Scarlett (108 page)

“What the devil are you doing here?” she asked. She had to know. His hand was warm at her waist, strong, supporting, directing her body as they turned. Unconsciously Scarlett revelled in his strength and rebelled against his control over her even as she remembered the joy of following his steps in the giddying swirling motion of the waltz.

Rhett chuckled. “I couldn’t resist my curiosity,” he said. “I was in London on business, and everyone was talking about an American who was taking Dublin Castle by storm. ‘Could that be Scarlett of the striped stockings?’ I asked myself. I had to find out. Bart Morland confirmed my suspicions. Then I couldn’t get him to stop talking about you. He even made me ride with him through your town. According to him, you rebuilt it with your own hands.”

His eyes raked over her from head to toe. “You’ve changed, Scarlett,” he said quietly. “The charming girl has become an elegant, grown-up woman. I salute you, I really do.”

The unvarnished honesty and warmth of his voice made Scarlett forget her resentments. “Thank you, Rhett,” she said.

“Are you happy in Ireland, Scarlett?”

“Yes, I am.”

“I’m glad.” His words were rich with deeper meaning.

For the first time in all the years she’d known him, Scarlett understood Rhett, at least in part. He did come to see me, she understood, he’s been thinking about me all this time, worrying about where I’d gone and how I was. He never stopped caring, no matter what he said. He loves me and always will, just as I’ll always love him.

The realization filled her with happiness, and she tasted it, like champagne; sipped it, to make it last. Rhett was here, with her, and they were, in this moment, closer than they had ever been.

An aide-de-camp approached them when the waltz ended. “His Excellency requests the honor of the next dance, Mrs. O’Hara.”

Rhett raised his eyebrows in the quizzical mockery Scarlett remembered so well. Her lips curved in a smile for him alone. “Tell His Excellency that I will be delighted,” she said. She looked at Rhett before she took the aide’s arm. “In Clayton County,” she murmured to Rhett, “we’d say that I was in high cotton.” She heard his laughter follow her as she walked away.

I’m allowed, she told herself, and she looked back over her shoulder to see him laughing. It’s really too much, she thought, it’s not fair at all. He even looks good in those silly satin britches and shoes. Her green eyes sparkled with laughter when she curtseyed to the Viceroy before they began to dance.

Scarlett felt no real surprise that Rhett was no longer there when she looked for him again. For as long as she had known him, Rhett had appeared and disappeared without explanation. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see him here tonight, she thought. I was feeling like Cinderella, why shouldn’t the only Prince Charming I want be here? She could feel his arms around her as if he had left a mark; otherwise it would be easy to believe that she had made it all up—the gilded room, the music, his presence, even hers.

When she returned to her rooms at the Shelbourne, Scarlett turned up the gas and stood before a long looking glass in the bright light to look at herself and see what Rhett had seen. She looked beautiful and sure of herself, like her portrait, like the portrait of her grandmother.

Her heart began to ache. Why couldn’t she be like the other portrait of Grandma Robillard? The one in which she was soft and flushed with love given and received.

For in Rhett’s caring words, she knew, there had also been sadness and farewell.

In the middle of the night Scarlett O’Hara woke in her luxurious scented room on the best floor of the best hotel in Dublin and wept with racking convulsive sobs. “If only…” repeated again and again in her head like a battering ram.

T
he night’s anguish left no visible marks on Scarlett. Her face was smoothly serene the next morning, and her smiles were as lovely as ever when she poured out coffee and tea for the men and women who crowded her drawing room. Sometime during the dark hours of the night she had found the courage to let Rhett go.

If I love him, she understood, I must not try to hold on to him. I have to learn to give him his freedom, just the way I try to give Cat hers because I love her.

I wish I could have told Rhett about her, he’d be so proud of her.

I wish the Castle Season was over. I miss Cat dreadfully. I wonder what she’s up to.

