Dear readers, good evening!
Ah, I knew it would happen and you can't write two stories at the same time. Everyone is interested in the development of events here and me too, I am immersed in these very characters and my heroes from "Half a step to..." are bored and waiting for me...
Okay, finishing this story, I promised five chapters, I think that's how it's going to turn out.
So, a bit about the characters: Scarlett signed the papers because she was very offended and hurt. She loves him, of course, but she's tired of his strange behaviour and doesn't understand him.
Rhett, of course, is playing games, we have Anna here for a reason, she's going to try to get through to her friend, it won't work out right away, I guess. Oh, Rhett...
Also, I want to thank all of you for your reviews and kind words! Thank you!
Enjoy reading!:)
I own nothing in regard to GWTW.
Chapter 4.
"You did what, Rhett? Say it again!" Anna looked at him with a mixture of bewilderment and surprise.
She was finishing her morning coffee and looking through the newspaper, a habit she had picked up from her late husband, when she heard a persistent knock on the door. Wrapping up her dressing gown, she went to the door, opened it, and Rhett, with barely a 'hello,' burst into her room like a hurricane. She noted that he was wearing a light jacket and clutching some papers in his hands.
"Rhett, good morning to you too," she said mockingly, "you know I'm not in the mood to socialise in the morning, Etienne and I always liked to stay in bed longer..."
"Anna, she signed them! Signed them!" he repeated, pacing around the room. The expression on his face was sombre, it was evident that he was desperate and confused.
"Rhett, did you arrive like this? Where's your warm coat, it is cold outside..." she asked, trying to start a conversation with the usual things.
"To hell with the coat!" he roared angrily and Anna gave him a stern look.
"Sit down and calm down, Rhett Butler, I haven't finished my morning coffee yet to watch these scenes!" she said and sat down defiantly on a chair by the fireplace.
Rhett seemed to recover from her stern tone, then took off his hat, ran his hand through his hair, and sat down in a nearby chair. He stared at the papers and said quietly, "I sent the divorce papers to Scarlet as a joke, to hurt her and make her angry..."
"You did what, Rhett? Say it again!" Anna looked at him with a mixture of bewilderment and surprise. She immediately set the cup down on the table and waited for his answer.
"I sent Scarlett divorce papers... I did it because I was angry, when I found out she decided to hire a lawyer on her own. I thought she wouldn't sign them! I was sure she wouldn't sign!" he spoke softly and looked at his friend with despair.
Anna only shrugged and said, "What a fool you are, Rhett! This is fun now, isn't it? I see you're dying laughing... And Scarlett too, by the looks of it."
"Anna, I need support..." he said seriously, looking into her eyes.
Anna sighed and asked more softly, "Okay, Rhett, please answer, why you thought she wouldn't sign them?"
Rhett sighed heavily, "I thought she would be furious and contact me. For one thing, I sent them with gifts for the children for Christmas..."
"Fool!" he heard Anna's voice.
Rhett seemed to ignore her short phrase and continued, "That's not all... I wrote horrible contract terms, I left them nothing but the house. It seemed terribly rude, I would never do that to them, Anna. I would have provided for the children, I love them, they grew up with me... And the worst part is that she signed it..."
Anna listened to him and frowned more and more.
"You know, Rhett, I was wondering if it could be worse. Now, you've proven that it can!"
Rhett remained silent and stared at the burning fireplace, the logs smouldering, the flames barely visible. Suddenly, he grinned crookedly and tossed the documents into the fire, which flared up more from the paper.
"That's it, Anna," he said, grinning, "there are no papers!"
Anna smiled, then said seriously, "You don't have any, Darling. Scarlett does."
Rhett looked at her seriously, ran his hand through his hair, and said, "But it doesn't have my signature on it, Anna! They're invalid and she's my wife."
This thought seemed to calm him down for a little while, Anna saw him sit relaxed in his chair, leaning back and stretching out his legs in his dark trousers and leather boots.
He had already taken a cigar out of his inside jacket pocket when he heard his friend's voice, "What's next, Rhett? You do realize that things between you two are a terrible mess right now. Your wife no longer considers herself your wife. She's hurt, offended. You need to see her, Rhett. You need to go to her," she finished softly, but Rhett only stared thoughtfully at the cigar without lighting it.
"Why did she sign the bloody papers so quickly? Why? That's not her style... She wouldn't do something like that... Unless... Unless..." his brain was working fast and he forgot about logic.
"What if it's that new admirer-lawyer? He talked her into doing it... What if there's some kind of connection between them... And I'm being a fool and counting on her feelings. She pursued Ashley for years, but she gave up on me so quickly... I need to check before I go to her... Check..." he thought feverishly, and a new game plan was already forming in his head.
