Note: I wanted to give you this symbolic update to wish you all the best for the New Year of 2023. Is this the beginning of a new era for Scarlett, Duncan, and Rhett, or the beginning of the end? ... One thing is for sure, when I started writing this chapter, I didn't anticipate this ending at all. But my inspiration carried me away again...
Unfortunately, don't expect a next chapter for another month :-(
oooOOooo
Chapter 50. Thirsty! Second part
She woke up slowly, soothed.
She lowered her chin. He was standing on his side, glued to her. His head had not moved from Scarlett's bouncing chest, embedding itself on that soft cushion, even in his sleep.
She could observe at her leisure his gulping lips that exhaled a snore while blowing on her breast.
This moving image clutched her heart.
She could not move her head because he had grabbed her longest locks wrapped around his neck, while one hand held them, lest they escape him in his lethargy.
His hair, dotted with gray threads, was damp with sweat. The wrinkles that had formed over time, hollowed out by his adventurous life and tourments, seemed as if by miracle to have smoothed out. Except for the one at the corner of his lips, the wrinkle of a smile that floated and from which all irony had evaporated.
The wild beauty of an animal at rest before it takes you between its claws to choke you and devour you... An animalistic appearance that had always made her shiver, this was Rhett. The one who had given up the weapons this night.
An image came to the fore, that of Duncan. Duncan and his blue eyes, his blond curls and his sweetness.
But there was Rhett... Rhett so dangerous even when he was sleeping confidently on her.
What was she going to do? What did she have to do? She could not hide the truth from herself. The language of her body defended her from it. This madness, which had made her fall in a precipice of sensuality, she wanted to find it again and again...
But, first she needed to have a talk with Duncan. She owed it to him to be honest.
She passed her tongue over her lips to moisten them.
She was thirsty.
Her throat was dry and irritated from moaning so much pleasure.
At that moment, a glass of water seemed like the perfect festive drink to celebrate this crazy night.
The small lamp illuminated the night table. She looked for the carafe. Desperately empty.
I am going to get up and go drink in the living room.
With multiple precautions, releasing herself inch by inch of her lover's embrace, she succeeded little by little in separating herself from him.
He groaned. Even plunged into a deep sleep, he was aware that she was escaping him. Instinctively, he stroked her hair. His grunt was replaced by a giggle, that of a happy child.
Finally she got out of bed.
She put on her robe and quietly left the room, heading straight for the living room sideboard where George had placed another decanter in a silver champagne bucket full of ice.
She poured herself a large glass of water. The ice cubes had melted. The water was lukewarm, but it felt like the best elixir, a fizzy fountain of youth similar to her state of mind.
Her limbs were sore from their lovemaking. I am going to be full of bruises! And probably a few bites where... Instead of getting irritated, she blushed. These little pains were a sweet reward, the reward of feeling alive. And loved. He loves me. He told me he loves me!
She felt embroiled in a cascade of dizzying emotions, propelled into a future that was now bright because it was guided by Rhett's irrepressible strength.
She knew she could not turn back. She was longing for one thing : to be in his arms again. And become Mrs. Butler again...
Except... Duncan... he loves me too. I am going to hurt him so much. How am I going to tell him? I have to find the words to tell him...
Her eyes scanned the car, as if in the recesses of the luxury varnish she was going to find the solution, the argument that could ease her fiancé's pain.
They stopped at the briefcase that Rhett had left open on the table.
Driven by an impulse, she approached, focused on a single point: the golden reflection of the mysterious jewelry box.
With the curiosity of a little girl trying to guess the gifts for her sisters, she turned the tiny bronze key on its axis, which triggered a metallic clack, and lifted the lid.
On the purple velvet, there was a mark. Probably the one left by the bracelet Rhett gave me "on behalf of the Foundation".
Just beside it, a ring. She held her breath, and opened her eyes: what beauty in the purity!
At the patina, she immediately understood that it was an Egyptian antique, as old as her bracelet.
She brushed the green mineral. Of the jasper, she expertised as a connoisseur.
With the pad of her index finger, she followed the grooves. The closed wings of a beetle. She remembered reading an article about the treasures found in the sarcophagus of a goddess. At the time, she had thought that one or the other of these jewels would suit her perfectly. There was mention of a beetle. What did the journalist say? Oh yes! She remembered. It was the symbol of immortality and fertility. Fertility... She gripped the stone tightly.
