Scarlett (35 page)

“It’s hard to see what importance the carriages have, Sister, compared with the things we agreed we should talk about to her.”

“As an example,” Pauline insisted. “It’s an excellent example of the attitude behind all the other things.”

Scarlett drained her cup of the pale, weak coffee Pauline had poured and set it down in the saucer with a crash. “I’ll take it as a kindness if you’ll stop talking about me as if I was deaf and dumb. You can preach at me till you’re blue in the face if you want to, but first tell me who all those carriages belonged to!”

The aunts stared at her from wide eyes. “Why, the Yankees, of course,” said Eulalie.

“Carpetbaggers,” added Pauline with precision.

With corrections and amendments to every sentence spoken by the other, the sisters told Scarlett that the coachmen were still loyal to their pre-War owners, although they now worked for the new-rich, uptown people. During the Season they manipulated their employers in various clever ways so that they could drive “their white folks” to balls and receptions if the distance was too far or the weather too inclement for them to walk.

“On the night of the Saint Cecilia, they just flat out insist on having the evening off and the carriage for their own use,” Eulalie added.

“They’re all trained coachmen and very high-toned,” Pauline said, “so the carpetbaggers are terrified of offending them.” She was very close to laughter. “They know the coachmen despise them. House servants have always been the most snobbish creatures on earth.”

“Certainly these house servants,” said Eulalie gleefully. “After all, they’re Charlestonians just as much as we are. That’s why they care so much about the Season. The Yankees took whatever they could and tried to destroy everything else, but we still have our Season.”

“And our pride!” Pauline announced.

With their pride and a penny, they could ride the streetcar anyplace it went, Scarlett thought sourly. But she was grateful that they’d gotten sidetracked onto the stories about faithful old family servants that occupied them for the rest of the meal. She was even careful to eat only half her breakfast so that Eulalie would be able to finish it as soon as she was gone. Aunt Pauline ran a mighty stingy household.

She was pleasantly surprised to find Anne Hampton at the Butler house when she got there. It would be nice to bask in Anne’s admiration for a while after the hours of cold disapproval from her aunts.

But Anne and the widow from the Home who was with her were almost totally occupied with the bowls full of camellias that had been sent down from the plantation.

And so was Rhett. “Burnt to the ground,” he was saying, “but stronger than ever once they’re cleared of weeds.”

“Oh, look!” Anne exclaimed. “There’s the Reine des Fleurs.”

“And a Rubra Plena!” The thin elderly widow cupped her pale hands to hold the vibrant red blossom. “I used to keep mine in a crystal vase on the pianoforte.”

Anne’s eyes blinked rapidly. “So did we, Miss Harriet, and the Alba Plenas on the tea table.”

“My Alba Plena isn’t as healthy as I’d hoped,” Rhett said. “The buds are all kind of stunted.”

The widow and Anne both laughed. “You won’t see any flowers until January, Mr. Butler,” Anne explained. “The Alba’s a late bloomer.”

Rhett’s mouth twisted in a rueful smile. “So am I, it seems, where gardening is concerned.”

My grief! thought Scarlett. Next thing I reckon they’ll start chatting about is whether cow patties are better than horse droppings for fertilizer. What kind of sissyness is that for a man like Rhett to say! She turned her back on them and sat in a chair close to the settee where Eleanor Butler was doing her tatting.

“This piece is almost long enough to trim the neck of your claret gown when it needs freshening,” she said to Scarlett with a smile. “Halfway through the Season it’s always nice to have a change. I’ll be finished with it by then.”

“Oh, Miss Eleanor, you’re always so sweet and thoughtful. I feel my bad mood going right away. Honestly, I marvel at you being such good friends with my Aunt Eulalie. She’s not like you at all. She’s forever sniffling and complaining and squabbling with Aunt Pauline.”

Eleanor dropped her ivory tatting shuttle. “Scarlett, you astonish me. Of course Eulalie’s my friend; I think of her as practically a sister. Don’t you know that she almost married my younger brother?”

Scarlett’s jaw dropped. “I can’t imagine anybody wanting to marry Aunt Eulalie,” she said frankly.

