Alexandra Ripley - Scarlett

“Where is Rhett? Why isn’t he taking me home?”

“I wouldn’t let him go out again,” said Mrs. Butler firmly. “I sent for our doctor and told Manigo to put Rhett straight to bed. He was blue with cold.”

Anne spoke quietly, bending near Scarlett’s ear. “Miss Eleanor was alarmed when the storm came up so suddenly. We rushed from the Home to the mooring basin and when they said the boat hadn’t come back she got frantic. I doubt that she sat down once all afternoon, she was just pacing back and forth on the piazza looking out into the rain.”

Under a nice roof, thought Scarlett impatiently. It’s all well and good, for Anne to sound so concerned for Miss Eleanor, but she wasn’t the one freezing to death!

“My son told me you worked a miracle tending his wife,” Miss Eleanor said to Rebekah. “I don’t know how we’ll ever thank you.”

“Wasn’t me, Missus, it was the good Lord. I talked to Jesus for her, poor little shivering thing. I said this ain’t Lazarus, Lord . . .”

While Rebekah repeated her story to Mrs. Butler, Anne answered Scarlett’s question about Rhett. He had waited until the doctor said that Scarlett was out of danger, then he’d taken the ferry to Charleston to set his mother’s mind at rest, knowing how worried she must be. “It gave us all a shock when we saw a Yankee soldier coming through the gate,” Anne laughed. “He’d borrowed dry clothes from the sergeant.”

Scarlett refused to leave the ferry in the wheelchair. She insisted that she was perfectly capable of walking to the house and she did walk, stepping out as if nothing had happened.

But she was tired when they arrived, so tired that she accepted Anne’s help to climb the stairs. And after a tray with a hot bean soup and corn muffins, she fell again into a deep sleep.

There were no nightmares this time. She was in the familiar soft luxury of linen sheets and feather mattress, and she knew that Rhett was only a few steps away. She slept for fourteen strength-restoring hours.

She saw the flowers the minute she woke up. Hothouse roses. There was an envelope propped against the vase. Scarlett reached greedily for it.

His bold slashing handwriting was starkly black on the creamcolored paper. Scarlett touched it lovingly before she began to read.

There is nothing that I can say about what happened yesterday except that I am profoundly ashamed and sorry to have been the cause of such great pain and danger for you.

Scarlett wriggled with pleasure.

Your courage and valiant spiris were truly heroic, and I shall always regard you with admiration and respect.

I regret bitterly all that occurred after we escaped from the long ordeal. I said things to you that no man should say to a woman, and my actions were reprehensible.

I cannot, however, deny the truth of anything I said. I must not and will not ever see you again.

According to our agreement, you have the right to remain in Charleston at my moiher’s house until April. I am frankly hoping that you will not choose to do so, because I will visit neither the city house nor Dunmore Landing until I receive infornation that you have returned to Atlanta. You cannot find me, Scarlett. Don’t try.

The cash settlement I promised will be transferted to you immediately in care of your Uncle Henry Hamilton.

I ask you to accept my sincere apologies for everything about our lives together. It was not meant to be. I wish you a happier future.

Rhett

Scarlett stared at the letter, at first too shocked to hurt. Then too angry.

Finally she held it in her two hands and tore the heavy paper slowly into shreds, talking as she destroyed the thick dark words. “Not this time you don’t, Rhett Butler. You ran away from me that time before, in Atlanta, after you made love to me. And I drooped around, lovesick, waiting for you to come back. Well, now I know a lot more than I did then. I know you can’t get me out of your head, no matter how hard you try. You can’t live without me. No man could make love to a woman the way you made love to me and then never see her again. You’ll come back, just like you came back before. But you won’t find me waiting. You’ll have to come find me. Wherever I am.”

She heard Saint Michael’s tolling the hour . . . six . . . seven . . . eight . . . nine . . . ten. Every other Sunday, she had gone to Mass at ten o’clock. Not today. She had more important things to do.

She slid out of bed and ran to the bell pull. Pansy’d better come quick. I want to be packed and at the station in time for the train to Augusta. I’ll go home, and I’ll make sure Uncle Henry’s got my money, and then I’ll start right in on the work at Tara.

. . . But I haven’t got it yet.