Anna didn't notice Rhett's strange pensive state, she thought that the matter was already settled and she would see her dear friend off to Atlanta today or tomorrow, or maybe before she went North to her friends, she could stay with him and his wife for a week and get to know Scarlett better... Anna smiled, went to the mirror, brushed her blonde hair and thought about what she should wear.
"Anna, I need your help as a woman," she heard Rhett's voice and turned to him. He was sitting in the fireplace in the same pose, he was smiling, but his eyes were serious. Anna didn't notice it, nodded and replied with a smile, "Yes, Darling, I'll just get dressed and we'll go with you to the jewellery store to pick out a gift for your wife that you'll need when you apologize to her... I have good taste, you know that," she said cheerfully and quickly, but he interrupted her with the words, "I need you to play the part of my close friend, my lover, my fiancée! Call it what you want, but I need all of Charleston, and especially my mother's friends, to talk about it!" he finished his thought and saw the shocked look on Anna's face.
"Rhett, have you lost your mind?" was all Anna could ask, and she simply sat down on the chair beside the dressing table.
Rhett quickly walked over to her, sat down on the floor in front of her and began to explain, gesticulating desperately.
"Anna, don't look at me like I'm crazy, please! I'll explain everything to you now!"
"Try, Rhett Butler, or I'll question your mental health," she replied, looking into his black eyes.
He grinned at her joke and began to speak, "You see, Anna, I can't go to her right now and give her my heart."
"No, I don't understand. She did the same thing in November, Rhett, and you behaved terribly. But, she was here," Anna explained her position.
"Anna, Scarlett isn't acting logically, she's not like herself! Either she's playing me, but I don't understand her strategy yet, because she's clearly lost with the signing of these documents. Either," he frowned, and continued in a quieter voice, "either she didn't need me at all and she just gave up on me... Maybe she's got a new admirer..."
"Has it ever occurred to you, Rhett, that the woman you love is just tired of your games and lies and has cut you out of her life out of resentment?" she said sternly, stood up from her chair and walked to the window. Her friend was acting like an ass, and she felt sad for him and for the woman who had suffered with him in Atlanta.
"You don't know Scarlett, Anna, she doesn't get tired. That's the way she lives her life, if she does something, she gives herself to it completely..." He fell silent, remembering how she had given herself to him in that hotel room. He hadn't felt that good in a long time and she, he hoped, hadn't either.
"Rhett," Anna called out to him and said quietly, "Your wife has her limits, too... I want no part of her deception, the game, the joke, the play, call it what you want."
"Anna," Rhett said, walked over to the window and took her hands, "please help me out. I need you, for the sake of our friendship. It's nothing fancy, we'll just take a couple of walks along the seafront in front of everyone, I'll take you to the theatre, to tea at my mother's house. You'll even have some fun, Darling! Please..."
Anna removed her hands from his and fixed her hair. She pondered. Rhett was quietly desperate and had made a big bet, like at the poker table, without a single trump card up his sleeve, except for the fictitious divorce papers. People don't win at poker or in relationships in that state. She felt sorry for him, for she knew the game wouldn't end in his favour. She needed to stay and help him fix it when he came to his senses.
She sighed and told him with a strained smile, "Okay, Rhett Butler, I stay for a while, but only to watch how you'll almost lose the woman of your life, and then will try to make it up to you!"
Rhett didn't pay attention to her words and smiled happily, kissed her cheek, whispering, "Thank you! You're a true friend!"
"Speaking of friends," Anna said sternly, "Etienne would never have let me be a part of this and, if he were here, you'd be on the train to Atlanta by now... Ah, how I miss him..."
And Rhett began a new act of his play, "A Bride for Scarlett". He was walking with Anna along the promenade and the main boulevard, taking care to hold her by the waist rather than by the arm. He tried to greet everyone he knew, more often than not taking off his hat from afar and tilting his head slightly in greeting, while smiling slyly. He took Anna to a restaurant, the theatre and while they were being watched, could affectionately pass his hand on her shoulder or gently put a fur cape on her shoulders. Rhett Butler was playing his best role.
Anna allowed him to act like this, but she herself acted casual, only once he had persuaded her to kiss him on the cheek in public.
Rhett was trying and waiting, really waiting for a letter, a telegram, or his furious beloved wife on his doorstep in Charleston. He would have been happy to see her screaming and cursing, throwing crystal objects at him. Anything but that silence. Anything but indifference!
But as time went on, January ended and February began, and there was no word from Scarlett. Rhett grew more silent and sad every day, his eyes were often filled with despair and anxiety, and the wrinkle between his eyebrows never seemed to leave his face. Anna watched the whole situation and waited for him to go to the station to get a ticket to Atlanta.
Scarlett had a difficult start to the year, trying to get used to the idea of being a divorced woman.
