Rhett Butler's people (70 page)

But Will's plow couldn't weed the ridges and couldn't thin the cotton plants to eight inches apart. Hoeing wants human hands. Only Mammy, who was too old, and three-year-old Robert Benteen, who was too young, were spared stoop labor.

For the hundredth time that morning, Scarlett shook weeds off her hoe. "Wade Hampton Hamilton! Hoe the weeds, not the cotton."

"Yes, Mother." Though he'd severed the plant's roots, Wade heeled it carefully back into place.

Scarlett closed her eyes, seeking patience. Dilcey called, "You doin' all right, Miss Scarlett?"

Scarlett snapped, "If you'd spend less time gabbing and more time hoeing, we'd get through this field."

Wade muttered under his breath, "How can we do that?"

Which was, Scarlett thought but didn't say, a good question.

Spindly cotton plants languished behind the little band of cultivators. Ahead, there were so many weeds, it was hard to spot the cotton.

Yesterday, Will had told Scarlett they must abandon the upper tract.

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"We won't get there before the cotton is strangled, Miss Scarlett. No sense me tillin' it. I can do more, hoein' alongside you all."

Louis Valentine Ravanel and Beau Wilkes shared a row. Like the grown-ups, Wade had a row to himself. Will Benteen worked two.

Clouds drifting lazily across the sky chased shadows across their tiny patch of the world.

Although they no longer went into Jonesboro for church, they quit work at noon on Sunday, and weary, silent children climbed into the wagon. In the heat haze, traces jingled. Will murmured, "Get up now, Molly," and the horse's big hooves clopped the dry ground.

At the horse barn, the children scrambled down, while Pork, Dilcey, and Prissy headed toward the quarters.

"Suellen, please get the children washed. I'll help Will with the horses."

"Don't reckon I need help, Miss Scarlett," Will said.

"I reckon you do," Scarlett said.

Rosemary was briefly puzzled by the black carriage in front of the house. Surely she knew it? "Why, Belle Watling. What a surprise."

In her modest brown check dress, Belle might have been any country woman come to call. "I'm sorry to be a bother, Miss Rosemary, but I just had to come."

"I'm always glad to see a friend of Rhett's, Belle. Is it dry in Atlanta? I swear we're burning up. Please, won't you come in the house?"

Belle hesitated at the threshold.

"Please, come in." Rosemary led Belle into the cool parlor. Dried sweat coated Rosemary's skin and made her sticky. "Won't you sit? Can I fetch some refreshment? We've fresh buttermilk...."

"Oh, no. I don't need nothin'. I just come to ... tell you, you and Miss Scarlett..." Belle laid her gloves across an arm of the love seat, then picked them up and fiddled with them. Belle took a breath. "Miss Rosemary, you and me, we've been friendly, but I believe Miss Scarlett hates me. What I got to say is important, and I'd 'predate your fetchin' her."

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Rosemary stepped into the hall to call upstairs. "Wade! Please fetch your mother. Tell her it's important."

Belle amended: "Say it's life or death."

The boy clattered down the back stairs. Rosemary asked Mammy to bring water to the parlor.

When Rosemary came back into the room, Belle was examining the portrait over the mantelpiece. Startled from her reverie, Belle said, "I guess she was a real lady."

"I believe Mrs. Butler's grandmother was married three times."

"I'm sorry to show up without no invitation." Belle bent to the roses Pork still picked every day. Belle said, "I got to water my roses with well water. Roses don't care for well water."

When Mammy brought the pitcher and glasses, her mouth was set in a tight line. Rosemary forestalled her vocal disapproval, "Thank you, Mammy. The children can take dinner in the kitchen."

Mammy mumbled, "Poor Miss Ellen be rollin' in her grave...."

A dirty, sweat-streaked Scarlett untied her sunbonnet as she came into the parlor, " 'Life or death,' Rosemary? Ah, Miss Watling ..."

"Missus Butler, I wouldn't have troubled you, but..."

"You certainly needn't trouble us anymore." Pointedly, Scarlett stood aside so Belle could leave.

"Scarlett..." Rosemary protested.

Scarlett's smile was steely. "Dear Rosemary, Louis Valentine is filthy as a chimney sweep. Shouldn't you see to his bath?"

"Scarlett, I don't imagine Belle drove out from Atlanta unless it was important."

Scarlett brushed dirty hair off her forehead, went to the hunt board, uncorked the decanter, and poured a brandy. She tossed it back and made a face. "Miss Watling, excuse my manners. You are ... unexpected."

"This ain't easy for me," Belle began. She sipped from her glass. "You've got better water than in town."

"Belle," Rosemary said, "what..."

Belle rolled the cool glass on her forehead. "Miss Rosemary, I wouldn't

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be alive today hadn't been for Rhett Butler. Likely my boy, Tazewell, would be dead, too."

"Miss Watling," Scarlett interrupted. "I've been in the field since daybreak. I am filthy and irritable."

Belle Watling rested her head on the back of the love seat and shut her eyes. In a dull voice, she said, "Poppa blames Rhett for all his sorrows. Poppa says Rhett lured my brother, Shadrach Watling, into a duel and shot him dead, account of Shad killed that trunk master, Will."

"What on earth are you talking about?" Scarlett demanded.

"Poppa's been comin' by," Belle kept her eyes shut. "Every Sunday, ten o'clock sharp, Poppa comes by."

Isaiah Watling would come up Belle's walk without noticing how nice she'd kept the lawn, nor her roses, nor the cheery petunias in her window boxes. Belle always had a coffeepot and sweet rolls on the porch in case he'd take something, but he never did. "Mornin', Poppa."

