Scarlett (28 page)

“You can’t take my money!” she screamed at Rhett. But it came out a cracked whisper.

He laughed. “I haven’t taken any away from you, my pet. I’ve only stopped adding to it. As long as you’re living in the house I provide in Charleston, there’s no reason for me to maintain an empty house in Atlanta. Of course, if you were to return to it, it would no longer be empty. Then I’d feel obliged to begin paying for it again.” Rhett walked over to the fireplace where he could see her face in the light of the flames. His challenging smile disappeared and his forehead creased with concern.

“You really didn’t know, did you? Hold on, Scarlett, I’ll get you a brandy. You look like you’re going to pass out.”

He had to steady her hands with his to hold the glass to her lips. She was trembling uncontrollably. When the glass was empty, he dropped it on the floor and chafed her hands until they warmed and stopped shaking.

“Now tell me, in sober truth, is there really a soldier breaking into bedrooms?”

“Rhett, you didn’t mean it, did you? You aren’t going to stop sending the money to Atlanta?”

“To hell with the money, Scarlett, I asked you a question.”

“To hell with you,” she said, “I asked you one.”

“I should have known you wouldn’t be able to think of anything else once money was mentioned. All right, I’ll send some to Henry. Now will you answer me?”

“You swear?”

“I swear.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yes! Yes, dammit, tomorrow. Now, once and for all, what’s this story about a Yankee soldier?”

Scarlett’s sigh of relief seemed to last forever. Then she drew breath into her lungs and told him everything she knew about the intruder.

“You say Alicia Savage saw his uniform?”

“Yes,” Scarlett answered. Then she added spitefully, “He doesn’t care how old they are. Maybe he’s raping your mother right this minute.”

Rhett’s big hands clenched. “I should strangle you, Scarlett. The world would be a better place.”

He questioned her for almost an hour, until she was drained of everything she’d heard.

“Very well,” he said then, “we’ll leave tomorrow as soon as the tide turns.” He walked to a door and threw it open. “Good,” he said, “the sky is clear. It’ll be an easy run.”

Past his silhouette Scarlett could see the night sky. There was a three-quarter moon. She stood wearily. Then she saw the mist from the river that covered the ground outside. The moonlight made it white, and for a confused moment she wondered if it had snowed. A billow of mist enveloped Rhett’s feet and ankles, then dissipated into the room. He closed the door and turned. Without the moonlight, the room seemed very dark until a match flared, illuminating Rhett’s chin and nose from below. He touched it to a lamp wick, and she could see his face. Scarlett ached with longing. He put the glass chimney on the lamp and held it high. “Come with me. There’s a bedroom upstairs where you can sleep.”

It was not nearly as primitive as the room downstairs. The tall four-post bed had a thick mattress and fat pillows and a bright woolen blanket over its crisp linen sheets. Scarlett didn’t look at the other furnishings. She let the blanket fall from her shoulders and climbed the set of steps beside the bed to burrow under the covers.

He stood over her a moment before he left the room. She listened to his footsteps. No, he wasn’t going downstairs, he’d be close by. Scarlett smiled, then slept.

The nightmare began as it had always begun—with the mist. It was years since Scarlett had dreamed it, but her unconscious mind remembered even as it created the dream, and she began to twist and thrash and whimper deep in the back of her throat, dreading what was to come. Then, again, she was running, with her straining heart pounding in her ears, running, stumbling and running, through a thick white fog that twined cold swirling tendrils around her throat and legs and arms. She was cold, as cold as death, and hungry, and terrified. It was the same, it had always been the same, and each time worse than the time before, as if the terror and hunger and cold accumulated, grew stronger.

And yet it was not the same. For in the past, she had been running and reaching for something unnamed and unknowable, and now ahead of her she could glimpse through streaks in the mist Rhett’s broad back, always moving away. And she knew that he was what she was searching for, that when she reached him the dream would lose its power and fade away, never to return. She ran and ran, but he was always far ahead, always with his back turned on her. Then the fog thickened, and he began to disappear, and she cried out to him. “Rhett… Rhett… Rhett… Rhett… Rhett…”

“Hush, hush now. You’re dreaming, it’s not real.”

