Rhett Butler's People

by Donald McCaig

  Ashley killed! How could she have thought it! Quickly, she prayed, asking God to forgive her. She hadn’t meant it!

  A terrific jangling erupted on Aunt Pitty’s front porch and a tenor voice sang, “If you want to have a good time, if you want to have a good time, jine the cavalry!”

  When the bewildered Uncle Peter opened the door, Colonel Ravanel swept his plumed hat almost to the floor. “Good evening, Mrs. Hamilton. I have come to offer innocent diversion to Atlanta’s loveliest lady!” The negro with the Colonel tapped his banjo significantly. His face was solemn as, one slow note at a time, he plunked the familiar “Lorena.”

  The Colonel recited the lyrics. “‘The years creep slowly by, Lorena. The snow is on the grass again. … ‘”

  “Sir …” Uncle Peter protested.

  “Go to bed, Uncle. Old boy like you needs his rest.”

  “You may leave, Uncle Peter.” Scarlett rose from her chair. “Sir, I do not recall inviting you here.”

  “‘The sun’s low down the sky, Lorena. The frost gleams where the flowers have been.

  “Your memory has failed you, Colonel. I am not called Lorena.”

  He sighed profoundly. “Such a melancholy tune. We lonely soldiers sing it ’round our watch fires while dreaming of home and loving hearts we have left behind.” His sad eyes invited her tenderest understanding. “Duty, dear Mrs. Hamilton—may I call you Scarlett?—duty is a harsh taskmaster.”

  “Sir, are you drunk?”

  Aunt Pittypat hobbled into the parlor. “Why, Colonel Ravanel…”

  “You may return to the kitchen, Aunt Pitty. Colonel Ravanel is just leaving.”

  “But Scarlett…”

  “Please!”

  Shaking her head, Pitty withdrew.

  The banjo player was so brilliant, he nearly blunted Scarlett’s wrath. With soft notes, the banjo player mimed his master’s disappointment. His chords were silent sobs. He sought memories of happier times, changed keys, and struck up the lively “Ye Cavaliers of Dixie.”

  Colonel Ravanel confided proudly, “Cassius’s repertoire is endless.”

  “Doubtless your repertoire is equally extensive, as I’m sure Mrs. Ravanel can attest. I thought your wife, Charlotte, a pleasant woman. Certainly she is more tolerant of fools than I. Good night, Colonel Ravanel. Take your orchestra with you.”

  His amused eyes froze. “I am not accustomed to mockery.”

  “I am not accustomed to impromptu musicales in my parlor.”

  “Cassius!”

  When the negro’s flying fingers stilled, his final notes hung in the air like dust motes. For the second time that evening, Andrew Ravanel swept his plumed hat so low, its feather ticked the floor. “Madam, I so admire a patriotic gentlewoman.”

  “‘Patriotic’? Dear, dear me!” Scarlett covered her mouth in mock astonishment. “I didn’t know that was ‘patriotism.’ I believe what you intended has ruder names, though no well-bred Georgia lady would admit to knowing them.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Wedded

  Rosemary Haynes strove to overrule her own heart. If she pretended with enough determination, her lie might become true and she would love her husband. She swallowed her yawns at John’s nightly reading and even suggested a book or two. Some evenings, when her husband turned to her at the top of the stairs, Rosemary found a smile.

  “Am I hurting you?”

  Her fists clenched at her sides. “John, dear. Please, take your own satisfaction.”

  Though conversations as husband and wife lurched like a wagon with a bent wheel, as Meg’s father and mother they had no end of things to say to each other.

  Rosemary was endlessly bemused by this wonderfully different edition of herself. Meg never dissembled. Sunny one moment, weeping the next: Meg had no natural reserve.

  One evening when the parents came downstairs after hearing the child’s prayers, John asked, “Why was she praying for horses? Meg was commending every horse in creation.”

  “When Cleo and Meg went to White Point today, apparently they came upon a cabbie beating his horse. Cleo told me the horse was old—too old to pull anymore. Some adults were remonstrating ineffectually but Meg ran at the cabbie and pummeled his legs.” Rosemary smiled fondly. “I suppose Meg’s assault must have shamed the spectators, because an officer bought the poor beast on the spot.”

