Rhett Butler's People

by Donald McCaig

  When my guilty Ashley returned home, I never gave the poor man a chance to make excuses, but met him with an embrace which I trust was more ardent and familiar than Scarlett’s!

  Ashley desperately wanted to confess. His lips trembled with yearning. I stayed his confession with a kiss.

  Honesty is a blunt tool: pruning shears when sewing scissors are what’s wanted! I could not let my husband confess because I could not grant him absolution!

  Scarlett and Rhett arrived after Ashley’s party was well under way. (I’ve no doubt your brother made Scarlett “face the music.”) At our front door, I took my dear friend’s faithless arm and smiled at her for all the world to see.

  Our guests that night included prominent men, a few so prominent (and distracted), nobody’d told them about Ashley’s fall from grace. Generous spirits accepted my faith in my husband and my friend. Cynics thought me a booby and snickered covertly.

  But scandal was stopped dead at my reputation.

  That night, after our guests went home, Ashley proved in the most primitive, convincing fashion that he was mine and mine alone.

  Ashley and Melly Wilkes were like newlyweds. We conversed about books and art and music—never a word about politics or commerce—but our nights were so voluptuous, I blush to remember them! We never discussed what might come of our concupiscence. Perhaps we dreamed that after Beau’s difficult delivery, I could not conceive again.

  Since I cannot believe God can be heartless, I must believe He knows best, and so I am come to childbed.

  If I survive, it is God’s will. If I do not, I pray my baby will live. She is so clever and vigorous, and she so wants to live. I say “she” because I am already close to her, closer than I could be to any male child. I confide in her. I have told her how her father was shaped for a finer world than the rough-and-tumble one we inhabit. I urge my daughter to make her world one where gentle souls like Ashley may live in honor and peace.

  Rosemary, it must be possible! We born in the nineteenth century stand at the gates of Paradise, where there will be no more wars and everyone will be happy and good!

  What will my daughter know of our world? If life before the War seems remote to me, how will it seem to her?

  Will we Confederates become sentimental ghosts? Our passions, confusions, and desires reduced to a distant idyll of faithful darkies, white-columned plantations, handsome Masters and Mistresses whose manners are as impeccable as their clothing?

  Oh Rosemary, our lives have been severed into a “before” that grows more remote daily and a “now” that is so modern, the paint hasn’t yet dried.

  I am so ungrateful! The sun shines outside my window and I hear the shouts of children playing while I indulge these melancholy fantasies.

  Dearest Rosemary, I have skirted the true purpose of my letter. You must come to Atlanta.

  I am sensible of your responsibilities to your school but beg you to think of your brother. When Bonnie Blue was killed, I feared for Rhett’s sanity.

  It might so easily have been different. Little Bonnie mightn’t have urged her reluctant pony to jump those hurdles. The pony might not have stumbled. Children fall from horses every day. Some of brother Charles’s falls left Aunt Pittypat gasping. Most children do not die by falling from ponies.

  Bonnie’s death ripped her parents’ hearts—as you surely understand.

  For four days, Rhett stayed with his poor dead child in a room ablaze with lights. Rhett would not suffer Bonnie to be buried—laid forever into the dark she had always feared!

  It is still hard to believe she is gone. Sometimes when I hear hoofbeats, I look to the street, expecting to see Bonnie on her fat pony beside her proud father, Rhett reining his great black horse in to accommodate his daughter’s pace. …

  Those who say Atlanta is heartless should have seen the mourning for this child. So many came to the funeral, a hundred stood outside.

  If Bonnie’s death dealt your brother a fearful blow, his disintegrating marriage has undone him.

  Rosemary, in his heart your brother is a lover. The shrewd businessman, the adventurer, the dandy are but costumes the lover wears.

  Bonnie Blue was the last linchpin in Rhett and

  Scarlett’s marriage. Rhett saw Bonnie as Scarlett unspoiled, a Scarlett who loved him without reservation. And Scarlett loved Bonnie as a reborn self, as an image of what she might have become if only, if only. … Bonnie knew her needs, as Scarlett does not, and while Scarlett beguiles our admiration, Bonnie commanded it.

  Rhett and Scarlett have always been combatative, but they were grandly, triumphantly combative—the clash of two unmastered souls. Now it is painful to be with them: such bitter, weary language; so many ancient slights reprised; hurts recollected over and over, as if the hurts were fresh and the wound still tingling.

  Rosemary, your brother needs you.

  I am not much traveled. Once, when I was very young, Pittypat, Charles, and I traveled to Charleston. I thought it so much more sophisticated than Atlanta! We stayed in Mr. Mills’s hotel (does it still exist?), and in its dining room, I was offered escargots accompanied by the device one holds them with while spearing meat from the shell. I thought the device was a nutcracker and was trying with Atlantan determination to crack a snail shell when our kind waiter rescued me. “Oh no, miss. No, miss! We does things different in Charleston!”

  I suspected then, and believe now, there are many things Charleston does differently—things busy Atlanta neglects or doesn’t do at all.

  I cannot remember my father, and my mother is only a vague shape, a warmth, not unlike the warmth of baking bread. I recollect a mother’s touch, so gentle, it might have been a butterfly’s. When our parents died, Charles and I went to Aunt Pittypat’s: two children whose guardian was little more than a child herself. Uncle Peter was the grown-up in our house! What a happy time we had! Pittypat’s silliness (which irritates adults) charmed us, and among children, Pittypat’s kind heart and silly airs flowered into something like wisdom. One day, she bet that we couldn’t outrun Mr. Bowen’s sulky. (Mr. Bowen, our neighbor, had famous trotters.) Charles and I hid in the shrubbery until Mr. Bowen turned into our street, and we darted in front of him, running as fast as our stubby legs could, while Mr. Bowen (forewarned by Aunt Pittypat) restrained his horse so we could win the race. As I recall, our prize was oatmeal cookies, two each, which were easily the best cookies I’ve ever had. I was a grown woman before I realized their deception—that two small children could outrun a fast trotter. Mercy!

  Now, when we drive out on a Sunday afternoon, I am toted to the carriage like baggage and swaddled like an infant against the “fierce August cold.”

  In the country, Ashley sighs at the ruins of every familiar plantation, their gardens as reclaimed by wildness as if the land still belonged to the Cherokees. When I tug his sleeve, Ashley reluctantly returns to the present.

  We “do things different” in Atlanta these days, too. Dear Rosemary, we are nearly recovered from the War and prosper stupendously. On market days, farmers’ wagons fill Peachtree and Whitehall streets from boardwalk to boardwalk. The gaslights have extended almost to Pittypat’s and all the central streets are macadamed. They’re building a street railway! We are readmitted to the Union, the Federal troops are out west with General Custer, and Atlanta is doing very well, thank you.

  When Louis Valentine comes of age, he would have a bright future here. Atlanta has wholeheartedly embraced the Modern Age and there will be opportunities for a young man with his Uncle Rhett’s connections.

  How practical I’ve become, when those times I recall most fondly were so impractical: Pittypat, Charles, and Melanie playing at life!

  I miss Charles each and every day. In my heart, he is fixed as a young man of twenty-one, recently married to Scarlett O’Hara of Tara Plantation. It must have been War Fever, for certainly if any two human beings were unsuited to each other, it was my sweet Charles Hamilton and Scarlett O’Hara.

  I so
lace myself with the thought that Charles died happily wed. Had he lived, they would have made each other miserable.

  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

  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 Napoléon’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 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.

  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.”

  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 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.”

  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.