The setting of the bezel was made of two crowns. As for the gold ring so delicate... it looks like a wedding ring... (*1)
The desire to put it on her finger titillated her. She looked at her hands. On the right ring finger was a diamond set in a cabochon, one of the many legacies of her grandfather Robillard.
It would look better on my left hand. Too small to be worn on the middle finger, only the ring finger could match the size of this jewel that had adorned the slender fingers of an ancient goddess.
To do this, she had to remove the camellia's cameo. To ease her conscience about taking away Duncan's token of love, if only for a moment, she told herself: just thirty seconds to see what effect it has. Anyway, soon I shall officially give it back to him...
Then she froze. That ring is not for me! He pointed out that what he had brought with him was for Charleston. It is an engagement ring.. Fertility. The promise of a child... This is the engagement ring he has planning for Roselyne Tucker.
This realization made her bite her lower lip, so cruelly that she felt the acrid taste of blood on her tongue.
She argued to reassure herself: But that was before! After their night of love, he could not give that ring to another woman. Not after what he told me, he cannot propose to her. It is not possible.
Unless... What if he had forgotten everything when he woke up? It would not be the first time...
Doubt crept in, as vicious as a snake ready to bite her in a treacherous way by breathing in its venom.
He asked me to marry him. But only when I refused to fully give myself to him.
This realization struck her. Among all the passionate words of love cooed like honey, among all these words, he had only made a vague request to her when he had wanted to possess her to satisfy his own pleasure.
To silence this destabilizing train of thought, she took a deep breath and poured herself another glass of water.
A small hammered copper tray was placed next to the carafe.
The day before, George had put there the surplus found in the pockets of his client's suit. Scarlett's eyes mechanically flew over an elegant wallet, some coins, an immaculate handkerchief...
Her attention was drawn to a sheet of paper folded in four. On the exposed surface, the letterhead of the National Theater was partially visible. To distract herself from the cloud of speculation that threatened to tarnish the memory of that idyllic night, she half unfolded the paper.
Scarlett immediately realized that it was the schedule for the Black Crook performances, the fairy show she would never forget.
The writing was scribbled. The Director's niece had hurriedly copied down some brief information, a few dates with the names of the cities lined up beside them.
There is a month's worth of time between dates. Perhaps Harry Bennett could work out a deal with the Black Crook's producer to bring the troupe to Atlanta during that time?
She unfolded the entire letter, but there was no other indication. A second page fell out, also folded in four.
On the visible side printed with the same business letterhead, she saw only it: a red, scarlet stain. Not made with paint or pencil. A stain in the shape of lips, painted with lipstick. A stain symbolizing a kiss.
It hit her as hard as lightning. Feverishly, she unfolded the sheet completely. Her heart began to beat under her temples so much suspicion twisted her stomach.
It was the same messy handwriting as on the Black Crook's list. But even less applied. The characters were larger, hastily written, as if the author had let herself go and no longer mastered the art of calligraphy.
The amazon...
Her eyes became blurry. They deciphered each letter, formed words, but their meaning did not reach her brain as if it refused to visualize reality.
To convince herself that she was not dreaming, she began to read aloud:
"Tesoro! (My darling)
A few quick words. Don't worry. I understood well that you had to pretend tonight with your "Regular". As soon as you find an excuse to get rid of her, come quickly to join me tonight, at any hour. I'll be waiting for you. You know the room number... I can't wait! I'll wear a little transparent tulle negligee, the kind you adore.
If she ever got a hold of you, then meet me as soon as you can in New York. I'll be there in a month. You remember where I hide the key, right? Under the third flowerpot. Silly me! What use to tell you that after all these years? Can you believe it, ten years, the anniversary of our meeting at Niblo's!
Come on ! I'm burning!
Your piccolina Clementina will be waiting for you, with her thighs open as you like them. Amore Mio, hurry up!"
In disgust, Scarlett dropped the letter so as not to be soiled by the filthy vulgarity that oozed from every word and the images it suggested.
For a second, she had a crazy hope, that of having been transplanted back into her dream.
The whistle of the locomotive startled her. No! It was real.
