Chapter 18. February 21, 4pm, 9 East Battery, Rhett and the envelope
The same day, February 21st, 1876, 4 pm, Charleston, 9 East Battery, at the Butler home
The afternoon had been studious.
The folders displayed on his desk, were sorted in two piles. The thinner one concerned the selected proposals. The other one, much more important, corresponded to the numerous possible projects. The schedule was moving very slowly, he had to admit.
Satisfied that he had solved at least two cases this afternoon, Rhett poured himself a drink, lit a cigar, and settled back in his chair.
A flash of light drew his attention to a small box lying at the foot of the Karomama priestess. The ray of sunlight intermittently rubbed the walls of the small golden bronze box, transforming it into a flow of gold. Then the object disappeared, absorbed by the shadow, to glitter again the next moment.
In the late afternoon languor, Rhett the sailor started imagining himself at sea, guided by the signal of a lighthouse in the distance for announcing that the haven was close.
Weirdly, he obeyed this coded message and took hold of the box.
A tiny key opened the lid. The interior was fitted with purple velvet.
There rested the bracelet and the ring, treasures coming from Ancient Egypt. (*1)
Without thinking of it, Rhett was following the curves of the cloisonne lions adorning the bracelet. Then he seized the ring.
When the merchant Froehner presented him with the beetle ring, he explained the strong symbolism of this insect in Antiquity, linked to the god Khepri. It guaranteed fertility, luck, and protection at all times of life. The beneficial belief in its powers was so deeply rooted in Egyptian civilization that it was traditional to place a beetle on the body of a mummy to guarantee eternity.
Rhett thought that offering Scarlett the symbols of protection and immortality was fitting for what he wanted to show her. Safety, he would guarantee her again without hesitation. Fertility - he grimaced as he thought about it - he was not sure he would have the courage to broach the subject - As for immortality, he had accepted that his love for her was ridiculously and fatally eternal.
Since his return to Charleston, how many times had Rhett imagined encircling Scarlett's slender wrist with the wide gold band? Then he would drown in her green eyes and take her left hand to slip the antique jasper ring on her annular.
The same finger where she had proudly worn her impressive engagement ring, and her wedding band before he denied it. On which, perhaps one day, if she accepted his proposal, she would display the symbol of their new union.
How he was regretting this divorce of which he had wrung the consent from her! Even to the point of threatening to deprive her of her children in case of refusal! His own behavior disgusted him.
Of course, if he had not made this radical decision, they would have continued to live together in polite indifference on Peachtree Street, which he had found unbearable at that time. He was admitting without shame that he would be content today if he could breathe the same air as her, and feel her presence beside him, for he had finally accepted the permanence of his attachment to his wife.
He made up his mind! He would go to Atlanta.
He was ready to brave the fear of rejection; together with the apprehension of Ashley already settled inside her house.
Suddenly, the pessimism that was plaguing him a few hours ago gave way to a hope he would hold onto. He would apologize to Scarlett, and ask her forgiveness for abandoning her and the children. He would beg her to give him a second chance, even if his pride would suffer.
Damn it! He was the King of Poker. He was going to bet it all on the belief that he could actually win her love. If Ashley got in the way, he would up the ante to make her realize this defeated widow was no match for her. To finally win the game.
Then, he would offer to the one he loved for fifteen years the bracelet with the fawns, and the more than one thousand five hundred years old ring.
Without noticing it, he was stroking the wings of the lucky charm beetle. I am really getting superstitious! he laughed.
ooooOOoooo
Downstairs, someone had just knocked on the front door. He heard noises and then the steps of the butler coming up the stairs to his office.
"Who is it Michael?"
"Mr. Rhett, someone dropped off an envelope for you.»
Rhett recognized the yellowed stationery, characteristic of his notary. What did Stevens want with him? He had spoken with him last week about the transfer of some shares in a company.
