Note on chapter 43 :
I wanted to write the story of the full day in Washington in a chapter divided into four parts. But as usual, I let myself get carried away by my keyboard... Some of you may be disappointed because these two sequences are reserved for the introspection and ramblings of the two characters. Its mood is closed to the one of chapter 3. Impression, Soleil Levant. The action will come in the next chapter BUT I do not know yet myself which direction it will take !
To all those who give me the great pleasure of continuing to follow the story of this trio, who stimulate me with their comments which become my "fuel", or who decide to reward The Boutique Robillard as a favorite or kudo, a thousand thanks!
oooooooo
Tuesday, July 6, 1876, 1 a.m., Onboard the Piedmont Air Line
Like a caged lion... The observation deck may have been wide enough for ten people to sit comfortably, but the walls seemed too close together for the trepidation that shook him.
As soon as he had closed Scarlett's door, he returned to his room.
What the hell! What had possessed him to obey her injunction to leave her alone? He had surrendered, fists bound, giving up the fight. Without a second thought. It was enough for her to dismiss him politely. - Go away, Rhett, please. It was a mistake. We have to forget about it - so that he submitted and left with his tail down.
He chuckled at his saucy expression. Inappropriate, to say the least! Because, by God, it was far from the truth. She had driven him crazy with desire. So violently that he gritted his teeth and had to call upon the long experience of control of his impulses in her presence to tame his ardors.
But after five minutes, he had to face the facts: the partition was too thin, the door next to his too close. He was not going to be able to resist.
How many times had he been tempted, in their former lives, to break down the door of this room whose bed she had forbidden him to use and to smash the wood with a vengeful kick?
He had to get away from this wild temptation.
He was suffocating. He needed air. He opened the door to the outside gallery.
By the light of the stars and the safety lamp in the observation room, only shadows could be seen, which would appear out of the night and then fade away.
This blind ride suited his current state of mind perfectly. Nothing could distract him from his intense cogitation.
He took a nervous drag on his cigar, inhaling the familiar scent of tobacco.
The coolness of the night, accentuated by the rapid movement of the train, penetrated his skin through his silk housecoat. At least it cooled the fever that had gripped him since he entered Scarlett's room.
His loneliness was an illusion, broken in the dark night by the roar of the locomotive and the frenzied rolling of the wheels on the rails. Every crack of gravel crushed on the track was amplified on the platform.
That's what he needed: noise, speed, fury...
To get into the rhythm of the blood that was drumming against his temple.
Scarlett half-naked. Her erect breasts so hard under his caresses. Her skin. The grain of her skin. Her gardenia perfume. Her intoxicating smell...
He closed his eyes and pressed the nails of his left hand into his palm.
He nervously ran his fingers through his shaggy hair.
His hands were shaking. He had to calm down. If not, he was going to smash the door behind which she was supposed to sleep peacefully. Unconscious of the state in which their brief embrace had ignited him.
With which spell did this woman continue to bewitch him as on the first day? The femme fatale, he said in French. She was the incarnation of it: sensual, seductive... and especially dangerous. From their first glance, she had wanted to take him in her nets and transform him into a puppet, in the image of her two first husbands.
Fortunately, I did not fall into the trap! Otherwise, she would have thrown me away within weeks like one of her old moccasins, too comfortable, that she would have got tired of.
But it was necessary to be lucid: at the end of fifteen years, he only asked to give up the weapons. And that she agrees to imprison him back in her web...
When the train left the Atlanta station, he knew it: this trip to Washington was his last chance. Then the inevitable would happen: Vayton would parade around and announce their engagement - Why haven't they done that already? - and Scarlett would be lost to him forever. Forever. And with her, Wade and Ella, his family.
To be honest, he had to admit that Scarlett's presence in Washington was not essential to the federal government's commitment to cooperation with their foundation. Everything had been negotiated beforehand. Tomorrow's signing would be a formality. If it was true that the meeting with the team of accountants under her command was indispensable, they could have been summoned to Atlanta in the same way.
But the opportunity was too good to be with her face to face in a vacuum, without curious and malicious interference from the well-meaning society of Atlanta, so eager to reject "the Infamous One" - with some motives, he admitted honestly.
In this luxury car, as enclosed as a prison, she no longer had the option of dismissing him, in a fit of displeasure, from her home, a restaurant table, or any other place where he might have tried to plead his case.
