Scarlett (26 page)

Now Scarlett squirmed with guilt because she had neglected all religious observance for so many years. Her mother must be weeping in heaven. Oh, why did her mother’s sisters have to live in Charleston? Nobody in Atlanta had ever expected her to go to Mass. Mrs. Butler wouldn’t have fussed at her, or at worst, she might have expected her to go to the Episcopal church with her. That wouldn’t be so bad. Scarlett had some vague notion that God didn’t pay attention to anything that happened in a Protestant church. But He would know the minute she stepped over the threshold of Saint Mary’s that she was a fearful sinner who hadn’t been to Confession since… since—she couldn’t even remember the last time. She wouldn’t be able to take Communion, and everyone would know that was why. She imagined the invisible guardian angels Ellen had told her about when she was a child. All of them were frowning; Scarlett pulled the covers up over her head.

She didn’t know that her concept of religion was as superstitious and ill-formed as any Stone Age man’s. She only knew that she was frightened and unhappy and angry that she was trapped in a dilemma. What was she going to do?

She remembered her mother’s serene candlelit face telling her family and her servants that God loved the stray lamb most of all, but it wasn’t much comfort. She couldn’t think of any way to get out of going to Mass.

It wasn’t fair! Just when things had started to go so well, too. Mrs. Butler had told her that Sally Brewton gave very exciting whist parties and she was sure to be invited.

S
carlett did, of course, go to Mass. To her surprise the ancient ritual and the responses were strangely comforting, like old friends in the new life she was beginning. It was easy to remember her mother when her lips were murmuring the Our Father, and the smooth beads of the rosary were so familiar to her fingers. Ellen must be pleased to see her there on her knees, she was sure, and it made her feel good.

Because it was inescapable, she made a Confession and went to see Carreen, too. The convent and her sister turned out to be two more surprises. Scarlett had always imagined convents as fortress-like places with locked gates where nuns scrubbed stone floors from morning till night. In Charleston the Sisters of Mercy lived in a magnificent brick mansion and taught school in its beautiful ballroom.

Carreen was radiantly happy in her vocation, so changed from the quiet, withdrawn girl Scarlett remembered that she didn’t seem like the same person at all. How could she be angry with a stranger? Especially a stranger who seemed somehow to be older than she, instead of her baby sister. Carreen—Sister Mary Joseph—was so extravagantly glad to see her, too. Scarlett felt warmed by the freely expressed love and admiration. If only Suellen was half as nice, she thought, she wouldn’t feel so shut out at Tara. It was a positive pleasure to visit Carreen and take tea in the lovely formal garden at the convent, even if Carreen did talk so much about the little girls in her arithmetic class that it nearly put Scarlett to sleep.

In what seemed like almost no time at all, Sunday Mass, followed by breakfast at her aunt’s house, and Tuesday afternoon tea with Carreen were welcome quiet moments in Scarlett’s busy schedule.

For she was very busy.

A blizzard of calling cards had descended on Eleanor Butler’s house in the week after Scarlett educated Sally Brewton about onions. Eleanor was grateful to Sally; at least she thought she was. Wise in the ways of Charleston, she was apprehensive for Scarlett. Even in the spartan conditions of post-War life, society was a quicksand of unstated rules of behavior, a Byzantine labyrinth of overelaborate refinements lying in wait to trap the unwary and uninitiated.

She tried to guide Scarlett. “You needn’t call on all these people who left cards, dear,” she said. “It’s enough to leave your own cards with the corner turned down. That acknowledges the call made on you and your willingness to be acquainted and says that you aren’t actually coming in the house to see the person.”

“Is that why so many of the cards were all bent up? I thought they were just old and knocked around. Well, I’m going to go see every single one of them. I’m glad everybody wants to be friends; I do, too.”