He opened it and unfolded the document. The letterhead was indeed that of Stevens Lawyers Ltd.
A bad premonition started invading his mind. He shook his head to get rid of this unpleasant feeling and began to read.
oooo
"Charleston, February 20, 1876
Dear Sir, I hereby have the honor to inform you that I have received, this 19th day of February, a letter from Mr. Henry Hamilton, solicitor for Mrs. Scarlett O'Hara, former wife of Butler. »
Rhett's heart was racing. For a moment, he stared into space, unable to read the rest of the letter.
What did this mean? The last correspondence concerning her had been from Stevens Lawyers to Scarlett's uncle, formalizing the divorce. Since then, he had only read "Scarlett O'Hara" on the summary of bank debits affecting the sums he allocated to her monthly.
A knot was forming in his throat. He resumed his reading.
"In his letter, Mr. Hamilton notifies us of his client's decision to formally waive the financial obligations to which you were committed to her, in accordance with the divorce agreement signed by both parties on November 15, 1873, and endorsed by the Certificate of Divorce of the Court of Justice of South Carolina (*2) dated December 10, 1873, said contract binding you for a period of five years from the date of the divorce up to and including December 9, 1878.
On the other hand, he has enclosed the bank certificate of a transfer order made by Mrs. O'Hara credited to your private account. This transaction corresponds to the total amount of the alimony paid to the former wife Butler since December 1873, up to and including February 1876.
This reimbursement does not include gratuities to your two stepchildren, Wade Hampton Hamilton and Ella Lorena Kennedy, from the date of the divorce until this February.
I await your instructions to transfer eventually the funds received to your business account.
We are pleased to see that the O'Hara former Butler resignation will allow you, if you so choose, to spend these large sums on rewarding speculative transactions.
In conclusion, this new information effectively ends my mandate as liquidator of the Butler / O'Hara divorce. We will be able to close the "Scarlett O'Hara" file definitively.
Please receive, Dear Sir, the expression of my devoted feelings.
Robert Stevens. Stevens Lawyers Ltd, Charleston.»
ooo
Rhett's knees could no longer support him, so much so that his body began to tremble. He collapsed in his chair and grabbed the bottle of whiskey he had started today, to pour himself a glass to the brim.
"Closing the Scarlett O'Hara file"... But I do not want to! »
His fingers were resting on the envelope. There was something else inside.
He took out a small sealed envelope. His heart was racing even widely if possible. He recognized the pale purple stationery Scarlett used for her private correspondence.
On the back was written: "To the attention of Mr. Rhett Butler".
He took the letter opener to gently peel back the flap, delaying the moment when he would read the text.
Instinctively, he brought the sheet of paper to his nostrils to try to smell the scent of the sender. His stomach contracted. She had indeed put a drop of gardenia oil at the bottom of the page, as he had seen her do when she wrote to her little sister Carreen as a sign of affection. Her letters to Suellen or her aunts did not receive the same treatment.
In the midst of the turmoil, he clung to a wild hope. This attention had to mean something, a signal she was sending him!
He unfolded the letter and recognized her calligraphy, combining elegant loops and the end of sentences ending abruptly with a short straight line, a mark of her determination.
He sucked hard and began to read.
ooo
"Atlanta, February 17, 1876
Rhett, My notary will notify you of my decision to no longer accept the alimony you have been paying me since our divorce.
I have refund on your account the amount of the twenty-seven monthly payments since December 1873.
On the other hand, as far as Wade and Ella are concerned, the funds you allocated for their education were placed in their savings accounts.
I sincerely thank you for having, for a time, contributed to the support of children who were not yours, but I no longer wish you to do so to our family in any way.
I hereby release you from your last commitments that required you to remain in contact with the O'Hara Hamilton Kennedy family.
I hope you have found the charm and grace in Charleston that you were missing while you were married with me.
Scarlett.»
Rhett's eyesight became blurred. His misty eyes focused once again on the signature at the bottom of the page.
