Scarlett Read online

  That miserable little sneak! She’s been praising me to the skies all this time to my face, and she’s wildly in love with my husband behind my back. I could strangle her to death with my bare hands!

  Her hands were sweating, she almost lost hold of the glasses when she swung them back to Rhett. Was he looking at Anne? . . . No, he was laughing with Miss Eleanor . . . they were chatting with the Wentworths . . . greeting the Hugers . . . the Halseys . . . the Savages . . . old Mr. Pinckney . . . Scarlett kept Rhett in view until her eyes blurred.

  He hadn’t looked in Anne’s direction even once. She was staring at him like she could eat him with a spoon, and he didn’t even notice it. There’s nothing to fret about. It’s just a silly girl with a crush on a grown-up man.

  Why shouldn’t Anne have a crush on him? Why shouldn’t every woman in Charleston? He’s so handsome and so strong and so . . .

  She looked at him with yearning naked on her face, the glasses in her lap. Rhett was bent down to adjust Miss Eleanor’s shawl across her shoulders. The sun was low in the sky and a cold fitful wind had begun to blow. He placed his hand under her elbow and they began to climb the steps to their seats, the very picture of a dutiful son with his mother. Scarlett waited eagerly for them to arrive.

  The partial roof over the grandstand cast an angled shadow over the seats. Rhett changed places with his mother so that she could be warmed by what sunlight there was, and Scarlett had him beside her at last. She forgot Anne at once.

  When the horses came out on the track for the fourth race, the spectators stood up, first two, then several groups of people, then everyone, in a tidal wave of anticipation. Scarlett was almost dancing with excitement.

  “Having a good time?” Rhett was smiling.

  “Wonderful! Which horse is Miles Brewton’s, Rhett?”

  “I suspect Miles rubbed his down with shoe-polish. It’s number five, the very glossy black. The dark horse, you might say. Number six is Guggenheim’s; Belmont managed post position; his pace-setter is number four.”

  Scarlett wanted to ask what “pace-setter” and “post position” meant, but there was no time, they were about to start.

  Number five’s rider anticipated the starter’s pistol shot, and there were loud groans from the stands. “What happened?” Scarlett asked.

  “False start, they’ll have to line up again,” Rhett explained. He tilted his head in gesture. “Look at Sally.”

  Scarlett looked. Sally Brewton’s face was more monkey-like than ever, contorted with rage, and she was shaking her fist in the air. Rhett laughed affectionately. “I might just jump the fence and keep going if I were the jockey,” he said. “Sally’s ready to use his skin for a hearth rug.”

  “I don’t blame her one bit,” Scarlett declared, “and I don’t think it’s one bit funny either, Rhett Butler.”

  He laughed again. “May I dare assume that you put your money on Sweet Sally after all?”

  “Of course I did. Sally Brewton’s a dear friend of mine—and besides, if I lost, it was your money, not mine.”

  Rhett looked at Scarlett in surprise. She was smiling impishly at him.

  “Well done, madam,” he murmured.

  The pistol shot sounded, and the race had begun. Scarlett didn’t know that she was shouting, jumping up and down, pounding on Rhett’s arm. She was even deaf to the shouts of the people all around them. When Sweet Sally won by a half-length she let out a yell of victory. “We won! We won! Isn’t it marvelous? We won!”

  Rhett rubbed his biceps. “I think I’m crippled for life, but I agree. It’s marvelous, truly a marvel. The swamp rat over the best bloodstock in America.”

  Scarlett frowned at him. “Rhett! Do you mean to tell me you’re surprised? After what you said this afternoon? You sounded so confident.”

  He smiled. “I despise pessimism. And I wanted everyone to have a good time.”

  “But didn’t you bet on Sweet Sally, too? Don’t tell me you bet on the Yankees!”

  “I didn’t bet at all.” His jaw was hard with resolve. “When the gardens at the Landing are cleared and planted, I’m going to begin bringing the stables back to life. I’ve already retrieved some of the cups that Butler horses won when our colors were known all over the world. I’ll place my first bet when I have a horse of my own to bet on.” He turned to his mother. “What will you buy with your winnings, Mama?”

  “That’s for me to know and you not to find out,” she replied, with a jaunty toss of her head.

  Scarlett, Rhett, and Rosemary laughed together.

  27

  Scarlett received small spiritual benefit from Mass the next day. Her whole focus was on her own spirits, and they were very low. She’d hardly laid eyes on Rhett at the big party given by the Jockey Club after the races.

  Walking back after Mass, she tried to make an excuse that would get her out of eating with her aunts, but Pauline wouldn’t hear of it. “We have something very important to discuss with you,” she’d said. Her tone was portentous. Scarlett braced herself for a lecture about dancing too much with Middleton Courtney.

  As it turned out, his name wasn’t mentioned at all. Eulalie was mournful and Pauline censorious about something else altogether.

