“Oh, Rhett, no! Let me come up where I can see what’s happening. It’s such fun. I want to feel the wind and taste the spray.”
“You don’t feel sick? Or frightened?”
The scornful look she gave him was her answer.
“Oh, Miss Eleanor, it was the most wonderful time I’ve ever had in my life! I don’t know why every man in the world doesn’t become a sailor.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself dear, but it was very wicked of Rhett to expose you to all that sun and wind. You’re red as an Indian.” Mrs. Butler ordered Scarlett to her room with glycerine and rosewater compresses on her face. Then she scolded her tall, laughing son until he hung his head in pretended shame.
“If I put up the Christmas greens I brought you, will you let me have dessert after dinner, or do I have to stand in the corner?” he asked in mock humility.
Eleanor Butler spread her hands in surrender. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, Rhett,” she said, but her effort not to smile was a total failure. She loved her son beyond all reason.
That afternoon, while Scarlett was submitting to a treatment of lotions for her sunburn, Rhett carried one of the holly wreaths he had brought from the plantation to Alicia Savage, as a gift from his mother.
“How kind of Eleanor, and of you, Rhett. Thank you. Would you like to have a pre-seasonal toddy?”
Rhett accepted the drink with pleasure, and they talked idly about the unusual weather, the winter thirty years earlier when it had actually snowed, the year it rained for thirty-eight days in a row. They had known each other as children. Their families had houses that shared a garden wall and a mulberry tree with sweet, finger-staining purple fruit on branches that reached low on both sides of the wall.
“Scarlett’s scared half out of her wits about the Yankee bedroom prowler,” said Rhett after he and Alicia finished reminiscing. “I hope you don’t mind talking about it with an old friend who saw up your skirts when you were five.”
Mrs. Savage laughed heartily. “I’ll talk freely if you’ll manage to forget my youthful antipathy to undergarments. I was the despair of the whole family for at least a year. It’s funny now… but this business with the Yankee isn’t funny at all. Somebody’s going to get trigger-happy and shoot a soldier, and then there’ll be the devil to pay.”
“Tell me what he looked like, Alicia. I have a theory about him.”
“I only saw him for an instant, Rhett…”
“That should be enough. Tall or short?”
“Tall, yes really very tall. His head was only a foot or so below the top of the curtains, and those windows are seven feet four inches.”
Rhett grinned. “I knew I could count on you. You’re the only person I’ve ever known who could identify the biggest scoop of ice cream at a birthday party from the other side of the room. ‘Eagle eye’ we called you behind your back.”
“And to my face, I seem to remember, along with other unpleasant personal remarks. You were a horrid little boy.”
“You were a loathsome little girl. I would have loved you even if you had worn underclothes.”
“I would have loved you if you hadn’t. I looked up your skirts plenty of times, but I couldn’t see a thing.”
“Be merciful, Alicia. At least call it a kilt.”
They smiled companionably at one another. Then Rhett resumed the questioning. Alicia remembered a great many details once she began to think. The soldier was young—very young indeed—with the ungainly movements of a boy who had not gotten accustomed to the spurt of growth. He was very thin, too. The uniform hung loosely on his frame. His wrists showed clearly below the sleeve binding; the uniform might not have been his at all. His hair was dark—“not raven like yours, Rhett, and by the way the touch of gray is extremely becoming; no, his hair must have been brown and looked darker in the shadows.” Yes, well cut and almost certainly undressed. She would have smelled Macassar oil. Bit by bit Alicia pieced together her memories. Then her words faltered.
“You know who it is, don’t you, Alicia?”
“I must be wrong.”
“You must be right. You have a son the right age—about fourteen or fifteen—and you’re sure to know his friends. As soon as I heard about this I thought it had to be a Charleston boy. Do you really believe a Yankee soldier would break into a woman’s bedroom just to look at the shape of her under a coverlet? This isn’t a reign of terror, Alicia, it’s a miserable boy who’s confused about what his body is doing to him. He wants to know what a woman’s body is like without corsets and bustles, wants to know so much that he’s driven to stealing looks at sleeping women. Most likely he’s ashamed of his thoughts when he sees one fully dressed and awake. Poor little devil. I suppose his father was killed in the War, and there’s no man for him to talk to.”
