Rhett Butler's people (51 page)

"Rhett!"

He grinned at his bride. "I've rather enjoyed our marital relations."

"That doesn't mean we need to talk about them."

"When food and love are forbidden topics, conversation descends to politics." As an orator might, Rhett set his left hand in the small of his back. "Tell me, Mrs. Butler, will Georgia ever be free of Carpetbagger rule? Is Governor Bullock's concern for the negro a ruse to get their votes?"

When he ducked, Scarlett's shoe clattered against the shutters behind him.

That night, the lobby was thronged with well-dressed European travelers and wealthy Creoles. When Rhett asked the doorman to summon a cab, Scarlett said, "Rhett, I didn't know you spoke French."

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"Creole isn't exactly

French,

honey. Parisians can't make head or tails of it."

The doorman drew himself up to his full five foot two. "Monsieur, that is because our French is ancient and pure. The Parisian French have bastardized a beautiful language."

Rhett's inclined his head.

"Sans doute, monsieur."

Every morning, disdaining the hotel waiters, Rhett went to the kitchen to fetch Scarlett's breakfast tray. Scarlett's day began with caresses and beignets and the bitterest, blackest coffee she'd ever tasted.

"My dear, you have jam at the corner of your mouth."

"Lick it off."

They never left the hotel before noon.

Rhett knew every shop in the city and fashionable dressmakers greeted him with a kiss on the cheek and news of old acquaintances. "English, please." Rhett smiled. "My wife is a Georgia lady."

The new high waistlines flattered Scarlett's neck and bodice and she bought so many gowns, Rhett had them packed in steamer trunks and shipped home. They bought a Saint Bernard puppy for Wade and a coral bracelet for little Ella. Though Scarlett said she'd never wear it, Rhett bought a shimmering red petticoat for Mammy.

One languorous, sensual day blurred into another. Scarlett hadn't been flattered so shamelessly since she was a maiden. Despite her wedded state, more than one Creole gentlemen made it clear he would gladly have taken matters beyond admiration. Rhett took no offense at the flirtations but never left her alone with another man.

New Orleans winked at behavior that would have set Atlanta tongues wagging. Scarlett could get tipsy. She could play chemin de fer. She could flirt so outrageously, Atlanta biddies would have thought it adulterous.

At Sunday Mass in St. Louis cathedral, Rhett leaned over to whisper a joke so crude, it set her choking and coughing. Rhett joked when he should have been solemn, was solemn when he should have jeered. He was delighted by Louisiana's Carpetbagger legislature, praising its every folly, reveling in its corruption, as if madness were the natural state of affairs.

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Scarlett adored Creole cooking. Lunching at Antoine's one afternoon, when Scarlett speared the last mussel from Rhett's plate he grinned. "If you grow round and fat, I shall take a Creole mistress."

Scarlett looked for the waiter. "Let's order more crawfish."

Rhett reached across the table, took her left hand, and with his thumb caressed the tender web between Scarlett's thumb and forefinger.

Hoarsely, Scarlett said, "I don't want any more. Quick, Rhett. Let's go back to the hotel."

One afternoon, Rhett hired a vis-à-vis to drive them along the levee, where Mississippi River paddle wheelers were exchanging cargoes with deep-water ships. Since the Federals captured New Orleans early in the War, the city hadn't been bombarded and became the South's busiest port. The stevedores were immigrant Irish, glad to have twelve hours' work for fifty cents. They lived in shantytowns behind the levee with worn-out wives and too many squalling, dirty children. Startled to hear her father Gerald's familiar accent, Scarlett gripped Rhett's arm.

"What is it, sweetheart?"

"Promise me, Rhett. Oh, promise me I'll never be poor again."

Per New Orleans custom, they dined late and afterward attended balls -- public and private, costume and masked. Or they gambled at the Boston Club (named from the popular card game, not the Yankee city). After Scarlett understood bezique, she won more than she lost.

One night during a memorable run of luck, Rhett insisted they leave immediately.

Scarlett nursed her anger until they were in their cab. "I was having fun! I was winning! You don't want me to have my own money!"

"My dear, money means much more to you than it does to me."

"You want to own me!"

"Money means even more to the gentlemen whose pockets you were emptying. I know those particular gentlemen. I've known them for years."

Scarlett tossed her head. "Why should I give a darn about them?"

"You needn't, but I must. Since they cannot possibly seek satisfaction from a lady, they must challenge her escort. The levee is damp at daybreak, and I'd hate to catch a chill."

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Several evenings, Rhett went out on business, leaving Scarlett in the hotel to try on her purchases.

One tiny cloud drifted across Scarlett's happiness. The young man was dressed soberly, more like senior clerk than a man about town. He was usually in the lobby when they passed through, leaning against a pillar with his arms crossed or sitting in a club chair reading a newspaper. He chatted familiarly with the doorman.

He watched them come into the St. Louis and watched them go out. He frequented the same restaurants.

"Who is that boy?" Scarlett whispered. "He was at the Boston Club last night. Why is he interested in us?"

"You needn't worry yourself, dear," Rhett replied. "He fancies he has a grievance with me."

"What grievance? Who is he?"

"How kind you are to worry about me," Rhett said. "Really, you needn't."

"Worry about you?" Scarlett sniffed. "Don't be silly. You can take care of yourself."

Still, the young man was a cloud.

