Prompt!Fic: As Lucifer (Gone With The Wind)
My second prompt entry for the FFFA is for leobrat who wanted Fic: Gone With The Wind (book), Rhett as a 17-year-old boy visiting Savannah with his family, meets Ellen Robillard and her cousin, Phillippe. His observations. It's fine if Rhett comments that Ellen is pretty or whatever, because it seems she was quite beautiful, but please do not make it overly shippy for Rhett/Ellen, because that's just a little weird. He might be drawn to her as a premonition of what comes in his future, however. It took some fudging the dates, since Ellen was 15 in the book when Philippe left. It also taught me an important lesson: writing GWTW fic makes me maudlin and wordy. Cheers, leobrat! Hope you like it.
As Lucifer
1842 went out like a lamb, an irrational snowfall softening everything in sight and stemming the boisterous New Years Eve parties that otherwise might have carried on well into the next morning. In the crowd that swelled towards the doors, calling goodbyes to friends and relatives, Rhett swam amidst strangers, caught partial conversations with a listless ear.
“And tomorrow? What of tomorrow?”
“I’ll be there, Henry.”
“Call for me jus’ about five, then-”
“I’ll see you to your carriage, Miss-”
His parents were still embroiled in the midst of the throng, making protracted farewells to friends and family they’d not seen for over a year. Rhett found them- his mother’s outdated bonnet, looking almost farcical in the sea of latest trends, his father’s high forehead shining under the guttering lamps- and found difficulty in suppressing a sneer. Relentlessly pretending that everything was just fine, thank you ma’am. Not that their elder son was a disappointment to them at all, no sir. Not that they’d had an argument in the carriage on the way to this very ball, oh no.
Perhaps he’d walk home. It wasn’t far, and despite the misleading snowfall, the cold was not sharp. He could put his hands in his pockets and whistle as he walked and there was no one to say him nay.
Rhett emerged from the stuffy hall, breathing deeply, shaking his head to rid himself of the cloudy atmosphere of the New Years ball. Full of some he knew only vaguely, and most he knew not at all; and, worse, all were uninteresting. Perhaps his father was right, and perhaps it was usual for a boy his age to take an interest in such gatherings; but Rhett had little use for usual. He set off down the street with the intention of meandering as much as possible. Let his parents get home first and worry about him a little, if they wished.
The carriages of the partygoers were parked up and down the street, and some arranged in rows in the empty lot next to the hall. The drivers had all been let into the cellar, which served as withdrawing room for servants during the colder months. The lot was a boneyard of carriages, still and ghostly in the eerie light reflected off the snow. Rhett pushed his hands deeper into his pockets and began to whistle cheerfully, as though the noise might ward off any haints that might be lingering around the carriage yard.
As if in answer, there was noise and movement from one of the carriages. He caught a flash of paleness at the window, quickly removed; then the door opened and a young man stepped out into the snow. He buttoned his jacket as Rhett watched, shook back his long dark hair, and fixed Rhett with imposing black eyes.
“Out for a stroll?” he inquired drily. His voice was marked by an accent that strongly hinted towards a foreign education, most likely French. Everyone in Savannah seemed to have either French or English blood. As far as Rhett could tell from conversations overheard, they spent most of their time trying to outdo each other with tales of increasingly debauched ancestors.
“On my way home,” said Rhett, and made the older man a bow. “For your prurient information, the party is breaking up. They’ll be abandoning the hall in droves, shortly.”
The young man eyed Rhett for a moment, then grinned, sharp and wily as a wolf. “Your warning is duly noted, and appreciated. I will conclude my own business in a rapid manner. Philippe Robillard,” he added, offering Rhett his hand. Rhett shook it.
“Rhett Butler. A visitor to your fair city.”
“And how do you like it?”
Rhett glanced around the quiet streets.
“I’ve often heard that Savannah was haunted by more ghosts and haints than any other city in Georgia. Having met most of its adult population, I can readily believe it.”
Philippe had an engaging laugh; he threw his dark head back and shouted briefly to the sky in his amusement. Rhett saw a face appear at the carriage window; pale, luminous, of striking beauty. The unknown girl glanced quickly towards Rhett, more lingeringly towards Philippe, and disappeared once more.
Philippe grinned once again at Rhett, and made him a bow in return. Rhett waved a hand and went on his way, unwilling to risk his goodwill by staying to observe just who it was in the carriage with him. As he went, he heard Philippe call to his lady softly, through the now-open door.
“Come on out, Ellen. It is snowing.”
Rhett sped his steps towards home, grinning to himself.