“He has an older brother—”
“Oh? Then maybe I’m wrong. Or you’re thinking of the wrong boy.”
“I’m afraid not. Tommy Cooper is the boy’s name. He’s the tallest of the lot of them, and the cleanest. Plus he all but choked to death when I said hello to him on the street two days after the incident in my bedroom. His father died at Bull Run. Tommy never knew him. His brother’s ten or eleven years older.”
“Do you mean Edward Cooper, the lawyer?”
Alicia nodded.
“It’s no wonder, then. Cooper is on my mother’s Confederate Home committee; I met him at the house. He’s all but a eunuch. Tommy’ll get no help from him.”
“He’s not a eunuch at all, he’s just too much in love with Anne Hampton to see his brother’s needs.”
“As you like, Alicia. But I’m going to have a little conference with Tommy.”
“Rhett, you can’t. You’ll scare the poor boy to death.”
“The ‘poor boy’ is scaring the female population of Charleston to death. Thank God nothing has really happened yet. Next time he might lose control. Or he might get shot. Where does he live, Alicia?”
“Church Street, just around the corner from Broad. It’s the middle one of the brick houses on the south side of Saint Michael’s Alley. But Rhett, what are you going to say? You can’t just walk in and haul Tommy out by the scruff of the neck.”
“Trust me, Alicia.”
Alicia put her hands on each side of Rhett’s face and kissed him softly on the lips. “It’s good to have you back home again, neighbor. Good luck with Tommy.”
Rhett was sitting on the Coopers’ piazza drinking tea with Tommy’s mother when the boy came home. Mrs. Cooper introduced her son to Rhett, then sent him inside to leave his schoolbooks and wash his hands and face. “Mr. Butler is going to take you to his tailor, Tommy. He has a nephew in Aiken who’s growing as fast as you are and he needs you to try on things so he can pick out a Christmas present that will fit.”
Out of sight of the adults Tommy grimaced horribly. Then he remembered bits and pieces he’d heard about Rhett’s flamboyant youth and he decided he’d be happy to go along and help out Mr. Butler. Maybe he’d even find the nerve to ask Mr. Butler a few questions about things that were bothering him.
Tommy didn’t have to ask. As soon as they were well away from the house, Rhett put an arm around the boy’s shoulders. “Tom,” he said, “I have it in mind to teach you a few valuable lessons. The first is how to lie convincingly to a mother. While we’re riding on the streetcar, you and I will talk in some detail about my tailor and his shop and his habits. You’ll practice with my assistance until you’ve got your story straight. Because I don’t have a nephew in Aiken, and we’re not on our way to the tailor. We’re going to ride to the end of the Rutledge Avenue line, then go for a healthy walk to the house where I want you to meet some friends of mine.”
Tommy Cooper agreed without argument. He was accustomed to having his elders tell him what to do, and he liked the way Mr. Butler called him “Tom.” Before the afternoon was over and Tom was delivered back to his mother, the boy was looking at Rhett with such hero-worship in his youn
g eyes that Rhett knew he’d be saddled with Tom Cooper for years to come.
He was also confident that Tom would never forget the friends they’d gone to see. Among Charleston’s many historic “firsts” was the first recorded whorehouse “for gentlemen only.” It had moved its location many times in the nearly two centuries of its existence, but it had never missed a day’s business, despite wars, epidemics, and hurricanes. One of the specialities of the house was the gentle, discreet introduction of young boys to the pleasures of manhood. It was one of Charleston’s cherished traditions. Rhett speculated sometimes about how different his own life might have been if his father had been as diligent about that tradition as he had been about all the other things expected of a Charleston gentleman… But the past was done. His lips curved in a rueful smile. He had been able, at least, to stand in for Tommy’s dead father, who would have done the same for the boy. Traditions did have their uses. For one thing, there’d be no more Yankee midnight prowler. Rhett went home to have a self-congratulatory drink before it was time to pick up his sister at the train station.
