Grandmother promptly agreed. "Rosemary and my granddaughter Charlotte will keep each other occupied.”
That afternoon, Rosemary's clothes and favorite dolls were packed and loaded in Grandmother Fisher's carriage. Afterward, Rosemary slept more nights in the Fishers' East Bay mansion than in her own home. Her rashes disappeared.
Little Charlotte Fisher was a serene, uncomplaining child who thought the best of everyone. Charlotte believed Rosemary's brother couldn't be that bad. Nobody was that bad. Charlotte never complained when her older brother, Jamie, teased her. One afternoon when Rosemary was out of sorts, she snatched Charlotte's favorite doll. Charlotte wouldn't take it back when Rosemary repented. Weeping, Rosemary threw her arms around her friend's neck. "Charlotte, I'm sorry, but when I want something, I want it now.”
Three years after Rhett left for West Point, Charlotte's brother, Jamie, burst into the family room.
Charlotte closed her book on her finger and sighed. "Yes, brother ...”
"Yes, yourself." Arms folded, Jamie leaned against a sofa arm so he wouldn't crease his trousers.
Jamie ...
"Rhett Butler's been expelled," Jamie blurted. "He's back in Charleston, though heaven knows why." Jamie raised his eyebrows theatrically. "I mean, nobody — absolutely nobody — will receive him. He's living with Old Jack Ravanel. He and Andrew always were thick as thieves.”
Rosemary frowned. "What's 'expelled'?”
"Thrown out of West Point. Exiled. Entirely and totally disgraced!”
Rosemary felt sad. How can a wolf not be a wolf? she wondered.
Hastily, Jamie added, "You mustn't worry, Rosemary. Your brother has lots of friends. Andrew and there's Henry Kershaw, Edgar Puryear — the, uh ... that crowd.”
Which was not reassuring. Jamie had previously regaled the Fishers' supper table with tales about "the Flash Sports." Everything Rosemary had heard about these young men was wicked or alarming.
That evening, Grandmother Fisher scolded Jamie for upsetting the child.
"But Rhett is disgraced. It's true," Jamie insisted.
"The truth, Jamie, isn't always kind.”
Rhett Butler's reappearance inspired the Flash Sports to new outrages.
Somehow, Rhett slipped two of Miss Polly's pretty, overdressed young Cyprians past the ball managers into the Jockey Club Ball. Before they were escorted out, the giggling girls recognized a St. Michael's vestryman of previously impeccable reputation.
One midnight outside a waterfront gambling hell, two ruffians accosted Rhett.
Rhett said mildly, "I've only one bullet in my pistol. Who wants the bullet and who wants his neck broken?”
The thieves backed down.
Rhett and Andrew brought a dozen horses from Tennessee to Charleston in four days, changing horses on the fly. Rumor persisted they'd barely outrun the horses' legitimate owners.
And all Charleston buzzed when on a two-dollar bet, the blindfolded Rhett Butler jumped his gelding, Tecumseh, over the five-foot spiked iron fence into St. Michael's churchyard. Sunday morning, curious parishioners and an angry vicar inspected the deep holes Tecumseh's hooves had left in the turf. Knowledgeable horsemen shuddered.
Jamie Fisher had a better heart than he liked to admit and he censored that news. "Rhett plays poker," Jamie stated. He lowered his voice to a whisper. "He plays for money!”
"Of course he does," sensible Charlotte retorted. "He has to get money somehow, doesn't he?”
Although the girls didn't know all Rhett's sins, they knew his sins were very numerous. One morning, when the sympathetic Charlotte called her friend "poor, dear Rosemary" once too often, Rosemary smacked her friend in the eye. The startled child burst into tears and Rosemary fell into her arms and, as little girls will, they solaced one another.
One special morning, when Grandmother Fisher entered the family room, Charlotte forgot the toast she had been slathering with red currant jelly and Rosemary set her teacup down.
Grandmother Fisher was not quite wringing her hands. She studied Rosemary as if the child's demeanor might answer some question.
"Grandmother," Charlotte asked, "is anything wrong?”
Constance Fisher shook her head — a little shake — and straightened.
"Rosemary, you've a caller in the withdrawing room.”
"A caller, Grandmother? For me?”
"Your brother Rhett has come for you.”
That story-book wolf flashed into Rosemary's mind and she glanced at Charlotte in alarm.
Grandmother said, "You are not obliged to see him, child. If you prefer, I'll turn him away.”
"Rosemary, he's disgraced," Charlotte fretted.
Rosemary set her lips in a determined line. She was old enough now to face a story-book wolf. Besides, Rosemary was curious: Would her brother's sins show in his person? Would he be hunchbacked, or hairy, with long fingernails? Would he smell bad? As they passed down the hall, Grandmother murmured, "Rosemary, you mustn't mention this visit to your father.”
Rhett Butler wasn't a scraggly old wolf. He was young and tall and his black hair glittered like a raven's wing. His coat was the russet of a newborn fawn and his black planter's hat rested in his big hands like an old friend.
"Who have we here?" her brother asked. "You needn't be afraid of me, little one.”
When Rosemary looked into Rhett's smiling eyes, the wolf went away forever. "I'm not afraid," she said stoutly.
"Grandmother Fisher told me you're a spark," Rhett told her. "I believe you are. I've come this morning to take you for a drive.”
"Young Butler, I may live to regret this. How in the world you managed to get expelled from West Point, I don't know" — Grandmother raised a preemptory hand — "and do not wish to know. But John Haynes speaks well of you, and John has a level head. If your father hears you've been here, he'll be ...”
Rhett grinned. "Outraged? Outrage is my father's dearest companion.”
Rhett's bow was deferential. "I am indebted to you, Grandmother Fisher.
I'll have Rosemary home for supper." He knelt then so he was no taller than she. "Sister Rosemary, I've a spirited horse and the lightest sulky in the Low Country. Wouldn't you like to fly?”
That afternoon, Rosemary met Tecumseh, Rhett's three-year-old Morgan gelding. The sulky was not much more than a woven cane seat on tall wheels whose spokes were thinner than Rhett's thumbs. Tecumseh floated along at a trot, and when Rhett Butler asked for the gallop, their sulky left the ground.
When Rosemary'd flown about as long as a little girl should fly, Rhett returned her to Grandmother Fisher's and carried her into the house. Rosemary had never felt as safe as she felt in her brother's arms.
On his second visit, Rhett took Rosemary boating. Everyone in the harbor seemed to know him. The sloop they boarded belonged to a free colored man who called her brother by his Christian name. Rosemary was surprised when her brother clasped a negro's hand.
Charleston harbor was busy that afternoon with fishing boats, coastal ketches, and oceangoing schooners. With Old Glory snapping from its parapet, Fort Sumter guarded the harbor mouth. The waves were higher outside the harbor, and Rosemary got thoroughly wetted with spray.
When they returned to Grandmother Fisher's, Rosemary was sunburned, tired, and thoughtful.
"What is it, little one?”
"Rhett, do you love me?”
Her brother touched her cheek. "As my life.”
Inevitably, Langston learned his son had visited the Fishers, and he removed Rosemary to Broughton.
A month later, Rosemary was roused after midnight by a carriage in the drive — Grandmother Fisher's carriage — and before she was fully awake, Charlotte was in her bedroom and in her arms. "Oh, Rosemary," she said.