Rhett Butler's people (64 page)

I suppose I shall be seeing Charles soon. It will be lovely to ask what he thinks of all our goings-on.

I send you my best love.

Your Devoted Friend,

Melanie Hamilton Wilkes

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Chapter

Chapter Forty-nine

A Deathwatch

As Melanie Wilkes was dying, Rhett Butler waited in the parlor of his mansion on Peachtree Street, listening to the clock.

It was October. A dark, drizzly afternoon.

His glass of cognac had been distilled from grapes Napoleon's armies might have passed. It tasted like ashes.

The Governor of Georgia, Senators, and United States Congressmen had been entertained in this room. The workman who'd fitted its chair rails had got more pleasure from this house than Rhett ever had.

The big house was quiet as a tomb. After Bonnie died, he'd shunned Ella and Wade. He was afraid he'd look at the living children and think, It might have been you instead of Bonnie. If only it had been you....

Mammy and Prissy took the children out of the house to play. When it rained, Ella and Wade played in the carriage house.

He'd quit going to his desk at the Farmer's and Merchants' Bank. Yesterday -- or was it the day before? -- the bank's president had come, deeply worried. Although the Farmer's and Merchants' hadn't invested in the Northern Pacific, when Jay Cooke declared bankruptcy, the New York Stock Exchange collapsed. All over the country, depositors raced to their banks to withdraw their savings. Banks had failed in New York, Philadelphia, Savannah, Charleston, and Nashville. The Farmer's and Merchants' didn't have enough cash to meet the demand.

"Rhett," the president begged, "could you help?"

Rhett Butler pledged his fortune so Farmer's and Merchants' depositors

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could withdraw their savings in cash -- every cent. Since they could, they didn't.

Rhett didn't care.

The clock chimed the hour: six funereal strokes.

A gust in the still room ruffled the hair on the nape of his neck and Rhett knew Miss Melly was dead.

Melanie Wilkes was one of the few creatures Rhett had ever known who would not be deceived.

As the brown autumnal light leaked out of the room, Rhett lit the gaslights.

Had he loved Scarlett, or had he loved what she might become? Had he deceived himself -- loving the image more than the flesh and blood woman?

Rhett didn't care.

If she

had

betrayed him again and again with Ashley Wilkes, Rhett didn't care. Ashley was free now. If she still wanted the man, she could have him.

That evening, when Rhett's wife came home from Melanie Wilkes's deathbed, she told her husband she loved him. Scarlett had never said that before, and Rhett may have believed her. But he didn't care.

Rhett Butler looked into the pale green eyes that had mesmerized him for so many years and did not give a damn.

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Chapter

Chapter Fifty

The Hill Behind Twelve Oaks

Upon Rhett's terse telegram, Rosemary resigned from the Female Seminary, packed, and gave the keys of

46

Church Street to her brother, Julian.

Louis Valentine was entranced by his first train ride. They overnighted in the Augusta railroad hotel and Big Sam met them at Jonesboro the next afternoon.

Wealthy Yankees had leased what remained of Twelve Oaks Plantation for quail hunting. Excepting oat patches grubbed here and there for game birds, the plantation had reverted to brush.

"Keep your hands inside, Young Master," Big Sam advised Louis Valentine, "else you get 'em ripped." Brambles squeezed the lane. Blackberry canes scratched the panels of their carriage.

Brick chimneys rose from the rubble of what had been Twelve Oaks' manor house. Its toppled columns were half-buried under mats of Virginia creeper. The turnaround was newly opened. The stubble crackling under their wheels hadn't seen full sun since the War. Glossy Atlanta phaetons were parked beside rickety farm wagons. Horses, several still in work hames, were hobbled here and there. Negroes gathered beneath an ancient chestnut tree that had survived Sherman's fires.

"We cain't get no closer," Big Sam advised. "Got to walk to the buryin' ground."

"Where can I find my brother, Captain Butler?"

"Reckon he's with Mister Will. They cleared this turnaround yesterday."

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As they walked past parked carriages, an amiable face poked out a window: "Lord a mercy, ain't that you, Miss Rosemary? And there's Louis Valentine, too. Honey, don't be shy."

"Why, Belle, hello. I didn't know you knew Melanie."

"I thought right high of Mrs. Wilkes. I wouldn't set myself up as Mrs. Wilkes's friend, but she was awful good to me. I couldn't go to St. Philip's for the funeral, but I thought I could come here, it bein' outdoors 'n' all."

"Melanie wouldn't have minded."

"What Mrs. Wilkes minded wasn't what other folks mind. Mrs. Wilkes, she was a Christian!"

"Yes, she was. How I wish ..." Rosemary searched Belle's face. "Melly was very worried about my brother."

Belle's smile vanished. "Rightly so. I've never seen Rhett so poorly. First off, he loses that dear child, and now this! What's he gonna do? Him and Miss Scarlett... he moved out on her. Just up and left. He ain't stayin' at my place, neither. I don't know where he's at!" Belle dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. "I can't ruin my face. I got to look decent for the buryin'."

Louis Valentine clung to Big Sam's hand. "I hates to see it like this," Sam told Rosemary. "I recall when Twelve Oaks was a

real

plantation. Good cotton growed in these bottoms -- high-dollar cotton."

"Where can I find Captain Butler?"

"Prolly the graveyard. Day before yesterday, he come out. Been workin' since." Big Sam shook his head at this turn of events. "Cap'n Butler workin' like a nigger! You want I should carry you, Young Master?"

"I can walk by myself!" Louis Valentine asserted. "I'm seven!"