Scarlett.
With a trembling finger, he followed the elegant curve of the capital letter "S". It started high as their outstretched arms joined before dancing their first waltz at the Confederate Charity Gala. Then it would swing out and go the other way. Another dance step would follow with the letter "c" connected to the "a", like his hand around Scarlett's waist. Then the "r" performed an intricate pattern, until the loop of the "l" pretended to lift the slight young widow into the air. Then he stabilized her with a tiny "e". Rhett's finger reached the two diagonals of the "t", which leaped into the air like an arabesque, the common crossbar welding them together, marking the climax of their first dance. Until their bodies froze precisely on the horizontal tail of the last " t ", followed by the final point. This punctuation was marking brutally the end of the dance, the end of their story.
Rhett made an effort to snap out of his daze.
His tongue was dry. He lifted the whiskey bottle. His hand was shaking so much now that his finger slipped when he tried to pour the alcohol into the glass. The liquid spread over the purple paper, gradually invading the surface, licking the ink, and diluting it until it was completely absorbed.
Scarlett O'Hara's elegant handwriting had magically vanished. No more calligraphy dance, no more gardenia perfume. Nothing. Only an immense emptiness and total incomprehension.
"Why are you doing this, Scarlett? Taking away the only pleasure I had left in caring for Wade and Ella, whom I have always considered my children, and prevented me from continuing to support you!»
He laughed bitterly and continued to speak aloud to the absent person who was tearing at his heart.
"Money has always motivated your life. It was for my fortune that you agreed to marry me. You are throwing it in my face today. I do not understand. Why now? Have you met another rich man who can contribute to your lifestyle? Another money marriage? Or is it to get back at me?"
He nodded. "Yes! It is on purpose to hurt me. You are right. I have been despicable to you. I sided with the Old Guard to secure my redemption, against yours. I cheated on you in full view of all of Atlanta. I even forced you physically..." He paused, overwhelmed by this realization.
"So you decided to wipe the slate clean and cut the last link between us. How you must hate me to reject my money, preferring to eradicate what used to be 'us', and pretend I was never part of your life! And our Bonnie, she too is erased from your memories, then?"
When saying so, Rhett was realizing he was being unfair. The death of their little girl had devastated her mother.
But he was in so much pain! And to think that less than an hour ago he thought he had enough power to win back her love, even dreaming of asking for her hand a second time! How ironic!
The world was just collapsing around him. "Is it really over then? There is nothing left for me to hold on to. What's the point of fighting to achieve my famous grand project? It only made sense if you would be proud of my action. »
He emptied the last drops from the bottle. He was waiting for the saving step where his drunkenness would turn into the numbness of the senses, where his ability to reason would be anesthetized, and where he would not feel anything anymore.
He felt an overflow of emotions coming over him, a despair that made his stomach twist.
"She wrote me off from her life and Wade's and Ella's. I have nothing left. What's the point of continuing to live if I have no hope? »
A furtive impulse seized him. He opened the first drawer on the right, rummaged around at the bottom, and found the cloth sheath. He took out the weapon and looked at it. It was regularly serviced. The silver rifle butt was engraved. Its patina was soft to the touch. It had been used – seeral times.
It would be so simple. It would only take one blow. He had the courage. What did he have to lose? Would she mourn him, even a little? He doubted it.
And then he pulled himself together. There was his mother, whom he had already made suffer so much, and his sister. They both loved him. He could not leave them alone. Of course, they would inherit his money, but they would be plunged into sadness. No! He could not do that to them. He had to go on living. To survive.
He felt like going to the Haven. Not for a festive game of poker, but to chat with Pierre de Boulogne. His only real friend in Charleston who always had a listening ear for him. The Frenchman had understood in a few words the underlying pain behind his divorce.
Then he would seek oblivion, as usual. However even Rosetta could not relieve him anymore for an hour of Scarlett's lack. The magic of substitution no longer worked.
