Scarlett (21 page)

Sally Brewton was watching Edward, too, Scarlett noticed. Sally’s eyes met hers and they exchanged discreet smiles.

“We’re agreed, then, are we?” said Eleanor. “Emma?”

“We’re agreed. Books are more important than rancor. I’m being over-emotional. It must be dehydration. Is anyone ever going to bring that hot water?”

Scarlett rang again. Maybe the bell was broken; should she go down to the kitchen and tell the servants? She started from the corner, then saw the door opening.

“Did you ring for tea, Mrs. Butler?” Rhett pushed the door wider with his foot. His hands were holding a huge silver tray laden with gleaming tea pot, urn, bowl, sugar bowl, milk pitcher, strainer, and three tea caddies. “India, China, or chamomile?” He was smiling with delight at his surprise.

Rhett! Scarlett couldn’t breathe. How handsome he was. He’d been in the sun somewhere, he was brown as an Indian. Oh, God, how she loved him, her heart was beating so hard that everyone must be able to hear it.

“Rhett! Oh, darling, I’m afraid I’m going to make a spectacle of myself.” Mrs. Butler grabbed a napkin and wiped her eyes. “You said ‘some silver’ in Philadelphia. I had no idea it was the tea service. And intact. It’s a miracle.”

“It’s also very heavy. Miss Emma, will you please push that makeshift china to one side? I heard you mention something about thirst, I believe. I’d be honored if you’d brew your heart’s desire… Sally, my beloved, when are you going to agree to let me duel your husband to the death and abduct you?” Rhett placed the tray on the table, leaned across it, and kissed the three women sitting on the settee behind it. Then he looked around.

Look at me, Scarlett begged silently from the shadowy corner. Kiss me.

But he didn’t see her. “Margaret, how lovely you look in that gown. Ross doesn’t deserve you. Hello, Anne, it’s a pleasure to see you. Edward, I can’t say the same for you. I don’t approve of your organizing yourself a harem in my house when I’m out in the rain in the sorriest hansom cab in North America, clutching the family silver to my bosom to protect it from the carpetbaggers.” Rhett smiled at his mother. “Stop that crying, now, Mama dear,” he said, “or I’ll think you don’t like your surprise.”

Eleanor looked up at him, her face shining with love. “Bless you, my son. You make me very happy.”

Scarlett couldn’t stand another minute of it. She ran forward. “Rhett, darling—”

His head turned toward her, and she stopped. His face was rigid, blank, all emotion withheld by an iron control. But his eyes were bright; they faced one another for a breathless moment. Then his lips turned downward at one corner in the sardonic smile she knew so well and feared so much. “It’s a fortunate man,” he said slowly and clearly, “who receives a greater surprise than he gives.” He held his hands out for hers. Scarlett put her trembling fingers into his palms, conscious of the distance his outstretched arms kept between them. His mustache brushed her right cheek, then her left.

He’d like to kill me, she thought, and the danger of it gave her a strange thrill. Rhett put his arm around her shoulders, his hand clamped like a vise around her upper arm.

“I’m sure you ladies—and Edward—will excuse us if we leave you,” he said. There was an appealing mixture of boyishness and roguishness in his voice. “It’s been much too long since I’ve had a chance to talk to my wife. We’ll go upstairs and leave you to solve the problems of the Confederate Home.”

He propelled Scarlett out the door without giving her an opportunity to make her goodbyes.

R
hett didn’t speak while he rushed her up the stairs and into his bedroom. He closed the door and stood with his back against it. “What the hell are you doing here, Scarlett?”

She wanted to hold out her arms to him, but the hot rage in his eyes warned her not to. Scarlett made her eyes widen in innocent misunderstanding. Her voice was rushed and charmingly breathless when she spoke.

“Aunt Eulalie wrote and told me what you were saying, Rhett—about how you longed for me to be here with you, but I wouldn’t leave the store. Oh, darling, why didn’t you tell me? I don’t care two pins for the store, not compared to you.” She watched his eyes warily.

“It won’t work, Scarlett.”

“What do you mean?”

“None of it. Not the fervid explanation and not the innocent lack of understanding. You know you could never lie to me and get away with it.”

It was true, and she did know it. She had to be honest.

“I came because I wanted to be with you.” Her quiet statement had a simple dignity.

