Rhett Butler's people (55 page)

Louis Valentine considered this theory gravely. "Chinamen are on the bottom of the world?"

"Yes, dear."

"Why don't they fall off?"

"Because God loves them, dear. God loves all his children."

Rosemary set two places at the table and bowed her head while Louis Valentine said grace. She took their chamber pot downstairs to the necessary, emptied and washed it.

Afterward, she carried her own tepid, half-solidified oatmeal into the family room, where, in the silver chest, she kept Melanie Wilkes's precious letters. Without those letters, Rosemary thought she would go mad.

Dearest Rosemary,

Please forgive my bleak indiscretions. I hope you understand that I confide to you what I cannot confide to another. If I didn't have you to unburden myself to, I don't know what I would do. Should I set dissembling aside and shout the truth?

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My beloved husband, Ashley, has always been attracted to my dearest friend Scarlett. I had hoped that your brother would cure Scarlett of this infatuation, but she

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the friend I love more than any on earth

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yearns after my husband so openly, sometimes I must needs look away. Sometimes, when Scarlett is wearing that particular dreamy expression, I ask, "Dear Scarlett, what are you thinking?" She'll answer that she's thinking about the garden, the children, politics, or some other matter that never crosses her unhorticultural, unmotherly, unpolitical mind. I pretend to believe her because, dear Rosemary, I must pretend.

We are, all of us, imprisoned by Love.

When I was a girl, I thought Love attended one like a floral perfume. Now I think Love is more like a drunkard's craving for wine. The drunkard knows his desire destroys everything precious to him. He knows he will despise himself tomorrow, and yet he cannot forswear wine!

Dear Rosemary, Scarlett thinks it is merely ill fortune she and my husband are so rarely alone. L confess my design: L would as soon leave those two together as a drunkard with a case of brandy!

Whenever Scarlett visits Ashley's mill, that evening my husband comes home to me a different man. Even as he kisses me glad hello, poor Ashley's troubled eyes shout that he'd rather be with another.

Your brother is trying to persuade Scarlett to sell her sawmills to Ashley, so they'll have no excuse to be together!

L dare not conceive again. Dr. Meade has uttered the direst warnings. Consequently, Ashley and L cannot enjoy those intimate relations which bond a husband and wife. I miss Ashley so!

Since Rhett and Scarlett's happiness is so interwoven with my own, I wish L could write that their marriage was happy. Rhett is not unfaithful, nor is Scarlett, but they are as discontented as two philanderers. When differences arise, they are not resolved; misunderstandings are taken to heart; each one's privacies make no space for the other; and last month, Mammy, Scarlett's dear old nurse, confided (in her usual oblique fashion) that they no longer share a bed.

Scarlett has so identified herself with Atlanta's Carpetbaggers that respectable people snub her on the street. As if to goad Mrs. Meade and

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Mrs. Elsing, Scarlett routinely entertains Governor Bullock and his cronies

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Puryear, Kimball, and Blodgett. Rhett avoids these gatherings like the plague.

Oh Rosemary, Rhett and Scarlett are so dear to my heart! If your brother hadn't been driving that dreadful night we fled Atlanta ... and afterward, when hard times stalked the land, if Scarlett had not been Mistress at Tara, I don't believe my son, Beau, or myself would have survived.

Scarlett and Rhett are not like you and me. Heads turn when they walk into a room. They expect duller folks' deference.

When the Queen of

Sheba came to Solomon's court, she brought a powerful retinue: soldiers, viziers, and serving maids. Her horses were caparisoned with gold and precious rubies. At Jerusalem's gates, Solomon's guards stood aside to let them pass.

The Queen had come to Solomon to ask questions she had considered all her life, questions her most learned advisers could not answer.

I don't imagine she went to him that first day, nor even the second. Minor officials would scurry back and forth; perhaps there was a welcome feast, with Solomon at the head of an enormous table and Sheba at the foot.

But soon, for she was a mighty Queen, she would have had her audience. Solomon was robed as richly as she. He was handsome. He had a hundred concubines, many of them younger and lovelier than she.

When Sheba asked him a question, Solomon answered it. When she asked another, he answered that, too. He answered all her questions.

The Bible says, "The spirit went out of her." What use was her power and wealth when he could answer any question she put to him?

How she must have hated him.

Rhett and Scarlett's link, the only thing they agree on, is their daughter, Bonnie, whom they love to distraction. I'm afraid Rhett spoils Bonnie. He takes her with him everywhere. She's such a charming creature!

Little Bonnie has accomplished a miracle. She has made Rhett Butler

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promise you won't laugh

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respectable!

When Rhett learned the Butler children weren't being invited to children's parties because society disapproved of their parents, he mended fences. When he has a mind to, your brother can charm the pelt off a grizzly bear!

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Did the Confederate Orphans and Widows need help? "Will a hundred be enough?"

Prominent Confederate officers

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General Forrest in person!

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trooped through Atlanta to establish Rhett's Confederate credentials. He has distanced himself from the Carpetbaggers, even Rufus Bullock, his old friend.

The same ladies who cut your brother dead six months ago fawn over him, and Wade, Ella, and little Bonnie Blue attend every children's soiree!

I pray that Rhett and Scarlett may yet be happy. I pray that A Little Child Shall Lead Them ...

