Rhett Butler's People

by Donald McCaig

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

  Prominent Confederate officers—General Forrest in person!—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 46 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. 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 re-upholstering. 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.”

  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 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…”

  “Our mother. Yes?”

  “Doubtless the Book of Revelations is a commendable text, but…” The woman sighed, a noble sufferer.

  “Madam,” Rhett intoned, “Revelations is a sacred book. Many sinners have been saved from perdition thereby.”

  “Your mother …”

  Rosemary smiled reassuringly. “Can be overwhelming, I know. Why don’t you leave her with the children? Adults find Mother … difficult, but children see straight to her heart.”

  The woman snapped, “In Connecticut, madam, we don’t nursemaid our children with the Book of Revelations.” She marched out, and Rosemary heard the woman’s daughter wail, “Mama, I was having fun!”

  Rhett shook his head. “Poor Mother.”

  “She’s happy, Rhett. Perhaps there’s more to life than happiness, but at Mother’s age, there can’t be much more.”

  A log toppled in the fire and sparks rushed up the chimney.

  “Perhaps,” Rhett said. “Do you remember the first time I came here?”

  “I’ll never forget. How old was I, six or seven?” Rosemary took her brother’s hand. “Do you still love me, brother?”

  “As my life.”

  The Yankee officers finished their drinks and left.

  Rhett was grave. “My Washington friends say President Grant has lost patience with the Klan. Rosemary, Andrew’s activities are too well known.”

  “Andrew and I don’t talk about that.” She set her mug down. “We do not talk at all.”

  “Please warn your husband. The Yankees want to hang somebody.”

  “Andrew won’t listen to me, Rhett. I doubt he hears me.” She rubbed her hands. “I do not know what Andrew hears these days.”

  Across the hall, the children’s noises wer
e happy. “And your Scarlett? How is Scarlett?”

  “My wife is in good health.”

  “And…”

  “I’m afraid there is no ‘and.’” When Rhett drank, eggnog frosted his mustache. For a moment, Rosemary’s strong brother seemed a clown with dark, sad eyes. “She was everything I ever wanted. She is everything I want. Scarlett…” He wiped the foam with his handkerchief. “Funny how things turn out, isn’t it?” He set his glass aside. “I’ve brought a rocking horse for Louis Valentine.”

  “He’ll be delighted.” Rosemary considered for a moment before saying, “Haynes and Son …”

  “Is bankrupt. I know.” He took her hand. “Andrew has squandered John Haynes’s legacy on the Klan. You’re lucky the house is in your name. You mustn’t worry, Rosemary. I’ll always take care of you, Louis Valentine, and Mother.”

  When Rosemary leaned back, the fire warmed her cheeks. She felt so tired. She might close her eyes and doze.

  Her brother was talking about money. Rosemary didn’t want to think about money. She opened her eyes and said, “Thank you for caring, dear Brother, but some things I must do for myself.”

  It rained that night—an icy winter rain. When Rosemary heard Andrew at the door, she set down her mending basket and went into the front hall. Andrew stared at his wife. “Rosemary.”

  “Good evening, husband,” Rosemary said calmly. “Where have you been?”

  Andrew shut the door and shrugged out of his slicker. His shirt was soaked. “You don’t want to know.”

  “Yes, husband, I do want to know.”

  He cocked his head as a man who spies a curiosity: a cat that dances, a dog reputed to speak.

  “Business,” Andrew said.

  “What business do you have, husband? The bank is foreclosing on Haynes and Son.”

  He dismissed that enterprise with an angry head shake. “Don’t you know, wife, that the South Carolina legislature is a snake pit of Scalawags, Carpetbaggers, and niggers? They are not our government!”

  “Are you our government, husband? Doing under cover of darkness what honest men will not do in daylight?”

  She gasped when he gripped her arm, “Which ‘honest men’?” His voice frightened her. Her husband had used that voice beside fires where terrified men waited to be murdered. That voice had destroyed women’s hopes and mocked children’s pleas. “Andrew,” Rosemary whispered, “where have you gone?”

  “Wife, I haven’t changed. Others may have changed, but I have not.”

  “Andrew, you’re hurting me!”

  As suddenly as he’d grabbed her, he let go. Rubbing her arm, she picked up the parcel from the hall table and thrust it at him. “This came this morning, husband. There’s a note.”

  He glanced at the note. “Patriotic Southern women make our robes. What of it?”

  “Patriotic?”

  He said, “If we don’t protect our women, who will?”

  Rosemary frowned. “How do you protect us, Andrew? From what threat do you protect us?”

  “Fellow wanted to boast about his ‘special-made’ robe.” Andrew’s laugh was three sharp barks. “Do you imagine I enjoy doing these things? Wife, do you think me heartless? Rosemary, I am doing my duty.”

  Though Andrew went on about corrupt Carpetbaggers, Southern rights, and insolent niggers, Rosemary didn’t listen. She was tired of him.

  When Andrew wound down, Rosemary said, “Andrew, I don’t want you here.”

  Her husband paled. His eyes roamed. He licked his lips. Rosemary could smell the stench of Andrew’s body and the corruption of his breath.

  She said, “You can’t ever come home again.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Natural Wonders

  On a drizzly March morning, Scarlett O’Hara Butler dressed for Governor Bullock’s celebration.

  Mammy said, “Honey, only actresses bare their chests, and you ain’t no actress. That gown ain’t hidin’ half what it s’posed to!”

  “In Paris, it is the height of fashion.”

  “’Lanta ain’t Paris nor anywhere’s else, neither. You is a married woman!”

  Married—how Scarlett loathed the word. Married meant Don’t and Forbidden! After she married Rhett, Scarlett gave her mourning clothes to the Confederate Widows and Orphans. She wished she could give her marriage to the widows and orphans too!