Because there was the problem: he had to convince her to give him a chance again. And to abandon the young, handsome, billionaire Vayton.
To do that, he had to find the opportunity, during those three days, to admit to her that he regretted having made the crazy decision to divorce her. He was going to confess that he loved her, that he had never stopped loving her - or only briefly, when he left her in September, because at that point he had to believe this to have the courage to cut off ties. He would persuade her that he would make her happy - finally.
Then he would ask her to marry him again. With such ardor that, in the name of Rhett Butler, she'd flinch under his kisses and accept. Finally, he would put a ring on her finger...
This is what his plan of recapture had consisted of.
But since their departure from Atlanta, his progress had been reduced to a trickle.
He did not recognize himself anymore. He, the ladies' man, so at ease to slip a salacious allusion and to steal a compliment or rob a petticoat, he found himself as borrowed as a former beau of Scarlett to be satisfied with meager accidental touches.
The first step of his strategy had seized. Happy to clasp her thin wrist with the eternity bracelet, he had to back out when she refused, ostensibly arguing that she was newly engaged. He had thus been forced to pretext a judicious commercial representation to see her wearing, on her right wrist, a jewel from her former husband.
With, on the left ring finger, always this invasive cameo.
How he itched to remove it! In other times, I would have torn it off her by force to slip my ring in...
He suddenly laughed at the induced image, so explicit.
To calm his impatience, he had reasoned with himself that they should talk first. Then, afterwards...
Then everything had gone up in flames.
In the intimacy of the platform, he had wanted to dig the abscess, and not to be satisfied anymore with unsaid or of his hidden feelings - of which she played herself with mastery towards her knight with the sad armor.
He had to know why she had agreed to marry his neighbor. That she was really in love with him was so terrifying that, by provocation, he did prefer to enumerate to her in advance all the qualities of the Haute Couture designer capable of having made her decision flinch.
Without deigning to answer his assumptions, she also took advantage of the intimacy of the platform to put him against the wall. With a talented surgical precision, she confronted him with the brutality he had shown without scruples on this fateful day of November 1873.
He remained silent and accused the blow. Indeed, despite his mumbled regrets, no justification for his unspeakable words was admissible.
How could such insults, such malice, such filthy words have come out of his mouth? Addressed to the only woman he had ever been in love with? Madly in love. Desperately in love.
True, he had many times called her the worst in a moment of frustration and jealousy. But he couldn't even invoke his raging mood on that cursed day because he had armed himself to appear emotionless before her. His cruelty was all the more devastating.
The only irrational and far-fetched explanation would have been to believe that his body and heart had been taken away by a block of anesthetic ice.
How did he get there? To torture her, to the point of knocking her down?
He who had not been able to breathe fully for the last three years, from the moment when she was no longer part of his environment?
Even when she was married to Frank, she was within his reach. He would go with her to the sawmill, they would laugh together... She was his in a way. Convincing himself of it used to soothe him.
Even during their disastrous marriage, after she had banished him from her bed and he was openly cheating on her for all to see, unconsciously, the fact that he knew at that exact hour where she was – in her bed - was kind of a selfish relief.
Even when he returned from his nights of debauchery, expecting to be greeted in the morning by her disdain or indifference, at least he was certain to follow her figure from one room to another, to hear her giving orders to the servants or snubbing the children. Sometimes he would discreetly ajar the office door just to have the secret satisfaction of seeing her immersed in her books.
All these years he had only one wish: to see her live! To lose himself in her eyes, to breathe the same air as her, to follow her steps, guided by her unique fragrance...
Until he amputated a part of himself.
Three years of emptiness. A world without sun. The darkness.
And the whole mess was his fault! For the first time in his life, he felt really ashamed. Ashamed of his despicable blackmail for the custody of her children. Ashamed of the insults he had covered her with.
She would forever remember every word he had spat to coerce her. Deep down, he knew: no contrition he could express could reach her. She would never forgive him for that day in November 1873.
Once again, she had brought him the proof of it tonight on the observation deck. Her violence to lacerate him with murderous sentences was amply justified.
So, to test his limits in facing the raw truth, he returned to his first question about Duncan Vayton and dared to articulate aloud his own answer and his greatest fear: "Because you are in love with him."
Her silence was sufficiently eloquent to destabilize him. She, who in the past openly boasted to him that she loved only one man, Ashley Wilkes, even when she had become his wife! This time, her mutism was disconcerting. And made him glimpse an abyss of misery and despair.