He put the gun back in its holster and slid it into its place at the back of the drawer. Until the next time he needed it…
Rhett looked at the clock. It was too early to go to the Gentlemen's Club. He lit a cigar and watched the smoke curl.
How could he go on, when he knew that, until his last breath, the lack of the two people he cherished most in the world would not subside?
What frightened him was the certainty that over time the sensation of being able to imagine them at his side would inexorably fade.
How much longer was he going to imagine feeling the warmth of Bonnie's chubby fingers encircling his neck to command him to bend to one of her whims, or to devour his cheek with kisses?
How long would his sense be able to reconstruct the smell of his wife's skin?
Because, against all logic, he was stubbornly continuing to refer to her as "his" spouse. In absolute terms, she would remain so forever. What a mockery, since she no longer had that title because of him!
He felt a panic fear that his senses would fail him and annihilate the slightest sensation of her that he treasured.
He feared that his hearing would not be able to memorize Scarlett's changing voiceprint. The images, he would always be able to reconstruct them if he thought hard enough. But the voice! So sensitive to the slightest fluctuation of emotions like a violin, so fleeting...
For a long time, he had amused himself by putting her out of her mind for the pleasure of hearing her swear and rise in the high notes until her fiery temper exploded.
The relentless, cold sound of her dagger-sharp words, when she wanted to hurt him, was the only one he did not miss.
Her melodious and light intonations reserved for the men she wanted to charm always delighted his ear, as on the first day of the barbecue.
He preferred to forget her hoarse and tender tone, which he had spied with envy, but which was exclusively reserved for her blond knight in shining armor.
He cherished the memory of the soft, almost whispered sounds in the privacy of their bed during the first year of marriage.
More than anything, he would have liked to lock up, in a precious case, that magical moment when her vocal cords were inflamed by passion, transforming her cry into a throbbing supplication, his own name - "Rhett!" -, implored to the point of ecstasy, during their last night.
Frustrated, he was already unable to reconstruct her laughter in his memory. It had been a long time since he had heard her natural laugh. Since years before their divorce, in fact. Probably in the happy times of their first year together.
How he missed her throaty laughter! He missed everything... He needed her like crazy!
Rhett was thirsty. Very thirsty. He had to feel the burn of the alcohol swallowed in swigs between his palate and tongue.
At that moment, he did not want to play the oenophile and sacrifice to the rites of tasting: admire the dress of the vintage alcohol under the light of the lamp, appreciate its viscosity by making it turn in the glass, plunge the nose in order to smell the aromas, make the turn under the tongue a sip to appreciate the length in the mouth, and savor.
No! At the end of the day, he was just a drunk in need of an outlet. The bottle of whiskey uncorked this morning was empty.
He got up to look for another one and found that he had obviously exceeded his normal tolerance for alcohol. He had to hold on to a chair to keep from staggering until he reached the pedestal table next to the French door leading to the piazza, which was wide open.
He clutched the new bottle like a lifeline. The prospect of the next sip made him salivate.
It was at this precise moment that he perceived a female voice. It came from the Vayton court. He was about to move away when a cascade of laughter poured into the air.
Recognizable among all!
Rhett's heart leaped, seemed to stop, and then went wild. He rushed to the porch.
The peals of laughter echoed against the bare façade of the Vayton house. The reflective brick wall amplified the echo. The trees lining the courtyard served as a reflector to spread the joyful waves to the Butler's house.
In shock, he chewed his cigar so hard that he tore off the end. He nervously crushed the rest on the ground.
It was that throaty coo that he had missed so much for years! That song, amplified by the resonance of the echo, penetrated his pores. Rhett could no longer control the tremors that shook his body.
"Scarlett!" Her whispered name came from deep within him.
His hands gripped the railing so tightly that their knuckles seemed transparent. For a moment, he tried to reason and told himself that he had overindulged in alcohol.
