Scarlett Page 27

  Rhett was leaving! Going to his wretched, smelly old plantation! He wouldn’t be here to kiss her on New Year’s Eve. Now Scarlett was sure she was going to cry.

  “I’m going to the Landing with you,” said Rosemary. “I haven’t been there for months.”

  “You can’t go to the Landing, Rosemary.” Rhett was carefully patient.

  “I’m afraid Rhett’s right, dear,” said Mrs. Butler. “He can’t be with you all the time, he’s got too much business to take care of. And you cannot be in the house or any place else with only that child you have for a maid. There’s too much coming and going, too many rough people.”

  “I’ll take your Celie, then. Scarlett will let you borrow Pansy to help you dress, won’t you, Scarlett?”

  Scarlett smiled. There was no need for tears. “I’ll go with you, Rosemary,” she said sweetly. “Pansy, too.” New Year’s Eve would come to the plantation, too. Without a ballroom full of people, just Rhett and her.

  “How generous of you, Scarlett,” Miss Eleanor said. “I know you’ll miss going to the balls next week. You’re luckier than you deserve, Rosemary, to have such a thoughtful sister-in-law.”

  “I don’t think either of them should go, Mama, I won’t allow it,” said Rhett.

  Rosemary opened her mouth to protest, but her mother’s slightly raised hand stopped her. Mrs. Butler spoke quietly: “You’re being rather inconsiderate, Rhett; Rosemary loves the Landing as much as you do, and she doesn’t have the freedom to come and go the way you can. I believe you should take her, especially since you’re also going to Julia Ashley’s. She’s very fond of your sister.”

  Scarlett’s mind was racing. What did she care about missing some dances if she could be alone with Rhett? She’d get rid of Rosemary somehow—maybe this Miss Ashley would invite her to stay at her place. Then there would be only Rhett . . . and Scarlett.

  She remembered him in her room when she was at the Landing before. He’d held her, comforted her, spoken with such tenderness . . .

  “Just wait till you see Miss Julia’s plantation, Scarlett,” Rosemary said loudly. “It’s what a plantation is supposed to be.” Rhett was riding ahead of them, pushing aside or tearing the vines of honeysuckle that had grown across the trail through the pinewoods. Scarlett followed Rosemary, uninterested for the moment in what Rhett was doing, her mind busy with other things. Thank goodness this old horse is so fat and lazy. I haven’t ridden horseback for so long that anything with spirit would throw me for sure. How I used to love to ride . . . back then . . . when the stables at Tara were full. Pa was so proud of his horses. And of me. Suellen had hands like anvils, she could ruin the mouth of an alligator. And Carreen was afraid, even of her pony. But I used to race with Pa, hell for leather on the roads, almost winning sometimes. “Katie Scarlett,” he’d say, “you’ve got the hands of an angel and the nerve of the devil himself. It’s the O’Hara in you, a horse will always recognize an Irishman and give his best for him.” Darling Pa . . . Tara’s woods smelled sharp, just like these, pine prickling in my nose. And the birds singing and the rustling leaves underfoot and the peace of it all. I wonder how many acres Rhett’s got? I’ll find out from Rosemary. She probably knows right down to the square inch. I hope this Miss Ashley isn’t the dragon Rhett makes her out to be. What was it Rhett said? She looks like she drinks vinegar. He is funny when he’s nasty—as long as it’s not about me.

  “Scarlett! Catch up, we’re almost there.” Rosemary’s call came from ahead. Scarlett flicked the neck of her horse with her crop and it walked marginally faster. Rhett and Rosemary were already out of the wood when she reached them. At first all she could see was Rhett, sharp-edged clear in the bright sunlight. How handsome he is, and how well he sits his horse, not a sluggish old thing like mine, but a real horse with plenty of fire to him. Look at the way the horse’s muscles are twitching under his skin, yet he’s still as a statue, just from the grip of Rhett’s knees and his hands on the reins. His hands . . .