“Rhett…”

“Yes, I’m here. Hush now. You’re all right.” Strong arms lifted her and held her, and she was warm and safe at last.

Scarlett half-woke with a start. There was no mist. Instead, a lamp on a table cast a glowing light and she could see Rhett’s face bent close above hers. “Oh, Rhett,” she cried. “It was so awful.”

“The old dream?”

“Yes, yes—well, almost. There was something different, I can’t remember… But I was cold and hungry and I couldn’t see because of the fog, and I was so frightened, Rhett, it was terrible.”

He held her close and his voice vibrated in his hard chest next to her ear. “Of course you were cold and hungry. That supper wasn’t fit to eat, and you’ve kicked off your blankets. I’ll pull them up, and you’ll sleep just fine.” He laid her down against the pillows.

“Don’t leave me. It’ll come back.”

Rhett spread the blankets up over her. “There’ll be biscuits for breakfast, and hominy, and butter enough to turn them yellow. Think about that—and country ham and fresh eggs—and you’ll sleep like a baby. You’ve always been a good feeder, Scarlett.” His voice was amused. And tired. She closed her heavy eyelids.

“Rhett?” It was a blurred, drowsy sound.

He paused in the doorway, his hand shading the lamplight. “Yes, Scarlett?”

“Thank you for coming to wake me. How did you know?”

“You were yelling loud enough to break the windows.” The last sound she heard was his warm gentle laughter. It was like a lullaby.

*   *   *

True to Rhett’s prediction, Scarlett ate an enormous breakfast before she went to look for him. He’d been up before dawn, the cook told her. He was always up before the sun. She looked at Scarlett with undisguised curiosity.

I should wear her out for her impudence, Scarlett thought, but she was so content she couldn’t summon up any real anger. Rhett had held her, comforted her, even laughed at her. Just as he used to before things went wrong. She’d been so right to come to the plantation. She should have done it before, instead of frittering away her time at a million tea parties.

The sunlight made her narrow her eyes when she stepped outside the house. It was strong, already warm on her head although it was still very early. She shaded her eyes with her hand and looked around her.

A soft moan was her first reaction. The brick terrace under her feet continued to her left for a hundred yards. Broken, blackened and grass-grown, it was a frame for a monumental charred ruin. Jagged remnants of walls and chimneys were all that remained of what had been a magnificent mansion. Tumbled mounds of smoke- and fire-stained bricks within the fragments of walls were heart-stopping mementos of Sherman’s Army.

Scarlett was heartsick. This had been Rhett’s home, Rhett’s life—lost forever before he could come back to reclaim it.

Nothing in her troubled life had ever been as bad as this. She’d never known the degree of pain he must have felt, must still feel a hundred times a day when he saw the ruins of his home. No wonder he was determined to rebuild, to find and regain everything he could of the old possessions.

She could help him! Hadn’t she plowed and planted and harvested Tara’s fields herself? Why, she’d wager Rhett didn’t even know good seed corn from bad. She’d be proud to help, because she knew how much it meant, what a victory it was over the despoilers when the land was reborn with tender new growth. I understand, she thought triumphantly. I can feel what he’s feeling. I can work with him. We can do this together. I don’t mind a dirt floor. Not if it’s with Rhett. Where is he? I’ve got to tell him!

Scarlett turned away from the shell of the house and found herself facing a vista unlike anything she’d ever seen in her life. The brick terrace on which she was standing led onto a grass-covered earth parterre, the highest of a series of grass terraces that unfolded in perfectly contoured sweeping movement down to a pair of sculpted lakes in the shape of gigantic butterfly wings. Between them a wide grassy path led to the river and the boat landing. The extravagant scale was so perfectly proportioned that the great distances appeared less, and the whole was like a carpeted outdoor room. The lush grass hid the scars of war, as though it had never been. It was a scene of sunlit tranquillity, of nature lovingly shaped into harmony with man. In the distance a bird sang an extended melody, as if in celebration. “Oh, how pretty!” she said aloud.