Eventually, he dared to look down to his neighbor's garden.
At fifty feet away from him, two silhouettes were standing near a buggy: that of his neighbor and that of a woman wrapped in a coat. She had her back to him.
From the second floor where he was spying them, he could clearly see a green silk-trimmed floppy hat.
My hallucinations are back! I see her everywhere, as usual. It cannot be her, right there, in the neighbor's yard!
For a few seconds, he managed to convince himself that his visions were luring him.
And yet... He could have sworn: this hat was identical to the one he had taken so much care to find for her in Paris, at the time he was forcing the blockade.
He had to accept the obvious. Against all reason. Scarlett was in front of him, in flesh and blood, wearing „his" hat on her head, even though she had just signified her rejection of everything that came from him.
His senses, disturbed by his advanced state of inebriation, were revolting. In spite of everything, he concentrated so that his hearing could detect the dialogue exchanged in the adjoining courtyard.
She turned in his direction to get into the buggy.
That's when he saw her. She was too far away for him to make out her eyes. Anyway, It was "her", the shape of her face, her cheeks which were rounded under the effect of the broad smile which she addressed to Vayton…
Rhett was not understanding anything anymore. With her letter, Scarlett had just dismissed him from her life. At the same time, she was already appearing in the house next door. More alive than ever, more beautiful than ever!
"I am going crazy! " He revolted against the impossibility that it was his wife, there, so close; against the certainty that it was "his" Scarlett and that he could not touch her.
She accepted the hand the man offered her to help her into the horse car. He leaned in to kiss her.
Rhett felt as if he were wavering. Everything was whirling around him.
At that moment, he distinctly heard his neighbor say, "Scarlett!". Then the rest of the sentence was lost in the air.
That's when her laughter started. A light laugh that had disappeared for centuries. The joyful waves went up to the piazza, were crossing his skin and invading his veins.
It was intolerable. A primal scream tore at his lungs. "No!"
He staggered. The full bottle fell from his hands and shattered into a thousand pieces on the porch.
The scream and the noise made the two figures react. Scarlett turned to his side, but she did not look up. She saw only the empty porch on the first floor.
Vayton detected the source of the noise. He saw a shaggy Captain Butler looking at them with a distraught expression.
Indifferent to him, he turned away, helped Scarlett climb, almost taking her in his arms, and leaned towards her to say something.
She answered him with a laugh.
He climbed into the other side of the car, took the reins of the horse, and the buggy pulled out of the yard.
ooo
The echo had trapped Scarlett's explosion of joy. It whirled for a moment after she left, coming to taunt the Butler house.
The laughter was still echoing in his skull. He wanted to capture those pearls of happiness so that their imprints would be embedded in his blood.
He looked down and realized the broken glass around his feet. The bottle had shattered and splashed liquid onto the bottom of his pants.
Realizing his pitiful state, he forced himself loudly to come to his senses. "It can only be a whiskey-induced hallucination.»
As best he could, he returned to his office and lay down on his couch.
Tomorrow he would convince himself that it was just a dream; that he had not seen her; that he had not heard her.
But, for tonight, he was accepting to be fed by this mirage. At least for this night. For indulging him with that image, that laughter.
He closed his eyes tightly and convinced himself that she was still there, so close that he could caress her body.
ooooOOoooo
End notes:
In order to better imagine the "calligraphy dance" on the surname "Scarlett", just think of writing that word with the style of Word Office character like "Borealis".
(*1) Ancient Egypt jewels: Bracelet, Musée du Louvre source collections louvre 53355 - cl010009286 - .fr/ark:/53355/cl010009286
Ring, Musée du Louvre source collection 53355 - cl010011020 - .fr/ark:/53355/cl010011020#
(*2) Unlike the historical details told in my fanfiction, which have strict references, the terms of the divorce between Rhett and Scarlett are purely fictional (time limits, authorized divorce, etc...).