  Rosemary gestured, catching Scarlett’s eye, directing it to the scene ahead, and Scarlett caught her breath. She had never cared about architecture, never noticed it. Even the magnificent houses that made Charleston’s Battery world-famous were to her just houses. However there was something about the severe beauty of Julia Ashley’s house at Ashley Barony that she recognized as different from anything she’d ever known and grand in a way she couldn’t define. It sat isolated in broad stretches of grass unadorned with garden, distant from the ancient huge live oak trees that were wide-spaced sentinels at the perimeter of the lawn. Square, made of brick with white-framed door and windows, the house was—“special,” Scarlett whispered. No wonder that it alone of all the plantations on the river had been spared the torches of Sherman’s Army. Even the Yankees wouldn’t dare insult the mighty presence before her eyes.

  There was a sound of laughter, followed by singing. Scarlett turned her head. The house awed and intimidated her. Far to her left she saw expanses of strong insistent green completely different from the familiar deep rich color of the grass. Dozens of black men and women were working and singing in the strange green. Why, they’re field hands, tending the crop of whatever it is. So many of them, too. Her mind flew to the cotton fields at Tara that had once stretched as far as she could see, just as this strident green flowed without bounds along the river. Oh, yes, Rosemary’s right. This is a real plantation, like a plantation’s meant to be. Nothing was burned, nothing was changed, nothing would ever change. Time itself respected the majesty of Ashley Barony.

  “It’s good of you to meet with me, Miss Ashley,” said Rhett. He bowed over the hand Julia Ashley held out to him; the back of his ungloved hand supported it respectfully, and his lips stopped the prescribed inch above it, for no gentleman would commit the impertinence of actually kissing the hand of a maiden lady, no matter how advanced her years.

  “It’s useful to us both, Mr. Butler,” Julia said. “You’re miserably ill-groomed as usual, Rosemary, but I’m glad to see you. Introduce your sister-in-law.”

  My grief, she really is a dragon, Scarlett thought nervously. I wonder if she expects me to curtsey?

  “This is Scarlett, Miss Julia,” Rosemary said, smiling. She didn’t seem at all upset by the older woman’s criticism.

  “How do you do, Mrs. Butler.”

  Scarlett was sure that Julia Ashley didn’t care to know how she did at all. “How do you do,” she replied in kind. She inclined her head in a slight bow, the degree of inclination an exact replica of Miss Ashley’s frigid politeness. Who did this old woman think she was anyhow?

  “There is a tea tray in the drawing room,” Julia said. “You may pour out for Mrs. Butler, Rosemary. Ring if you need more hot water. We’ll do our business in my library, Mr. Butler, and take tea afterwards.”

  “Oh, Miss Julia, can’t I listen while you and Rhett talk?” Rosemary begged.

  “No, Rosemary, you may not.”

  And that’s the end of that, I guess, Scarlett said to herself. Julia Ashley was walking away with Rhett obediently following behind.

  “Come on, Scarlett, the drawing room’s through here.” Rosemary opened a tall door and gestured to Scarlett.

  The room she entered was a surprise to Scarlett. There was none of the coldness of its owner about it and nothing intimidating. It was very large, bigger than Minnie Wentworth’s ballroom. But the floor was covered with an old Persian rug with a background of faded red, and the draperies at the tall windows were a warm soft rose color. A bright fire crackled in the wide fireplace; sunlight poured through the sparkling window panes onto the brightly polished silver tea service, onto the gold and blue and rose velvet upholstery on broad, comfortable settees and winged chairs. And an enormous yellow tabby cat was sleeping on the hearth.

  Scarlett shook her head slightly in wonder. It was difficult to believe that this cheerful, welcoming room had any connection with the stiff-backed woman in the black dress she had met outside its door. She sat nex
t to Rosemary on a settee. “Tell me about Miss Ashley,” she said, avid with curiosity.

  “Miss Julia’s wonderful.” Rosemary exclaimed. “She runs Ashley Barony herself; she says she’s never had an overseer that didn’t need overseeing. And she has practically as many rice fields as there were before the War. She could mine phosphate like Rhett, but she won’t have anything to do with it. Plantations are for planting, she says, not for”—Rosemary’s voice dropped to a shocked, pleased whisper—“ ‘raping the land to get what’s underneath.’ She keeps it all the way it was. There’s sugar cane and a press to make her own molasses, and a blacksmith to shoe the mules and make wheels for the carts, and a cooper to make barrels for the rice and molasses, and a carpenter for fixing things, a tanner to make harness. She takes her rice into town for milling and she buys flour and coffee and tea, but everything else comes from the place. She’s got cows and sheep and fowl and pigs and a dairy room and spring house and smoke house and storerooms full of canned vegetables and shelled corn and preserved fruit from the summer crops. She makes her own wine, too. Rhett claims she’s even got a still out in the pine woods she gets her turpentine from.”