Home, for the next month or so, was the house of his widowed maternal uncle, Mathew Oglethorpe, and his sons Stillman and Boyd. Rhett’s cousin Stillman was seven years his senior, but had taken a liking to the elder son of Langston Butler, and decided promptly upon meeting him to become his mentor. Rhett was quite sure he did not need a mentor; but Stillman was jolly company, and as bored as Rhett became in Savannah, he accepted his cousin’s interest, somewhat equivocally.
Uncle Mathew lived in a house that was small by plantation standards, but rather more the norm in town. The evening after the New Year’s ball, Rhett had found a chess set and badgered Stillman into a game, seated by the fire in the otherwise empty front room.
“I don’t play chess particularly well,” Stillman said ruminatively.
“That’s because you only seem to move your rook,” said Rhett, eyeing the board. “At any rate, it’s that much easier for me. Check.”
Stillman dawdled his rook two squares sideways, and yawned. “I can think of better things to do, you know. You say this town is dead- but there’s some livebloods still, tucked away.”
Rhett grumbled under his breath. “It’s not hardly even worth playing, if you’re only going to be distracted so easily. Shah mat.”
“Hmm?”
“Check mate, for you laymen.”
Stillman cleared his throat. “Speaking of laymen, cousin-” He eyed the younger man for a moment, then appeared to come to a decision. “Up on your feet. Put on your coat.”
“It’s late. Where are we going?”
“It can hardly matter to you, can it? You won. Come along, Rhett, there’s nothing left for you here.” Grinning obscurely, Stillman took Rhett’s arm and pulled him out of the room, bullied him into his coat, glanced in a few open doorways to make certain they were not observed, and conducted him out of the house. “Tell me,” he said, once they were walking down the frozen streets, “what do you do in Charleston for entertainment?”
Rhett considered the circumstances, and his cousin’s furtive, gleeful tone.
“You mean, after we’ve trounced our cousins at chess, I presume?”
Stillman took a tighter grip on Rhett’s arm, as though he feared Rhett would run away.
“When the married folks are all asleep,” Rhett went on, “or, at least, half of them. The female half. The nightgoing species, the illicit male, sallies forth to Sally, forcibly. Is that what you’re getting after, hmm?”
Stillman shushed him, but Rhett was much too amused by his cousin’s obvious embarrassment to stop now.
“Well, cousin, it was your idea, if I recall. I said shah mat- ‘the King is ambushed,’ or possibly ‘dead’- and it obviously stirred some sort of memory in you. I said check, and immediately your keen and incisive mind said mate-”
“It’s a long walk,” said the flustered Stillman, still good natured. “I doubt you’d find the way on your own.”
Rhett took the hint and walked on in silence; but his grin was eloquent. Their destination lay several streets away, towards the outskirts of town, and they made the journey with increasingly hurried steps, heads down and shoulders hunched against the cold. The establishment in question was in the upstairs of a large, columned house that loomed up out of the darkness with a curious luminescence. Rhett stopped and stared at it questioningly.
“It’s painted pink,” Stillman told him, grinning, “but if I were you I wouldn’t come back during the daylight to investigate.”
They went on towards the steps. As they were angling around the broken gate, which was stuck ajar but wouldn’t swing any further in either direction, the front door opened, spilling light and noise out onto the snow-drifted porch. Two bodies came forth- one doing the ejecting, one being ejected. The troublemaker was tossed out carelessly, rolling down the steps and getting to his knees once he came to a stop. He put a hand to his forehead and swayed. Stillman wisely held back, but Rhett hurried forward to see if he was alright.
The light shining on the man’s face proved it a familiar one. Dark eyes, turned torrid with drink and anger, and a thin-lipped, once good-natured mouth now mouthed curses and threats. The man at the top of the steps waved a hand at him.
“Calm down, Robillard. Things will go better for you if you do. You’re barred from this establishment as it is, and if you don’t want everyone in town knowing you frequent-”
Philippe spat into the snow. “As if they would not know already! Savannah is rife with tell-tales and gossipy hens. Let them talk about me! It will be good amusement for a long winter by the fire.”
“That’s about the only amusement you’re likely to get,” said the man soberly, then glanced past Rhett to fix on Stillman. “Mr. Oglethorpe, sure is good to see you again. You’re welcome into the warm as soon as you step past that wretch.”
“Hold on,” said Rhett, though no one had spoken to him. He checked Philippe’s head. “Do you feel alright?”
Philippe grinned up at him, still swaying. “Never better, friend. I’ll get up now.” With Rhett’s hasty assistance, he made it to his feet. “No need for such a place, for such low-class girls! For sharing! When I have the very highest class for my own. Yes- yes, I will go to Ellen’s. She will not turn me out, on a night like this.”