She took the paper back to make sure she understood, "As soon as you find an excuse to get rid of her, come quickly."
So his poker game with Antonio Pagani was just a decoy? He was with her last night after he held me! After he kissed me madly on..., he went to join that...that...whore.
A gagging overwhelmed her. She had just enough time to use the ice cube bucket to eject the glairs that had come up, because her whole body was revolting.
Disgusting! He is a pig. Rhett Butler, you are a pig! Oh, and to think I was going to fall for your sweet *µ
again, but her stomach was empty. Only the bitterness that weighed on her heart remained.
She felt like tearing off her skin to disinfect herself from the stupor he had soiled her with.
I need to calm down. No, you will not destroy me again, Rhett Butler. I shall not go through this hellish cycle of being a cheated wife again. I am stronger than I was three years ago. And now I have Duncan, Duncan who loves me with a pure, healthy love, who does not lead a double life, who is not twisted and perverted like you. No! I shall not let you get me down this time!
It was set: she would wipe the slate clean and change her dreams. Another future was waiting to open up for her - full of certainty and the assurance of being truly loved.
Even though this resolution made her clench her jaws to keep the tears from flowing.
Without making a sound, she re-entered her room. Rhett was snoring. His features were relaxed. The little smirk had not left him. His whiskers were wagging. Probably he was in a dream. In his fantasies, how many girls was he with?
She shook her head. No! That is enough!
With quick and silent movements, she selected the dress she would wear this morning, her corset, stockings and a set of underwear. Then she closed the bedroom door behind her.
What time was it? Half past five. It was early, but she had no doubt that the staff in their private car was attentive to their every signal. Without pity for Jenny's broken sleep, she called her with the bell.
It took her a few minutes to arrive. Her eyes were red with fatigue and her uniform was not perfectly buttoned. But, as a zealous employee of Pullman's Palace Car Company, she wore a pleasant smile at dawn.
"Good morning, ma'am. I hope you slept well. What can I do for you?"
Her voice reasoned, calm, controlled: "Jenny, run me a bath, please. Let the water be hot. Very hot."
"Yes, ma'am."
To calm her impatience, she followed her as she filled the marble tub with hot water.
Scarlett took the bottles of gardenia and violet essential oils and poured the precious liquids generously into the water.
Immediately, the small bathroom was filled with flourished scents.
"Would you like me to help you get in the tub?"
"No, come back in half an hour to dress and do my hair. Bring a brush with you. I do not know where mine is anymore. With hair clips. Thank you."
The perfumed vapors were the effect of a soothing poultice. The intoxicating scents were anesthetizing her. Precisely what she needed.
For she had to be washed of all emotions in order to interpret with the same mastery as the most famous tragediennes of New York the repertoire that was going to bring down the one who had broken her heart a second time - the ultimate time.
Dressed in her strictest travel dress, with her hair in an impeccable bun, she swallowed a few crumbs of toast with a coffee out of habit. Her stomach could not stand more.
She was ready.
On her way to sit down, she passed the small wicker trash can without glancing at it. Among a few crumpled sheets of paper, remnants of her work drafts, tiny shredded pieces of paper, no bigger than a pea, were scattered. If someone had paid attention, he would have discerned only a few anonymous red dots among this confetti.
ooooOOoooo
"Oh My Sweet..." He moaned as he stretched languidly like a fawn after a restful sleep.
The arm placed on the cold sheet woke him up from his pleasant sleepiness.
She was no longer next to him.
This surprised him because she liked to hang out in bed when she was not working. She probably got up to eat breakfast.
Always admiring her solid appetite, he started with a burst of laughter. "My hungry wife! I am hungry too. Hungry for you. I am going to devour you this morning..."
At this prospect, his morning vigor awoke, all the more conspicuous because he was naked on the sheet. He laughed about it.
"What a night! She has driving me crazy..." Before him scrolled images all more erotic than the others. Rhett's body had regained the greenness of his twenties. No wonder after holding the most beautiful woman in the universe in my arms.
How could the world change from uncertainty and frustration to happiness - just happiness - in an hour?
And to think that less than two months ago - on May 27, he remembered it as if it were yesterday - he was at the bottom of a despair's well! As if by magic, with a flutter of her swan's eyelashes, she had made him dive back into the fiery passion and the empire of the senses.
