Rhett Butler's People

by Donald McCaig

  When Rhett Butler was expelled from West Point (and no Charlestonian would have been surprised had young Butler put a bullet in his head), only Edgar Puryear had greeted him at the dock. “Damn, it’s good to see you, Rhett. Been too long! Come along with me. Polly’s got a new girl with the most amazing appetites ….”

  Rhett had smiled the half smile Edgar hated and said, “Not now, Edgar,” and walked into town.

  Coal scuttle in hand, the Chapeau Rouge’s housemaid hesitated in the parlor doorway.

  “Ah, come in, child.”

  “Sorry, sir. I didn’t know anyone—”

  “No matter. No matter. Do your work. Afraid I’ll bite you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I’d never bite anyone as pretty as you.”

  The girl blushed.

  “Tell me, child, when is Captain Butler expected?”

  “Don’t know, sir.”

  When she knelt to scoop coals into the stove, her dress stretched across her back and every knob on her long spine was visible. When Minette brought the captain’s brandy, she snapped, “Lisa! You are not to come into the parlor in the evening!”

  The startled housemaid tipped her scuttle and coal skittered underneath Captain Puryear’s wing chair. He opened his knees so she could reach between them.

  “Clumsy child,” Minette hissed. “Leave them. You can pick up after the captain departs.”

  “Minny, do you think Lisa might care for me?”

  “Lisa is a child, Captain,” Minette said coolly. “She does not entertain callers.”

  When MacBeth came in, clutching a strange boy’s arm, Lisa took the chance to flee.

  MacBeth told Minette, “Boy says he’s Miss Belle’s sprout.”

  Brown hair combed to the side, the boy’s narrow face was older than his years. Minette compared him with the daguerreotype enshrined on Madame’s dressing table. “But mon petit, you are with the Good Fathers! You are in New Orleans!”

  Taz spread his hands as if he had no idea how he’d found himself in Atlanta. He smiled a charming smile.

  “Says he’s Miz Belle’s,” MacBeth repeated.

  Edgar Puryear’s attention fixed on Taz. “Boy, who are you? How are you called?”

  “I am Tazewell Watling, sir.”

  “Watling, by God! And you were born …?”

  “In New Orleans, sir.”

  “Not where! When? Why should I care where you were born? Let me calculate. Twelve—no, it’d be thirteen years ago!”

  “I have thirteen years, yes, sir.”

  “Captain, cher. There will be time for questions later, no? The boy has come to see his dear Mama.”

  Captain Puryear stood and studied Taz like a buyer inspecting a colt. “Yes, there is a resemblance, a definite resemblance—those ears, that nose!” He toasted the boy. “Tazewell Watling! By God, you’re Rhett Butler’s bastard!” He drained his brandy and set the glass on the mantel.

  “You are mistaken, sir. Captain Butler is my guardian.”

  “Why, of course he is. No doubt about that. He’s whatever the old tomcat says he is.”

  The mantel clock ticked; the fire hissed in the parlor stove.

  Taz had traveled far and he was tired. “I will inform Captain Butler of your interest in my parentage, sir.”

  Captain Puryear’s eyes went flat. “We’ll discuss this another time, boy. Minny, you can bring me another brandy? The French brandy this time, eh, chère?”

  Minette hustled Taz down the hall into what had been a family dining room but was now Belle Watling’s boudoir, the sanctuary of an uneducated woman with money. Dark silk moiré drapes covered the windows and muffled the street noises. Her lamp globes were painted with plump, garish flowers. Belle’s coverlet was rose brocade and numerous large and small fringed pillows were arranged at the head of her bed. Warm, perfumed air enveloped Taz. This overwhelming femininity made him uneasy.

  His mother peered over her reading glasses. “Taz,” she said, stunned, “But I was just writin’ you!”

  “Madam, le bon fils!” Minette nudged the boy toward his mother.

  Taz tried to forestall Belle’s protest. “Please, Maman, I am so happy to be here. Can I stay with you?”

  “But Taz…”

  “I crawled through the Federal lines, right past their sentries. One of ’em near stepped on me! If he had, I don’t know what I’d have done! I hadn’t brought any food and hadn’t had anything to eat and, Maman, I was hungry. Anyway, then I met up with some drovers taking cattle to Montgomery and they gave me corn cakes to eat. When I got to the railroad, the provosts wouldn’t let me on the train. The soldiers snuck me on.”