The Wilkeses' aesthetic sensibility had been expressed in every aspect of plantation life. Their parties had been famous for gaiety and the beauty of the attending belles. The wittiest bon mots had been uttered in the Wilkeses' drawing rooms, where Clayton County preoccupations with drinking, hunting, and horses got short shrift. From the veranda, beyond Twelve Oaks' lush gardens, one could just see the sparkling shallows of the Flint River.

Behind the main house, a shaded path climbed broad stones to the hilltop

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where, above Twelve Oaks' tall chimneys, a filigreed iron gate admitted mourners to the family graveyard. Within, huge oaks brooded over lichened headstones. Arrayed below this somber yard had been the plantation crops, manor house, gardens, and dependencies. On a clear day, everything one could see belonged to the Wilkeses; yet within these graveyard walls, all human desires, pride, wealth, and power came to their humble conclusion. For the Wilkeses, even death had an aesthetic dimension.

Now the stone treads were askew or broken and brambles plucked at Rosemary's sleeves. The oaks were stumps; they'd fed Sherman's campfires. Deer and feral hogs had browsed among the headstones, and the morally instructive vista had been swallowed by saplings, blackberry thickets, and strangler vines.

The two oldest graves (Robert Wilkes 1725-1809; Sarah Wilkes 1735-1829) were flanked by the inhabitants' descendants. Here were Melanie's parents, Colonel Stuart Hamilton (1798-1844), "Sorely missed," and his wife, Amy, "Loving Mother."

John A. Wilkes, Ashley's father, lay beside his wife. Charles Hamilton, C.S.A. (1840-1861), was against the wall with the cousins.

Tiny stones marked Wilkes infants' graves.

Rhett Butler slumped on a toppled headstone. When he looked up, Rosemary winced at the pain in his eyes.

"Oh Rhett, poor dear Melly."

Rhett Butler's collar was undone and his shirt was filthy. When he brushed hair from his eyes, he streaked his forehead with red Georgia clay. His voice was dull as a dirty stone. "All the sweet, kind souls are gone. Bonnie, Meg, John, and now Melly."

Men were chopping brush and crying instructions as the hearse lumbered up the back slope.

"Sister," Rhett said. "No, please, don't touch me. I don't think I could bear being touched." Almost as afterthought, he added, "I've left her. I'd thought... I'd hoped ..." He straightened his slumped shoulders. "I believed we were two of a kind. All those goddamned years ..."

"What will you do, Rhett? Where will you go?"

"Who the hell cares? There's always somewhere."

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With a moistened handkerchief, Rosemary scrubbed dirt from her brother's forehead.

Louis Valentine was investigating tombstones. "Look, Mother," he called, "he was just a baby."

Because she couldn't bear her brother's pain, Rosemary went to her son. She read, "Turner Wilkes, August 14-September 10, 1828. Our Heart's Desire."

Rhett's hoarse voice intruded: "Turner was Ashley's older brother. If Turner Wilkes had had the decency to survive, Melanie would have married Turner and Ashley could have married Scarlett and I wouldn't have wasted my life."

"Rhett, can't you forgive her?"

Her brother shook his head wearily. "Of course I forgive her. She is who she is. I can't forgive myself."

Skidding hooves, rattling trace chains, and nervous advice announced the hearse. The glass-paneled conveyance had carried the deceased from St. Philip's in dignity but was in peril climbing the steep, partially cleared slope. Brambles scratched the glass and undertaker's boys held back thicker branches that might have shattered it. Behind the hearse, Will Benteen led the horses of the family carriage.

At the grave site, the strong helped children and the infirm. A white-faced Beau Wilkes clung to his father's hand. Wade Hamilton stepped around his father Charles's grave.

Little Ella clutched a bouquet of wilted chrysanthemums.

Scarlett's eyes were brimming with unshed tears.

Half Clayton County was here. The Wilkeses had been a grand family and country folk are proud of their grand families.

Faces Scarlett knew were worn with age and privation. Here was Tony Fontaine, back from Texas. And Alex Fontaine had married Sally Munroe, his brother Joe's widow. Beatrice Tarleton was whispering to Will Benteen -- probably about horses. Beatrice Tarleton loved her horses more than her daughters. Randa and Camilla Tarleton had red clay on their Sunday shoes. They'd have to scrub them before they taught school tomorrow.

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Betsy Tarleton hovered beside her mother to avoid her fat, ill-natured husband. Beatrice paid Betsy no mind.

Suellen O'Hara Benteen glared at Scarlett. Will had told his wife Scarlett would be staying at Tara after the funeral.

As her marriage disintegrated month by month, week by week -- sometimes Scarlett believed, hour by hour -- Scarlett had found refuge investing money. She'd always been shrewd. Hadn't she built the two most profitable sawmills in Atlanta? Rhett had insisted the railroads were overextended, that more track had been built than there were passengers, or freight.

She'd show him! She'd bought Northern Pacific bonds.

After Bonnie died, Rhett had vanished into another world -- a world she could not enter. Nothing she said seemed to touch him. Her sincerest promises were as ineffective as her tantrums. Rhett had looked at his wife with tired, sad eyes and abandoned her to sit beside Melanie Wilkes's deathbed.

When Scarlett's regrets and self-recriminations were too much for her, she'd gone downtown to her broker. Jay Cooke's Northern Pacific Railroad had been the sole happiness in Scarlett's life. With no effort and no suffering on her part, Northern Pacific track marched inexorably west as its bonds rose buoyantly into the skies. Natural Wonders!

After Scarlett ran through the money she'd got for her sawmills, she mortgaged the Peachtree Street mansion. In Melanie Wilkes's final days, Scarlett had borrowed against Tara.