Rhett Butler's people (25 page)

At the front gate, Brent said he'd carry Melanie's letters on his return to the army. "Everybody says we'll be going north. We got the Federals on the run now and figure to hit 'em in their own country." He paused. "Everybody says we can whip 'em."

"If you can't?" Melanie asked quietly.

Brent Tarleton took off his hat and scratched his head. His smile was the flashing smile of the boy he'd been: the ardent suitor, the rakehell rider, the lad who feared nothing. "If we can't whip 'em, I expect they'll know we tried."

As Brent Tarleton predicted, in June, General Lee crossed the Potomac into Pennsylvania. One Atlanta paper trumpeted, "The fox is among the chickens!"

In the National Hotel casino, Rhett Butler observed publicly, "General Lee can't fight Chancellorsville twice." These days, no decent Atlanta home except Pittypat's was open to Captain Butler, and Pittypat's friends berated her for admitting "that unpatriotic profiteer"!

When Pittypat's resolution faltered, Melanie reminded, "Aunt Pitty, hasn't Captain Butler always been good to us?"

"Why yes, he has, but..."

"Then it is our Christian duty to return his kindnesses. Dear Aunt, if people had listened to Captain Butler, this war would never have started and our dear Charles would be alive."

Melanie had lost track of her brother's sword. Charles's commanding officer had sent back her brother's sword and diary, with his letter of condolence. Charles's diary contained only two entries: "Arrived at Camp Foster.

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Introduced to Wade Hampton. He's a giant!" and, dated two months later, "Feeling a little under the weather. So to the infirmary. I hope I'm not sick long." Melanie had bundled these treasures with a daguerreotype of Charles taken the day he left for war. Melanie believed she'd given them to Scarlett, but Scarlett said no, Melly was mistaken. When Melly wrote Twelve Oaks, John Wilkes answered Charles's things were at Pittypat's, when were Melanie, Scarlett, and little Wade coming out for a visit. Scarlett said John Wilkes must be mistaken. She distinctly remembered seeing Charles's sword at Twelve Oaks.

In the best-ordered life, there is at least one instance when a distracted foolishness combines with a second foolishness to swell into calamity. When the unhappy person realizes the course to which he or she is by now fully committed, the only hope is to look neither to left nor right, but press straight ahead.

Which is how sensible Melanie Wilkes found herself in a closet, overhearing words she desperately regretted hearing.

Alone in the house one warm afternoon, on sudden inspiration, Melanie opened the closet under the stairs where she and Charles had played as children, guessing (correctly, as it turned out) that's where Charles's things had gotten to.

The closet was narrow, with a sharply slanted ceiling, and as deep as the stairway was wide. Originally used to store table leaves, lamp chimneys, winter drapes, and linens, Pittypat hadn't objected when Melanie and Charles turned the odd-shaped closet into a playroom. Door louvers shed faint illumination inside, and it became a favorite refuge in games of hide-and-seek. By the neighborhood children's common consent, any child in that hidey-hole was invisible.

With a wisdom one mightn't have expected of her, Pittypat accepted that magic principle, and many a child-size tragedy -- an unearned reproach, a best friend's snub, an excruciating embarrassment -- was solaced in that small room. Many a child's tear had been shed there, many a child's direst vengeance contemplated; its mellow walls had absorbed so many frustrated sobs.

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Invariably, Pittypat and Uncle Peter were astounded when a child burst out with tearstained cheeks but laughing, all good nature restored.

Like other childish things, the closet was gradually abandoned, but it had been so sacrosanct that it stayed empty for years, until someone -- Pittypat, Uncle Peter, Cook -- unthinkingly stored Charles's things in the place where the boy Charles had been invisible, and where one afternoon his grown sister opened the refuge and stepped inside, stooping for a parcel which had the unmistakable silhouette of a scabbarded sword.

The door swung shut and Melanie sat on the floor. Charles's presence was so strong in this place, she could almost hear him, outside the louvered door, hide-and-seeking through Pittypat's parlor. "Is dear Melly behind the love seat? No. Under the table? No. Behind Aunt Pittypat's drapes? Not here, either. Oh, where has sister Melanie gone?"

But it was Charles who was gone, and Mrs. Ashley Wilkes held her brother's things on her lap and stroked them, thinking how little, how very little, remains of us when we're gone. She wept herself into an unhappy slumber.

Melanie was startled into wakefulness when she heard Scarlett calling for her in the parlor.

Good Lord! How must it seem -- asleep on a closet floor with her brother's sword in her lap?

"Melly! Pittypat is taking supper with Mrs. Meade tonight! Are you home, Melly?"

Mrs. Ashley Wilkes's mind spun. She'd wait until Scarlett left the room! Then she'd emerge and compose herself!

"Ah, Scarlett, I find you at home."

That familiar deep voice. Oh dear, Captain Butler was here, too!

Melanie knew she was acting the fool. Enough! She'd struggle to her feet with all those clunks and clatters -- for the closet was very narrow -- come out with her brother's sword, and say... Oh dear, what could she say? Melanie Wilkes could not submit herself to that ludicrous humiliation. They'd be leaving in a moment. On pleasant afternoons, Rhett and Scarlett always visited on the front porch.

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Outside the door, Melanie heard thumping sounds and the scrape of heavy furniture being shifted.

"What the devil are you doing?" Captain Butler inquired.

