Rhett Butler's People Page 6

  Without preliminary, Rosemary said, “Writing to my brother is useless. My brother is dead.”

  “No’m, Master Rhett ain’t dead.”

  Rosemary put her hands firmly on her hips. “How do you know?”

  “The horses, they—”

  She stamped her foot, “Hercules! I am no longer a child.”

  “Yes, Miss.” He sighed. “I can see you ain’t.” As Rosemary stormed back to the house, he returned to grooming. “Be easy now, Gero. Miss Rosemary distress ’count of she goin’ to the Jockey Club and she feared the young gentlemen won’t favor her.”

  Rosemary concluded her letter: “Although some of my letters may have gone astray, you must have received others. Your silence is too cruel. How I wish I knew your whereabouts and circumstances. I will always love you, brother, but in the face of your obstinate silence, I will not write again.”

  Rosemary was as good as her word. She didn’t write Rhett that her debut had been notable, that Andrew Ravanel had flirted outrageously and taken four waltzes. Nor did she tell him that during the intermission, Grandmother Fisher had said, “John Haynes is thoroughly besotted with you. A girl could do worse than John Haynes.”

  Nor that she had replied, tossing her head, “John Haynes can’t sit a horse. It’s a wonder he doesn’t injure himself.”

  “But Andrew Ravanel can sit a horse?”

  “He is the handsomest man in Charleston. Every belle has set her cap for Andrew.”

  “I believe what you call a ‘cap,’ dear, Mr. Ravanel’s sporting friends call a ‘scalp,’” Constance Fisher replied.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Race Week

  Three years before the War, a full nine years after Rhett Butler left the Low Country, on a February afternoon Rosemary Butler stood before her pier glass, dissatisfied. She thought herself too tall and her torso was unfashionably long. Her entirely ordinary auburn hair was parted in the center and curled in ringlets. Her features were, Rosemary believed, too strong, and her mouth too generous. Her candid gray eyes, she thought, were her only good feature. Rosemary stuck her tongue out at the mirror. “You are no friend!” she announced.

  Rosemary’s dress, a textured print in green polished cotton, was new for Race Week.

  Race Week was the pinnacle of Charleston’s social season. The rice had been harvested, dried, winnowed, hulled, sold, and shipped; the negroes had been given their annual clothing issue and enjoyed their Christmas holiday. The planter families were in town and their mornings hummed with gossip about the rare doings of the night before and anticipations for the evening ahead. Smart new carriages and refurbished, highly polished older ones promenaded in the great loop down East Bay, up Meeting Street, and down East Bay again. The latest Paris fashions (as adapted by London pattern makers and sewed by Charleston’s free colored seamstresses) were admired at the Jockey Club and St. Cecilia Society balls. Yankee excursionists gawked at grand town houses, throngs of negroes, splendid racehorses, and the most beautiful belles in the South.

  Cleo burst into Rosemary’s bedroom, wringing her hands. “Missy, they’s somebody here to see you.”

  “I’ll be down directly. Show the gentleman into the drawing room.”

  “He ain’t… Missy, he waitin’ in the yard. He … he ain’t no gentleman!” Cleo’s lips clamped tight. She would say no more.

  The public rooms of Langston Butler’s Greek Revival town house had carved marble mantels and varnished cherry wainscoting. A shaded piazza encircled the entire second story.

  The servants’ staircase at the back of the house was narrow, steep, and unpainted. Up these stairs, servants carried plates and tureens for Langston Butler’s political dinners. Armloads of fresh linens came up these steps. Down came dirty sheets, pillowcases, underclothing, and tablecloths. Down, carefully, came the family’s chamber pots.

  During this season, just fifteen Broughton servants attended the Butlers. Uncle Solomon, Cleo, Hercules and Sudie, and Cook had a room each above the kitchen/laundry house. Lesser servants slept in cramped quarters above the stable.

  Usually, the yard was a beehive of washing, laundering, mucking out stables, and grooming horses, but Gero was running in today’s noon race and everybody was at the racecourse.

  “Hello?” Rosemary called.

  The stable smelled of axle grease, neat’s-foot oil, and manure. Curious horses lifted their heads above their stall doors.