  “Our dear daughter despises cruelty. The horse—”

  “Yes,” Rosemary said, “I imagine our Good Samaritan shot the beast soon afterward, but Meg imagines him whole and well in green pastures. I had a pony when I was a child. Jack, my Jack. Perhaps Meg—”

  “Meg is too young for a pony.”

  John Haynes was invited to the legislature to discuss strategies for defeating the Yankee blockade.

  Waiting for the Columbia train to depart, Rosemary’s husband ventured, “I hate to leave Meg,” adding quickly, “I’ll miss you, my dear, of course.” John Haynes longed for better words, magic words that could make things different between them. His voice faded. “Oh yes, I will miss you.”

  Despite a headache coming on, Rosemary advised, “John, please remember to dress warmly. You know how easily you take cold. Do remember to eat breakfast.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Well…” They embraced stiffly. She patted his hand.

  He said, “Good-bye, my dearest.”

  Rosemary smiled and waved as John’s train left the depot. But once his car was out of sight, Rosemary slumped on the nearest bench. Her temples throbbed. She shut her eyes and made herself breathe deeply.

  She heard a train: its bell, the hiss of escaping steam, the rumble of porters’ wagons and passengers’ greetings. Brisk footfalls paused before her, and when Rosemary opened her eyes, Andrew Ravanel was smiling down.

  Her headache was gone in an instant. Rosemary felt lighter—so much lighter that, like thistledown, she might just float away.

  “Well, hello there, Rosemary. Funny place to nap.”

  “Good heavens, Andrew! I hadn’t known you were due. Where’s your welcoming committee?”

  The Colonel laughed. “General Bragg says it does Southerners good to see me now and again.” Andrew pressed a hand to his breast melodramatically. “Dear Rosemary, I am a cheap utensil, like a bullet mold or mess kit, to be used until worn out and discarded.”

  Rosemary smiled brilliantly. “Then all this ‘gallantry’ is a sham?”

  “Why, of course it is! But can you keep a secret? War is grand fun!”

  The negro carrying Ravanel’s carpetbag had a banjo over his shoulder.

  “Cassius, find us a cab. I’ll slip into Charleston like a thief in the night. Come, Rosemary, I will take you home.”

  As their cab was trotting down Meeting Street, Andrew described his Atlanta reception. “As I climbed into the carriage, men were unhitching the horses. Had I fallen among horse thieves? But no! These citizens had it in their heads they must pull my carriage. They took up the shafts, trotting along so vigorously I wondered why such robust specimens weren’t in the army.

  “Next, I was bundled from my carriage, hoisted onto their shoulders, and deafened by cheers. I was rushed up the hotel stairs, worried my brains might be dashed out against the ceiling. At last I was set down, grateful to be on my own pegs. There, I met two of the grandest curmudgeons who ever curmudged. The good Dr. Meade delivered a denunciation of your brother, Rhett, that blistered my eyelashes, until I told Meade if Rhett were present, he wouldn’t dare speak so boldly.” Andrew took Rosemary’s hand. “The other curmudgeon, Mrs. Merriwether, is so formidable, we should clad her in iron plate and sail her down Charleston harbor. Spouting commonplaces to port and starboard, she would wreak havoc in the Federal fleet. And those other Atlanta ladies …”

  “Swooning at your feet?”

  “A sad lot. One poor soul was the wife of the worst officer I’ve ever commanded. I lied shamelessly. By the time I finished singing Major Wilkes’s praises, he was more vital to the Cause than Lee
himself.”

  Andrew caressed the soft skin on the back of Rosemary’s hand: an exquisite touch on the boundary between pleasure and pain. “But Rosemary, here I am describing tiresome people with the loveliest woman in Charleston at my side.”

  Rosemary recaptured her hand and sat up straight. “You forget I am a wife and mother, Andrew.”

  “Why, so you are. That is as it should be. Happy mother, satisfied wife.”

  As they rolled past the burnt district’s ruined homes and churches, Andrew recaptured her hand. “Remember how it feels when you take a good horse over the jump, that instant when you trust the horse, give it its head, and it sails up and up, as if you are sailing into the blue, and you know in the next second, you are immortal. Do you remember, Rosemary, how it feels to be immortal?”

  Rosemary spoke ever so softly. “No …”

  “We soldiers scurry and wait and suffer saddle sores and weather and awful food, and some days if it weren’t for Cassius’s banjo, I swear we’d all desert to the enemy. But one morning, we meet our foe in all his awful glory, and in that moment time stands still. Rosemary, isn’t this your house? May I come in?”