But that was before. Before her hips started undulating naturally against my thighs… What power this woman has! All it took was a lustful sway and a voluptuous throaty sigh to make me feel like I could move mountains!
Rhett greedily inhaled his cigar. He felt strong again; powerful; unbeatable.
He wasn't going to let it happen. He was going to fight until the end, until the last second when she would be at the altar. Carried away by his newfound optimism, he even imagined he would have the audacity to steal her away from the church, much to the horror of the assembled Charleston and Atlanta society, in front of a discomfited Duncan Vayton.
Scarlett, you are mine! No power in the world can stand in the way of my love for you!
He closed his eyes with delight. Her shudders under his embrace... The little moans that had escaped her... Never! Never since fifteen years, he had been on the point to reach the Eden, this magic country where finally her desire for him answered his.
All these thanks to this famous brush...
oooOOooo
It had been years since he had seen it since it was kept in the sacrosanct mausoleum to which his wife had forbidden him access. Probably that day Prissy had delayed cleaning it with the other ladies' accessories deposited in the bathroom before putting it back in its place.
On that September night when she had told him she loved him, the night he had left her, he was so out of it that he had inadvertently taken it with his own things. As soon as he arrived in Charleston, he realized his mistake.
Annoyed by the mere presence of this harmless object, his first instinct was to throw it away. To get rid of it as he had finally managed to get rid of the hold of this heartless woman.
Just as he was about to drop it into the basket, he changed his mind. For once she had sincerely cared about one of his gifts, he was going to send it back to her. He didn't care anymore. All these stories of hairstyles and ceremonial gestures belonged to the past. Scarlett was the past.
With this resolution, he went downstairs to find a small cardboard box in the storeroom and tied up the package. Ready to be sent to its owner.
After a sleepless night, the next morning he passed by the box on the hall sideboard, waiting for Michael, the butler, to take it to the post office.
Instead, he looked for a silk cover to slip it into, then put it back in his toiletry bag.
Why hadn't he given it back to her during his sinister visit to Peachtree Street on that November day in 1873? He was too impatient to extract, at all costs, from the one who was still officially his wife, the signature that would free him forever from the yokes of a marriage in which he should never have been trapped.
Back in Charleston, he had rushed to his notary's office right away after leaving the station. Maybe because he was afraid he would break down and never hand over the signed piece of paper.
That night, he drank until he was sick. In the bathroom, while looking for medicine in his toilet bag, his fingers touched the silk fabric.
Driven by the need to face his decision head-on, he took the precious object out of its case to look at it one ultimate time.
He smashed it against the mirror.
Broken glass everywhere. The hurried footsteps of his mother and sister on the stairs, their fists pounding on his bedroom door to let them in. His bare feet crushing the sharp shards without him realizing it. Blood on the floor.
And the famous brush buried under the biggest pieces of glass.
Picking it up, he cut himself. He didn't take care of the scarlet stains that marked his steps to his room.
Dazed, he sat down on the bed and inspected it. The silver wafer was dented. The impact had scored the most delicate part of the chasing, the princess' wrist. His blood had stained the handle.
His fingers caressed the boar's hair where a few long ebony hairs were entangled. A strand was threatening to escape. He delicately put it back.
His vision was blurring. All that remained was the sensation of the hair under his fingers.
How long did he remain prostrate, clutching the trashed object like a lifeline?
Then the long wait began. He holed up in his room, not touching the meal trays that his mother begged him to eat; the incessant supply of whiskey bottles, only giving up his glass to grab a cigar whose end he tore off with rage.
The wait. In retrospect, Rhett remembered the three weeks previous to the delivery of the signed document to his notary as a blank period. Rhythmed only by his twitching at the slightest noise of the front door, on the lookout for an envelope that he was waiting for, that he was dreading...
His only occupation in the barricaded space where he had voluntarily reclined, was to repair the outrages inflicted on the brush.
This was a delicate task, as his hands were shaking so much from the alcohol that he could hardly proceed an accurate work. He carefully detached the wafer from the brush, then loosened the thin silver leaf from its cardboard form. How many hours did he spend removing the tiny blisters, taking care not to distort the reverse of the medieval scenery? He finally managed to hide the thin gash in the wrist.