Cat was running with the strength of desperation through the woods at Ballyhara. The ground mists of morning still clung in places, and she couldn’t see where she was going. She stumbled and fell, but she got up right away. She had to keep running, even though she was short of breath from running so much already. She sensed another stone coming and ducked behind the protection of a tree trunk. The boys chasing her shouted and jeered. They had almost caught up with her, even though they’d never ventured into the woods near the Big House before. It was safe now. They knew The O’Hara was in Dublin with the English. Their parents talked about nothing else.

“There she is!” one shouted, and the others lifted their hands to throw.

But the figure stepping from behind a tree was not Cat. It was the
cailleach
, with a gnarled finger pointing. The boys howled with fear and ran.

“Come with me,” said Grainne. “I will give you some tea.”

Cat put her hand in the old woman’s. Grainne came out from hiding and walked very slowly, and Cat had no trouble keeping pace with her. “Will there be cakes?” Cat asked.

“There will,” said the
cailleach
.

Although Scarlett grew homesick for Ballyhara, she lasted the Castle Season out. She’d given Charlotte Montague her word. It’s exactly like the Season in Charleston, she thought. Why is it, I wonder, that fashionable people work so hard at having fun for so long at a time? She soared from success to even greater success, and Mrs. Fitz shrewdly took advantage of the rapturous paragraphs in the
Irish Times
that described them. Every evening she took the newspaper down to Kennedy’s bar to show the people of Ballyhara how famous The O’Hara was. Day by day, grumbling about Scarlett’s fondness for the English gave way to pride that The O’Hara was more admired than any of the Anglo women.

Colum did not applaud Rosaleen Fitzpatrick’s cleverness. His mood was too somber for him to see the humor in it. “The Anglos will seduce her just as they’re doing John Devoy,” he said.

Colum was both wrong and right. No one in Dublin wanted Scarlett to be less Irish. It was a large part of her attractiveness. The O’Hara was an original. But Scarlett had discovered an unsettling truth. The Anglo-Irish thought of themselves as being just as Irish as the O’Haras of Adamstown. “These families were living in Ireland before America was even settled,” Charlotte Montague said one day in irritation. “How can you call them anything but Irish?”

Scarlett couldn’t unravel the complexities, so she stopped trying. She didn’t really have to, she decided. She could have both worlds—the Ireland of Ballyhara’s farms and the Ireland of Dublin Castle. Cat would have them, too, when she grew up. And that’s much better than she would have had if I’d stayed in Charleston, Scarlett told herself firmly.

*   *   *

When the Saint Patrick’s Ball ended at four in the morning, the Castle Season was over. The next event was some miles away in County Kildare. Everyone would be at the Punchestown Races, Charlotte told her. She’d be expected to be there.

Scarlett declined. “I love racing and horses, Charlotte, but I’m ready to go home now. I’m late already with this month’s office hours. I’ll pay for the hotel reservations you made.”

No need, said Charlotte. She could sell them for four times their cost. And she herself had no interest in horses.

She thanked Charlotte for making her an independent woman. “You are independent now as well, Scarlett. You don’t need me any more. Stay on Mrs. Sims’ good side and let her dress you. The Shelbourne has reserved your rooms for next year’s Season. Your house will accommodate all the guests you ever want to have, and your housekeeper is the most professional woman I’ve ever met in that position. You are in the world now. Do with it what you will.”

“What will you do, Charlotte?”

“I will have what I always wanted. A small apartment in a Roman palazzo. Good food, good wine, and day after day of sunlight. I abhor rain.”

Even Charlotte couldn’t complain about this weather, Scarlett thought. The spring was sunnier than anyone could remember a spring ever being. The grass was tall and rich, and the wheat planted three weeks before on Saint Patrick’s Day had already hazed the fields with tender fresh green. The harvest this year should make up for last year’s disappointment and then some. It was wonderful to be home.

