselves.
After a moment Richard said: "That's it Scarlett, let's be serious. This is a status event."
At those words they giggled again.
Scarlett liked this older man, he reminded her of her father.
"Mr O'Connol, since you know my uncle from Savannah, you must have heard of my cousin Colum O'Hara?" she asked her new acquaintance politely.
He seemed to think for a few seconds, remembering something, and then he said, "No, unfortunately, Dear Scarlett, I don't remember him, even if we were introduced, I might have forgotten," he smiled and added, "Look at me, Miss, I'm an old man," he said and chuckled.
Scarlett smiled, shook her head and started laughing quietly too.
"Mr O'Connol, you're a lot of fun, would you like to meet my children? They're around here, stepped away to the fair with Colum. Honestly, you remind me so much of my father," she continued to say and the older gentleman smiled.
"You know what Miss O'Hara, I have to leave for America tomorrow, to finish some business there, but I think I'll see you at Christmas, I'll even come and visit you if you invite me," he gave her a friendly wink.
"Of course, Mr O'Connol, it would be my pleasure! You'll find me easily, our house is near the college, on Grafton street."
"See you soon then, Miss O'Hara! You are charming, I look forward to meeting your children!" with these words he politely shook her hand and departed with a brisk gait.