  “Does she still have slaves?” Scarlett’s words were sharply sarcastic. The days of the great plantations were over and there was no bringing them back.

  “Oh, Scarlett, you sound just like Rhett sometimes. I’d like to shake both of you. Miss Julia pays wages just like everybody else. But she makes the plantation earn enough to pay them. I’m going to do the same thing at the Landing if I ever get the chance. I think it’s horrible that Rhett won’t even try.”

  Rosemary began to clatter cups and saucers on the tea tray.

  “I can’t remember, do you take milk or lemon, Scarlett?”

  “What? Oh—milk, please.” Scarlett had no interest in tea. She was reliving the fantasy she’d had before, of Tara brought back to life, with its fields studded with white cotton for as far as the eye could see and its barns full and the house just the way it had been when her mother was alive. Yes, there was some of the long-forgotten scent of lemon oil in this room and brass polish and floor wax. It was faint, but she was sure she could smell it, in spite of the sharp resinous tang of the pine logs in the fire.

  Her hand automatically accepted the cup of tea that Rosemary offered and held it, letting it cool while she daydreamed. Why not make Tara what it had been? If that old lady can run this plantation, I can run Tara. Will doesn’t know what Tara is, not the real Tara, the best plantation in Clayton County. “A two-mule farm,” he calls it now. No, by all the saints, Tara’s much much more than that! I could do it, too, I’ll bet! Didn’t Pa say a hundred times that I was a true O’Hara? Then I can do what he did, make Tara into what he made it. Maybe even better. I know how to keep books, how to squeeze out a profit where nobody else sees the possibilities. Why, practically all the places around Tara have gone back to scrub pine. I’ll bet I could buy land for next to nothing!

  Her mind leapt from one picture to another—rich fields, fat cattle; her old bedroom with crisp white curtains billowing into the room on a jasmine-scented spring breeze; riding through the woods—cleared of underbrush—miles of chestnut-rail fence outlining her land, stretching farther and farther into the red-earth countryside . . . She had to set the vision aside. Reluctantly she focused her attention on Rosemary’s insistent loud voice.

  Rice, rice, rice! Can’t Rosemary Butler ever talk about anything but rice? What can Rhett possibly find to talk about with that old fright Miss Ashley for so long? Scarlett shifted position again on the settee. Rhett’s sister had a habit of leaning toward her listener when she was excited about what she was saying. Rosemary had almost driven her into the corner of the long settee. She turned eagerly toward the door when it opened. Damn Rhett anyhow! What was he laughing about with Julia Ashley? He might think it was amusing to leave her to cool her heels for an age and a half, but she didn’t.

  “You always were a rogue, Rhett Butler,” Julia was saying, “but I don’t remember that you included impertinence in your list of sins.”

  “Miss Ashley, to the best of my knowledge, impertinence is a tag attached to the behavior of servants toward their masters and young people toward their elders. While I am, in all things, your obedient servant, you surely cannot be suggesting that you are my elder. Contemporary I’ll grant with pleasure, but elder is out of the question.”

  Why, he’s flirting with the old creature! I guess he must want something pretty bad if he’s making a fool of himself like this.

  Julia Ashley made a sound that could only be described as a dignified snort. “Very well, then,” she said, “I’ll agree, if only to put a halt to this absurdity. Now sit down and stop your foolishness.”

  Rhett moved a chair closer to the tea table and bowed ceremoniously when Julia seated herself in it. “Thank you, Miss Julia, for your condescension.”

  “Don’t be such an ass, Rhett.”

  Scarlett frowned at both of them. Was that all? All that to-do about changing from “Miss Ashley” and “Mr. Butler” to “Rhett” and “Miss Julia”? Rhett was an ass, just like the old woman said. But “Miss Julia” was mighty close to acting like an ass herself. Why, she was practically simpering at Rhett. It was nothing short of disgusting the way he could wrap women around his little finger!