  “Yes,” Rosemary said.

  Servants know everything. Servants change rumpled bedclothes, and scrub undergarments; they hear ecstatic cries behind closed doors.

  Next morning, Cleo told Cook, “That Colonel fellow, he get to the withdrawing room, but he never got past it, and when it looked like he was a-goin’ to, Miss Rosemary, she ask me bring Miss Meg down so the Colonel could admire her. Little Meg don’t take to him. No she don’t. The child starts a-carryin’ on and a-kickin’ her feet, so Miss Rosemary takes her off, and though the Colonel, he waits in the withdrawing room for near an hour, Miss Rosemary never come back.”

  Disappointed, Cook said, “They didn’t do nothin’?”

  “Oh that Colonel, he surely wanted to do somethin’. He was like a stallion prancin’ ’round a mare, snufflin’ and showin’ his teeth, and might be Miss Rosemary wanted to, too, but God tell her, ‘Don’t you dare! Keep yourself for your husband!’ Good thing that Colonel din’t look at me the way he look at Miss Rosemary, ’cause I swear I never seen no handsomer man.”

  Cook shook her head, “Nothin’?” She brightened, “I’d wager the white folks will think they did.”

  Andrew strode rapidly down the Battery, taking no notice of those who recognized him. Cassius trotted beside him.

  Although Andrew banged the door knocker of the Fisher mansion, it was some time before his wife, Charlotte, came to the door. “Andrew!” she gasped. “You’re home. I’ve prayed—”

  Andrew brushed by her, waved Cassius inside, and slammed the door on all the world. “Where’s the damned houseman? I was knocking forever!”

  Charlotte’s smile flickered. “I had no idea you were coming. … Oh God … so very glad …” Charlotte hurled herself into his arms and kissed him full and hungrily on the lips. Charlotte pushed him to arm’s length, the better to drink him in. “Are you home, then, dear husband? Are you truly home?”

  The hall was dim, the tables and chairs shrouded. Overhead, the unlit chandelier glittered like icicles. Andrew shivered.

  “Juliet and I don’t heat the front of the house anymore,” Charlotte explained. “We’re living in the family room.”

  “But, the servants … surely …”

  “Dear me, Andrew. They’re gone. Jolly and Ben and Martha ran away. When our negroes reach Yankee lines, the Yankees emancipate them.” She glared at Cassius. “You won’t run away, will you?”

  “Oh no, Missus. I’ze a good nigger.”

  Andrew sent him away.

  Charlotte said, “Juliet will be so glad to see you. She’s gone to the market. There is still food to be had, but it is frightfully dear.”

  The family room’s windows looked out on the winter garden. Formerly, this had been where children did their lessons and Fisher women could undo their stays and drink a cup of tea. Grandmother Fisher had always taken breakfast here.

  Now, Charlotte’s and Juliet’s pallets flanked a four-plate cookstove, and the long table had been pushed against the window wall to serve as pantry, bearing enameled canisters, graduated from largest to smallest, and a five-gallon cask beside the Portland clock from Grandmother Fisher’s office.

  Charlotte stuffed wood into the stove. “We’ll have a nice cup of tea, Andrew. Unless … if you’d rather—we’ve so much brandy and wine. Juliet and I haven’t made a dent in Grandmother’s wine cellar.”

  “Tea will be fine.”

  As if Andrew were a luxury she couldn’t get enough of, Charlotte didn’t take her eyes off her husband. She filled her kettle from the cask, chattering all the while. “We draw water from the cistern every morning, so we have water all day. Juliet and I take turns carrying it in. Oh Andrew, I am so glad you’re home!”

  Wisps of smoke squirted from the stove grates.

  “Charlotte, dear Charlotte … I have something to tell you….”

  “Yes dear?” Charlotte splashed water on the stove. Smoke poured from the grates as water beaded and popped. “Oh dear, what have I done?”

  Andrew opened the damper. “I’m afraid you smothered your fire.”

  Coughing, Charlotte opened windows to let the smoke escape. “Oh Andrew, I’m sorry I’m useless. I’m the worst domestic on earth. We ladies were never expected to know how to start a fire or cook our supper or make our own beds. I’m sorry to be so helpless!”

  Andrew took the kettle from her and set it on the quieted stove.