Does she realize the power she still has over me? All I had to do was touch her at the Battery Ball and I became once again chained hand and foot to her.
But how could it be otherwise? From the second he had seen her again -not his hallucination in the courtyard of his damned neighbor- from the second he had smelled her perfume and plunged his eyes in her precious amethysts, he had understood that he had lost the battle against this love he had wanted to deny with all his strength. A love that had eaten away at him until he lost his mind.
How vain I was to believe that I could be cured of her! She even managed to turn me into an abstinent monk since our reunion...
But how could he dare to spoil the memory of her hand in his, the warmth of her loins under her haute couture dress, all those intoxicating sensations vanished only to consume whores? Touching another woman would have been the surest way to make this daydream fade away. Aware that his reasoning was off the rails, he was still close to comparing it to desecration.
When I think that this trip, rich in promises to make her mine again, almost turned into a disaster with The Black Crook... It took a hair's breadth for my turpitudes to catch up with me and destroy all hope. The poor girl full of illusions who had, like so many others, the mania of transforming sex into an adventure. Yet I had set the rules from the start: my money for brief "distractions". Fortunately, she happened to know how to behave in the presence of my dazzling wife.
Wife... Not yet but soon. Mrs. Scarlett Butler... What madness to have had the audacity to dissociate these two names!
An unexpected chance - the best poker hand of his life - allowed him to erase this aberration. Therefore, that she could be his wife again.
"Finally, you are mine. You love me! You did not tell me, but your body proved it. Your kisses... Your mouth... Your tongue... Your hand... Oh, my Darling, I want you so much!"
He was so excited that he had spoken aloud.
He chuckled to himself. He was going to need an ice bath - or more in line with his desire - he was going to convince her to spend the last few hours until Atlanta in a lying position...
What a woman! From the very first seconds on the steps of Twelve Oaks, you cast a spell on me, my bewitching one. For, if not by bewitchment, how can I explain that I am madly in love with you as on the first day? Even more intensely than on the first day.
His heart was racing with joy.
I promise you that we will be happy. The only thing missing is our little Bonnie. I am sure that where she is in heaven, she is smiling that her Mommy and Daddy are reunited.
He had to get up. Suddenly, he felt ready to turn Georgia and South Carolina upside down. There was so much to organize.
It was not possible to cancel his short visit to New Orleans. Nevertheless, he was going to convince her to come with him to Paris. She would entrust her store to her assistant. Wade and Ella would accompany them. He would hire two tutors to keep them busy for a few hours. In any case, the school vacations had begun.
The priority will be to organize our wedding. Scarlett will love an original ceremony on the boat. The Captain will marry us. That way, we will officially travel as husband and wife. Before we embark, Scarlett will go shopping to buy ceremony clothes for the children. I cannot wait to see what wedding dress she has in mind for me to rip off... As for the honeymoon in the most beautiful suite on the ship...
Fortunately, Prissy will be on the trip to take care of the children. I will show them the Louvre. We will browse together in the Bois de Boulogne. The artists who are going to join the adventure of our Bonnie's Foundation will adore the gorgeous Mrs. Butler. I will take her to dance in an open-air guinguette on the banks of the Seine...
Oh yes, they were going to have fun.
How good life was going to be now! He was going to spoil her. Above all, he was going to stuff her with fiery declarations of love. Without any more worry about her using it as a weapon against him.
Because she loved him... He closed his eyes to savor this fresh assurance. So fragile yet...
After that, he would be all hands on deck in Atlanta. No more spending another day in Charleston. His home was Scarlett. And so was the house on Peachtree Street. He had missed his family so much that he would be happy to see the "monstrosity" again because it was their home.
From now on, he would handle all his affairs in Atlanta. If I had to go away, I would take my dear wife with me. Oh no! No way would I leave her alone. If only for one night...
So many ideas were colliding to rearrange their new life that he had to act and tell Scarlett now.
He put on his pajama pants and left the room.
ooooOOoooo
He saw her in her favorite chair. She was dressed. Already dressed?
Without a sound, he approached her from behind, with the gait of a Sioux.
His heart beat faster as he realized that today was the rebirth of both of them.
He leaned on her, stuck his naked chest against her back and kissed her hair, while his arms wrapped her shoulders with possessiveness.