It had become an obsession: he had to restore the piece of goldsmith's art to its former perfection. If I can repair it, if I can make it look like it used to...
The day came when a bailiff of Robert Stevens Lawers Ltd. filed the official divorce certificate.
Meanwhile, the brush had been reassembled. He had managed to remove the damage he had done to it. They were eradicated as if nothing had happened.
Nothing had happened? The few typed and legally stamped sheets of paper testified the opposite by authenticating the end of Scarlett and Rhett Butler's marriage.
He put the precious relic back in its satin prison.
He left for Europe. Taking the brush with him. Every morning, every evening, when he was reaching for amenities in the bathroom, his hand would mechanically rest on it.
It accompanied him everywhere. In Paris, in London. At his mistresses. In hotels. In brothels. Every time he looked for his razor or his comb, or sprayed himself with cologne, his fingers touched the fabric. A graze, nothing more. But systematic. As if to make sure it was still there.
One evening, as he was about to go to a whorehouse, he was pushed by the desire to take out this famous brush from its case. He appreciated once again the beauty of the chiseling of the decoration. The knight in love tightening the arm of his belle against his heart for watering it with kisses.
He turned it over. A few strands of ebony almost escaped again.
All those moments of intimacy in what had been their bedroom, combing her hair and kissing it! By an uncontrolled impulse, he brought the object to his nose, being aware of the ridiculousness of the situation. Was it an illusion or had he retained the scent of gardenia? He let himself be invaded by the memory. Her perfume. The scent of her skin. Her body stuck against his.
The absence was too painful! With a movement of rage, he looked at the object as an enemy. The one that prevented him from forgetting. He then put it back in its case to make it disappear from his thoughts.
That night, like all the others, he demanded a girl with red, brown or blonde hair. Certainly not black.
ooooOOooo
The brush. He had already returned to his room when Jenny quietly knocked on the front door of the car to signal her presence.
"Madam has forgotten her brush. I've come to bring her another one so she can have her hair done."
He was going to take his chance!
With an unusual superstition on his part, he thought the brush would help him.
He smelled her gardenia perfume - the one that had always driven him crazy - as soon as he entered her room. At the very moment when she was putting a precious drop of this essence in the valley of her breasts...
He needed a drink. He slowly passed his tongue over his lips, trying to detect the delicious juice they had religiously taken from Scarlett's flourished skin. The cigar had blurred it. It did not matter! His gustatory memory was going to preserve its succulent aroma of it.
He had to go back to his room and rest. The next day would be crucial. He would need all his strength, intellectual, physical, and emotional. But how could he sink into an anesthetic sleep when, just a few minutes ago - or hours ago because time had become blurred - for the first time since she had conquered him with a single look at the epic barbecue, Scarlett had displayed her physical desire for his body.
Such a violent and unexpected discovery made him feel like an earthquake...
It was no longer the illusion of a love-crazed man eager to grab the smallest favor to make up for his frustration. All those years of channeling his desire for her, moving from one bed to another, from a blonde to a redhead! To finally give up and blow off steam with an insignificant black hair whore on the second floor of the Gentlemen's Club Haven, a poor ghost of his obsession...
Of course, there had been their last night when she had seemed to respond to his ardor. But he had been so drunk that he hadn't been able to separate what had seemed like a night of love with the fantasies of a drunkard.
No! Tonight, for the first time, she had submitted to his caresses. Better still! To feel her vibrate under his touching, to arch her back with the sensuality of a goddess, not trying to avoid the demanding pressure of his erect sex against her...
At this mention, his throat tightened: If your heart beat faster, is it a sign that you love me? Or should I conclude that it is Vayton who has awakened a new sexual drive in you that makes you more receptive to touch, even mine?
He clenched his jaws until they hurt. She hadn't denied it when he had asked her if she had agreed to marry this pompous "prince of fashion" because she loved him.
No! He swept away with a wave of the hand the insufferable assumption. Her body abandoned against mine has not been able to cheat…
His self-confidence restored, he declared with assurance in a loud voice, in the dark night: Scarlett, you are finally going to be mine. Totally, your body and soul, mine! And to hell with Duncan Vayton and his damned betrothal!
Tonight he would indulge in the most erotic dreams -with his eyes open…
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Tuesday, July 6, 1876, 6 p.m., Charleston, Magnolias' Mansion
"Let's talk about serious things - or rather what you are passionate about lately: how do you imagine it?"
