Bonnie's death ripped her parents' hearts — as you surely understand For four days, Rhett stayed with his poor dead child in a room ablaze with lights. Rhett would not suffer Bonnie to be buried — laid forever into the dark she had always feared!
It is still hard to believe she is gone. Sometimes when I hear hoofbeats, I look to the street, expecting to see Bonnie on her fat pony beside her proud father, Rhett reining his great black horse in to accommodate his daughter's pace...
Those who say Atlanta is heartless should have seen the mourning for this child. So many came to the funeral, a hundred stood outside.
If Bonnie's death dealt your brother a fearful blow, his disintegrating marriage has undone him.
Rosemary, in his heart your brother is a lover. The shrewd businessman, the adventurer, the dandy are but costumes the lover wears.
Bonnie Blue was the last linchpin in Rhett and Scarlett's marriage.
Rhett saw Bonnie as Scarlett unspoiled a Scarlett who loved him without reservation. And Scarlett loved Bonnie as a reborn self, as an image of what she might have become if only, if only... Bonnie knew her needs, as Scarlett does not, and while Scarlett beguiles our admiration, Bonnie commanded it.
Rhett and Scarlett have always been combatative, but they were grandly, triumphantly combative — the clash of two unmastered souls. Now it is painful to be with them: such bitter, weary language; so many ancient slights reprised; hurts recollected over and over, as if the hurts were fresh and the wound still tingling.
Rosemary, your brother needs you.
I am not much traveled. Once, when I was very young Pittypat, Charles, and I traveled to Charleston. I thought it so much more sophisticated than Atlanta! We stayed in Mr. Mills's hotel (does it still exist?), and in its dining room, I was offered escargots accompanied by the device one holds them with while spearing meat from the shell I thought the device was a nutcracker and was trying with Atlantan determination to crack a snail shell when our kind waiter rescued me. "Oh no, miss. No, miss! We does things different in Charleston!”
I suspected then, and believe now, there are many things Charleston does differently — things busy Atlanta neglects or doesn't do at alt I cannot remember my father, and my mother is only a vague shape, a warmth, not unlike the warmth of baking bread. I recollect a mother's touch, so gentle, it might have been a butterfly's. When our parents died, Charles and I went to Aunt Pittypat's: two children whose guardian was little more than a child herself. Uncle Peter was the grown-up in our house!
What a happy time we had' Pittypat's silliness (which irritates adults) charmed us, and among children, Pittypat's kind heart and silly airs flowered into something like wisdom. One day, she bet that we couldn't outrun Mr. Bowen's sulky. (Mr. Bowen, our neighbor, had famous trotters.) Charles and I hid in the shrubbery until Mr. Bowen turned into our street, and we darted in front of him, running as fast as our stubby legs could while Mr. Bowen (forewarned by Aunt Pittypat) restrained his horse so we could win the race. As I recall, our prize was oatmeal cookies, two each, which were easily the best cookies I've ever had. I was a grown woman before I realized their deception — that two small children could outrun a fast trotter. Mercy!
Now, when we drive out on a Sunday afternoon, I am toted to the carriage like baggage and swaddled like an infant against the "fierce August cold. “
In the country, Ashley sighs at the ruins of every familiar plantation, their gardens as reclaimed by wildness as if the land still belonged to the Cherokees. When I tug his sleeve, Ashley reluctantly returns to the present.
We "do things different" in Atlanta these days, too. Dear Rosemary, we are nearly recovered from the War and prosper stupendously. On market days, farmers' wagons fill Peachtree and Whitehall streets from boardwalk to boardwalk. The gaslights have extended almost to Pittypat's and all the central streets are macadamed. They're building a street railway! We are readmitted to the Union, the Federal troops are out west with General Custer, and Atlanta is doing very well, thank you.
When Louis Valentine comes of age, he would have a bright future here.
Atlanta has wholeheartedly embraced the Modern Age and there will be opportunities for a young man with his Uncle Rhett's connections.
How practical I've become, when those times I recall most fondly were so impracticaclass="underline" Pittypat, Charles, and Melanie playing at life!
I miss Charles each and every day. In my heart, he is fixed as a young man of twenty-one, recently married to Scarlett O'Hara of Tara Plantation.
It must have been War Fever, for certainly if any two human beings were unstated to each other, it was my sweet Charles Hamilton and Scarlett O'Hara.
I solace myself with the thought that Charles died happily wed. Had he lived they would have made each other miserable.
I suppose I shall be seeing Charles soon. It will be lovely to ask what he thinks of all our goings-on.
I send you my best love.
Your Devoted Friend,
Melanie Hamilton Wilkes
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
A Deathwatch
As Melanie Wilkes was dying, Rhett Butler waited in the parlor of his mansion on Peachtree Street, listening to the clock.
It was October. A dark, drizzly afternoon.
His glass of cognac had been distilled from grapes Napoleon's armies might have passed. It tasted like ashes.
The Governor of Georgia, Senators, and United States Congressmen had been entertained in this room. The workman who'd fitted its chair rails had got more pleasure from this house than Rhett ever had.
The big house was quiet as a tomb. After Bonnie died, he'd shunned Ella and Wade. He was afraid he'd look at the living children and think, It might have been you instead of Bonnie. If only it had been you...
Mammy and Prissy took the children out of the house to play. When it rained, Ella and Wade played in the carriage house.
He'd quit going to his desk at the Farmer's and Merchants' Bank.
Yesterday — or was it the day before? — the bank's president had come, deeply worried. Although the Farmer's and Merchants' hadn't invested in the Northern Pacific, when Jay Cooke declared bankruptcy, the New York Stock Exchange collapsed. All over the country, depositors raced to their banks to withdraw their savings. Banks had failed in New York, Philadelphia, Savannah, Charleston, and Nashville. The Farmer's and Merchants' didn't have enough cash to meet the demand.
"Rhett," the president begged, "could you help?”
Rhett Butler pledged his fortune so Farmer's and Merchants' depositors could withdraw their savings in cash — every cent. Since they could, they didn't.
Rhett didn't care.
The clock chimed the hour: six funereal strokes.
A gust in the still room ruffled the hair on the nape of his neck and Rhett knew Miss Melly was dead.
Melanie Wilkes was one of the few creatures Rhett had ever known who would not be deceived.
As the brown autumnal light leaked out of the room, Rhett lit the gaslights.
Had he loved Scarlett, or had he loved what she might become? Had he deceived himself — loving the image more than the flesh and blood woman? Rhett didn't care.