"Good morning My Love! How good you smell!" His intonation was cuddly, reminiscent of a big cat coming to purr at its mistress.
She jumped up and down and immediately stood up.
He stopped dead in his tracks, his eyebrows drawn together, incomprehension showing on his face.
"Scarlett! My Darling, what happens?"
She turned to the window and watched the landscape go by for a moment. Then she took a breath, and in a calm voice, said to him:
"Until we arrive in Atlanta, I will ask you to exempt myself from your presence. The car is large enough that we need not pass each other."
In a quarter of a second, he was behind her. His fingers gripped her shoulders like talons to the point of bruising. "Scarlett, what are you talking about? What is going on?"
His lips nested in the back of her neck: "Did I hurt you last night? I tried, but... My Love, tell me why you seem to be in such a bad mood this morning. We have a long way to go before we get to Atlanta. Enough time for me to make you forget about your rude awakening."
To soothe the atmosphere, he tenderly observed, "My tigress got her claws out this morning..."
His voice was as caressing as his hands running around her waist, wanting to go up to her breasts, encircling her stomach... "Mmm! I am hungry..."
"Do not dare to touch me!" There was no longer any mistaking the tone.
Startled, his arms fell along his body. His forehead wrinkled with perplexity. Was this something other than the storm cloud he was used to?
With a suddenly insecure tone, he did not however give up standing a few centimeters behind her, because she had decided to stay glued to the window, seemingly fascinated by the forest bordering the rails.
"My Darling, why are you refusing my caresses? Last night..."
"Nothing happened last night."
He turned her against him and held her chin to force her to look at him. "Stop this little coquette game. Admit that this night has been magical..."
With this only evocation, temptation was too strong. He used the thumb which tightened her chin to touch the corner of her lips.
She tore herself away from his embrace with such violence that he was taken aback. It seems like... No! It is not possible! This is not a reaction of repulsion. No...
Her eyes flashed as she glared at him, "Magic? Such emphasis, Captain Butler! Be honest for once in your life. Nothing has happened except what is very common between a man and a woman; except what you have been doing every night for years with hundreds of women."
He nervously clutched his head in his hands, pulling at the tips of his hair to hold on to reality. "This is a nightmare. You got me into your nightmare. Help me out of it! Scarlett! Help me to wake up! I do not understand anything anymore..."
Instead of answering his call for help, she icily assented, "There is nothing to understand. Except for one thing: it is over."
Rhett looked at her, his eyes unfocused, trying to capture her mind to make sense of this appalling reversal. He, who was expert at understanding her better than she did herself, was lost.
Then he simply repeated these two laconic words: "It is over? As if, by saying them, he would manage to make them intelligible.
Scarlett's tone reasoned relentlessly. "Yes, it is over! Well, I do not know how to name it actually. Let us call it our friendship... or rather habitual relationship. It is ending now."
"Habitual relationship?" He stuck his head behind her so that their closeness reminded her of the intimacy of only a few hours ago. He hid his face in the cherished hair to muffle the sound of his confession, "A sweet habit of husband and wife, lover and mistress. Which we have taken up better than before. And that will continue for eternity because, didn't you recognize that you are mine? You have proved it to me. And I love you. I have confessed it to you, and I say it again: I love you, My Darling.
Once again, she disengaged herself brutally, ostensibly displaying this time her physical recoil. Her lips, usually an invitation to kiss, twisted into a wicked grimace that she accompanied with a sharp snap of her tongue against her palate. "Please. Enough of the soothing statements. This is obscene."
Rhett had the breath of it cut. His features hardened, he shook her arm bluntly: "Obscene, my love for you? What is the heresy that makes you delirious? "
What a contrast between his tone on the verge of explosion and the monotone of his lover! "In a few days, I shall be joining Duncan. We will travel with my children and his family to Philadelphia. Our engagement will be made public on October 20, the day after the opening of the Charleston Museum."
The rage rose so violently that he felt nauseous. With a hardness as pure as flint, he declared, no longer containing his violence:
"I do not know what madness seized you when you woke up, but I won't let you run away from the felicity we experienced last night. I warn you: your plan to marry your puppet prince will not succeed. I will destroy it. I will not let you marry him. Do you hear me? I will not let you. Never."