As I

pray for you and little Louis Valentine.

Your friend, Melly

That afternoon, Rosemary shepherded her mother and son from AG Church Street to the East Bay Inn.

Federal warships were still anchored in Charleston harbor and there were more blue-clad sailors than civilians on the promenade.

Coastal shipping was brisk and Haynes & Sons' deserted wharf was a bleak exception to the prosperous maritime scene.

EAST BAY INN

JAMIE FISHER, MISS JULIET RAVANEL, SOLE PROPS.

The modest black-on-green sign might easily be overlooked by the hasty or vulgar traveler. The inn itself looked as if dirt entered at its peril.

The door brass of the old Fisher town house was polished mirror-bright. The front hall was Christmassy with wreaths and holly. A sprig of mistletoe hung above the drawing room door.

"Dear Rosemary!" Juliet wiped her hands on a towel.

"Juliet, it is so good to see you. We've been too much strangers."

Juliet had aged into a ramrod-straight woman whose gray-flecked hair was contained in a tight bun. Her skillfully made dress was too youthful for her.

"Happy Christmas, Juliet," Rosemary said, kissing her cheek. "Our estrangement is not my desire."

Juliet's polite smile warmed a degree. "My brother is a reckless fool.

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May I take your coat? Oh, here's Louis Valentine. Louis Valentine, you are so grown up."

Grown up or no, Louis Valentine tucked himself behind his grandmother's knee.

"Mrs. Butler, Merry Christmas. So good of you to come. Louis Valentine, there are children in the drawing room and the prettiest Christmas tree! Captain Jackson's daughter is June. Sally is the blond girl."

At this, Valentine shed all caution and marched into the other room, from whence a little girl cried, "Mustn't touch the tree! Miss Juliet says we mustn't touch the tree!"

Rosemary and Juliet lingered in the hall while Elizabeth Butler followed her grandson.

"Rhett's upstairs. His Bonnie and your Louis Valentine make our Christmas complete."

The inn's paneling gleamed. The hall chandelier glittered like icicles.

"What a magnificent piece, Juliet. What a miracle it survived the shelling."

"Don't be a ninny. When it came trundling down the street on a scavenger's cart, we bought it for five dollars. I live in fear that one day someone will ask, 'Where on earth did you find So-and-so's chandelier? Jamie washes it. It has one thousand and six crystals, and he never puts them back as they were."

"I was practically raised in this house," Rosemary said. "Grand, difficult Grandmother Fisher. Poor dear Charlotte ..."

"I regret every unkind word I ever said to her."

"In the end, Charlotte loved you." Rosemary inspected a framed print. "Isn't this a blockade runner? Isn't it the

Bat?

And you with a houseful of Yankees? Juliet, what a subversive creature you are!"

Louis Valentine's squeal drew his mother's attention.

Some of the drawing room furniture was neatly repaired, but the love seat and two chairs wanted reupholstering. Elizabeth Butler and her grandson stood hand in hand before an ornament-bedecked Christmas tree.

When Louis Valentine reached for the candles, a girl warned him, "You'll burn yourself! Silly boy."

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Juliet introduced Rosemary to the Yankee mothers, Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. Caldwell.

In this room, little Rosemary Butler and little Charlotte Fisher had tiptoed around Grandmother Fisher's precious Chippendale furniture! Rosemary shook her head to clear the cobwebs.

Louis Valentine left his grandmother to help the girls build a fortress of brightly colored wooden blocks. He announced, "It's Fort Sumter."

"It is not," a Yankee girl demurred. "For if it is Fort Sumter, we shall have to knock it down."

"Jesus Christ is returning," Mrs. Butler informed the mothers. "I expect Him any day."

Rosemary felt her brother's familiar hand on her shoulder. "Rosemary, Mother, say hello to my beautiful Bonnie Blue."

The toddler had Scarlett's dark hair and her father's captivating smile. Her blue velvet dress matched her hair bow. "Daddy says you 'good Butler.' Who the bad Butlers?"

"Bad Butlers?" Elizabeth frowned. "Why, there are no bad Butlers."

Rosemary laughed, "Your father flatters me, honey. Do you want to play with your cousin Louis Valentine?"

"Please." A child's clumsy curtsy.

Bonnie flopped down with the other children and began removing blocks from the fortress they were erecting.

Rhett watched her lovingly. He asked his sister, "Would you take some Christmas cheer? They've turned Grandmother Fisher's withdrawing room into a bar."

Two Yankee officers had the morris chairs in the bow window. The Butlers shared a couch before the crackling fire. Jamie Fisher bustled in. "Rhett, I was at the market when you checked in. Happy Christmas! Happy Christmas, Rosemary."

"You've done great things here, Jamie."

"We're planning to serve meals. Our dining room is enormous, and Lord knows, Charleston has enough unemployed cooks."

How odd, Rosemary thought, that after what he'd been through, Jamie

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Fisher was still an innocent. His sister, Charlotte, had been an innocent, too. Who could think them worse off?

Jamie said, "Will you try our eggnog? I made it myself."

After pouring tall mugs of his foamy concoction, Jamie excused himself.

One of the Yankee mothers appeared. "Madam, if I may intrude.... Your companion ... the old woman ..."