  Her son flew into Belle’s arms. “Lord knows, I’ve missed you, darling boy.”

  Minette opened the liquor chest, muttering, “‘Minny’! ‘Minny’ he calls me! If Minette is good enough for the baptismal record, it is good enough for Captain Busy!”

  Belle gently brushed her son’s hair off his forehead. “Minette, not now, please.”

  “Eloise won’t come downstairs when that man’s in the house.”

  “Yes, Minette. Later, please.”

  “Captain, here is your French brandy!” Minette spat in the tumbler before she filled it and left.

  Mother and son embraced and talked and embraced again. A little later, Lisa brought a tray with soup and bread. Taz ate at his mother’s dressing table, among her pomades and potions. “Lisa is pretty, isn’t she, Maman?” he said between bites.

  “The poor child’s husband’s killed in the War. They had only one day together. Only one day! When she come to our doorstep, I took her in.”

  Belle laid comforters on the floor beside her bed, and after the boy fell asleep, Tazewell Watling’s mother watched him for some time before she kissed him on the forehead and extinguished the lamp.

  The next morning, when Taz returned from the necessary, smoke was rising from the kitchen chimney. Lisa jumped back from the stove she’d been feeding. “You scared me. Ain’t used to no early risers.”

  “I don’t need much sleep,” Taz said. “In New Orleans, we don’t sleep hardly at all.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “That so?”

  “Day or night. Something’s always doing in New Orleans.” He rubbed his nose. “Atlanta’s so smoky. How do you stand it?”

  “Ain’t bad once you’re used to it.”

  “Maman says you are a widow.”

  “My Billy’s kilt.”

  “I’ve never been married,” Taz said.

  “Course you ain’t been married. You’re just a baby.”

  Taz drew himself up. “In New Orleans, we say, ‘L’heure coq cante, li bon pour marie!’” He translated politely, “‘When the cock crows, he’s ready to marry!’”

  “You talk funny,” she said. “Talk some more.”

  In French, Taz told Lisa she had pretty eyes. Lisa colored, for the French language cannot disguise sentiment. Taz added, “I suppose you heard I’m a bastard.”

  “I don’t know I ever met a bastard.”

  “Well, now you’ve met one, what do you think?”

  “I think I was cookin’ oatmeal and might be you’d want some.”

  Later, Taz met the Cyprians: Eloise, who had the longest black hair he’d ever seen, and Hélène, whose eyes were sleepy from laudanum.

  MacBeth’s knuckles were broken and flattened from fighting. MacBeth had been reared in Atlanta. “I’m a city nigger,” MacBeth said. “I don’t wear no kerchief. There’s a hat on my head.”

  Taz asked MacBeth about Captain Butler.

  “Captain Butler comes and goes,” MacBeth said.

  “Does Butler sleep here? In the house, I mean.”

  “You mean do he lie up with your mama?” MacBeth asked with a straight face.

  Taz balled his fists, but MacBeth glowered until the boy relaxed. Taz looked off and whistled tunelessly. “Did you ever kill anyone?” Taz asked.

  “Only niggers,” MacBeth said. />
  Taz clicked Rhett’s door closed behind himself and sniffed. Stale cigar smoke and dust. So this was his father’s office. Until the provost captain had spoken, Taz hadn’t suspected. When he’d asked Belle about his father, she’d always said, “There’ll be time for that when you’re grown.”

  Well, he was grown now.

  His father’s office was nothing special: a desk, a ponderous iron safe, a walnut daybed, two sturdy chairs, and an oak chifforobe. The front windows overlooked the walk, where MacBeth was raking cigar butts from the flower beds. The rear windows framed Belle’s stable and, behind it, a weedy pasture ending at a vividly green margin of swamp grass beside a murky creek.

  Taz spun the dial and tried the brass lever, but Rhett’s safe was locked. He leaned back in his father’s chair.

  Several times, Belle had told Taz how she and Rhett had been reacquainted: “If I hadn’t passed the St. Louis Hotel that day, Taz, honey, I reckon things would have been bad for me. I didn’t have nothin’, nary a dime. I’d given you up to the orphanage and I was too shamed to even come visit you. Honey, I saw these fancy folks outside the St. Louis and thought they might just spare me somethin’. I didn’t have no pride, honey. You got no pride when you’re down-and-out. Anyway, I didn’t recognize him at first, but he knew me right off. Rhett Butler took care of me. Took care of me and took care of my darling boy, too.”