That Christmas, after dinner with the Hamilton family, at which she had never dared to admit to Uncle Henry that she had signed the papers, she had cried long into the night in her huge bedroom.
She'd looked at her hands, at the empty spot where the gold ring used to be, and tried desperately to understand why things had turned out the way they had in her life. Why Rhett hadn't even given them a chance. Why he'd been so cruel in sending the papers over Christmas. Why he hadn't protected the children financially at all, after all, he was emotionally attached to them. Yes, he didn't owe them anything, but they loved him and he loved them.
"Or maybe he just doesn't know how to love?" she thought, turning over her wet pillow and trying to sleep.
The stage of tears and sadness was quickly replaced by a stage of anger at the whole situation and at 'that damned Rhett Butler'!
One day in mid-January, when Wade and Ella were playing at Beau's, Scarlett, in a fit of rage, went to Rhett's room and, pulling all the rest of his clothes, mostly white shirts, out of the wardrobe, took a pair of scissors and cut them to pieces! Some of the shirts she tore with her hands in a fit of anger. Everything was burning in her chest and her cheeks were flushed, her green eyes burning with fire. Scarlett didn't see how frighteningly beautiful she was in her green homemade velvet dress, with her curly hair loose.
A large mountain of white rags was growing in the middle of the room, Scarlett had turned his entire wardrobe upside down.
Then, she looked at this mountain, sank tiredly to the floor on the torn white shirts, all the anger seemed to evaporate from her at once. She looked at herself in the mirror on the wardrobe door and in frustration and anger threw the heavy scissors she held in her hands at the glass. The mirror shattered into tiny shards, and she wished it was his heart that shattered, not hers.
"I hate you, Rhett Butler! I hate you!" she whispered in the silence of the room.
After a few days, Scarlett was surprised, but after the scene in his bedroom, she felt a little better and began to plan her life and the lives of her children. Thoughts of selling the house and even moving out when all was revealed flashed through her mind.
The town had no news of the Butler family, and the children had no idea, just waiting for their 'Uncle Rhett' to arrive. Scarlett had not yet had the courage to tell them the truth.
Only Andrew knew about the divorce and he was the one who had been insistent on telling her to be sure to finalise the paperwork before planning her life.
"Scarlett, you need to do this right. Your papers are not in order, you need your ex-husband's signatures. Write to him or his lawyer," Andrew spoke seriously, stopping his gaze on her green eyes.
Scarlett only nodded, biding her time. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realized that as long as he didn't sign, it was as if he was with them, beside her...
In mid-February, when it was mostly rain in Atlanta and the sun rarely peeked out, Scarlett received a letter from her Aunt Eulalie from Charleston.
"Well, this is it," she thought as she took a seat on the sofa in the parlour and picked up a letter opener from the table, "he's told everyone."
But upon opening the envelope and reading the short, admonishing letter, Scarlett crumpled the paper, jumped up from the sofa in a rage and started strolling from side to side.
"Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!" she repeated to herself.
Then taking a breath, she sat up, picked up the piece of paper again and reread, "My dear niece! Scarlett, I strongly advise you to lay aside all your affairs, which are not the business of a noble and caring wife, and pay attention to your husband. He is now in Charleston and looks very contented and happy, my Dear. He seems to be recovering from the dramatic events of your life. But, Scarlett, he's always in the company of strange woman, a young lady. She's a foreigner, they say she's a widow. Darling, I hate to break it to you, but he seems quite taken with her, and there's even gossip in town about their imminent marriage, which is nonsense because he's married to you! Scarlett, you must come to Charleston, my dear friend Eleanor Butler is very much looking forward to your visit! A wife's place is by her husband's side."
Scarlett crumpled the sheet again and threw it into the fireplace with anger.
"Not only has he not told anyone about the divorce, but he's having fun at my expense, with all of Charleston discussing him, his new fiancée, and me, the silly wife! Damn you, Rhett Butler! No way am I going to make a fool of myself!"
She couldn't keep up with her thoughts, thinking about how she could hit him harder from there, from Atlanta. The decision came to her lightning fast, and she rose quickly and went almost running to her study.
Taking a blank sheet of paper she began to write a reply to her aunt, smiling, while her eyes burned with an unkind fire. All resentment and sadness were forgotten. The thirst for revenge, the spirit of competition, desperate jealousy and a strong desire to win mingled into a cocktail of feelings, quickening her handwriting and making her laugh nervously.
Having written the letter, she put it into the envelope and asked the servant to send it right now.
"Ah, how I wish I could see his face when he reads this letter. And he will, no doubt," she thought, giggling nervously. For the first time in weeks she didn't feel like crying, but wanted hot coffee and a piece of chocolate cake.