He always came

by himself. He left Archie and Josie back in Mundy Hollow.

He'd sit on the glider, feet flat on the floor so the glider wouldn't glide. He kept his hat on. "Daughter." He said the word as if he wasn't sure she was.

Isaiah never asked about his grandson, but he didn't seem to mind when Belle read Tazewell's letters; his descriptions of the Severn Bore, Notre Dame, and Longchamps Racecourse, where Taz and Rhett met Mr. Degas, a painter. "I think a painting should look like what is painted, don't you?" (Belle agreed with his commonsensical view.)

"Think of that, Poppa," she said. "They got racetracks in France just like we got here."

As Belle folded each precious letter, her father always asked, "Does the boy say when they're comin home?"

"No, Poppa."

"Butler can't hide behind Miss Elizabeth no more."

They sat on that porch like any father and daughter on the porch of any house on a perfectly ordinary Sunday morning. Belle picked at a sweet roll.

Sometimes, Isaiah didn't say one word. Other times, he recalled the Watling

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farm in Mundy Hollow, naming every horse and even that old hound dog her brother, Shad, had loved. "Everybody said your mother's elderberry jam was the best they ever ate," Isaiah said. "I never cared for elderberry myself."

He, Josie, and Archie were living just down the road. "The home place is nothin'now, "Isaiah said. "House 'n'barn's fallen in

--

like we was never there."

Isaiah had tried to beat the wickedness out of his son.

"Shad was hard-hearted," Belle said.

"That don't mean Rhett Butler should have shot him."

"I'm your daughter, Poppa."

"I been ponderin' on that." The glider squeaked. "You ever consider repenting

?"

"Miss Watling," Scarlett interrupted. "Your father and his gang have terrorized us and frightened our field hands away. I don't know what grievance he imagines he has with me."

"Oh, he doesn't! Archie Flytte hates you, but Poppa don't think nothin' about you."

"Miss Watling," Scarlett said, "you said you had a 'life or death' matter ..."

Belle set her water glass down. She picked up her gloves and folded them. Softly, she said, "I never thought this'd be so damned hard."

"Belle ..." Rosemary prompted gently.

"Miss Rosemary, you know how Poppa felt about your mother. He thought she was a saint on earth. You know Poppa -- once he gets an idea in his head, there's no shakin' it. Miss Scarlett, Poppa ain't worried 'bout you, but he's wanted to kill Rhett for the longest time, and now Miss Elizabeth is passed away and Poppa's joined up with that Flytte fella and Cousin Josie ... it's bad."

"But..." Scarlett said.

"So long's Rhett's across the sea, they can't do nothin', so they been botherin' you so you'll beg him back." Belle was anguished. "Whatever you do, Miss Scarlett, please don't ask Rhett to come home."

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Chapter

Chapter Fifty-six

Three Widows

Although the Jonesboro telegraph office was closed Sundays, Scarlett interrupted the telegrapher's supper and cajoled him until he agreed to accompany her to the railway station, where the telegrapher topped his instrument's batteries, rolled up his sleeves, tested his signal strength, and sent Scarlett's frantic warning rattling across the Atlantic.

Scarlett paced until the key clattered Rob Campbell's reply; "Rhett and Tazewell sailed for New York Thursday."

"Are you all right, ma'am?" the telegrapher asked. "Won't you sit down?"

"Send my message to the St. Nicholas, the Astor House, the Metropolitan, the Fifth Avenue ... for God's sake, send it to all the New York hotels!"

"Ma'am," the telegrapher said. "I don't know the New York hotels. I never been to New York."

Scarlett wanted to slap the man into usefulness. She wanted to weep in frustration. "Send it to the hotels I named," Scarlett said through clenched teeth.

Riding back to Tara, Scarlett's mind whirled. What could she do? What could any woman do?

On the road between somewhere and somewhere else, she reined in her horse. The sky was blue. She could hear a warbler in the brush beside the road. As coldly and clearly as she'd ever known anything, Scarlett knew that if Rhett Butler were murdered, she'd want to die, too.

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Curiously, her harsh self-sentence eased her soul. Her mind stopped spinning and she understood what she'd need to do.

As Scarlett dismounted, Rosemary ran to her. "Did you warn Rhett?" Scarlett took off her bonnet and shook her hair loose. "They've already sailed. When Rhett comes to Tara, the Watlings will ambush him."

Rosemary clamped her eyes shut for a moment. "Damn them!"

"Yes, goddamn them all! Where are our preening male champions when we really need them?"

In the parlor, a subdued Mammy brought the two women hot tea. The house was quiet; the children were outside playing in the long twilight.

"Rosemary," Scarlett began, "we are unalike in many respects, but we love your brother."

Rosemary nodded.

"And we would do anything we had to do -- anything necessary -- to keep him from harm."

"Scarlett, what are you thinking of?"

"Two times, I've worn black for husbands who died protecting Southern womanhood. I loathe mourning. I will not wear black for Rhett Butler."

Scarlett poured their tea, added Rosemary's cream and her sugar. When she gave Rosemary her cup, it chattered against its saucer. "Rosemary Butler Haynes Ravanel, like myself, you are twice widowed. When your husbands went off to fight, were you glad to see them go?"

"What? Are you

mad?"

"On the contrary. I may be, after many years, putting men's madness aside." Scarlett went to the decanter and poured a healthy tot of brandy into her tea. "Oh, I know, I know. Ladies don't drink brandy in their tea. Frankly, Rosemary, I no longer care what ladies do or don't do."