Scarlett (42 page)

Scarlett couldn’t understand what Miss Eleanor was trying to say. “There’s a portrait of her at Tara and she looks beautiful,” she said stubbornly.

“Yes, she would, for her portrait. She could be beautiful or not, as she chose. She chose to be anything she liked. She had a quality of absolute stillness sometimes, and you’d almost forget she was there. Then she’d turn her slanted dark eyes on you, and suddenly you’d find yourself irresistibly drawn to her. Children swarmed to her. Animals, too. Even women felt it. It drove men out of their minds.

“Your grandfather was every inch the military man, accustomed to command. But your grandmother had only to smile, and he became her slave. She was considerably older than he was, and it made no difference. She was a Catholic, and it made no difference; she insisted on a Catholic household and Catholicism for their children, and he agreed to everything, although he was rigidly Protestant. He would have agreed to let them be Druids, if that was her desire. She was all the world to him.

“I remember when she decided that she must be surrounded by pink light because she was getting older. He said that no soldier would live in a room with so much as a pink shade on a lamp. It was too effeminate. She said it would make her happy, lots of pink. It ended up that not only the walls of the rooms inside were painted, but even the house itself. He would do anything to make her happy.” Eleanor sighed. “It was all wonderfully mad and romantic. Poor Pierre. When she died, he died too, in a way. He kept everything in the house exactly the way she had left it. It was hard on your mother and her sisters, I fear.”

In the portrait Solange Robillard was wearing a dress that clung to her body so tightly that it suggested that she was wearing nothing under it. That must be what drove men out of their minds, including her husband, Scarlett thought.

“Often you remind me of her,” Eleanor said, and Scarlett was suddenly interested again.

“How so, Miss Eleanor?”

“Your eyes are shaped the same, that little upward tilt at the corner of them. And you have the same intensity, you fairly vibrate with it. Both of you strike me as in some way more fully alive than most people.”

Scarlett smiled. She felt very satisfied.

Eleanor Butler looked at her fondly. “Now I believe I’ll have my nap,” she said. She thought she’d handled that conversation very well. She’d said nothing untrue, but she’d managed to avoid saying too much. She certainly didn’t want her son’s wife to know that her grandmother had had many lovers and that dozens of duels had been fought over her. No telling what kind of ideas that might put in Scarlett’s head.

Eleanor was profoundly disturbed by the obvious trouble between her son and his wife. It was not something she could ask Rhett about. If he wanted her to know, he would have told her. And Scarlett’s reaction to her hint about the unpleasant situation with the Courtney man made it clear that she didn’t want to confide her feelings either.

Mrs. Butler closed her eyes and tried to rest. When all was said and done, there was nothing she could do except hope for the best. Rhett was a grown man and Scarlett a grown woman. Even though, in her opinion, they were behaving like undisciplined children.

Scarlett was trying to rest, too. She was in the card room, telescope at hand. There had been no sight of Tommy Cooper’s sailboat when she looked. Rhett must have taken him up the river instead of into the harbor.

Maybe she shouldn’t even look for them. When she’d looked through the opera glasses at the races, she’d lost faith in Anne, she was still hurting from it. For the first time in her life she felt old. And very tired. What difference did it make, any of it? Anne Hampton was hopelessly in love with another woman’s husband. Hadn’t she done the same thing when she was Anne’s age? Fallen in love with Ashley and ruined her life with Rhett by clinging to that hopeless love long after she could see—but wouldn’t—that the Ashley she loved was only a dream. Would Anne waste her youth the same way, dreaming of Rhett? What was the use of love if all it did was ruin things?

Scarlett rubbed the back of her hand across her lips. What’s wrong with me? I’m brooding like an old hen. I’ve got to do something—go for a walk—anything—to shake off this awful feeling.

Manigo knocked gently on the door. “You got a caller if you is home, Missus Rhett.”

Scarlett was so happy to see Sally Brewton that she nearly kissed her. “Take this chair, Sally, it’s the closest to the fire. Isn’t it a shock to have winter settle in at last? I told Manigo to bring the tea tray. Honestly, I think seeing Sweet Sally win that race was about the most exciting thing I ever saw in my life.” She was babbling from relief.