  “Sit down, Charlotte. Please, just for a minute. You don’t need to do anything now. Tomorrow, I’ll buy new servants.”

  “But Andrew … Just as I start to get to know them, they’ll run away.”

  He straddled a bench. “Please, Charlotte. Do sit down. We’ll talk about servants later. I have a confession.”

  Charlotte’s happiness became alarm. She sat slowly.

  “When Juliet comes home today, she will have news of … of … a new scandal.”

  “Scandal? Dear Andrew, you just got here. You haven’t had time for a scandal!”

  “Rosemary and I…”

  Charlotte’s lips firmed. “No, Andrew. Not Rosemary. Rosemary’s marriage—well, it isn’t everything she wanted, but Rosemary wouldn’t hurt me! Not… not … Not again!”

  Andrew touched his heart. “I was rash, Charlotte. I was alone with Rosemary in her home. I was careless of her—of your reputation. But I swear before God that nothing happened.”

  Charlotte sagged. She moistened her lips. “Rosemary was always prettier than I. Everybody loved Rosemary even when we were little girls. Andrew, I know you have not always been faithful to me. Don’t lie to me now. Please …”

  Andrew’s eyes tried to reassure her.

  “I would particularly hate it if you betrayed me with Rosemary. I don’t know if I could live on if you betrayed me with Rosemary.”

  He took his wife’s unresisting hand. “Charlotte, dearest. On my honor, I did not.”

  Charlotte considered her husband while a minute ticked by before she rose and slid the kettle to the back of the stove. “Then that’s settled.”

  “Rosemary …”

  She tapped his lips. “Hush,” she said, “I believe you, Andrew. I have always believed you. Please go down to the cellar and fetch a bottle of champagne. It’s been so long since we had occasion to celebrate.”

  As Andrew had predicted, Juliet Ravanel learned Rosemary Haynes and her brother had spent two hours alone together. Her informant’s eyes gleamed with malicious pleasure. Inadvertently, Juliet fanned the very fires she intended to damp when she snapped, “Dear, what could Andrew and Rosemary have possibly done in that short time?”

  You may imagine what Charleston’s wits made of that.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A Child’s Refuge

  Fruiting wood glistened pink and bluebirds fluttered in Pittypat’s garden. After the springtime roa
ds were firm, the mighty Federal juggernaut would head south to crush the Confederate nation, and Major Ashley Wilkes was with the ragtag army that would confront it.

  Without mentioning their prayers to one another, Pittypat, Melanie, and Scarlett prayed separately for Ashley first thing on waking and last thing before sleep.

  On April 29, 77,000 Federal infantry and 3,000 cavalry crossed Virginia’s Rappahannock River on the five pontoon bridges General Joseph (“Fighting Joe”) Hooker had constructed.

  General Lee’s forty thousand met them in a scrub forest near Chancellorsville.

  Fighting Joe boasted, “I’ve got Lee just where I want him.”

  Six bloody days later, an ashen-faced Abraham Lincoln learned of Hooker’s army’s destruction. “My God, my God,” the President whispered, “what will the country say? What will the country say?”

  In mid-May, Melanie was in the kitchen placing crab-apple cuttings in a vase when Uncle Peter answered the front door.

  Scarlett was at the breakfast table, stirring oatmeal she claimed “wasn’t fit for horses.”

  Uncle Peter popped in to announce, “Mr. Tarleton in the parlor, Misses.”

  Scarlett gasped, “Tarleton? Which Tarleton?”

  The grinning soldier wore a Federal officer’s coat, dyed butternut and reenlisted in Confederate service.

  “Why, Brent Tarleton.” Scarlett smiled at the young man who had been one of her most ardent suitors. “Lordy, it’s good to see you.”

  “Miss Scarlett!” Spontaneously, the young man dropped to one knee. “Marry me!”

  Scarlett picked up her cue and fluttered girlishly. “But sir,” she cried dramatically, “aren’t you plighted to my own dear sister Careen?”

  “Hang Careen!” Brent’s gesture consigned Scarlett’s sister to the rubbish heap. His bright eyes were wide and happy. “You cannot refuse me this time, Miss Scarlett!” The young soldier’s too-serious mien faltered. His mouth twitched and he burst into laughter, which the delighted Scarlett joined in. Brent brushed his trouser knee. “Dear Scarlett! Were we ever so young as all that?”