  Rhett’s suits and starched shirts hung in the chifforobe above two pairs of riding boots in stretchers. There was nothing in the desk except pens, ink, writing paper, and Charles Dickens’s American Notes.

  Taz swiveled the chair. Scuffs on the chair rail showed where Rhett Butler had rested his boot heels. Even scooted down as far as he could get, Taz’s feet couldn’t reach them.

  Taz ate breakfast with Lisa and supper with the Cyprians at four o’clock. Before sundown, he went upstairs and sat on Rhett’s daybed, reading Mr. Dickens until after midnight. He heard laughter, unsteady footsteps outside the office door, and Cyprians giggling.

  After MacBeth had seen their last guest out, Belle locked the front door, snuffed the red lamp and the parlor lamps, and went upstairs to fetch her son.

  Belle Watling was not a beautiful woman, but she was lively and appealing. One year for her birthday, Rhett bought her a gray silk Paris gown. Belle folded it and laid it in its original paper wrapping deep in her bureau drawer. She wouldn’t wear it. “Nobody would know me,” she said.

  Another time, Rhett suggested Belle wear less face powder. He sat her before a dressing mirror, washed her face with warm water, and cleansed it with cotton. “You don’t need rouge, my dear. Your cheeks glow like pippins.”

  The Belle in the mirror seemed ten years younger, innocent and shy. The country girl looking at her made Belle cry.

  On Saturday night, army payday, three days before Christmas, a wreath hung on Chapeau Rouge’s front door. Sergeant Johnson grinned at his boss. “Merry Christmas, Captain.”

  After Edgar Allan Puryear went inside, Sergeant Johnson put his boot on the porch railing and lit his pipe.

  From the green velvet love seat in the parlor, a one-armed major asked Edgar, “Aren’t there enlisted men’s brothels where you might better spend your time, Provost Captain? Or are they a little … rough for you?”

  When Edgar Puryear pursed his lips, the major rose, drawing Hélène after him. “Let us continue upstairs, my dear.” Hélène covered her mouth and giggled.

  A trio of artillery lieutenants came in laughing but made faces at the provost’s back and took their custom elsewhere.

  Paydays were Chapeau Rouge’s busiest nights, and Minette smiled through her teeth. “Captain Puryear, I am so glad you are here tonight.”

  “Because?”

  Minette went on. “You are so curious to learn about our young Tazewell. Captain Butler is expected this night. Miss Belle and MacBeth are at the Car Shed awaiting his train. You will satisfy all your questions from—how you say?—the horse’s mouth.”

  To Minette’s satisfaction, Edgar flinched. “Will you take a brandy while you wait, Captain?”

  Edgar Puryear went to the mantel clock and stared unseeing at its elaborate gilt hands. He took a sharp breath and turned. “Fetch the boy.”

  “Captain?”

  “Fetch the boy, Minny, or I’ll have my sergeant fetch him.”

  When Minette brought Taz downstairs, she warned him about Captain Busy. “He is like the alligator,” Minette said. “He is most dangerous when he smiles.”

  The provost captain indicated a chair, but Taz remained standing. “Sir?”

  “When your father and I were your age, boy, we were great friends.” Edgar smiled. “Some of the things we got up to.” Edgar chuckled reminiscently.

  “Sir?”

  “You know, boy. As close as we were in those days, Rhett never told me he was courting Belle Watling. Rhett was a gentleman, you see, and Belle—” Frowning, Edgar turned at the interruption. “Ah, Lisa. Come in, my dear. I was hoping I’d see you again.”

  The girl stood in the doorway with a telegram in her hand. “Please, sir …”

  “Come in. Do come in. What have you there?”

  She approached with downcast eyes.

  “Bring it to me, Lisa.”

  “Sir, this ain’t for you. It’s from Captain Rhett for Miss Belle.”

  His snapping fingers were a magnet. Edgar read the flimsy, crumpled it, and dropped it on the floor. “No great matter, child. My friend Rhett’s train is delayed.” The Captain stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles. “No, Lisa, you mustn’t go. It’s rude to leave your guests before the party ends.” He cocked his head. “I’ll bet you didn’t know that Tazewell is Captain Butler’s son? No? Friend Rhett plays his cards so close to the vest.”

  Minette said, “You may go now, child. You have duties in the kitchen.”