19
Suppose the train’s early, Rhett?” Eleanor Butler looked at the clock for the tenth time in two minutes. “I hate to think of Rosemary being at the station with nobody there when it’s getting dark. Her maid’s only half-trained, you know. And half-witted, too, to my way of thinking. I don’t know why Rosemary puts up with her.”
“That train has never in its history been less than forty minutes late, Mama, and even if it were on time, that’s a half hour from now.”
“I asked you most particularly to allow plenty of time to get there. I should have gone myself, like I planned when I didn’t know you’d be home.”
“Try not to fret, Mama.” Rhett explained again what he had already told his mother. “I hired a hackney to pick me up in ten minutes. Then it’s a five-minute ride to the station. I’ll be fifteen minutes early, the train will be an hour late or more, and Rosemary will arrive home on my arm just in time for supper.”
“May I ride with you, Rhett? I’d love a breath of air.” Scarlett pictured the hour enclosed in the small cab of the hackney. She’d ask Rhett all about his sister, he’d like that. He was crazy about Rosemary. And if he talked enough, then maybe Scarlett would know what to expect. She was terrified that Rosemary wouldn’t like her, that she’d be another Ross. Her brother-in-law’s florid letter of apology had done nothing to make her stop loathing him.
“No, my dear, you may not ride with me. I want you to stay just as you are on that couch with the compresses on your eyes. They’re still swollen from sunburn.”
“Do you want me to come, dear?” Mrs. Butler rolled up her tatting to put it away. “It is going to be a long wait, I’m afraid.”
“I don’t mind waiting at all, Mama. I’ve got some plans to work out in my head about spring planting at the plantation.”
Scarlett settled back against the cushions, wishing that Rhett’s sister wasn’t coming home. She had no clear idea of what Rosemary would be like, and she’d rather not find out. She knew, from bits of gossip that she’d heard, that Rosemary’s birth had caused a lot of hidden smiles. She was a “change” baby, born when Eleanor Butler was over forty years old. She was also an old maid, one of the domestic casualties of the War—too young to marry before it began, too plain and too poor to attract the attention of the few men available when it was over. Rhett’s return to Charleston and his fabulous wealth had set tongues wagging. Rosemary would have a substantial dowry now. But she seemed to be always away, visiting a cousin or a friend in another town. Was she looking for a husband there? Weren’t Charleston men good enough for her? Everyone had been waiting for the announcement of an engagement for more than a year, but there was not even a hint of an attachment, much less a betrothal. “Rich pickings for speculation” was the way Emma Anson described the situation.
Scarlett speculated on her own. She’d be delighted to have Rosemary marry, no matter what it cost Rhett. She didn’t care to have her in the house. No matter if Rosemary was as plain as a mud fence, she was still younger than Scarlett and Rhett’s sister to boot. She’d get too much of his attention. She tensed when she heard the outside door open, a few minutes before suppertime. Rosemary had arrived.
Rhett entered the library, and smiled at his mother.
“Your wandering girl is home at last,” he said. “She’s sound in mind and limb and as fierce as a lion from hunger. As soon as she gets her hands washed, she’ll probably come in here and devour your flesh.”
Scarlett looked at the door with apprehension. The young woman who came through it a moment later had a pleasant smile on her face. There was nothing jungle-like about her. But she was as shocking to Scarlett as if she had worn a mane and roared. She looks just like Rhett! No, it’s not that. She’s got the same black eyes and hair and white teeth, but that’s not what’s the same. It’s more the way she is—she just kind of takes over, like he does. I don’t like it, I don’t like it at all.
Her green eyes narrowed and she studied Rosemary. She’s not really as plain as people said, but she doesn’t do anything with herself. Look at how she’s got her hair all skinned back in that big knot on the nape. And she’s not even wearing earbobs, though her ears are right pretty. Kind of sallow. I guess that’s what Rhett’s skin would be like if he wasn’t always in the sun. But a bright-colored frock would take care of that. She picked the worst possible thing in that dull browny-green. Maybe I could help her out some.