  Between married and mother, Scarlett felt like a mule dragging logs through the tuckerbrush.

  Rhett loved children—provided Prissy changed them and Scarlett nursed them and bore them in pain and sweat and blood. Why shouldn’t Rhett love them?

  Scarlett chose her memories as if picking scenes for the parlor stereograph. Tara was Gerald O’Hara’s laughter and Ellen O’Hara’s caring hands. Twelve Oaks was brilliant parties, doting admirers, helpful darkies, and Ashley Wilkes—her Ashley.

  Scarlett never recalled her mother’s self-martyrdom, her father Gerald’s drunken blather, or Ashley’s discomfort with the role he been cast in at birth.

  In New Orleans, Toinette Sevier had hinted to Scarlett about Ellen’s doomed love for Philippe Robillard. How like her love for Ashley! Scarlett never wondered if Ellen’s love for Philippe was a sorrow at the heart of her parents’ marriage.

  Scarlett O’Hara Butler’s sixteen-inch waist was no more and her flashing eyes had seen too much of life, but she could still turn men’s heads.

  Mammy tugged at her neckline. “Child, you’re bound for mischief. Associatin’ with Carpetbaggers and Scalawags. Think what your Mama would say!”

  Trust Mammy to put a chill on things.

  When she informed him he was a hypocrite, Rhett didn’t deny it. The new Rhett Butler reveled in hypocrisy!

  In public, Rhett never smiled when he ought to frown. He no longer confused simple souls or confounded cleverer ones. Whatever absurd notion Mrs. Meade or Mrs. Elsing advanced, Rhett solemnly agreed with it. Had one of the grande dames opined the moon was made of blue cheese, Rhett Butler would have wondered aloud if it just might be Stilton.

  Sunday mornings found Rhett, Ella, Wade, and Bonnie settled in their pew at St. Philip’s. Mr. Rhett Butler even had a desk at the Farmer’s and Merchants’ Bank.

  Why was Rhett able to do anything he wished to do? A woman mustn’t do this; a woman mustn’t do that. Run her own business? Scarlett might as well have stripped off her clothes and ridden naked down Peachtree Street!

  Lord, how she missed her sawmills. Somehow—afterward she was never quite sure how—Rhett had tricked her into selling them. He’d confused her and made her so angry, she’d sold her sawmills to Ashley.

  Scarlett felt like she’d sold part of herself. Her sawmills were sound, profitable businesses, and if she’d wanted to sell, Lord knows, she’d had plenty of offers. She’d built them by herself! They were tangible evidence of who she was and what she could do.

  She couldn’t drive past them anymore without wanting to weep.

  On this rainy Saturday, Rhett was in the library reading the newspaper while Wade, Ella, and Bonnie sat on the rug, playing a game that involved lining up the household spoons in ranks at their father’s feet.

  Without preamble, Scarlett said, “Children, please play somewhere else. Your father and I need to talk.”

  Wade and Ella obeyed, but Bonnie climbed onto her father’s lap, stuck her thumb in her mouth, and examined her mother with her wide blue eyes.

  “Bonnie should stay, dear wife. One day, Bonnie will marry. By observing our affectionate interchanges, Bonnie learns what she can expect from her own marriage.”

  “Certainly, dear husband. Bonnie should know everything there is to know about marriage. Has our daughter visited the Chapeau Rouge?”

  Rhett grinned. “Ah, you still have ammunition in your pouch and do not hesitate to fire it. Scarlett, have I told you lately how much I admire you?”

  Her face softened. “Why, no. …”

  “My dear, I applaud you for being the most resolutely selfish woman I
’ve ever met.”

  “Thank you, husband,” Scarlett said, “for your candor.”

  Rhett sighed. “Bonnie, I’m afraid your Mama is right; you’re too young for your parents’ marriage. I don’t know when you’ll be old enough. I’m not sure I’m old enough.”

  With love in his eyes, Rhett watched the child scamper from the room. Scarlett felt a jealous flash and then confusion. How could she be jealous of her own child?

  “So you’re off to celebrate the Pennsylvania Railroad’s capture of the Georgia Railroad. Why not celebrate with a masked ball? Aren’t masks traditional in bandit society?”

  “Aren’t you the one to talk! Wasn’t Rufus Bullock your friend?”

  Rhett shrugged. “Rufus and I have done business from time to time.”

  “Now that it suits Captain Butler to be oh so respectable, his old friends fall by the wayside?”

  He folded his newspaper. “Am I to have a sermon on loyalty from Miss Scarlett? Please continue.”

  Scarlett flushed. Why had she ever married this hateful man?

  Rhett tapped his newspaper. “Better hurry, dear. If you hesitate, Rufus might not be Governor. His powerful friends are jumping ship and he’s lost control of the legislature. Rufus’s wife took their children north so they won’t be insulted on the streets her husband governs. Edgar Puryear is Rufus’s only friend. Poor Rufus.”

  Rhett opened the heavy drapes to watch his wife’s carriage make the turn onto Peachtree Street.

  When Prissy came in to say she was taking the children to play at the Wilkeses’, Rhett waved an indifferent hand. The house—her house—was so big, he didn’t hear them go. This miserable day mocked spring’s promises. Pale yellow forsythia bent beneath raindrops and the lilacs were blue with cold.

  How had he come to this?

  Blinded by love. All his experience, his travels, the women he’d known—nothing had assuaged his insane yearning for the woman he married, whose heart he could not win.

  For her and her children, he’d become respectable—a respectable hypocrite: “Neither hanged nor a hangman be.” If Atlanta’s leaders decided to raid Shantytown again, Rhett Butler would ride with them.