"Nothing."

"On hands and knees behind the love seat? You're doing nothing?"

"You might help me, Rhett Butler, instead of standing there like a bump on a log! If you must know, I'm looking for Charles's sword. I put it somewhere, and now Melanie wants the darn thing and I told her I didn't have it."

"So. If you find it, the sword will just 'turn up'? Scarlett, have I ever accused you of being an honest woman?"

"Rhett, help me! It's just a stupid sword."

"Scarlett, why don't you put away those widow's weeds and we'll run away to New Orleans. You never cared for Charles anyway."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Honey, I'm the only man in the world who understands you -- and admires you despite."

"You forget, New Orleans is in Federal hands."

"Scarlett, Scarlett. Money can go anywhere."

In her closet refuge, Melanie pressed her hand to her mouth. Didn't care for Charles? How could she not? Why, Charles was the most lovable boy in creation. When Charles laughed every bit of him laughed. Charles sang -- off-key perhaps -- but with all his heart. Charles ran to the river faster than Melly's little girl's legs could follow. "Wait for me, Charles! Wait for me!"

"New Orleans is the most cosmopolitan city in America. It'll suit you fine."

"Captain Butler, you flatter me. I am no cosmopolitan."

He laughed. "You're as green as grass, my dear, but you'd give your eye-teeth to be cosmopolitan. If Charles's sword was undistinguished, why not just buy another one?"

"Of course it wasn't distinguished. Nothing about Charles was distinguished. But it was his grandfather's sword!"

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A tear trickled down Melanie's cheek. She heard cloth rustle as Rhett embraced Scarlett, murmuring, "I hope one day you won't speak so harshly of me."

"Why should I say

anything

about you? Aren't you a war profiteer? Shall I name the Atlanta homes that welcome you, the respectable families 'at home' when you call?"

He chuckled. "Should I give a damn about those biddies?"

"Why, of course you shouldn't, Captain Butler. You are beyond such mundane concerns. But we mere mortals have friends, and most of us are well regarded by decent society. I believe most of us are even welcome in our parents' homes!"

Cloth rustled again. "Ah, thank you for releasing me," Scarlett said. "I was beginning to fear for my chastity."

"Mrs. Hamilton, you flatter yourself."

Rhett's angry departing footfalls were accompanied by Scarlett's triumphant humming. When Scarlett finally left the parlor, Melanie Wilkes was able to release her anguished, lonely sobs.

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Chapter

Chapter Sixteen

The Burnt District

The first time the Federal fleet attacked Fort Sumter, Charleston citizens had enjoyed a picturesque victory. The hearty roar of patriotic cannon produced waterspouts, which drowned the Federal ironclads as if they were water beetles. When the

Keokuk

sank off Morris Island, Dahlgren guns were salvaged from the wreck and Charlestonians rejoiced that the enemy's own weapons would be turned against him. The

Mercury

concluded that the city's defenses were impregnable: "Battery Wagner commands the western shore, Fort Moultrie the eastern; and in the harbor mouth, Fort Sumter defies everything the Federal Invaders hurl against her!"

Charleston's military commander, General Pierre Beauregard, was less sanguine and urged civilians to evacuate the city. Some wealthy citizens closed their homes and moved their households inland. Although the Langston Butlers made no new arrangements, the Wards decamped to Macon, Georgia, where Frederick's cousin had a plantation.

Haynes's kin in Hanging Rock, North Carolina, invited the Charleston Hayneses to bide with them "until this unpleasantness is finished."

"I will stay here," Rosemary told John.

Thus far, every Federal attack had been repulsed. Sleek blockade runners -- the

Bat,

the

Condor,

the

Venus,

the

Advance,

the

Let 'er Rip,

the

Annie,

the

Banshee

-- lined Charleston's waterfront from Adger's Wharf to Government Wharf.

Then everything changed. In the third July of the War, proud Southern heads began to bow.

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On a hot, rainy afternoon, anguished Charleston citizens collected outside the King Street telegraph office for the casualty lists from a Pennsylvania town no one had previously heard of. The news from Gettysburg could not have been worse: 17 Confederate generals and 28,000 soldiers killed or wounded.

That wasn't the end of it. The very next day, Charleston learned that Vicksburg's besieged garrison had surrendered. The Mississippi was in Federal hands and the Confederacy cut in two. That afternoon, people prayed in the streets outside Charleston's overflowing churches.

On July 10, a Federal division landed on Morris Island, and by nightfall, they'd driven the Confederate defenders to Battery Wagner's outer defenses.

Guns thumping, Federal ironclads prowled the island's shoreline. At 46 Church Street, little Meg stayed in her room with her hands clamped over her ears.

When her father came in that evening, Meg saw his face and burst into tears. John told Rosemary, "William Stock Bee's son was killed today. When William came to my office, the good old soul could scarcely speak."

"His only son. The poor, poor man."

"Frederick Ward's son was killed, too. I understand Willy Ward died gallantly. 'Gallantly'!" John choked on the word. "Excepting Battery Wagner, Morris Island is in Federal hands and attacks on Wagner are sure to come. I've train tickets to Hanging Rock for you and Meg."

"I will not go."

"Wife!"

"This is the first time since January you have called me by that honorable name."

"My God, Rosemary!"

Husband and wife looked at each other helplessly. Neither reached out and the moment passed.