  Rosemary’s visitor clutched his parcel so hard, he’d indented it.

  “Why, is it Tunis? Tunis Bonneau?”

  Like his father, Tunis Bonneau had been a fisherman and market hunter, but these days Tunis was a pilot for Haynes & Son. Rosemary knew the man by sight, although they had never spoken.

  “Tunis Bonneau … didn’t someone tell me you’d married?”

  “Yes’m. Last September. My Ruthie, she’s Reverend Prescott’s eldest.”

  Tunis’s wire-rimmed spectacles and solemn expression made him seem a dark edition of a Puritan schoolmaster. His clothing was spotless, pressed, and he smelled faintly of lye soap.

  “I was asked to bring you this.” Bonneau pushed his parcel at Rosemary and turned to leave.

  “Wait, Tunis. Please. There is no card. Who sent it?” Untied, the parcel revealed an oversized yellow silk scarf fringed with exquisite black knots. “My goodness! What a gorgeous shawl.”

  “Yes, Miss.”

  When the virginal girl settled the silk on her shoulders, it caressed and made her feel vaguely uneasy. “Tunis, who sent this to me?”

  “Miss Rosemary. I don’t need trouble with Master Langston.”

  “Was it… was it Andrew Ravanel?”

  “It weren’t Andrew Ravanel gifted you. No, Miss.”

  Rosemary said determinedly, “You will not leave until you tell me.”

  Tunis Bonneau took off his glasses and rubbed the mark they’d left on his nose. “He reckoned his letters weren’t getting to you, so he asked me to bring you this. I seen him in Freeport. He ain’t changed none.” Tunis turned the glasses in his hand as if they were an unfamiliar object. “I sailed as pilot on the John B. Elliot, carryin’ rice and cotton, bringin’ back locomotive wheels for the Georgia railroad. Soon as I seen him, I knowed who he was. Rhett Butler ain’t changed none.”

  Rosemary felt a catch at her throat and she gripped a stall rail to steady herself.

  “Rhett been with them freebooters in Nicaragua, but he quit that business.”

  “But he’s … Rhett’s dead!”

  “Oh no, Miss. Mr. Rhett ain’t dead. Why, he’s right lively. That man always sees the amusin’ side of things.”

  “But … but … not a single word to me in nine years.”

  Tunis Bonneau breathed on his glasses and wiped them with his handkerchief. “Miss Rosemary, your brother did write to you. He wrote plenty.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Notes in Bottles

  Occidental Hotel,

  San Francisco, California Territory

  May 17, 1849

  Dear Little Sister,

  Although I disembarked from The Glory of the Seas six long hours ago, the earth still wobbles beneath my feet.

  Our captain and his son rowed we passengers ashore fearing The Glory might join the hundred ships deserted by sailors who became gold seekers. Their masts are a dismal forest beside Long Wharf.

  The wharf itself was a hubbub of runners for restaurants and hotels, brothels and gambling houses. Sharpers offered to buy and sell gold. One well-dressed man diffidently begged a meal.

  I played cards on the voyage around the Horn. Because they were going to be rich soon, the aspirant gold seekers were contemptuous of the cash money already in their possession and played as if prudence showed no faith in their glorious future. Consequently I arrived in this city with a considerable “grubstake” (the money the argonaut uses to finance his prospecting).

  During our tedious voyage around the Horn, the argonauts explained why they had uprooted themsel
ves from occupations, friends, and family for a dangerous voyage and uncertain future. To a man, and earnestly, they insisted they were not doing it for themselves. No indeed! They were adventuring for those selfsame wives and children they’d left behind. They’d left their families for the sake of their families! Apparently, American wives and children cannot be satisfied until an argonaut showers them with gold!

  This is not Charleston. San Francisco boardwalks flank mud streets, which suck the shoes off my feet. Tents and wooden shacks coexist side by side with brick buildings so new, they glisten.

  Three years ago, before gold was discovered, San Francisco had eight hundred citizens. Today it boasts thirty-six thousand. From the wharf to the sheltering hills, the city echoes with the banging and clattering of new construction. In this town, Sister, even loafers with nowhere to go hurry to get there.