Eleanor held her tongue. It was a fact that most of the cards were “old and knocked around.” No one could afford new ones—almost no one. And those who could wouldn’t embarrass those who couldn’t by having new ones made. It was accepted custom now to leave all cards received on a tray in the entrance hall for discreet retrieval by their owners. She decided that, for the moment, she wouldn’t complicate Scarlett’s education with that particular bit of information. The dear child had shown her a box of a hundred fresh white cards that she had brought from Atlanta. They were so new that they were still interleaved with tissue. They should last for a long time. She watched Scarlett set out with high-spirited determination, and she felt the way she had when Rhett, aged three, had called triumphantly to her from the topmost limb of a gigantic oak tree.

Eleanor Butler’s apprehensions were unnecessary. Sally Brewton had been explicit. “The girl is almost totally lacking in education, and she has the taste of a Hottentot. But she has vigor and strength, and she’s a survivor. We need her kind in the South, yes, even in Charleston. Perhaps especially in Charleston. I’m sponsoring her; I expect all my friends to make her feel welcome here.”

Soon Scarlett’s days were a whirlwind of activity. Beginning with an hour or more at the Market, then a big breakfast at the house—usually including Brewton’s sausage—she was out and about by ten o’clock, freshly dressed, with Pansy trotting behind carrying her card case and personal supply of sugar, an expected accompaniment to all guests in rationing times. There was enough time to pay as many as five calls before she returned for dinner. Afternoons were taken up by visits to ladies having their “at home” days or whist parties or excursions with new friends to King Street for shopping or receiving callers with Miss Eleanor.

Scarlett loved the constant activity. Even more, she loved the attention paid her. Most of all, she loved hearing Rhett’s name on everyone’s lips. A few old women were openly critical. They had disapproved of him when he was young, and they would never relent. But most of them forgave his earlier sins. He was older now, chastened. And he was devoted to his mother. Old ladies who had lost their own sons and grandsons in the War could well understand Eleanor Butler’s glowing happiness.

The younger women regarded Scarlett with poorly concealed envy. They delighted in telling all the facts, and all the rumors, about what Rhett was doing when he left the city without explanation. Some said that their husbands knew for sure that Rhett was financing the political movement to throw out the carpetbagger government in the state capital. Others whispered that he was recapturing the Butler family portraits and furnishings at the point of a gun. All of them had stories about his exploits during the War, when his sleek dark ship raced through the Union blockade fleet like a death-dealing shadow. They had a special look on their faces when they talked about him, a mixture of curiosity and romantic imaginings. Rhett was more myth than man. And he was Scarlett’s husband. How could they not envy her?

Scarlett was at her best when she was constantly busy, and these were good days for her. The social rounds were just what she needed after the terrifying loneliness of Atlanta, and she quickly forgot the desperation she had felt. Atlanta must have been wrong, that’s all. She’d done nothing to deserve such cruelty or everybody in Charleston wouldn’t like her so much. And they did, why else would they invite her?

The thought was immensely gratifying. She returned to it often. Whenever she was paying her calls, or receiving calls with Mrs. Butler, or visiting her specially chosen friend, Anne Hampton, at the Confederate Home, or gossiping over coffee at the Market, Scarlett always wished that Rhett could see her. Sometimes she even looked quickly around her, imagining that he was there, so intense was her desire. Oh, if only he’d come home!

He seemed closest to her in the quiet time after supper when she sat with his mother in the study and listened with fascination while Miss Eleanor talked. She was always willing to remember things Rhett had done or said when he was a little boy.

Scarlett enjoyed Miss Eleanor’s other stories, too. Sometimes they were wickedly funny. Eleanor Butler, like most of her Charleston contemporaries, had been educated by governesses and travel. She was well-read but not intellectual, spoke the romance languages adequately, but with a terrible accent, was familiar with London, Paris, Rome, Florence, but only the famous historic attractions and luxury shops. She was true to her era and her class. She had never questioned the authority of her parents or her husband, and she did her duty in all respects, without complaining.

What set her apart from most women of her type was that she had an irrepressible, quiet sense of fun. She enjoyed whatever life brought her and found the human condition fundamentally entertaining, and she was a gifted teller of stories, with a repertoire that ranged from accounts of amusing incidents in her own life to the classic Southern storehouse of the skeletons in the closets of every family in the region.