Sally amused her with a highly colored account of Miles kissing their horse, and the jockey too. It lasted until Manigo had set the tea tray on the table in front of Scarlett and left.

“Miss Eleanor’s having a rest, or I’d let her know you were here,” said Scarlett. “When she wakes up—”

“I’ll be gone,” Sally interrupted. “I know Eleanor naps in the afternoon, and Rhett is out sailing, and Rosemary is at Julia’s. That’s why I picked this time to come. I want to talk to you alone.”

Scarlett spooned tea leaves into the pot. She was mystified. Sally Brewton, of all people, sounded uneasy, and nothing ever fazed Sally. She poured hot water onto the leaves and put the lid on the pot.

“Scarlett, I’m going to do the unforgivable,” said Sally briskly. “I’m going to meddle in your life. What’s much worse, I’m going to give you some unsolicited advice.

“Go ahead and have an affair with Middleton Courtney if you want to, but for God’s sake be discreet. What you’re doing is in appallingly poor taste.”

Scarlett’s eyes widened in shock. Have an affair? Only loose women did things like that. How dare Sally Brewton insult her this way? She drew herself up to her tallest. “I’ll have you know, Mrs. Brewton, that I’m just as much a lady as you are,” she said stiffly.

“Then act like it. Meet Middleton somewhere in the afternoons and pleasure yourself all you like, but don’t make your husband and his wife and everyone in town watch you two panting at each other in a ballroom like a dog after a bitch in heat.”

Scarlett thought that nothing could be as horrifying as Sally’s words. The next ones proved her wrong.

“I should warn you, though, that he’s not very good in bed. He’s Don Juan in the ballroom but a village idiot once he takes off his dancing pumps and tailcoat.”

Sally reached over to the tray and shook the teapot. “If you let this steep much longer, we’ll be able to tan hides with it. Do you want me to pour?” She peered closely at Scarlett’s face.

“My God,” she said slowly, “you’re as ignorant as a newborn babe, aren’t you? I am sorry, Scarlett, I didn’t realize. Here—let me give you a cup of tea with lots of sugar.”

Scarlett drew back into her chair. She wanted to cry, to cover her ears. She’d admired Sally, been proud to be a friend of hers, and Sally had turned out to be no better than trash!

“My poor child,” said Sally, “if I had known, I would have been a lot easier on you. As it is, consider this an accelerated education. You’re in Charleston and married to a Charlestonian, Scarlett. You can’t afford to wrap your backwoods innocence around you as a shield. This is an old city with an old civilization. An essential part of being civilized is consideration for the sensibilities of others. You can do anything you like, provided you do it discreetly. The unpardonable sin is to force your peccadilloes down the throats of your friends. You must make it possible for others to pretend they don’t know what you’re doing.”

Scarlett couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This was not at all like pretending that initialed napkins belonged to someone else. This was—disgusting. Although she had married three times while she was in love with someone else, she had never thought of physically betraying any one of her husbands. She could yearn for Ashley, imagine Ashley’s embraces, but she would never have sneaked off to meet him for an hour in bed.

I don’t want to be civilized, she thought with despair. She’d never be able to look at any woman in Charleston again without wondering if she and Rhett were lovers or had ever been lovers.

Why had she come to this place? She didn’t belong here. She didn’t want to belong in the kind of place Sally Brewton was talking about.

“I think you’d better go home,” she said. “I don’t feel very well.”

Sally nodded ruefully. “I do apologize for upsetting you, Scarlett. It may make you feel better to know that there are lots of other innocents in Charleston, my dear; you’re not the only one. Unmarried girls and maiden ladies of all ages are never told about things they’d rather not know. There are many faithful wives, too. I’m lucky enough to be one of them. I’m sure Miles has strayed a time or two, but I’ve never been tempted. Perhaps you’re the same way; I rather hope so, for your sake. I apologize again for my clumsiness, Scarlett.