Rhett held onto the older boy with both arms. “I wouldn’t advise that, Mr. Robillard. You’re in no condition-”
“You’d best leave Ellen Robillard alone, boy,” put in Stillman. “Her father’s not going to much like-”
“Don’t bother with him,” said the man on the steps. He was a dark shadow, turning away, moving towards the door. “We sent a messenger to his father. He’ll be here to collect him, shortly. Leave him in the snow and come on in, gentlemen.”
Philippe sagged in Rhett’s arms, and Rhett nodded to Stillman. “Go on in, cousin. I’ll wait with him.”
Stillman heaved a sigh, shook his head at Rhett’s ludicrous show of kindness, and went up the steps. The door closed behind him, taking with it the light and promise of warmth. Rhett maneuvered Philippe to sit on the steps, brushing snow away from both of them.
“Made a mess, didn’t I,” mumbled Philippe into Rhett’s shoulder. “What are they going to do this time, I wonder?”
“This time?”
Philippe grinned. “If nothing else, friend, I always persevere. If I have a habit, bad or good, I will stick with it, you see?”
“Everybody causes trouble at one point or another,” said Rhett, uneasy. “You apologize, or don’t apologize depending on who you caused trouble for, and you move on again.”
“Wrong,” said Philippe. “You cause trouble, and trouble follows you. It hounds you at every step. You cause trouble once too often and it will never leave you be. You will walk down the street and people will say, ‘Quick, let us cross to the other side. Here comes Philippe Robillard and he is trouble.’” He sighed. “And you- what is your name again, friend?”
“Rhett Butler.”
“‘Here comes that dastardly Rhett Butler,’” said Philippe, mimicking some high-society belle in his tone. “‘He always causes the trouble.’”
Rhett was not entirely sure he liked the implication that there was no coming back for trouble-makers; he’d not thought of such a thing before. Though frequently threatened with disinheritance and disownment from his father, he had never taken it seriously. Once struck from the family Bible, were you struck from society’s consciousness as well? The idea bothered him in a niggling sort of way, like a thistle working its way down his boot.
Philippe was talking on- rambling a bit, now. “It’s only Ellen who sees me for who and what I really am. Have you heard of Ellen, Butler? Have you met the girl? She’s my cousin, you see. We’re going to be married.” He smiled a little, fondly. “Never saw a girl so deeply in love. You wouldn’t think the object of her affection could see it, would you? But I see it. She’s alive when I’m with her. She’s real.”
There was a noise from the street; Philippe’s father was coming to collect him. He was a tall man, imposing, somewhere in his sixties, and not at all pleased at the sight of his son. He advanced on the steps with a long, swinging gait, and without preamble gripped Philippe by the arm and hauled him upright. Rhett, choosing the better part of valor, remained seated.
Philippe shoved his father away, and stood on his own, swaying. His father spoke rapidly in French, so rapidly that Rhett- who had been temporarily well-educated: the knowledge dissipated from his brain as soon as he left school- caught only a word or two. But the words were not necessary; from the tone, he could tell that Philippe was getting a thorough dressing-down. Philippe stood it for a moment, then shook his head angrily.
“I’ll go where I like,” he said. “I come here when I like, I leave here when I like. They cannot throw me out of everywhere.” He sat down again on the steps, and his father, livid with anger, grasped him once more by the arm. Philippe shot to his feet again, and before any of the three were quite aware, swung his fist at his father. It hit him on the chin, and the older man staggered back a step or two.
They froze in a bizarre tableau for a moment or two; then Philippe’s shoulders slumped, his head went down, and all the fight and fine white fire went out of him.
“You will leave,” said his father quietly. “You will go from here at once, and never return.”
He turned from the house of ill repute, shaking the snow from his feet. Philippe slumped along at his heels, like a dog with tail tucked. Rhett watched them go, then shook his head and rose to his feet decisively.
Philippe was probably right, he reasoned. If you sought out trouble while you were young, likely it got used to the company and followed you the rest of your days, too. But that was no reason to let it interfere with tonight.
He found his way into the warm house, and shivered the snow from his clothing.
Two days later, already chafing at Savannah traditions and the endless gossip, Rhett took a walk. He purposefully left as soon as dinner started, in order to remain unaccompanied and alone. Stillman made no move to get up from his meat course, and from Rhett’s parents, he received only a glare of disapproval. Such expressions were practically meaningless to Rhett, however. At least, when it came to escaping his family. He faced the outside with a grin. Wild glares couldn’t keep him away.
His thoughts, as he walked, returned always to the conversation with Philippe. The young man had not been seen since that night; and there were rumors that he had been discreetly shipped west, to stay with family in a town where there was less emphasis on being a gentleman. The discussion on once a troublemaker, always a troublemaker was a constant refrain in Rhett’s mind. He could not shake loose from it.