“How is Ree doing?” she asked Cat. It was just like her daughter to name the small Shetland pony “King,” Scarlett thought indulgently. Cat valued her loves high. It was nice, too, that Cat used the Gaelic word. She liked to think of Cat as a true Irish child. Even though she did look like a gypsy. Her black hair would not stay neatly in its braids, and the sunny weather had browned her even more. Cat took off hat and shoes the moment she got outside.

“He doesn’t like it when I ride him with a saddle. I don’t like it either. Bareback is better.”

“No you don’t, my precious. You’ve got to learn to ride with a saddle and so does Ree. Be thankful it’s not a sidesaddle.”

“The one you have for hunting?”

“Yes. You’ll have one some day, but not for a long, long time.” Cat would be four in October, not all that much younger than Bonnie was when she had her fall. The sidesaddle could wait for a very long time. If only Bonnie had been astride instead of still learning to ride sidesaddle—no, she mustn’t think like that. “If only” could break your heart.

“Let’s ride down to the town, Cat, would you like that? We could go see Colum.” Scarlett was worried about him, he was so moody these days.

“Cat doesn’t like town. Can we ride to the river?”

“All right. I haven’t been to the river in a long time, that’s a good idea.”

“May I climb up in the tower?”

“You may not. The door’s too high, and it’s more than likely full of bats.”

“Will we go see Grainne?”

Scarlett’s hands tightened on her reins. “How do you know Grainne?” The wise woman had told her to keep Cat away, to guard her close to home. Who had taken Cat there? And why?

“She gave Cat some milk.”

Scarlett didn’t care for the sound of it. Cat only referred to herself in the third person when something made her nervous or angry. “What didn’t you like about Grainne, Cat?”

“She thinks Cat is another little girl named Dara. Cat told her, but she didn’t hear.”

“Oh, honey, she knows it’s you. That’s a very special name she gave you when you were just a little baby. It’s Gaelic, like the names you gave Ree and Ocras. Dara means oak tree, the best and strongest tree of all.”

“That’s silly. A girl can’t be a tree. She doesn’t have leaves.”

Scarlett sighed. She was overjoyed when Cat wanted to talk, the child was so often quiet, but it wasn’t always easy to talk to her. She’s such an opinionated little thing, and she always can tell when you’re fudging a little. The truth, the whole truth, or she gives you a look that could kill.

“Look, Cat, there’s the tower. Did I tell you the story about how old it is?”

“Yes.”

Scarlett wanted to laugh. It would be wrong to tell a child to lie, but sometimes a polite fib would be welcome.

“I like the tower,” said Cat.

“I do too, sweetheart.” Scarlett wondered why she hadn’t come here for so long. She’d almost forgotten how strange the old stones made her feel. It was eerie and peaceful at the same time. She made a promise to herself not to let so many months slip away before her next visit. This was, after all, the real heart of Ballyhara, where it had begun.

The blackthorn was already blooming in the hedges and it was still April. What a season they were having! Scarlett slowed the buggy for a long sniff. There was no real need to hurry, the dresses would wait. She was driving into Trim for a package of summer clothes Mrs. Sims had sent. There were six invitations to June house parties on her desk. She wasn’t sure she was ready to start partying so soon, but she was ready to see some grown-ups. Cat was her heart of hearts, but… And Mrs. Fitz was so busy running the big household that she never had time for a friendly cup of tea. Colum had gone to Galway to meet Stephen. She didn’t know how she felt about Stephen coming to Ballyhara. Spooky Stephen. Maybe he wouldn’t be so spooky in Ireland. Maybe he’d just been so strange and silent in Savannah because he was mixed up in the gun business. At least that was over! The extra income she was getting now from the little houses in Atlanta was pleasant, too. She must have given the Fenians a fortune. Much better spent on frocks; frocks didn’t hurt anyone.

Stephen would have all the news from Savannah, too. She was longing to know how everyone was. Maureen was just as bad about writing letters as she was. She hadn’t heard anything about the Savannah O’Haras in months. Or about anyone else. It made sense that when she’d made the decision to sell up in Atlanta she’d decided to put everything in America behind her and never look back.