Those profiting under the Reconstruction government were building homes in what, not long ago, had been truck gardens outside the city. This "Garden District" was growing so rapidly that fine new mansions were fronted by streets where municipal horsecars sank to their hubs in mud. Unfinished mansions were surrounded by stacks of raw lumber (which Scarlett thought compared poorly with Georgia pine). Evenings were punctuated by carpenters' hammers tapping away like woodpeckers until it was too dark to see.

Captain Butler and his beautiful bride were invited to fetes where cotton factors and riverboat owners mingled with hard-faced men whose easy laughter never reached their eyes. Although they were expensively dressed, their lapels were too wide and their trousers too tight. They favored bright parrot colors. These men spoke of Cuba and Nicaragua as casually as if

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they'd just come from there and might go back tomorrow. Their women were too young, too pretty, too fashionably dressed, and didn't try to conceal their boredom.

The hard men were more courteous to Rhett than to one another.

"How do they know you?"

"From time to time, I've put a little business their way."

In a Touro Street mansion, a house so new Scarlett could smell the wallpaper paste, an old woman introduced herself. "I am Toinette Sevier." Her smile was charmingly insincere. "Sevier is my maiden name. I prefer to forget my husbands. You are a Robillard, I believe. You favor your mother."

Scarlett felt like someone had stepped on her grave.

Toinette Sevier's skin was age-spotted and her pink scalp gleamed through thinning white hair. Her jeweled rings, bracelets, and necklace proved she'd once been a desirable woman.

"Ellen and I were Savannah belles too many years ago. I did know Ellen's beau, Philippe, rather better than I knew your mother."

Philippe! A name Scarlett had banished to the furthest corner of her memory. On her deathbed, Scarlett's mother's final plea had been for "Philippe!"

A servant replaced Toinette's glass with another. Her smile was reminiscent. "Philippe was a flame that grows hotter and brighter, until it consumes everything -- or should I say everyone -- it touches."

Scarlett didn't want to hear another word. Ellen O'Hara had been the finest lady, the most perfect mother.... Scarlett drew herself up to reply, "My mother never spoke of the man."

"She wouldn't." The woman's old eyes had seen everything. "There are Catholics and Catholics, my dear, and Ellen Robillard was a penitential one."

In New Orleans, Scarlett was happy -- almost too happy. She did miss her sawmills: the buying and selling, the satisfaction of besting shrewd businessmen. And she missed Ashley. She missed his face, the now-too-rare spark in his tired, dear brown eyes. Ashley Wilkes was Tara and Twelve Oaks and everything Scarlett had ever desired! In this mood, with Ashley on her mind, she couldn't remember why she'd married Rhett Butler.

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Scarlett resented Rhett's power. His embrace overwhelmed her resistance; his kisses won his way with her. Scarlett just

knew

Rhett wanted her to become someone less than she was: a devoted wife who was as good as she was stupid. In this half-bored, half-resentful mood, Scarlett went through Rhett's portfolio one morning while he was fetching her breakfast.

Some of Rhett's papers were in Spanish and bore elaborate wax seals. She found bills of lading -- one for "two trunks, by rail to the National Hotel, Atlanta. HANDLE WITH CARE!"; one for Wade's Saint Bernard puppy: "Special Handling! Express car!" She found a bill from Peake and Bennett, London tailors, a letter of credit from the Banque de New Orleans in an amount that pleasantly surprised her, and a ticket for a ball, two nights hence, at the Honeysuckle Ballroom.

One ticket. Not two.

Of course Rhett had been with other women. He'd made no secret of that. But Scarlett had assumed that now they were married, she would satisfy him. The "business" Rhett went out for at night -- what sort of "business" was transacted between midnight and dawn? Scarlett's ears burned. She'd been a fool!

When Rhett brought her breakfast, Scarlett was in her petticoat before the pier glass. "Look how fat I am," she announced.

When he put his arms around her, she stiffened. "I won't eat anything, ever again, no matter how hungry I get. Oh Rhett, I remember when a man could put both hands around my waist and touch his fingertips." When Rhett's fingertips failed to meet by three inches, Scarlett burst into tears.

That afternoon, Rhett went out again on his mysterious "business." Scarlett went to the lobby, where the watchful young man nodded politely. The doorman was loading a Yankee family into a cab when their little boy kicked his shin. "The young monsieur is certainly a lively boy! Yes, madame, he is certainly lively."

The doorman pocketed his five-cent tip, massaged his ankle, and turned to Scarlett. "Yes, madame? Artaud is at your service."

"I wish a ticket for the Honeysuckle Ballroom."

The doorman smiled like someone who hears a joke he doesn't understand. "Madame?"

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"The Honeysuckle Ballroom? Surely you've heard of it."

Artaud cautiously admitted he might have heard of that establishment. It was on Bourbon Street, or was it Beaubein?

Scarlett offered a banknote. "The ticket is ten dollars, I believe."

The doorman put his hands behind his back,

"Je

suis dé

solé, madame. Désolé! I cannot help you."

The watchful young man paused in the doorway,

"Pardon, madame.

White ladies are not welcome at the Quadroon Ball." The young man strolled away, whistling.

"What, pray, is a 'Quadroon Ball'?"

The doorman produced a pained smile. "I cannot know, madame, and if I could know, I could not say. Forgive me, madame...." He turned to an elderly French lady who wished to know which church had an eleven o'clock Mass.

In the Boston Club that evening, Toinette Sevier was accompanied by a good-looking Creole half her age.