Rhett looked at her straight back and proudly lifted head, and his voice softened. “My dear Scarlett,” he said, “we might have been friends in time, when the memories had softened to bittersweet nostalgia. Perhaps we might arrive at that yet, if we are both charitable and patient. But nothing more.” He strode impatiently across the room. “What do I have to do to get through to you? I don’t want to hurt you, but you force me. I don’t want you here. Go back to Atlanta, Scarlett, leave me be. I no longer love you. I can speak no more clearly than that.”

The blood had drained from Scarlett’s face. Her green eyes glittered against her ghostly white skin. “I can speak clearly, too, Rhett. I am your wife and you are my husband.”

“An unfortunate circumstance that I offered to correct.” His words were like a whiplash. Scarlett forgot that she had to control herself.

“Divorce you? Never, never, never. And I’ll never give you cause to divorce me. I’m your wife, and like a good dutiful wife should, I’ve come to your side, abandoning all I hold dear.” A smile of triumph lifted the corners of her mouth and she played her trump card. “Your mother is overjoyed that I’m here. What are you going to tell her if you throw me out? Because I’ll tell her the truth, and it’ll break her heart.”

Rhett paced heavily from end to end of the big room. Under his breath he muttered curses, profanity and vulgarity such as Scarlett had never heard. This was the Rhett that was only hearsay to her, the Rhett who had followed the gold rush to California and defended his claim with a knife and heavy boots. This was Rhett the rumrunner, habitué of the lowest taverns in Havana, Rhett the lawless adventurer, friend and companion of renegades like himself. She watched, shocked and fascinated and excited despite the menace in him. Suddenly his animal-like pacing stopped and he turned to face her. His black eyes glittered, but no longer with rage. They held humor, dark and bitter and wary. He was Rhett Butler, Charleston gentleman.

“Check,” he said with a wry twisted smile. “I overlooked the unpredictable mobility of the queen. But not mate, Scarlett.” He held out his opened palms in momentary surrender.

She didn’t understand what he was saying, but the gesture and his tone of voice told her that she’d won… something.

“So I’ll stay?”

“You’ll stay until you want to go. I don’t expect it to be very long.”

“But you’re wrong, Rhett! I love it here.”

An old, familiar expression crossed his face. He was amused and skeptical and all-knowing. “How long have you been in Charleston, Scarlett?”

“Since last night.”

“And you’ve learned to love it. Quick work, I congratulate you on your sensitivity. You were driven out of Atlanta—miraculously minus tar and feathers—and you’ve been treated decently by ladies who know no other way to treat people, and so you think you’ve found a refuge.” He laughed at the look on her face. “Oh, yes, I still have associates in Atlanta. I know all about your ostracism there. Not even the scum you used to consort with will have anything to do with you any more.”

“That’s not true!” she cried. “I threw them out.”

Rhett shrugged. “We needn’t discuss that further. What matters is that now you are here, in my mother’s house and under her wing. Because I care greatly for her happiness, I cannot for the moment do anything about it. However, I don’t really have to. You’ll do what’s necessary without any action on my part. You’ll reveal yourself for what you are; then everyone will feel pity for me and compassion for my mother. And I’ll pack you up and ship you back to Atlanta to the genteelly silent cheers of the entire community. You think you can pass yourself off as a lady, don’t you? You couldn’t fool a blind deaf-mute.”

“I am a lady, damn you. You just don’t know what it’s like to be a decent person. I’ll thank you to remember that my mother was a Robillard from Savannah and that the O’Haras descend from the kings of Ireland!”

Rhett’s grin in response was maddeningly tolerant. “Leave it alone, Scarlett. Show me the clothes you brought with you.” He sat in the chair nearest him and stretched out his long legs.

Scarlett stared at him, too frustrated by his abrupt calm to speak without sputtering. Rhett took a cigar from his pocket and rolled it between his fingers. “You don’t object if I smoke in my room, I hope,” he said.

“Of course not.”

“Thank you. Now show me your clothes. They’re certain to be new; you’d never embark on an attempt to win back my favors without an arsenal of petticoats and silk frocks, all in the execrable taste that is your hallmark. I won’t have you making my mother a laughingstock. So show them to me, Scarlett, and I’ll see what can be salvaged.” He took a cutter from his pocket.

