His laughter chased her out of the room.
CHAPTER TEN
The Merry Widow
A full year later, the blockade runner Merry Widow tied up at the Haynes & Son wharf: three days from Nassau and six hours of moonless silence slipping through the Federal blockade. Rhett Butler stepped off the boat into flaring gaslights and stevedores' bustle.
John Haynes shook his partner's hand. "You shaved it close this time, Rhett. It'll be light in fifteen minutes.”
"Tunis can see our cargo into the warehouse. Join me for breakfast?”
"Give me a few minutes with Tunis. The market café?”
In that first light, Rhett walked the East Battery, enjoying a beautiful city.
The briny air was overlaid with the scent of mimosa. Here and there, a gray-clad sentry stood on the parapet, his glass fixed on the Federal fleet.
In the market, fishmongers cried their wares while housemen, cooks, and mammies haggled over produce and freshly baked bread. Many stall holders wore the brass free colored badges the city council had recently issued.
Looking as fresh as if he hadn't been up all night, Rhett Butler threaded through the market, leaning inside a stall to shake a hand or share a joke.
Every free colored knew Rhett had hired Tunis Bonneau as his pilot, even though white men wanted the job.
John Haynes was at a corner table with a cup of coffee.
"Ah, John. It's good to be home. Lord, I'm famished. Yankee warships whet my appetite. Only coffee?”
"An uneventful voyage, Rhett?”
"There are more blockaders and they're getting smarter." Rhett rapped the table. "Knock wood.”
"Rhett, if they ever corner you, for God's sake, don't try to escape. Run the Widow aground or surrender. The Widow's paid for and we've made a decent profit.”
"But John," Rhett said solemnly, "it's an adventure! Heart in the throat, hair bristling on your neck; don't you want to trade places?”
John smiled. "Rhett, I'm a stodgy young businessman who intends to become a stodgy old businessman. I'll leave the adventuring to you.”
When Rhett ordered sausage, eggs, grits, and coffee, the waiter apologized, "Captain Rhett, we got to charge more. Everything's got so high!”
"Damn profiteering blockade runners," Rhett intoned. The waiter laughed.
"So tell me, John. How is my beautiful niece, Meg? Has she been asking for her uncle Rhett?”
John happily reported his daughter's doings. "Rhett, being a father is like being a child again. Meg makes the familiar world new.”
"I envy you your daughter, John.”
"You'll be a father one day.”
"Will I? I'm told a woman is needed for that project.”
John laughed. "Rhett, you're handsome, bold, and rich — you have your pick of women.”
When Rhett last visited 46 Church Street after his previous run, the tension between Rosemary and John was so palpable, their attempts at civility so strained, that Rhett didn't stay an hour. It was that damned Patriotic Ball. Andrew Ravanel had driven a scandal between Rosemary and her husband.
Rhett asked lightly, "What good woman would marry a brigand, John? The brigand's life is apt to be short and his finances irregular. Maritally, he is a dreadful prospect.”
When the waiter brought Rhett's breakfast, he dug in with a will. "I did meet a Georgia girl last spring..." Rhett chuckled. "Alas, she was immune to my charms.”
"Poor, poor Rhett. Tell me honestly, friend. Can we win this war?”
"John, one hundred revolvers leave Colonel Colt's New Haven factory each day. Each takes a standard bullet and the cylinder from one revolver fits any other. Yankees are engineers and Southerners are romantics. In war, engineers whip romantics every time.”
"But don't you think — “
Rhett forestalled this evasion. "John, I wish nothing more than your and Rosemary's happiness. Old friend, can I do anything to reconcile you and my sister? If you wish, I'll speak to her. Sometimes a kinsman ...”
John Haynes picked at a gouge in the wooden tabletop. Despising himself, John Haynes read every newspaper account of Andrew Ravanel's military exploits: "Daring Raid"; "Ravanel's Brigade Strikes Tennessee!"; "Colonel Ravanel Takes a Thousand Prisoners!": "Behind enemy lines, with Federal cavalry in hot pursuit, the audacious Colonel Ravanel paused to telegraph the Federal War Department to complain about their horses he was capturing.”
John's eyes were so pained, Rhett fought an urge to look away.
John said quietly, "My Rosemary ... says she did not marry me of her free will. She married me to escape her father's house." He kneaded his left hand with his right. "I have not upbraided her about the Patriotic Ball, but Rosemary hasn't forgiven me for not being ... Andrew. My dear wife believes as she had been her father's chattel, she is now mine. No better than a slave. Rhett, Rosemary has called me 'Master John.' “
Rhett winced. After a moment, he said, "Why don't I rent a rig and we'll go — you and I, Meg and Rosemary — for a jaunt in the country.”
John shook his head, "I cannot. I must see the Widows, cotton properly stowed." John took a sip of cold coffee and said too brightly, "Tell me about this Georgia girl?”
"Ah yes, Miss Scarlett O'Hara." Rhett was happy to drop the painful subject. "Last spring, while you Charlestonians were busy starting this war, I was in Georgia buying cotton. I was invited to a barbecue at the local mugwump's plantation. Said mugwump's son was to marry an Atlanta cousin. These country aristocrats don't bring new blood into the family if they can help it. I liked John Wilkes, but Ashley, the son, was so genteel, he squeaked. The prettiest girl there was Miss Scarlett O'Hara, and Miss Scarlett had it in her head that Ashley Wilkes ought to marry her instead of his fiancée! John, a love tragedy was on the boil!
"Unfortunately for my dishonorable intentions, since the young lady couldn't marry Wilkes, she married the nearest boy at hand: the fiancée’s brother, Charles Hamilton." Rhett shook his head ruefully. "What a waste.”
"Hamilton? O'Hara? A Georgia family? Near Jonesboro?”
"The same. Lord, I envy Charles Hamilton his nights of love with that incomparable girl before going off for war. So many tender adieus. So many, many tender adieus.”
"Charles Hamilton is dead.”
"What?”
"And the Widow Hamilton is in Charleston, visiting her aunt Eulalie Ward. What do you say to that?”
Rhett Butler grinned like a schoolboy. "Why, John, what excellent news! On my last run, I brought Eulalie Ward's daughters some Paris brocade.
Perhaps I'll call on them this afternoon and see what they made of it.”
Civilians and newly minted Confederate soldiers promenaded past the great black guns emplaced on Charleston's White Point Park.
"What if they shoot they guns, Miss Scarlett?" Prissy stepped back from the second-floor window. "They big guns all 'round and Federal blockaders swimmin' in the sea and I afeared." Her brow furrowed until her thought meandered to its destination: "I afeared for Baby Wade.”
Who was, Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton noted gratefully, nodding off to sleep in Prissy's arms.
"What if Wade 'n me takin' the air when they start shootin'? What if they sail into the harbor shootin' they guns? Little Master Wade be scared out of his skin!”
Charleston, the Cradle of Secession, was acutely sensitive to Federal victories. Some Federals boasted, "Charleston is where the revolt began and the revolt will end where Charleston was." Last December, a fire in the city's heart had destroyed eight blocks of churches, homes, and Secession Hall itself. Some whispered that "the burnt district" portended Charleston's future.