He did not need to clarify his thoughts. If, since she had joined him in his office of the Magnolias' Mansion she had given the change by pretending to be interested in the old engravings of animals decorating a part of the wall, she did not hold anymore and let explode her joy in front of her brother:
"I've been waiting for hours for you to ask me that question! A real princess dress. With bustles that will make you think I came straight out of the Palace of Versailles. And then..."
Duncan was amused by the excitement in Melina's blue eyes.
"With a train so extravagant that it will take no less than four bridesmaids to lift it to the altar."
Her brother laughed. "How modest, little sister!"
"Modest? Why should I be modest when I'm going to marry my lover? Oh you know I've loved him since day one, don't you? It's well worth having the most famous designer in America create a wedding dress for what will be the happiest day of my life."
He used his usual teasing tone with her as he handled an envelope addressed to Mr. Duncan Vayton. "Don't you think this is too hasty? I haven't received your suitor's official application yet.
"Oh, Duncan, you're so mischievous. And what's in your hand?"
"A card from a gentleman... Wait until I read the name to check. Alexander Dean, is that right?"
His sly smile made her take hold of the missive, and she breathed it in, her eyes closed, under the complicit gaze of the elder Vayton, touched by so much candor.
"I know what he wrote. He confessed it to me on Sunday when we walked around at the Centennial Festival." Then she read cheerfully, "Sir, I have the honor of requesting an interview, on a day and at an hour convenient to you next week, in order to speak to you about a matter which is particularly dear to my heart." Signed "Alexander Dean."
Pushing the joke to the limits of the young enamored woman's resistance, he surmised, "Um... Let me guess. This could be a business solicitation from a future client or supplier of Vayton & Son Limited."
Out of patience, she placed a stealthy peck on his cheek: "Enough joking. My dear brother, as Master of this venerable family, you will have the honor of officially granting the hand of the youngest - and only - Vayton girl to the most attractive young man in Charleston - what am I saying, in South Carolina! I told Mother about it. In all fairness, she is just as eager as I am. I'm sure she's already started making the guest list."
He rose the two hands in the air in a sign of surrender: "All right, I capitulate or you will harass me during all the evening. I can imagine the two of you, with your ears pressed against the door, watching for the moment when I threaten the dashing Dean with a duel if he ever dared in the future to provoke the slightest tear in the innocent eyes of my favorite sister."
She laughed heartily at this extravagant declaration, knowing deep down that, from near or far, Aymeric Vayton's son would protect her against everyone with the strength of inextinguishable brotherly love.
"Let's get down to business." From a drawer, he grabbed a blank drawing board and began to draw the first curves of a silhouette.
Leaning against the desk, Melina held her breath with the impatience of a child waiting for her first birthday cake.
After sketching the movement of the folds of the dress, Duncan selected some ochre charcoal and went back to work.
Melina admired with tenderness the blonde head bent over his work with the intense concentration of the artist.
Having finished coloring some of the model's details with white charcoal, he silently examined the result, then turned the sketch in his sister's direction." Satisfied?"
"This is a masterpiece! The dress of my dreams!"
"One could not expect anything less for the worthy daughter of Cathleen Vayton!"
He then launched into the description of what was going to be the most beautiful wedding dress of the year in the Old South. - He rectified in thought: well almost, since it would not equal THE wedding dress...
"Elegance and freshness, your whole portrait! You will wear the most refined damask silk woven in the French silk capital, Lyon. The brilliance of the ivory will accentuate the richness of the brocade embroidered with gold thread. You'll notice that I purposely chose the theme of cherries since they are your favorite fruit."
"What a delicate attention! It's true that you know all my sins. I see a profusion of white dots at the neckline and on the bodice. These glass beads are going to look great."
With a snap of his tongue, he teased gently, "Glass? Do you think I would be satisfied with just crystals? These are pearls. What am I saying? An orgy of oyster pearls caught in our finest production sites. Look closely at the detail of the armhole seam running down to the wrist: a veritable cascade of pearls whose interlacing will be crossed by five puffy satin ribbons." (*1)
With a mischievous look, he said, "I promise you that I will insist that Blanche's bows be as perfect as those that used to adorn your doll's dresses."
Melina was ecstatic. "So much refinement! You're a genius, Duncan! I've always known that," she added with her cheeky smile.
