Scarlett (36 page)

“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 next 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 white-gloved 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.”

“You could have avenues, not trails, if you’d put your men to work on the land instead of at that disgraceful phosphate mine.”

“Now, Miss Julia, I thought we’d reached a truce.”

“So we did. And I’ll honor it. Furthermore, I’ll admit that you should take care to be well home before dusk. I’ve been indulging myself with happy memories about Rome, and I haven’t watched the time. Perhaps Rosemary might stay the night with me. I’d see her to the Landing tomorrow morning.”

Oh, yes! thought Scarlett.

“Unfortunately, that won’t do,” Rhett said. “I might have to go out tonight, and I don’t want Scarlett at the house with no one she knows except her Georgia maid.”

“I don’t mind, Rhett,” Scarlett said loudly, “truly I don’t. Do you think I’m some kind of sissy who’s afraid of the dark?”

“You’re quite right, Rhett,” said Julia Ashley. “And you should cultivate some caution, Mrs. Butler. These are uncertain times.”

Julia’s tone was decisive. So was her abrupt movement. She stood and walked toward the door. “I’ll see you out, then. Hector will have your horses brought around.”

T
here were several large groups of angry-looking black men and one small group of black women in the horseshoe-shaped grass area behind the house at the Landing. Rhett helped Scarlett and Rosemary step down from the mounting block near the makeshift stables and held on to their elbows while the stableboy gathered the reins and led the horses away. When the boy was out of earshot, Rhett spoke with hushed urgency. “I’m going to walk you around to the front of the house. Go inside and straight upstairs to one of the bedrooms. Close the door and stay in there until I come for you. I’ll send Pansy up. Keep her with you.”

“What’s going on, Rhett?” Scarlett’s voice had a quaver in it.

“I’ll tell you later, there’s no time now. Just do as I say.” He kept hold of the two women, forcing them to match his purposeful but unhurried pace to the house and around its side. “Mist’ Butler!” shouted one of the men. A half dozen others followed him as he started to walk towards Rhett. This isn’t good, thought Scarlett, calling him Mr. Butler instead of Mr. Rhett. It’s not friendly at all, and there must be close to fifty of them.