  A maid hurried into the room and lifted the tray of tea things from the table in front of the settee. She was followed by a second maid, who quietly moved the tea table to a place in front of Julia Ashley, and a manservant with a larger silver tray holding a different, larger silver service and stands of fresh sandwiches and cakes. Scarlett had to admit it: no matter how disagreeable Julia Ashley might be, the old woman did things with style!

  “Rhett tells me you’re to make the Tour, Rosemary,” said Julia.

  “Yes, ma’am! I’m so excited I could die.”

  “That would be inconvenient, I should imagine. Tell me, have you begun to map your itinerary?”

  “Not really, Miss Julia. I’ve only known for a few days that I was going. The only thing I’m certain of is that I want to spend as long as possible in Rome.”

  “You must be sure to time it correctly. The summer heat is quite intolerable, even for a Charlestonian. And the Romans all abandon the city for the mountains or the sea. I still correspond with some delightful people whom you would enjoy. I’ll give you letters of introduction, of course. If I might suggest—”

  “Oh, please, Miss Julia. There’s so much I want to know.”

  Scarlett breathed a small sigh of relief. She didn’t put it past Rhett to tell Miss Ashley about the mistake she’d made, thinking that the only Rome was in Georgia, but he’d let the chance go by. Now he was putting his two cents in, talking a blue streak with the old woman about all the people with strange names. And Rosemary lapping it all up.

  The conversation interested Scarlett not at all. But she wasn’t bored. She watched, fascinated, every move that Julia Ashley made as she presided at the tea table. Without any break in the discussion of Roman antiquities—except to ask Scarlett if she took milk or lemon and how many lumps of sugar—Julia filled cups and held each one up, to a level slightly below her right shoulder, for one of the maids to take it from her. She held it up, waited no longer than three seconds, then removed her hand.

  She doesn’t even look! Scarlett marvelled. If the maid wasn’t there, or wasn’t quick enough, the whole thing would just fall on the floor. But one of the maids was always there, and the cup was delivered silently to the correct person without a drop spilled.

  Where did he come from? Scarlett was startled when the manservant appeared at her side, offering her a napkin with its folds shaken out and the three-tiered stand of sandwiches. She was just about to reach out and take one when the man produced a plate, which he held near her hand for her to take.

  Oh, I see, there’s a maid handing him things for him to hand to me! Mighty complicated for a fish-paste sandwich no bigger than a bite
’s worth.

  But she was impressed by the elegance of it all, even more impressed when the man held an elaborate silver pincer in his whitegloved hand and lifted an assortment of sandwiches onto her plate. The final touch was the small table with a lace-edged cloth on it that the second maid placed beside her knees just when she was wondering how she was going to manage, with a cup and saucer in one hand and a plate in the other.

  Despite her hunger and her curiosity about the sandwiches—what kind of fancy food called for such fancy serving?—Scarlett was more interested in the silent efficient routine of the servants as first Rosemary and then Rhett were provided with plate, sandwiches, table. It was almost a disappointment when Miss Ashley was given no special treatment, only a return of the stand to the table in front of her. Fiddle-dee-dee! She’s even unfolding her napkin herself! It was a definite disappointment when she bit into the first sandwich and it was only bread and butter, even though the butter had something else in it—parsley, she thought; no, something stronger, maybe chives. She ate contentedly; all the sandwiches were good. And the cakes on the other stand looked even better.

  My grief! They’re still talking about Rome! Scarlett glanced toward the servants. They were standing still as posts, along the wall behind Miss Ashley. Obviously the cakes weren’t going to be passed any time soon. For heaven’s sake, Rosemary had only eaten one half of one sandwich.

  “. . . but we’re being inconsiderate,” Julia Ashley said. “Mrs. Butler, what city would you like to visit? Or do you share Rosemary’s conviction that all roads rightly lead to Rome?”

  Scarlett put on her best smile. “I’m too enchanted by Charleston to even think about going any place else, Miss Ashley.”

  “A graceful response,” said Julia, “although it does rather put a period to the conversation. May I offer you some tea?”

  Before Scarlett could accept, Rhett spoke. “I’m afraid we have to go, Miss Julia. I haven’t gotten the woods trails in condition yet for riding in the dark, and the days are so short.”