Happy to read in the eyes of the young girl a so sincere pleasure, he gave her the last details: "The strong bustles on the bottom of the back will give you a camber and a queenly bearing. Above all, its fullness will accentuate the pucker of the draperies that will amplify to become a train worthy of the Empress of France that I dressed."
He concluded by patting her cheek affectionately, "Consider yourself ready to stand at the front of the church. Just one more slight thing to get: the official request from Blessed Alexander Dean!"
Melina did not listen to it anymore. Moved by the realization of her girlish fantasies on paper, she stroked the outline of the veil held by a pearl tiara, embellished with cherry-shaped diamonds. She had no doubt that Duncan would add a few rubies.
"Thank you! You are the best brother in the world! How happy Mother and I would be if one day you could finally design the wedding dress of the young woman who will have the great fortune to marry you! But you make me despair! When will this day come? Could it be..." She spied his reaction on the sly, "Could it be that a Georgian enchantress of our acquaintance, your muse, will one day turn into Madame Scarlett Vayton?"
This time Duncan avoided her gaze. He would keep his promise to Scarlett to keep their secret commitment. Even to his family.
It was best to cut off further embarrassing questions. "Here, take this sketch with you to show Mother. I presume one evening won't be enough time for you to comment on it. I still have work to do."
With that, he placed a light kiss on her cheek, and she left him alone in his office.
oooOOooo
Duncan poured himself a glass of cognac. He needed to feel the aromatic burn on his palate. But no amount of alcohol would be strong enough to quench the fire that a single piece of paper had ignited in his brain.
The visit of his sister had been a saving interlude. But, as soon as the door closed behind her, he removed the mask of happy nonchalance to abandon himself to the disarray that had been plaguing him since yesterday.
Just an accident...
He had been living on the edge of uncertainty for a week. But he kept his composure because he had already taken the riskiest step, that of winning Scarlett's consent to become Mrs. Vayton.
The stark reality of the situation came to him in the form of an innocuous telegraphic message from Vayton & Son Limited's representative in Georgia.
Lewis Ambers had contacted him yesterday, "Got verbal agreement from Mr. Lannister."
Few words of explanation were necessary, as Duncan had been notified by mail of this early transaction with the owner of Atlanta's oldest colonial house. The proposed acquisition was part of the expansion of the Vayton real estate empire and its policy of preserving and restoring Southern heritage.
Ambers congratulated himself: "Successful 4th of July: fruitful exchanges established or consolidated with potential opulent buyers and notable sellers."
No doubt to please his employer, he concluded his report by stating, "Had the pleasure of greeting a great lady with whom you are in business, Mrs. Scarlett O'Hara."
Duncan immediately replied with another telegram: "Good work! Keep up the good work. Did you run into Mrs. O'Hara at the ceremony?"
This innocuous question implied an answer from his subordinate.
That's why, early that Tuesday morning, Duncan received Ambers' clarification: "Passed her in the park where she was walking with her family, with her two children and a Mr. Rhett Butler. Took the opportunity to make the acquaintance of this reputedly wealthy gentleman. Hoping he would turn into a potential client."
Duncan tore the telegram to pieces.
He was foaming with rage.
This cad has the audacity to brag "as a family" in front of all of Atlanta with the woman he shamefully divorced! He undoubtedly used the presence of his former stepchildren as a pretext to impose himself outrageously at her side.
Indignation clouded his understanding. How dare he sully Scarlett's reputation by continuing to harass her in public while he wallowed in the mire with his whores! He'd better have the honesty to carry on openly with Belle Watling! Scarlett has no idea that he has even considered bringing the pimp madam to his hometown. If that outrageous proposal ever reached her ears... If she ever found out! If ever...
Duncan clenched his fist. He had to resist the temptation to divulge the secret so she would not feel degraded again by this monster of vulgarity. It was an uphill battle, for his hitherto restrained violence had only one way to express his revenge: to prove to the scorned former wife that the darkness of the decadent Rhett Butler was beyond the bounds of the unimaginable.
Since Rebecca's reception at Montagu Street last Tuesday, he had resolutely tried to numb his jealous impulses lurking in the shadows. Even though Rhett Butler's resounding announcement that Scarlett would be the President of their Foundation's Management Fund had shaken him.
Duncan was not fooled by this trickery to keep her close at hand...
It didn't matter to him that this pretentious man bragged to his own friends about the creation of his two museums - one in Charleston! - combining "eternity and modernism". Good for him to strut around among his mummies, cold-blooded like himself!