Movement to the left of the lowest terrace caught Scarlett’s eye. It must be Rhett. She began to run. Down the terraces—the undulation increased her speed and she felt a giddy, intoxicating, joyful freedom; she laughed and threw her arms wide, a bird or a butterfly about to soar into the blue, blue skies.

She was breathless when she reached the place where Rhett was standing and watching her. Scarlett panted, her hand on her chest, until her breath returned. Then, “I’ve never had such fun!” she said, still half-gasping. “What a wonderful place this is, Rhett. No wonder you love it. Did you run down that lawn when you were a little boy? Did you feel like you could fly? Oh, my darling, how horrible to see the burning! I’m broken-hearted for you; I’d like to kill every Yankee in the world! Oh, Rhett, I’ve got so much to tell you. I’ve been thinking. It can all come back, darling, just like the grass. I understand, I really, truly do understand what you’re doing.”

Rhett looked at her strangely, cautiously. “What do you ‘understand,’ Scarlett?”

“Why you’re here, instead of in town. Why you must bring the plantation back to life. Tell me what you’ve done, what you’re going to do. It’s so exciting!”

Rhett’s face lit up, and he gestured toward the long rows of plants behind him. “They burned,” he said, “but they didn’t die. It looks as if perhaps they were even strengthened by the burning. The ashes may have given them something they needed. I’ve got to find out. I’ve got so much to learn.”

Scarlett looked at the low stubby remains. She didn’t know those dark green shiny leaves. “What kind of tree is it? Do you grow peaches here?”

“They’re not trees. Scarlett, they’re shrubs. Camellias. The first ones ever brought to America were planted here at Dunmore Landing. These are offshoots, over three hundred all told.”

“Do you mean they’re flowers?”

“Of course. The most nearly perfect flower in the world. The Chinese worship them.”

“But you can’t eat flowers. What crops are you planting?”

“I can’t think about crops. I’ve got a hundred acres of garden to save.”

“That’s crazy, Rhett. What’s a flower garden good for? You could grow something to sell. I know cotton doesn’t grow ’round here, but there must be some good cash crop. Why, at Tara, we put every foot of land to use. You could plant right up to the walls of the house. Just look how green and thick that grass is. The land must be as rich as anything. All you’d have to do is plow it and drop in the seed, and it would probably sprout faster than you could get out of the way.” She looked eagerly at him, ready to share her hard-earned knowledge.

“You’re a barbarian, Scarlett,” Rhett said heavily. “Go up to the house and tell Pansy to get ready. I’ll meet you at the dock.”

What had she done wrong? One minute he was full of life and excitement, then all of a sudden it was gone and he was cold, a stranger. She’d never understand him if she lived to be a hundred. She strode rapidly up the green terraces, blind now to their beauty, and into the house.

The boat moored to the landing was very different from the scabrous barge that had brought Scarlett and Pansy to the plantation. It was a sleek brown-painted sloop with bright brass fittings and gilt scroll trim. Beyond it in the river was another boat, one that she’d much prefer, Scarlett thought angrily. It was five times the size of the sloop and it had two decks with white and blue gingerbread scrollwork trim and a bright red rear paddlewheel. Gaily colored bunting flags were strung from its smokestacks, and brightly dressed men and women crowded the rails on both decks. It looked festive and fun.

It’s just like Rhett, Scarlett brooded, to go to the city in his dinky little boat instead of hailing the steamer to pick us up. She reached the landing just as Rhett took off his hat and made a sweeping, flamboyant bow to the people on the paddlewheeler.

“Do you know those folks?” she said. Maybe she was wrong, maybe he was signalling.

Rhett turned from the river, replacing his hat. “Indeed I do. Not individually, I hope, but in the whole. That’s the weekly excursion boat from Charleston up the river and back. A highly profitable business for one of our carpetbagger citizens. Yankees buy tickets well in advance for the pleasure of seeing the skeletons of the burned-out plantation houses. I always greet them if it’s convenient; it amuses me to see the confusion it engenders.” Scarlett was too appalled to say a word. How could Rhett make a joke out of a bunch of Yankee buzzards laughing at what they’d done to his home?