Scarlett scowled, but nevertheless she stalked into the dressing room to collect her things. Maybe this was a good thing. Rhett had always supervised her wardrobe. He’d liked to see her in clothes that he had chosen, he’d been proud of how stylish and beautiful she looked. If he wanted to get involved with her appearance again, be proud of her again, she’d be willing to cooperate. She’d try them all on for him. That way he’d see her in her shimmy. Scarlett’s fingers moved quickly to unhook the dress she was wearing and the cage with padding that supported the bustle. She stepped out of the pile of rich fabric, then gathered her new dresses in her arms and walked slowly into the bedroom, her arms bare, her bosom half-revealed, and her legs silk-stockinged.

“Dump them on the bed,” said Rhett, “and put on a wrapper before you freeze. It’s gotten colder with the rain, or haven’t you noticed?” He blew a stream of smoke to his left, turning his head away from her. “Don’t catch cold trying to be alluring, Scarlett. You’re wasting your time.” Scarlett’s face became livid with anger, her eyes like green fire. But Rhett was not looking at her. He was examining the finery on the bed. “Rip off all this lace,” he said about the first gown, “and keep only one of the avalanche of bows down the side. Then it won’t be too bad… Give this one to your maid, it’s hopeless… This will do if you take off the trim, replace the gold buttons with plain black ones, and shorten the train…” It took only a few minutes for him to go through them all.

“You’ll need some sturdy boots, plain black,” he said when he finished with the clothes.

“I bought some this morning,” Scarlett said, with ice in her voice. “When your mother and I went shopping,” she added, emphasizing each word. “I don’t see why you don’t buy her a carriage since you love her so much. She got very tired with all the walking.”

“You don’t understand Charleston. That’s why you’ll be miserable here in no time at all. I could buy her this house, because ours was destroyed by the Yankees and everyone she knows still has a house just as grand. I can even furnish it more comfortably than her friends’ are furnished because every piece in it is something that the Yankees looted or is a duplicate of what she once had, and her friends still have many of their things. But I cannot set her apart from her friends by buying her luxuries that they cannot afford.”

“Sally Brewton has a carriage.”

“Sally Brewton is unlike anyone else. She always has been. Sally is an original. Charleston has respect—even fondness—for eccentricity. But no tolerance for ostentation. And you, my dear Scarlett, have never been able to resist ostentation.”

“I hope you’re enjoying insulting me, Rhett Butler!”

Rhett laughed. “As a matter of fact, I am. Now you can start making one of those dresses decent to wear for this evening. I’m going to go drive the committee home. Sally shouldn’t do it in this storm.”

After he was gone, Scarlett put on Rhett’s dressing gown. It was warmer than hers, and he was right—it had gotten much colder, and she was shivering. She pulled the collar of the robe up around her ears and went to sit in the chair where he had sat. His presence was still in the room for her, and she wrapped herself in it. Her fingers stroked the soft foulard that enveloped her—strange to think of Rhett choosing such a light, almost fragile-feeling wrapper when he was so solid and strong himself. But then, so many things about him mystified her. She didn’t know him at all, never had. Scarlett felt a moment of dreadful hopelessness. She shook it off, stood up hurriedly. She had to get dressed before Rhett got back. Gracious heavens, how long had she been sitting in that chair daydreaming? It was already near dark. She rang sharply for Pansy. The bows and lace had to be picked off the pink gown so she could wear it tonight, and the curling tongs should be put to heat at once. She wanted to look especially pretty and feminine for Rhett… Scarlett looked at the wide expanse of counterpane on the big bed, and her thoughts made her blush.

The lamplighter had not yet reached the upper part of the city where Emma Anson lived, and Rhett had to drive slowly, hunched forward to peer through the heavy rain at the dark street. Behind him only Mrs. Anson and Sally Brewton remained in the closed carriage. Margaret Butler had been taken home first to the tiny house on Water Street where she and Ross lived; then Rhett drove to Broad Street, where Edward Cooper had escorted Anne Hampton to the door of the Confederate Home under his large umbrella. “I’ll walk the rest of the way,” Edward called up to Rhett from the sidewalk, “no sense taking this dripping umbrella in with the ladies.” He lived on Church Street, only a block away. Rhett touched the wide brim of his hat in salute and drove on.