He had to hold onto the back of a chair because everything was spinning around him. His heartbeat was so disheveled that he placed his palm against his chest in a vain attempt to calm it.
"Would those be threats, Captain Butler? Although they are in keeping with your image, they are effectless. You will not win this time. I want you to stop, at the inauguration in Atlanta, displaying the slightest proximity to me. Everyone knows we are divorced. Everyone must know that we have become strangers to each other. We will limit ourselves to formal politeness. On the other hand, from now on, all contact with my children will be forbidden to you and the door of my house will be closed for you. My decision is irrevocable."
Too shaken, he did not flinch, his back bent, his eyes fixed on the carpet.
"As for the Foundation's financial fund, find someone else to run it. It will be easy to replace me with your cohort of accountants."
He muttered, "But Bonnie..."
"Do not involve my daughter in your manipulations. After the opening of the two museums, we will break off all contact. Since my life will be partly in Charleston with Duncan, I will beg you, when we cross paths, to ignore me."
Then calmly, as if she had just given an order to her lackey to leave, she grabbed a magazine and began to leaf through it in her chair.
The room fell silent. All that could be heard was the rolling of the wheels on the train tracks and the rustling of paper as she turned the page.
Turning the page... As easily as she just did with our story...
Rhett frantically massaged his scalp as if that would activate his understanding of what was going on. With the agility of mind that characterized him, he tried to piece together the train of thought that had transformed the passionate lover into an uncompromising and icy woman.
In vain. There was no logic to be found.
Except to simply deny these last few minutes: Scarlett was in a bad mood - for some reason, but how many times had he been confronted with her shady temperament over trifles? He was going to take her in his arms, kiss her and make her forget these temporary troubles.
He was not going to give up... The stakes were too high. Because the stakes were his life.
However,...her contained harshness was disarming him. He would have preferred her to start screaming, to break a vase like when she was having one of her famous tantrums. No, she was calm - and cold.
Cold... A pang of nostalgia for the warmth of their shared bed assailed him. He began to tremble. The sweat that was running down his spine made him shiver. Vaguely, he realized that his outfit was ridiculous in the middle of this mobile living room, with only his light silk night pants, more especially as she was fully dressed, as formally as to present herself in front of her customers.
Ridiculous, and vulnerable thus half naked. Like his soul and his heart that he had put to naked before her. It had been enough for a few minutes, lying against her, for him to strip himself of his shell of nonchalant indifference that he had jealously safeguarded since the first minute of their meeting - which had allowed him to survive during all these years to face this seductress without pity.
His eyes scanned the space, looking for an explanation for this cataclysm. A ray of sunlight, more intriguing than the others, shone down on the table, making a gold cast surrounded by red and green sparkles glitter. The lions' bracelet. She had taken it off - no! Thrown it away - to let him know that she refused his gift, that even a jewel from Ancient Egypt was unbearable for her to wear because it had been given by her former husband.
He shook his head to shake off his blindness. It was no longer necessary to hide real. The realization hit him like a dagger. Her words were not caused by a passing fury that would fade as quickly as it had arisen, but rather by one of her very rare bouts of sincerity.
Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton Kennedy Butler had just gotten rid of him like a piece of luggage. His world was collapsing. The crazy hope of having managed to reconquer her was only a mirage.
In a flash, everything around him became blurred. The steam whistle of the locomotive, the axles squealing as they braked, the arrival at the station or the movement of the passengers on the platform were encompassed in a deafening buzz that made him clench his temples brutally for fear that his brain would burst.
A pain in his chest cut off his breath. His fist embraced his heart. It was no use, because the spasms spread with the speed of an irrepressible flood all along his thoracic cage. He began to pant, breathless as if he had just run a foot race.
His white knuckles clutched the tray of the liquor cabinet. The mirror above him reflected a pallid image. Livid. Emptied of its substance. His sore left arm was as soft as cotton. His lips had the dryness of cardboard. He had to drink. With a trembling hand, he poured himself a glass of water but spilled half of it because he was so shaky. Somehow he managed to swallow the odorless drink. He would not have been able to bear a drop of whiskey, because the nausea was beginning to overwhelm him.
She has just torn my heart to shreds. She will not stop until it is crushed and reduced to ashes. Why? Why?