“But, my dear, she was a lovely girl, simply lovely. She came to visit after Pauline married Carey Smith and settled in Charleston. The house they’re in was the Smith town house; their plantation was over on the Wando River. My brother Kemper was smitten at once. Everyone expected them to marry. Then he was thrown from his horse and was killed. Eulalie’s considered herself a widow ever since.”

Aunt Eulalie in love! Scarlett couldn’t believe it.

“I was sure you must know,” said Mrs. Butler. “She’s your family.”

But I don’t have any family, Scarlett thought, not the way Miss Eleanor means. Not close and caring and knowing all about everybody’s heart secrets. All I have is nasty old Suellen, and Carreen with her nun’s veil and her vows to the convent. Suddenly she felt very lonely despite the cheerful faces and conversation around her. I must be hungry, she decided, that’s why I feel like bursting into tears. I should have eaten all my breakfast.

She was doing full justice to dinner when Manigo came in and spoke quietly to Rhett.

“Excuse me,” Rhett said, “it seems we’ve got a Yankee officer at the door.”

“What do you suppose they’re up to now?” Scarlett wondered aloud.

Rhett was laughing when he returned a moment later. “Everything but a white flag of surrender,” he said. “You’ve won, Mama. They’re inviting all the men to come to the Guardhouse and take back the guns they confiscated.”

Rosemary applauded loudly.

Miss Eleanor shushed her. “We can’t take too much credit. They can’t risk all these unprotected houses on Emancipation Day.” She went on to answer Scarlett’s questioning expression. “New Year’s Day isn’t what it used to be, a quiet time to nurse headaches from too much New Year’s Eve. Mr. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on a January first, so now it’s the major day of celebration for all the former slaves. They take over the park down at the end of the Battery and shoot off firecrackers and pistols all day and all night while they get drunker and drunker. We lock up, of course, including all the shutters, just the way we do for a hurricane. But it helps to have an armed man in the house, too.”

Scarlett frowned. “There aren’t any guns in the house.”

“There will be,” said Rhett. “Plus two men. They’re coming from the Landing just for the occasion.”

“And when will you be going?” Eleanor asked Rhett.

“On the thirtieth. I have an appointment with Julia Ashley on the thirty-first. We need to plan our united-front strategy.”

Rhett was leaving! Going to his wretched, smelly old plantation! He wouldn’t be here to kiss her on New Year’s Eve. Now Scarlett was sure she was going to cry.

“I’m going to the Landing with you,” said Rosemary. “I haven’t been there for months.”

“You can’t go to the Landing, Rosemary.” Rhett was carefully patient.

“I’m afraid Rhett’s right, dear,” said Mrs. Butler. “He can’t be with you all the time, he’s got too much business to take care of. And you cannot be in the house or any place else with only that child you have for a maid. There’s too much coming and going, too many rough people.”

“I’ll take your Celie, then. Scarlett will let you borrow Pansy to help you dress, won’t you, Scarlett?”

Scarlett smiled. There was no need for tears. “I’ll go with you, Rosemary,” she said sweetly. “Pansy, too.” New Year’s Eve would come to the plantation, too. Without a ballroom full of people, just Rhett and her.

“How generous of you, Scarlett,” Miss Eleanor said. “I know you’ll miss going to the balls next week. You’re luckier than you deserve, Rosemary, to have such a thoughtful sister-in-law.”

“I don’t think either of them should go, Mama, I won’t allow it,” said Rhett.

Rosemary opened her mouth to protest, but her mother’s slightly raised hand stopped her. Mrs. Butler spoke quietly: “You’re being rather inconsiderate, Rhett; Rosemary loves the Landing as much as you do, and she doesn’t have the freedom to come and go the way you can. I believe you should take her, especially since you’re also going to Julia Ashley’s. She’s very fond of your sister.”

Scarlett’s mind was racing. What did she care about missing some dances if she could be alone with Rhett? She’d get rid of Rosemary somehow—maybe this Miss Ashley would invite her to stay at her place. Then there would be only Rhett… and Scarlett.