“I’ll go now. Pull yourself together and drink your tea… And behave better with Middleton.”

Sally pulled on her gloves with quick, practiced motions and started for the door.

“Wait!” said Scarlett. “Please wait, Sally. I’ve got to know. Who? Rhett and who?”

Sally’s monkey face crumpled in sympathy. “Nobody we know,” she said gently. “I swear to you. He was only nineteen when he left Charleston, and at that age boys go to a bordello or to a willing poor white girl. Since he returned he’s demonstrated great delicacy in refusing all offers without hurting any feelings.

“Charleston isn’t a sink of iniquity, dear. People don’t feel any social pressure to be constantly rutting. I’m sure that Rhett is faithful to you.

“I’ll see myself out.”

As soon as Sally was gone Scarlett ran upstairs to her bedroom and locked herself in. She threw herself across the bed and wept uncontrollably.

Grotesque visions assaulted her mind of Rhett with one woman… another… still another, and another and another of the ladies she saw at parties every day.

What a fool she’d been to believe that he would be jealous of her.

When she could no longer bear her thoughts, she rang for Pansy, then washed and powdered her face. She couldn’t sit and smile and talk with Miss Eleanor when she woke up. She had to get away, at least for a while.

“We’re going out,” she told Pansy. “Hand me my pelisse.”

*   *   *

Scarlett walked for miles—quickly and silently, uncaring whether Pansy was keeping up. As she passed Charleston’s tall, beautiful old houses, she didn’t see their crumbling pastel stucco walls as proud evidence of survival, she saw only that they cared not how they looked to passers-by and turned their shoulders to the street to face inward toward their private walled gardens.

Secrets. They keep their secrets, she thought. Except from each other. Everyone pretends about everything.

I
t was nearly dark when Scarlett got back, and the house looked silent and forbidding. No light showed through the curtains, drawn each day at sundown. She opened the door carefully, making no sound. “Tell Manigo that I have a headache and I don’t want any supper,” she said to Pansy while they were still in the vestibule. “Then come undo my laces. I’m going straight to bed.”

Manigo would have to notify the kitchen and the family. She couldn’t face conversation with anyone. She crept quietly up the stairs past the open doors of the warmly lit drawing room. Rosemary’s loud voice was proclaiming Miss Julia Ashley’s opinion about something or other. Scarlett hastened her footsteps.

She extinguished the lamp and curled up tightly under the covers after Pansy undressed her, trying to hide from her own desperate unhappiness. If only she could sleep, forget Sally Brewton, forget everything, escape. Darkness was all around her, mocking her dry sleepless eyes. She couldn’t even cry; all her tears had been spent in the emotional storm after Sally’s hellish revelations.

The latch grated, and light poured into the room as the door swung open. Scarlett turned her head towards it, startled by the sudden brightness.

Rhett was standing in the doorway, a lamp in his raised hand. It cast harsh shadows on the strong planes of his wind-burned face and salt-stiff black hair. He was still wearing the clothes he’d worn sailing; they clung, wet, to his hard chest and muscled arms and legs. His expression was dark with barely controlled emotion, and he loomed huge and dangerous.

Scarlett’s heart leapt with primitive fear, yet her breath quickened from excitement. This was what she had dreamed of—Rhett coming into her bedroom with passion overriding his cool self-control.

He strode to the bed, closing the door with a kick. “You can’t hide from me, Scarlett,” he said. “Get up.” In one motion his arm swept the unlit lamp off the table onto the floor with a splintering crash, and his big hand set the lighted one down with such force that it rocked perilously. He threw back the quilts, grabbed her arms, and dragged her from the bed onto her feet.

Her dark tumbled hair fell across her neck and shoulders and over his hands. The lace that edged the open neck of her nightdress quivered from the pounding of her heart. Hot blood stained her cheeks red and deepened the green color of her eyes, fixed on his. Rhett threw her painfully against the bed’s thick carved post and backed away.

“Damn you for an interfering fool,” he said hoarsely. “I should have killed you the minute you set foot in Charleston.”