A stronger pain in his chest forced him to slump into the nearest chair. He closed his eyes in exhaustion, but his headache was racing and gave him no respite.
As if in a mirage, he had the vision of a specter that was clinically analyzing these symptoms to give him his diagnosis: a heart attack... These are the beginnings of a heart attack! She must not see me reduced to the state of rag.
No, he was not going to collapse at her feet. He gritted his teeth. Concentrating all that remained of his physical power, he managed to regulate his heartbeat. His breathing calmed down little by little.
Like a leitmotiv, two words were turning in his head, amplified to lose the reason: "It is over! Then, her moans of pleasure, her desire for him, her enjoyment... Everything was only dust? Why? Why this cruelty?
Cruel as she had always been towards him. Like a cat stubbornly watching its prey, quietly waiting for its time, for fifteen interminable years...
What had he feared most in the world? That the day he would confess his love for her she would smash him with a whip to put him down and deliver the final blow.
That is why!
With what little strength his condition allowed, his thunderous laughter rang out so violently that the windows of the car shuddered:
"Bravo! You got me! You did it, didn't you, Scarlett? After all these years of being careful not to let my guard down. Finally! You are fulfilling your fantasy of trampling on my feelings. I was in awe of your tactics in dealing with Sherman's army. But at this point ... Hats off to your expertise in war strategy! For it was all cleverly calculated, wasn't it? What you said last night, your moaning, your caressing... The dream - was it part of your plan too, to lure me into your bed and make me break?"
He got up with difficulty. The rage, the disappointment, the pain, the sorrow, all merged to give him the energy to send back his cruelty to her face. Even more ferociously because she had finally given up her protective alibi of reading, and she looked at him of a stunned air.
"Scarlett O'Hara, the former Belle of Clayton County in her majesty - you who buried your two cuckolded husbands and are in the process of doing the same with the third, who shamefully deceived the friendship of a poor gullible woman because you dreamed of fornicating with her husband, you are the queen of manipulators. And the worst of all the females you despise. They at least claim to sell their bodies for the love of profit. They even sometimes - and the one whose bed you refused can testify to this - make love because the male in their bed makes them come. Because the big difference between them and you - do you know that, Scarlett? - is that they have a heart. Whereas you..." - He swallowed with difficulty, and, with the strength of will of the old Captain Butler, the one who had been invincible, he fired the last salvo - "...you, the frigid, what a fine act of acting you have performed! It is not the National Theater that should hire you. No, you would have your chances at Wallack's Theatre on Broadway (*2) to get the lead. That is what you have always wanted to be, the first, the most beautiful, the most desired, the most loved... And that is why you plotted your revenge. Because I had the audacity to reject you three years ago. Then, worse than the most experienced of whores, you consented to some caresses to the poor fool that I am. Admit it, Scarlett! You must have gritted your teeth in aversion when I kissed you. How did you manage not to laugh out loud at my ridiculous declarations of love? But you were ready to do anything, even to sleep with a man who revolts you, simply out of cruelty. Oh, you had me fooled. I almost believed in your love! You said, "I am yours, Rhett!" How have I have fallen for that so easily? I have bed malingerers of pleasure whom I would drop their mask after a minute. But you... Ah! As usual, Scarlett, you are the Queen! You are unique in your perversity."
His heart was racing. He had to stop this horrible charade however he was going to lose his skin in George Pullman's varnish.
No longer having the courage to look into her emerald eyes where he would read only the satisfaction of victory, he declared, his voice broken, "Bravo. You won."
In a final fit of liberating rage, he swept the bottles of alcohol on the central shelf of the liquor cabinet with a wave of his hand.
He had already left the car when the bottles continued to fall, one dragging the other, like a house of cards, spilling their precious and odorous liquors on the floor, ruining the impeccable carpet of George Pullman's varnish.
ooooOOoooo
Notes on chapter 50 :
(*1) Egyptian ring : scarab ring with mobile bezel, period -664 to -332 B.C. (Late Period) - Musée du Louvre, Department of Egyptian Antiquities, source collection louvre Inventory number E 5301 - .fr/ark:/53355/cl010011020#
(*2) Wallack's Theatre - Broadway at 13th Street - famous theater between 1860 and 1880 - Daytonian in Manhattan, the story behind the buildings - .