  Chinese, Irish, Italians, Connecticut Yankees, and Mexicans: The new city hums with new people and newfangled notions.

  Although I miss you and my Low Country friends, I am no exile. I feel the exultation of a prisoner released into the sunlight of a new morning. There are cities besides Charleston and they are good places to be!

  Please do write me here at the hotel. They will hold my mail for me. Tell me about Charlotte and Grandmother Fisher and especially about your doings. Of all my old life, Dear Sister, I miss you most. Your Loving Brother, Rhett

  March 12, 1850

  Goody ear’s Bar, California Territory

  Dear Little Sister,

  Goody ear’s Bar is a surpassing ugly gold camp: a high-country mudflat spotted with dugouts, tents, and windowless log huts where lucky miners occasionally earn two thousand dollars from a wheelbarrel of pay dirt.

  Even rich argonauts must eat, and their picks and shovels have a way of wearing out, and common decency (and below-zero nights) demand trousers and shoes.

  Sister, I have become a merchant—one of those tedious fellows whose efforts underpin every aristocracy. With my grubstake, I purchased a heavy freight wagon and four sturdy mules. I paid twice as much as I would have in Carolina for brined beef, whiskey, flour, shovels, picks, and rolls of canvas.

  I loaded my rig and goods on a steamship, which puffed up the river to Sacramento, where I chaffed until the trails into the high gold country were almost passable. Sister, your merchant brother shoveled through three-foot snowdrifts to deliver his goods to Goodyear’s Bar.

  I have never had such a glorious welcome. No provisions had reached the camp since October; the miners were famished and fell on your brother with hosannas.

  They had gold but nothing to spend it on! Within an hour of my arrival, I sold everything except my revolvers and a mule.

  I returned through the snowbanks, keeping a wary eye on my back trail. I had much to protect.

  When I delivered this booty to Lucas and Turner’s bank vault, even the impassive Mr. Sherman, the managing partner, raised his eyebrows.

  I’ve had no reply to my letters. I pray you are well and yearn to hear your news.

  Now it is time for a warm bath and bed.

  Your Loving Brother, Rhett

  September 17, 1850

  St. Francis Hotel

  San Francisco, California

  Dear Little Sister,

  Don’t tell Father that I’ve become respectable. Butler General Merchandise has a second-floor office on Union Square and warehouses in Stockton and Sacramento.

  Would you recognize your brother in his dark business suit, neat gaiters, and inoffensive foulard? I feel like an actor in a very strange play.

  I do have a knack for it—making and getting money. Perhaps because I see money as a commodity with no religious significance.

  I no longer play cards. Getting wagons to gold camps like Goodyear’s Bar, Bogus Thunder, and Mugfuzzle (though no metropolis, Mugfuzzle exists) makes poker seem a puny gamble. Why should I sit, midnight after midnight, in a room rank with tobacco smoke just to separate drunken fools from their money?

  The argonauts are crazed with greed. No insurance company will insure their lives. Cholera kills them, drink kills them, and accidents kill them. Since there is no law in the camps, disputes are routinely settled with pickaxes, fists, or guns. If all else fails, often they kill themselves.

  The argonauts are as ready to fight as our Low Country aristocrats, but their reasons are more transparent. There is no prattle about “honor” here.

  We Californians say “back in America” to refer to our former home. Mr. Clay’s clever compromise and Mr. Calhoun’s death were hardly noticed here.

  Men move faster out here, but are no wiser.

  I have not received one letter from you and no longer expect one. You cannot be deceased—I would feel it if you were. I assume Father has forbidden you to write.

  Things may improve, even at Broughton, and writing to you refreshes you in my mind and heart. I feel your love as I write and return it to you tenfold.

  Your faithful correspondent,

  Rhett

  June 19, 1851

  St. Francis Hotel

  San Francisco, California

  Dearest Rosemary,

  “The Sydney Ducks are cackling tonight.” That’s what this city’s wits say when some honest man is robbed, beaten, or shot. While San Francisco has always had rough elements, a recent immigration of freed Australian convicts has made it far more dangerous.