Dedicating the foundation to Bonnie Butler made sense on the surface since he had sincerely loved his daughter, according to all the testimonies that had come to the designer's ears.
But what about the manipulation of the former war profiteer in exploiting a dead child to rekindle the bonds he himself had knowingly destroyed? How perverse to ensure the obligatory interaction between the former parents, by involving Scarlett in the financial control of the institution!
By the evening of the fashion show, Duncan, the experienced seducer, had put the poker king's game on the line: the longing eyes of the latter shamelessly proclaimed his lust for his Thunder of Georgia. Like a poacher realizing that his prey had escaped him, he had decided to take her back into his net - only to resume torturing her.
Too late, Rhett Butler! The future Mrs. Scarlett Vayton will be safe with me, and I will protect her from your dirty tricks.
Except that... at the very moment he was repeating this reassuring vow to himself like the exorcist holds up his crucifix to block the path of Evil, Scarlett was in danger in Washington, with her former husband as her only traveling companion.
With what impudence he had demanded that she accompanies him to the Capital, taking advantage of his public announcement so that she could not make a scene and refuse! His ruse to force her to go was well thought out. By certifying that the federal administration was linking the formalization of their collaboration agreement to the presence, not only of the initiator of the Bonnie Blue Butler Arts Museums, but also to that of the President of the Management Fund, the blackmail was without embellishment. The threat was clear: If you do not come with me, you will deprive our daughter's foundation of funding.
Bonnie's mother found herself tied hands and feet and was forced to accept. Duncan took the shock with difficulty.
Since then, he had decided to deal with it: it was only a business trip. His Scarlett was too wise to accept any other relationship, from the one who had cruelly made her suffer, than the strictly professional one. Three years ago, she had regained her freedom. Courageously. Proudly. Above all, she had decided to build a new destiny for herself and her children, with him, Duncan.
The interlude was expected to be brief: a few hours in Washington, and the harrowing trip in the passenger seats and sleeper. Actually, Duncan's fears were reasonably reduced because it was doubtful that the old beau would dare to do anything inappropriate behind the curtains of the sleeper seats, in full view of the other passengers in the car.
Of course, Duncan had to force himself not to go to Washington too, in order to disrupt a cunningly prepared tête-à-tête. But rationality prevailed. And above all, his confidence in Scarlett.
Scarlett, so straight and frank! She had agreed to share his life and bear his name. She would not betray her promise.
It is only a matter of days. Soon we will be together as a family. In this festive atmosphere, Wade and Ella will become even closer to me. I will ask her permission to officially announce our engagement to her children, to my family, and to the world. And incidentally, to Rhett Butler.
Time is running out. God knows what kind of ambush this cunning man is capable of setting. Besides, maybe at this very moment...
But Scarlett will not fall into his trap. She is faithful. She doesn't want to cheat on me…. She won't cheat on me! I trust her. I have full confidence in her...
He repeated this reassuring speech to himself many times on that Tuesday night, using it with the power of a sacred invocation to silence the slightest suspicion. Alas! The battle was proving unequal.
Jealousy, that incurable disease, had broken into his brain, without him being able to block its access. Like an old friend, it was reclaiming familiar ground by the minute. It was taking its ease and gradually occupying all the space, undermining the solid assurance he had built up until it destroyed any rational argument.
Anxiety gripped him by the throat. Droplets of sweat were beading on his forehead. An icy shiver ran down his spine. Feeling on the verge of defeat, he swept everything on his desk with a vengeful hand.
The crash of the marble inkwell, whose pieces scattered on the floor, shook him out of his state. As a survival reflex, refusing to sink, he decided to concentrate on images of happiness.
The fashion show; the ballet of models. The first melancholic notes of Lorena played on the violin. The time frozen; he, frozen on the spot. A fairy-like figure with sensual curves emerging from the shadows. The Thunder of Georgia. A corolla of silver and gold threads illuminating the deep and secret green of the skirt; a black hair spread on the alabaster skin...
Duncan closed his eyes to better cross the time and be at the bottom of the steps of the piazza. Waiting.
The apparition, made of flesh, burning. A knowingly generous cleavage, revealing a pearly throat glittering more than the flashes of gold, silver, and emerald glass...