Scarlett, if she had known the reference, could accurately have called Eleanor her personal Scheherazade. She never realized that Mrs. Butler was trying, indirectly, to stretch her mind and her heart. Eleanor could see the vulnerability and courage that had drawn her beloved son to Scarlett. She could also see that something had gone horribly wrong with the marriage, so wrong that Rhett wanted nothing more to do with it. She knew, without being told, that Scarlett was desperately determined to get him back, and for her own reasons she was even more eager for reconciliation than Scarlett was. She wasn’t certain whether Scarlett could make Rhett happy, but she believed with all her heart that another child would make the marriage a success. Rhett had visited her with Bonnie; she would never forget the joy of it. She had loved the little girl and loved even more seeing her son so happy. She wanted that happiness again for him, and the joy again for herself. She was willing to do anything in her power to accomplish it.

Because she was so occupied, Scarlett had been in Charleston for more than a month before she noticed that she was bored. It happened at Sally Brewton’s, the least boring place in town, when everyone was talking about fashion, a subject that had previously been of consuming interest to Scarlett. At first she was fascinated to hear Sally and her circle of friends mention Paris. Rhett had once brought her a bonnet from Paris, the most beautiful, most exciting gift she’d ever received. Green—to match her eyes, he’d said—with glorious wide silk ribbons to tie under her chin. She made herself listen to what Alicia Savage was saying—though what a skinny old lady like her could know about dressing was hard to figure. Or Sally, either. With her face and flat chest, nothing would make her look good.

“Do you remember Worth’s fittings?” Mrs. Savage said. “I thought I’d collapse standing on the platform so long.”

A half dozen voices spoke at once, sharing complaints about the brutality of Paris dressmakers. Others argued with them, saying that any inconvenience was a small price to pay for the quality that only Paris could supply. Several sighed over memories of gloves and boots and fans and perfume.

Scarlett turned automatically toward whatever voice was speaking, an interested expression on her face. When she heard laughter, she laughed. But she thought about other things—whether there was any of that good pie left from dinner to have for supper… her blue dress that could use a fresh collar… Rhett… She looked at the clock behind Sally’s head. She couldn’t leave for at least eight more minutes. And Sally had seen her looking. She’d have to pay attention.

The eight minutes seemed like eight more hours.

“All anybody talked about, Miss Eleanor, was clothes. I thought I’d go crazy I was so bored!” Scarlett collapsed into the chair opposite Mrs. Butler’s. Clothes had lost their fascination for her when she was reduced to the four “serviceable” drab-colored frocks Rhett’s mother helped her order from the dressmaker. Even the ballgowns that were being made held small interest. There were only two, for the upcoming six-week series of balls almost every night. They were dull, too—dull colors, one blue silk and one claret-colored velvet—and dull design, with hardly any trim. Still, even the dullest ball meant music—and dancing—and Scarlett dearly loved to dance. Rhett would be back from the plantation, too, Miss Eleanor had promised her. If only she didn’t have to wait so long for the Season to start. Three weeks suddenly seemed unendurably boring to contemplate with nothing to do but sit around and talk to women.

Oh, how she wished something exciting would happen!

Scarlett’s wish was granted very soon, but not in the way she wanted. Instead, the excitement was terrifying.

It started as malicious gossip that had people laughing all over town. Mary Elizabeth Pitt, a spinster in her forties, claimed that she had awakened in the middle of the night and seen a man in her room. “Just as plain as anything,” she said, “with a kerchief over his face like Jesse James.”

“If ever I heard wishful thinking,” someone unkindly commented, “that’s it. Mary Elizabeth must be twenty years older than Jesse James.” The newspaper had been printing a series of articles romanticizing the daring exploits of the James brothers and their gang.

But the following day the story took an ugly turn. Alicia Savage was also in her forties, but she had been married twice, and everyone knew that she was a calm-natured, rational woman. She, too, had woken up and seen a man in her bedroom, standing beside her bed, looking at her in the moonlight. He was holding the curtain back to let the light in, and he was staring over a kerchief that hid the lower part of his face. The upper part was shadowed by the bill of his cap.