"Rhett, I’m sorry. I don't know how your father learned you'd been visiting!
I’ve never seen Langston so furious. If I'd been a man, I believe he would have called me out. " Grandmother set her lips. "Rosemary is Langston's daughter.
There wasn't one thing in the world I could do. “
"Where is she?" Rhett demanded.
"At Broughton. Langston said...”
Rhett jerked his head, as if pulling words out of her.
"Your father told me she'd stay until you were dead or gone from the Low Country. Damn the man! Come inside, Rhett, and we'll talk. I am not without influence and...”
The clatter of Tecumseh's hooves obliterated what more she might have said.
On rain-slick cobblestones. Rhett galloped Tecumseh through the city. Cabbies cursed, riders drew up sharply, and servants leaped from his path. The great horse hammered along, tireless as a steam engine.
After an hour, he slowed Tecumseh to a canter, then an easy walk. When the horse shook his head, hot horse spittle spattered Rhett's cheeks. They were well out of the city on the River Road.
Young Rhett Butler believed the years to come wouldn't be different from the years he'd already lived. He was disgraced; he would be always be disgraced.
He was alone; he would always be alone. Rhett could endure being unloved. He could not live without loving.
It was twilight when Rhett turned into Colonel Jack Ravanel's lane. Jack had been involved in a particularly dubious financial scheme and was eluding the bailiffs.
Jack's lane was unkempt and overgrown. Outside the dooryard, Rhett unsaddled Tecumseh and rubbed him down. The horse's legs trembled with fatigue.
Old Jack didn't stir from the piazza. "You drive that horse too hard boy,”
he said. "I admire that horse. If you're going to kill him, might be you could sell him to me instead. “
"Hay in the shed, Jack?”
"Where it always is. There's a bucket next the well. “
As Rhett watered his exhausted animal, he whispered, "Don't you, by God, founder on me, Tecumseh. I couldn't stand it if you foundered!”
The horse pushed his nose into the bucket.
The Ravanel farmhouse ("plantation house" was too grand a name) had been built by Jack's grandfather and ill maintained for years. Rhett climbed its moss green cypress risers.
The porch smelled dank, as if decades of river mists had congealed in the rotten wood and peeling paint.
Without rising Old Jack waveda languid welcome. "We have Jack's plantation to ourselves, young Butler. All the sports are in town. Hell, I wish I was in town. “
The prospect of another debauched evening made Rhett faintly ill.
"You're not looking pert, son. Woman trouble, I wager. "Jack slid a nearly full whiskey bottle toward the younger man. "This'll cure her. This'll cure love pains, failures, and guilt. It'll help you grieve and help you forget.”
Although the old reprobate rarely bought a round, Rhett was too low to be suspicious. He drank deeply from the bottle.
"She must have been a pretty wench," Jack observed. "Love, my boy — “
"Don't say anything about love, Jack. This is Rhett, remember? I know you, Jack. “
"Ah? Do you?" After a hot glance, Jack reverted to his familiar jokey self.
"Why, of course you do. Who knows Old Jack better than his friends? Carpe diem, eh, Rhett?”
Rhett should have been warier, but despair had blinded him to everything but grim prophecies.
Jack left the bottle and disappeared indoors.
As the moon slunk across the sky, young Rhett Butler drank whiskey and felt like dying. The evening star was low on the horizon when Jack came outside, yawning. "Man is born to troubles, eh, Rhett?”
Rhett had drunk his way through drunkenness into a weary, irritable sobriety.
"Anything you say, Jack. “
"I say that I hate to see a clever boy so downhearted. Why, if Jesus Christ himself stepped onto this piazza with the keys to Paradise, I reckon you'd turn Him down. “
Rhett turned bloodshot eyes on the old scoundrel. "You want something Jack. Spit it out. “
Years afterward, Rhett stared at the old house.
"Rhett? Where did you go?" Rosemary asked.
"Sorry, Sister. I was woolgathering. Edgar Puryear loved to come to Jack's. Edgar enjoys other men's weaknesses. Andrew hated it. Andrew was more fastidious than his father.”
"And you?”
Rhett shrugged. "I thought hell was where I belonged.”
A skid of old shingles slid down the mossy roof and landed with a crash. Tecumseh flattened his ears. "Easy, boy. Easy." Rhett's strong hands spoke through the reins.
Meg and Cleo were in the groom's seat behind. Rhett felt Meg's sweet breath on his neck, "Mommy, how far are we?”
"Not far, dear," Rosemary said. "Look there! That snag in the river. See the eagle?”
Rhett flicked the reins and Tecumseh danced before settling into a brisk trot.
The buggy coming toward them was as solemn black as the smallish mare drawing it. When Tunis Bonneau drew up, he tipped his hat to Rosemary.
Rhett tipped his to Mrs. Bonneau.
Ruthie Prescott Bonneau was a light-skinned, plump young woman, m corseted and stayed within an inch of her life. "Good afternoon, Captain Butler. Isn't this a fine afternoon?”
" 'No spring or summer beauty hath such grace ..
Mrs. Bonneau's smile was reserved. "My father, Reverend Prescott, taught me my letters. I am more familiar with Dr. Donne's sermons than his poetry.”
Rhett stretched, "But it is a day for poetry, isn't it?”
Tunis said, "Hello, Tecumseh. Miss Rosemary, I see you're takin' good care of that horse." Tunis nodded to the groom's seat. "Little Miss Meg.
How you today?”
Meg put her thumb in her mouth.
Ruthie said, "Captain Butler, every Sunday at the First African, we pray you and Tunis have a safe voyage.”
"Well," Rhett grinned. "That's my prayer, too.”
"Got a letter from Daddy Thomas," Tunis said.
Rhett explained to Rosemary, "Tunis's parents immigrated to Canada.”
Ruthie said, "My husband's father has a home in Kingston, Ontario, Mrs. Haynes. Thomas Bonneau says things are better there.”
Tunis said, "Papa says Canada is cold as the dickens.”
Rhett steadied Tecumseh. "Tunis, I swear this horse wasn't skittish when I left him with you.”
"Might be negro horses got more cause be skittish than white men's horses," Tunis deadpanned.
"Maybe they do at that," Rhett said. "Good to see you again, Mrs. Bonneau. Please thank the First African for their prayers.”
Tunis nodded and clucked to his mare.
As the respectable black carriage went around the bend, Cleo muttered, "Them free coloreds think too high of themselfs.”
They trotted past Hopeton and Darien Plantation. Gangs were still planting at Champney.
"We never planted so late at Broughton," Cleo disapproved. "Overseer don't 'low it.”
"You're not at Broughton now, Cleo," Rosemary reminded her maid.