He, deaf to the acclamations, congratulations, and requests of his guests. Dancing with his beautiful in the hollow of the night, both entwined to the rhythm of "Beautiful Dreamer"... (*2)
Romantic words, so appropriate to the passion that was burgeoning in Duncan:
"Beautiful Dreamer, wake unto me,
Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee;
Sounds of the rude world heard in the day,
Lull'd by the moonlight have all passed away!
Beautiful dreamer, queen of my song,
List while I woo thee with soft melody;
Gone are the cares of life's busy throng,
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!"
Sounds and images clashed in Duncan's head: The gold; the emeralds; the warmth of Scarlett's body pressed against his; the opening of the ball; the velvety voice of the singer of the orchestra beginning Lorena, with the paradoxical words in this mild spring:
"Oh, the years creep slowly by, Lorena,
The snow is on the ground again.
The sun's low down the sky, Lorena,
The frost gleams where the flow'rs have been."
He closed his eyes. Everything revolved around him. To Lorena's hypnotic rhythm:
"A hundred months have passed, Lorena,
Since last I held that hand in mine,
And felt the pulse beat fast, Lorena,
Though mine beat faster far than thine.
A hundred months, 'twas flowery May,
When up the hilly slope we climbed,
To watch the dying of the day,
And hear the distant church bells chime."
Her laugh, as melodious as a bird's song. Her dimples deepening even more to charm him...
Duncan made fun at himself: "This is ridiculous. Even my heartbeat is struggling to keep up with the beat of the song!
"We loved each other then, Lorena,
Far more than we ever dared to tell;
And what we might have been, Lorena,
Had but our loving prospered well."
As if embarked in a merry-go-round of wooden horses, he observed from the outside the scenes passing by without him being able to take part in them: tempting hips brushing against him, the snow, the cold, his body burning with desire, the war, the loneliness, green eyes, luscious lips so melting under his tongue, the emptiness...
Suddenly, he had a panic attack. He was feeling as if he could not breathe. The fear of the danger threatening his happiness; a danger with black hair and black eyes; black as his soul…
His head was about to explode. He had to concentrate on the magic moment when she had said "yes" to him. But the verse of the song was having fun torturing him:
"For "if we try we may forget,"
Were words of thine long years ago.
Yes, these were words of thine, Lorena,
They burn within my memory yet."
He took his head in his hands, wanting to chase away the premonitory words with all his strength.
Her emerald eyes, of a green so sharp that it pierced his loins ...
It was helpless. The music had won the game in his head:
"It matters little now, Lorena.
The past is in the eternal past."
He violently compressed his temples to stop these notes. In vain. Lorena was taunting him. It haunted him until dawn.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Notes on chapter 43 :
(*1) Melina's wedding dress: wedding dress by Charles Frederick Worth, worn by heiress Annie Cottenet Schermerhorn in 1878 - Collection of the Museum of the City of New York
(*2) Beautiful Dreamer, 1864, Another song by Stephen Foster (04/07/1826 - 13/01/1864) - song published posthumously in March 1864.
Bing Crosby: The version I love, already referenced in chapter 26 "The Party is Over" - watch?v=yCesxaeQoHg
Louis Armstrong "Beautiful Dreamer" from The Ed Sullivan Show - watch?v=K1zyaaUZ4rY&list=LL&index=15
Marty Robbins: in my opinion, close to the interpretation that Scarlett and Duncan danced to, as Rhett sadly spies on them before walking away - watch?v=8NnMlQz7RNQ&list=LL
Sheryl Crow - female version sung "a cappella" - watch?v=f_aB1NOqC3Y&list=LL&index=12
(*3) Lorena, 1857: the lyrics were written by the Reverend Henry Delafayette Webster. Following the forced breakup with his fiancée, he wrote her a long poem. Music by Joseph Philbrick Webster. One of the favorite songs during the Civil War, among Confederate and Union soldiers.
Here are two other versions than those presented in chapters 23 "The Fashion Show" and 24 "Alone in the World":
Waylon Jennings, The Restless Kid-Live at JD': my favorite version of this singer, recorded live. This rendition is close in intonation, melancholy, and youthfulness of voice to the tune that haunts Duncan at the end of this chapter. - watch?v=j3w9sXa6WIQ
The Civil War Players : another version, more serious and tragic, close, in my opinion, to the one sung on the war front by Confederate and Union soldiers - watch?v=VAKnrVhg9dA&list=LL&index=53