“Morning, Miss Scarlett. It’s mighty fine to see you looking so fit after what happen—”

“Stop that babbling and get out my valises.” Scarlett paused. “I’m going to Savannah. It’s my grandfather’s birthday.”

She’d meet her aunts at the train depot. The train left for Savannah at ten of twelve. And tomorrow she’d find the Mother Superior and make her talk to the Bishop. No point in going home to Atlanta without the deed to Tara in her hand.

“I don’t want that nasty old dress,” she said to Pansy. “Get out the ones I brought when I came here. I’ll wear what I like. I’m over being so eager to please.”

“I wondered what all the fuss was about,” said Rosemary. She eyed Scarlett’s fashionable clothes with curiosity. “Are you going someplace, too? Mama said you probably would sleep all day.”

“Where is Miss Eleanor? I want to tell her goodbye.”

“She’s already left for church. Why don’t you write her a note? Or I can give her a message.”

Scarlett looked at the clock. She hadn’t much time. The hackney was waiting outside. She dashed into the library and grabbed paper and pen. What should she say?

“Your carriage is waiting, Missus Rhett,” said Manigo.

Scarlett scrawled a few sentences, saying that she was going to her grandfather’s birthday and was sorry to miss seeing Eleanor before she left. Rhett will explain everythihg, she added. I love you.

“Miss Scarlett—” called Pansy nervously. Scarlett folded the note and sealed it.

“Please give this to your mother,” she said to Rosemary. “I must hurry. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Scarlett,” said Rhett’s sister. She stood in the doorway to watch Scarlett and her maid and her luggage move off down the street. Rhett hadn’t been so well organized when he departed late the night before. She had begged him not to go because he’d looked so unwell. But he had kissed her goodbye and set off into the darkness on foot. It wasn’t hard to figure out that somehow Scarlett was driving him away.

With slow deliberate movements Rosemary struck a match and burned Scarlett’s note. “Good riddance,” she said aloud.

Scarlett clapped her hands with delight when the hackney pulled up in front of Grandfather Robillard’s house. It was pink, just like Miss Eleanor had said. To think that I didn’t even notice when I visited before! Well, no matter, it was so long ago; what counts is now.

She hurried up one curving arm of the double iron-railed steps and through the opened door. Her aunts and Pansy could see to the luggage, she was dying with curiosity about the inside of the house.

Yes, it was pink everywhere—pink and white and gold. The walls were pink, and the covers on the chairs, and the draperies. With shiny white woodwork and columns, all trimmed with glimmering gilt. Everything looked perfect, too, not peeling and shabby like the paint and fabrics in most of the houses in Charleston and Atlanta. What a perfect place to be when Rhett came after her. He’d see that her family was every bit as important and impressive as his.

Rich, too. Her eyes moved rapidly, assessing the value of the meticulously maintained furnishings she could see through the open door to the drawing room. Why, she could paint every wall of Tara, inside and out, for what it must cost to gold leaf the plastered ceiling corners.

The old skinflint! Grandfather never sent a penny to help me after the War, and he doesn’t do a thing for the aunts, either.

Scarlett prepared for battle. Her aunts were terrified of their father, but she wasn’t. The fearful loneliness she’d known in Atlanta had made her timid, apprehensive, eager to please in Charleston. Now she had taken her life back into her own hands, and she felt vibrant with strength. Not man nor beast could bother her now. Rhett loved her, and she was queen of the world.

She coolly removed her hat and her fur cape and dropped them on a marble-topped console in the hall. Then she began to take off her apple green kid gloves. She could feel her aunts staring. They’d done plenty of that already. But Scarlett was very pleased to be wearing her green and brown plaid travelling costume instead of the drab outfits she’d worn in Charleston. She fluffed up the dark green taffeta bow that made her eyes sparkle so. When her gloves had joined hat and cape, she pointed to them. “Pansy, take these things upstairs and put them away in the prettiest bedroom you can find. Stop cringing in the corner like that, nobody’s going to bite you.”

“Scarlett, you can’t . . .”

“You must wait . . .” The aunts were wringing their hands.

“If Grandfather’s too mean to come out and meet us, we’ll just have to shift for ourselves. God’s nightgown, Aunt Eulalie! You grew up here, you and Aunt Pauline, can’t you just make yourselves at home?”