She remembered him in her room when she was at the Landing before. He’d held her, comforted her, spoken with such tenderness…

“Just wait till you see Miss Julia’s plantation, Scarlett,” Rosemary said loudly. “It’s what a plantation is supposed to be.” Rhett was riding ahead of them, pushing aside or tearing the vines of honeysuckle that had grown across the trail through the pinewoods. Scarlett followed Rosemary, uninterested for the moment in what Rhett was doing, her mind busy with other things. Thank goodness this old horse is so fat and lazy. I haven’t ridden horseback for so long that anything with spirit would throw me for sure. How I used to love to ride… back then… when the stables at Tara were full. Pa was so proud of his horses. And of me. Suellen had hands like anvils, she could ruin the mouth of an alligator. And Carreen was afraid, even of her pony. But I used to race with Pa, hell for leather on the roads, almost winning sometimes. “Katie Scarlett,” he’d say, “you’ve got the hands of an angel and the nerve of the devil himself. It’s the O’Hara in you, a horse will always recognize an Irishman and give his best for him.” Darling Pa… Tara’s woods smelled sharp, just like these, pine prickling in my nose. And the birds singing and the rustling leaves underfoot and the peace of it all. I wonder how many acres Rhett’s got? I’ll find out from Rosemary. She probably knows right down to the square inch. I hope this Miss Ashley isn’t the dragon Rhett makes her out to be. What was it Rhett said? She looks like she drinks vinegar. He is funny when he’s nasty—long as it’s not about me.

“Scarlett! Catch up, we’re almost there.” Rosemary’s call came from ahead. Scarlett flicked the neck of her horse with her crop and it walked marginally faster. Rhett and Rosemary were already out of the wood when she reached them. At first all she could see was Rhett, sharp-edged clear in the bright sunlight. How handsome he is, and how well he sits his horse, not a sluggish old thing like mine, but a real horse with plenty of fire to him. Look at the way the horse’s muscles are twitching under his skin, yet he’s still as a statue, just from the grip of Rhett’s knees and his hands on the reins. His hands…

Rosemary gestured, catching Scarlett’s eye, directing it to the scene ahead, and Scarlett caught her breath. She had never cared about architecture, never noticed it. Even the magnificent houses that made Charleston’s Battery world-famous were to her just houses. However there was something about the severe beauty of Julia Ashley’s house at Ashley Barony that she recognized as different from anything she’d ever known and grand in a way she couldn’t define. It sat isolated in broad stretches of grass unadorned with garden, distant from the ancient huge live oak trees that were wide-spaced sentinels at the perimeter of the lawn. Square, made of brick with white-framed door and windows, the house was—“special,” Scarlett whispered. No wonder that it alone of all the plantations on the river had been spared the torches of Sherman’s Army. Even the Yankees wouldn’t dare insult the mighty presence before her eyes.

There was a sound of laughter, followed by singing. Scarlett turned her head. The house awed and intimidated her. Far to her left she saw expanses of strong insistent green completely different from the familiar deep rich color of the grass. Dozens of black men and women were working and singing in the strange green. Why, they’re field hands, tending the crop of whatever it is. So many of them, too. Her mind flew to the cotton fields at Tara that had once stretched as far as she could see, just as this strident green flowed without bounds along the river. Oh, yes, Rosemary’s right. This is a real plantation, like a plantation’s meant to be. Nothing was burned, nothing was changed, nothing would ever change. Time itself respected the majesty of Ashley Barony.

*   *   *

“It’s good of you to meet with me, Miss Ashley,” said Rhett. He bowed over the hand Julia Ashley held out to him; the back of his ungloved hand supported it respectfully, and his lips stopped the prescribed inch above it, for no gentleman would commit the impertinence of actually kissing the hand of a maiden lady, no matter how advanced her years.

“It’s useful to us both, Mr. Butler,” Julia said. “You’re miserably ill-groomed as usual, Rosemary, but I’m glad to see you. Introduce your sister-in-law.”

My grief, she really is a dragon, Scarlett thought nervously. I wonder if she expects me to curtsey?

“This is Scarlett, Miss Julia,” Rosemary said, smiling. She didn’t seem at all upset by the older woman’s criticism.

“How do you do, Mrs. Butler.”

Scarlett was sure that Julia Ashley didn’t care to know how she did at all. “How do you do,” she replied in kind. She inclined her head in a slight bow, the degree of inclination an exact replica of Miss Ashley’s frigid politeness. Who did this old woman think she was anyhow?