  “I haven’t said she could go.” Captain Puryear smiled, as if Minette had made a forgivable blunder.

  Minette shrugged. She was a courtesan after all, not the girl’s mother.

  Taz stepped between Lisa and the Captain’s wing chair.

  “Fond of her, are you, boy? Do you like money, girl?”

  Lisa tucked her hands under her apron. “Everybody likes money,” she announced scornfully.

  Edgar whispered, “Pretty little trifle, isn’t she, boy?” With the air of a man with all the time in the world, he opened his purse and extracted a twenty-dollar gold piece, which he turned in the light before he laid the coin on the mantelpiece. “Ever seen one of these before, girl?”

  Lisa was drawn to it. “That’s right smart of money.”

  The silver dollar Captain Puryear set beside the gold piece seemed its poor relation. “The act doesn’t last thirty minutes and it’s not as if you haven’t done it before.” He stroked the girl’s arm like a man pets a strange cat and murmured, “That bedroom at the top of the stairs, Minny, is it available?”

  “Captain!” Minette protested. “Lisa is a child. I am the courtesan!”

  “Minny,” Puryear said, “if I’d wanted your favors, I’d have had them.” To Lisa: “Go ahead, girl. Touch the money.”

  To Taz’s shame, his voice broke when he said, “Leave her be!”

  “Do you fancy her, boy? Look at her, Tazewell Butler. Lisa’s so greedy. Such pretty trash and so, so greedy.” Edgar dipped into his wallet for a second silver dollar. He slid the coin atop its mate so slowly, it hissed.

  Mesmerized, Lisa took a step toward the money.

  “The hell you say! The hell!” Tazewell Watling swept Puryear’s coins onto the floor.

  Lisa dropped to her knees chasing the gold piece, which had rolled underneath the love seat. Grinning from ear to ear, Edgar rocked back on his heels, laughing.

  Taz hurled the mantel clock, but the provost ducked. The missile exploded into springs, cogwheels, and broken glass.

  “Dear me! Dear, dear me!” Edgar Puryear chuckled.

  His eyes changed when Taz
picked up a Venus statuette.

  “Boy, you wait one minute! You wait! Strike a Confederate officer, and by God …” Edgar blocked Taz’s blow with his right arm. He yelped, “Goddamn you, boy! You hurt me! That’s enough!”

  Taz’s lips were drawn over his teeth. “You bastard!” Taz feinted, and when the provost tried to grab the statue, Taz backhanded him across the nose. Edgar’s eyes teared.

  “Jesus Christ, Busy!” Sergeant Johnson spoke from behind Taz. “He’s just a goddamned kid!”

  Despite which, the sergeant knocked the kid unconscious with his shot-loaded sap.

  When Taz woke, his left foot was warm because someone was vomiting on it. Taz retracted his foot. His head pulsed so bad he opened his mouth to let the pain escape. In a corner, a soldier rested his forehead against the wall he was pissing on. Taz touched the knot on his head. He’d lost a shoe and his pockets were turned inside out. When he shut his eyes, he saw blue-and-orange pinwheels. Moonlight trickled through a high barred window. The Judas hole in the cell door was a perfect circle of unblinking yellow light.

  Hours went by before an aged negro called softly through that hole, “Lookin’ for Watling. Tazewell Watling? Watling with us tonight?”

  Taz followed the negro down the corridor into a guardroom with a bench along one wall and a table behind which a Confederate colonel sat, thumbing through papers. He didn’t look up at Taz.

  At six in the morning, Rhett Butler’s shirt was fresh and he was clean-shaven. Taz could smell his pomade. “Taz, you broke poor Edgar’s nose. He can’t show his face in public.”

  Pain jolted behind Tazewell’s eyes. “Captain Puryear is a blackguard.”

  “Edgar hasn’t the guts to be a blackguard, Taz. Edgar just dirties what he touches.” Rhett’s big gentle fingers explored the boy’s skull and he peered into his eyes. “Your noggin’s fine, boy. In his line of work, Sergeant Johnson is a virtuoso.”

  “Sir, Captain Puryear was taking liberties.”

  “Edgar has unusual tastes. I’ll take you back to the Jesuits. You can’t learn to be a gentleman in jail.”

  Taz was tired. He hurt and he smelled bad. Had his father ever been tired or sick or hurt or afraid? Were his clothes always immaculate? Did he always smell of pomade?