  I am not worried for myself, my business, or my drivers. I have a (entirely undeserved) reputation for ferocity.

  As Mr. Newton taught us, for every reaction, there’s an equal and opposite reaction, and when I was invited to dine with three upstanding citizens, I suspected their motives.

  The banker W. T. Sherman is older than I, with the triangular face of a praying mantis, a short beard, and phenomenally large eyes. Brown eyes are supposed to be soft and revealing of character. Sherman’s are as revealing as two lumps of coal. He is asthmatic, one of the palest men I’ve ever seen. Neither he nor anyone else anticipates a long life for him.

  He is a practical man, one who does not flinch at necessity.

  Collis Huntington is one of those men who believe their own rectitude gives them the right to make other men cower. He is a competitor of Butler General Merchandise and we’ve crossed swords a time or two.

  Dr. Wright, the least of this triumvirate, is nervous, dressed like Beau Brummell, and claims to have invented the phrase “the Paris of the Pacific” to describe this city. He has, so far as I can make out, no other accomplishments of which to boast.

  We dined in a private dining room at the St. Francis, where, after the usual hemming and hawing, they proposed I join their nucleus of a vigilante society, which would, as Huntington elegantly put it, “hang every thief and miscreant on this shore of the Bay.”

  Mr. Sherman said civic disorder threatened business interests. He spoke of the “necessity” of action.

  I reminded Sherman that necessity is not always just or worthy.

  Huntington and Wright were genuinely offended—they’d assumed I was their natural ally: a man who could kill with clean hands.

  I told them neither yea nor nay.

  Sister, I am not a reflective man, but that night I wondered who I had become. What distinguishes the merchant who hangs a thief to preserve his fortune from the planter who whips a negro to death for insolence?

  I determined I would not be that man. As I would not be hanged, I would not be a hangman.

  I have determined to try my fortunes elsewhere. Volunteers are combining to overthrow Cuba’s Spanish overlords, and perhaps I’ll lend them a hand. If you can write, I will pick up my mail c/o General Delivery, New Orleans.

  Your puzzled brother,

  Rhett

  March 14, 1853

  Hotel St. Louis

  New Orleans

  Dear Little Sister,

  Proper Charlestonians would be shocked by this city. It is so French. New Orleans’ citizens—all good Catholics—are preoccupied
with food, drink, and love—though not necessarily in that order. In the old quarter, the Vieux Carré, the fragrance of sin drifts through the orange and lemon blossoms. I can attend a ball every night: formal, informal, masked, or the sort of affair I attend with a pistol in my pocket. I play cards at Mcgarth’s, Perritts, or the Boston Club. I enjoy four racetracks, three theaters, and the French Opera House.

  The city is the freebooters’ home port. These young Americans have taken Manifest Destiny as a personal creed. Their destiny, manifestly, is to conquer and loot any Caribbean or South American nation too weak to defend itself. Most believe Cuba would make a first-class American state once we run off the Spanish.

  I have invested in several freebooting expeditions—if demand increases profits, patriotism swells the trickle into a flood. Until now, I haven’t been tempted to enlist myself.

  New Orleans is a city of beautiful women and its Creole ladies are cultured, cosmopolitan, and wise. They have taught me much about love—a pursuit which is second only to the longing for God.

  Doubtless my Creole mistress, Didi Gayerre, loves me. She loves me to distraction. After six months together, she is eager to marry, bear my children, and share my uncertain fortunes. She is everything a man could want.

  I do not want her.

  My initial fascination has turned to boredom and a mild contempt for myself and Didi for pretending to believe what we know is not so.

  Love, Dear Sister, can be terribly cruel.

  I will not stay with her from pity. Pity is even crueler than love.

  The less I love her, the more desperate Didi becomes, and only physical separation will cure our problem.

  We were supping with Narciso López, a Cuban General who is organizing an expedition. He already has three or four hundred volunteers—enough, he assured me, to defeat any Spanish army. Once we land, Cuban patriots will swell our ranks. He told me with a wink that there is conquistador gold in the Spanish treasury. Havana, he added, is a beautiful city.