  “We’ve learned that you haven’t written to your grandfather Robillard for years, Scarlett.”

  “Why should I write to him? He’s nothing but a crabby old man who’s never lifted a finger for me in my whole life.”

  Eulalie and Pauline were shocked speechless. Good! thought Scarlett. Her eyes gleamed triumphantly at them above the rim of her cup while she drank her coffee. You don’t have an answer to that, do you? He’s never done anything for me, and he’s never done a thing for you, either. Who gave you the money to keep body and soul together when this house was about to go for taxes? Not your precious father, that’s for sure. It was me. It was me who paid for Uncle Carey to get a decent burial when he died, too, and it’s my money that puts clothes on your backs and food on your table—if Pauline can bear to open the pantry door on the stuff she hoards in there. So you can gape at me like a pair of goggle-eyed frogs, but there’s not one single thing you can say!

  But Pauline, echoed by Eulalie, found plenty to say. About respect for one’s elders, loyalty to one’s family, duty and manners and good breeding.

  Scarlett set her cup on its saucer with a crash. “Don’t you dare preach over me, Aunt Pauline. I’m sick to death of it! I don’t care a fig for Grandfather Robillard. He was horrid to Mother and he’s been horrid to me, and I hate him. And I don’t care if I burn in Hell for it!”

  It felt good to lose her temper. She’d been holding it in too long. There’d been too many tea parties, too many receiving lines, too many calls, and too many callers. Too many times when she’d had to curb her tongue—she who’d always said what she thought and devil take the hindmost. Most of all, too many hours of listening politely to Charlestonians brag about the glories of their fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers, on and on, all the way back to the Middle Ages. The very last thing Pauline should have mentioned was respect due to her family.

  The aunts cowered before Scarlett’s outburst, and their frightened faces gave her an intoxicating joyful feeling of power. She’d always been contemptuous of weakness, and in the months she’d spent in Charleston she had had no power, she’d been the weak one, and she’d begun to feel contempt for herself. Now she unleashed on her aunts all the disgust she had felt at her own craven desire to please.

  “There’s no need to sit there staring at me as if I had horns on my head and a pitchfork in my hand, either! You know I’m right, but you’re just too lily-livered to say it for yourself. Grandfather treats everybody like dirt. I’ll bet you a hundred dollars that he never answers all the mealymouth letters you write him. He likely doesn’t even read them. I know I never once read one all the way through. I didn’t have to, they were all always the same thing—whining for more money!”

  Scarlett covered her mou
th with her hand. She’d gone too far. She’d broken three of the unwritten, inviolate rules of the Southern code of behavior: she’d said the word “money,” she’d reminded her dependents of the charity she’d given, and she’d kicked a downed foe. Her eyes when she looked at her weeping aunts were stricken with shame.

  The mended china and darned linen on the table reproached her. I haven’t even been very generous, she thought. I could have sent them much more and never missed it.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and she began to cry.

  A moment passed before Eulalie wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “I heard that Rosemary has a new suitor,” she said in a watery voice. “Have you met him, Scarlett? Is he an interesting person?”

  “Is he from a good family?” Pauline added.

  Scarlett winced, but only slightly. “Miss Eleanor knows his people,” she said, “and says they’re very nice. Rosemary won’t have anything to do with him. You know how she is.” She looked at her aunts’ worn faces with real affection and respect. They had kept the code. She knew they would keep it until the day they died and never refer to the way she had broken it. No Southerner would ever deliberately shame another.

  She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “His name is Elliott Marshall,” she said, “and he’s the funniest-looking thing you’d ever want to see—skinny as a stick and solemn as an owl!” She forced a lilt into her voice. “He must be mighty brave, though. Rosemary could pick him up and break him in pieces if she got irritated enough.” She leaned forward and widened her eyes.“Did you hear that he’s a Yankee?”

  Pauline and Eulalie gasped.

  Scarlett nodded rapidly, emphasizing the impact of the revelation. “From Boston,” she said slowly, giving each word full weight. “And I figure you can’t get much more Yankeefied than that. Some big fertilizer outfit opened an office down here, and he’s the manager . . .”

  She settled back more comfortably in her chair, ready for a long stay.

  When the morning was spent she marvelled at the time and rushed to the hall to get her wrap. “I shouldn’t have stayed so long, I promised Miss Eleanor I’d be home for dinner.” She rolled her eyes upward. “I do hope Mr. Marshall won’t be calling. Yankees don’t have sense enough to know when they’re not welcome.”

  Scarlett kissed Pauline and Eulalie goodbye at the front door. “Thank you,” she said simply.

  “You come right back and have dinner with us if that Yankee’s there,” Eulalie giggled.

  “Yes, you do that,” said Pauline. “And do try if you can to come with us to Savannah for Father’s birthday party. We’re taking the train on the fifteenth, after Mass.”