“So this is Scarlett.” Rosemary crossed the room in four strides. Oh, my, I’ll have to teach her to walk, Scarlett thought. Men don’t like women who gallop like that. Scarlett stood before Rosemary reached her, smiling a sisterly smile and tipped her face upward for a social kiss.
Instead of touching cheeks in the approved fashion, Rosemary stared frankly at Scarlett’s face. “Rhett said you were feline,” she said. “I see what he means, with those green eyes. I do hope you’ll purr at me and not spit, Scarlett. I’d like for us to be friends.”
Scarlett’s mouth gaped soundlessly. She was too startled to speak.
“Mama, do say supper’s ready,” Rosemary said. She had already turned away. “I told Rhett he was a thoughtless brute not to bring a hamper to the station.”
Scarlett’s eyes found him, and her temper flared. Rhett was lounging against the frame of the door, his mouth twisted in sardonic amusement. Brute! she thought. You put her up to that. “Feline,” am I? I wish I could show you feline. I’d like to scratch that laughter right out of your eyes. She looked quickly at Rosemary. Was she laughing, too? No, she was embracing Eleanor Butler.
“Supper,” said Rhett. “I see Manigo coming to announce it.”
Scarlett pushed her food around on her plate. Her sunburn was painful and Rosemary’s bumptiousness was giving her a headache. For Rhett’s sister was passionately and loudly opinionated and argumentative. The cousins she’d been visiting in Richmond were hopeless dolts, she declared, and she had hated every minute of the time there. She was absolutely certain that not one of them had ever read a book—at least, not one worth reading.
“Oh, dear,” said Eleanor Butler softly. She looked at Rhett with mute entreaty.
“Cousins are always a trial, Rosemary,” he said with a smile. “Let me tell you the latest on Cousin Townsend Ellinton. I saw him in Philadelphia recently, and the meeting left me with blurred vision for a week. I kept trying to look him in the eye and of course I get vertiginous.”
“I’d rather be dizzy than bored to death!” his sister interrupted. “Can you picture having to sit around after supper and listen to Cousin Miranda read aloud from the Waverley novels? That sentimental claptrap!”
“I always rather enjoyed Scott, dear, and so did you, I thought,” Eleanor said soothingly.
Rosemary was not soothed. “Mama, I didn’t know any better, that was years ago.”
Scarlett thought longingly of the quiet after supper hours she had been sharing
with Miss Eleanor. Obviously there’d be no more of those with Rosemary in the house. How could Rhett possibly be so fond of her? Now she seemed bound and determined to pick a fight with him.
“If I were a man, you’d let me go,” Rosemary was shouting at Rhett. “I’ve been reading the articles about Rome that Mr. Henry James is writing, and I feel like I’ll perish of ignorance if I don’t get to see it for myself.”
“But you’re not a man, my dear,” Rhett said calmly. “Where on earth did you get copies of The Nation? You could be strung up for reading a liberal rag like that.”
Scarlett’s ears perked up and she broke into the conversation. “Why don’t you let Rosemary go, Rhett? Rome’s not so far. And I’m sure we must know somebody who has kin there. It can’t be any farther than Athens, and the Tarletons have about a million cousins in Athens.”
Rosemary gaped at her. “Who are these Tarletons and what does Athens have to do with Rome?” she said.
Rhett coughed to mask his laughter. Then he cleared his throat. “Athens and Rome are the names of country towns in Georgia, Rosemary,” he drawled. “Would you like to pay them a visit?”
Rosemary put her hands to her head in a dramatic gesture of despair. “I cannot credit what I’m hearing. Who would want to go to Georgia, for pity’s sake? I want to go to Rome, the real Rome, the Eternal City. In Italy!”
Scarlett felt the color rising in her cheeks. I should have known she meant Italy.
But before she could burst out as noisily as Rosemary, the door to the dining room crashed open with a bang that silenced all of them with shock, and Ross stumbled, panting for breath, into the candlelit room.
Scarlett: The Sequel to Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind Page 23