  “Thank you, Aunt Pauline, but I couldn’t possibly manage It. We’ve already accepted invitations for every single day and night of the Season.”

  “But my dear, the Season will be over by then. The Saint Cecilia’s on Friday the thirteenth. I think that’s unlucky myself, but nobody else seems to care.”

  Pauline’s words were blurred in Scarlett’s ears. How could the Season be so short? She’d thought there was lots of time left to get Rhett back.

  “We’ll see,” she said hurriedly, “I’ve got to go now.”

  Scarlett was surprised to find Rhett’s mother at home alone. “Julia Ashley invited Rosemary to dinner at her house,” Eleanor told her. “And Rhett took pity on the Cooper boy. He’s out sailing.”

  “Today? It’s so cold.”

  “It is. Just when I’d begun to think we were going to escape winter altogether this year, too. I felt it yesterday at the races. The wind had a real bite to it. I took a bit of a chill, I believe.” Mrs. Butler suddenly smiled in a conspiratorial manner. “What do you say to a quiet dinner on the card table before the fire in the library? It will offend Manigo’s dignity, but I can bear it if you can. It’ll be so cozy, just the two of us.”

  “I’d like that very much, Miss Eleanor, I really would.” Suddenly it was what she wanted above all things. It was so nice when we used to have our quiet suppers that way, she thought. Before the Season. Before Rosemary came home. A voice in her mind added: before Rhett came back from the Landing. It was true, though she hated to admit it. Life was so much easier when she wasn’t constantly listening for his step, watching for his reactions, trying to guess what he was thinking.

  The warmth of the fire was so relaxing that Scarlett caught herself yawning. “Excuse me, Miss Eleanor,” she said hastily, “it’s not the company.”

  “I feel exactly the same way,” said Mrs. Butler. “Isn’t it pleasant?” She yawned, too, and the contagion caught both of them, until helpless laughter took the place of their yawns. Scarlett had forgotten how much fun Rhett’s mother could be.

  “I love you, Miss Eleanor,” she said without thinking.

  Eleanor Butler took her hand. “I’m so glad, dear Scarlett. I love you, too.” She sighed softly. “So much so that I’m not going to ask any questions or make any unwelcome comments. I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

  Scarlett squirmed inwardly. Then she bridled at the implied criticism. “I’m not ‘doing’ anything!” She pulled her hand away.

  Eleanor ignored Scarlett’s anger. “How are Eulalie and Pauline?” she asked easily. “I haven’t seen either of them to talk to for ages. The Season wears me out.”

  “They’re fine. Bossy as ever. They’re trying to make me go to Savannah with them for Grandfather’s birthday.”

  “Good heavens!” Mrs. Butler’s tone was incredulous. “You mean he’s not dead yet?”

  Scarlett began to laugh again. “That was the first thing I thought, too, but Aunt Pauline would have skinned me alive if I’d said so. He must be about a hundred.”

  Eleanor’s brow creased in thought and she mumbled under her breath as she worked out the arithmetic. “Over ninety for sure,” she said at last. “I know he was in his late thirties when he married your grandmother in 1820. I had an aunt—she’s dead long since—who never got over it. She was mad about him, and he’d been quite attentive to her. But then Solange—your grandmother—decided to notice him and poor Aunt Alice didn’t stand a chance. I was only ten at the time, but that was old enough to know what was going on. Alice tried to kill herself, and everything was in an uproar.”

  Scarlett felt wide awake now. “What did she do?”

  “Drank a bottle of paregoric. It was touch and go whether she’d live or not.”

  “Over Grandfather?”

  “He was an incredibly dashing man. So handsome, with that wonderful straight bearing that soldiers have. And a French accent, of course. When he said ‘good morning’ he sounded like a hero from an opera. Dozens of women were in love with him. I heard my father say one time that Pierre Robillard was solely responsible for the roof on the Huguenot church. He’d come up from Savannah once in a while for the services because they’re in French. The church walls would practically bulge with a congregation full of women, and the collection plate was filled to overflowing.” Eleanor smiled reminiscently. “Come to think of it, my Aunt Alice eventually married a professor of French Literature at Harvard. So all the language practicing she must have done came in handy after all.”

  Scarlett refused to let Mrs. Butler be sidetracked. “Never mind that, tell me more about Grandfather. And Grandmother. I asked you about her once, but you just brushed it off.”

  Eleanor shook her head. “I don’t know how to describe your grandmother. She wasn’t like anybody else in the world.”

  “Was she very beautiful?”

  “Yes—and no. That’s the problem with talking about her, she was always changing. She was so—so French. They have a saying, the French, that no woman can be truly beautiful who is not also sometimes truly ugly. They’re such a subtle people, and so wise, and so impossible for an Anglo-Saxon to understand.”

  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.r />
  “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.”