Without realizing it, he had retraced his steps to the very house where the conversation had taken place. In the daylight, even waning as it was, the house was still and silent. Just waiting for the onset of darkness to come to life. Rhett paused outside the gate and looked at it for a moment. The snow had continued to fall that night, and obliterated all signs of his presence.
There was movement to the side of the house, where the oncoming dusk had already begun to gather. Rhett stepped inside the gate without a second thought, and moved towards the shadows. As he thought, it was a woman; a dark figure trying unsuccessfully to hide around the corner of the house. Rhett stepped in front of her, full in the light, and waited.
“I don’t suppose I can offer you an escort home, Miss Robillard?”
The figure started, and in the dark he made out the movement as she clasped her hands.
“Do I know you, sir?”
“Not to speak to,” said Rhett, and grinned. “Such is my lot in life- I am rarely if ever known well enough to speak to. No, I’m a passing acquaintance of your cousin, Philippe Robillard.”
“Ah!” she said. “I understand now.”
“I sincerely doubt you do,” said Rhett, “but that doesn’t matter at the moment. I don’t suppose I can persuade you to leave the vicinity before someone who matters finds you lurking around a house of ill repute?”
She stepped forward, head held high. “I am only waiting for someone.”
“Someone who isn’t there,” said Rhett, kindly, and held his hand out for her to take. She kept her hands clasped, however, and took no notice of his offer. Rhett withdrew and put his hands on his hips. “You ought to have realized by now that he isn’t hiding out anywhere in town.”
She did realize it; it took him a moment to come to this conclusion. But Ellen Robillard’s face was marred by a look of tender desperation, as though nothing quite mattered, now that Philippe was nowhere to be seen. Rhett scrutinized her for a moment.
“I almost didn’t recognize you in the light,” he said. The shoulders straightened.
“Pray tell, what do you intend by that remark?”
“I mean it was you in company with Philippe in the carriage, a few nights ago. Wasn’t it? I saw a face at the window, but I couldn’t be sure.”
“Mr. Robillard is my cousin,” said Ellen, dropping her eyes demurely. “We are shortly to be married.”
Rhett paused. “No,” he said, regretfully, “you’re not.”
Ellen allowed the silence to carry on a moment longer; Rhett admired her strength when she admitted, with only the slightest hitch in her breath, “No.”
He proffered his hand again; this time she took it. Her gloved hand was tiny, and beneath his fingers he felt the buttons up her palm and wrist. He led her from the garden, and through the gate to the street.
“Now. I dislike to repeat myself, but perhaps in this instance you’ll forgive me. May I offer you escort home?”
“It isn’t dark,” said Ellen, directing her cool blue eyes anywhere but at him. “And I do not even know your name.”
He took a breath. “It’s Rhett-”
“Nor,” she continued stormily, “would I care to. Thank you for your concern, sir. I can see myself home.”
He bowed deeply to the young woman- how old could she be? It was impossible to tell from her manner and bearing, and the face was misleading. And, of course, it was impolite to ask.
He asked anyway. The response was as frigid look from those blue eyes, and a lifted chin. Impertinent questions had no place here, apparently. Rhett grinned.
“I’ll only be in town a short while-” he began, and again the chin went up.
“Good,” said Ellen Robillard, shortly. He was close enough to see that her eyes were reddened from weeping, though her face showed no traces. She looked calm and collected, impossibly high above everyone else. He marveled at the distance.
Somewhere in there, he suspected, was a very intriguing lady; but she was shifting out of sight now, hidden in cloaks of gentility. Even the shortness of her recent reply was draining out of her. As he watched, her chin came down, and she looked on him, for once, as though he were more than a bug.
“Young man,” she said, “have you any idea what love is all about, I wonder?”
He considered for a moment. “Likely my ideas are unfit for such ladylike ears. I’ll say no.”
Ellen nodded, briefly, her eyes turning soft and sad. “That is well for you. I pray that you are never forced to find out.”
She had turned from beautiful young creature to a face of sorrowful experience before his eyes. Aghast at such a transformation, he started towards her, one hand held out. But Ellen made him a quick bow and left, trailing a wispy sort of sadness behind her like a widow’s veil. Rhett was left to stare after her with a beguiling, aching sense of having lost something important, something magical; not a loss just on his own part, but as though he’d seen it go out of the world, not even leaving one of Savannah’s famed haints behind it.
“You wouldn’t have gotten anywhere, anyway,” said Stillman comfortably.
“I didn’t try,” said Rhett, with a little indignation.
Stillman pulled on his pipe as he lit it, shook out the match, shrugged. “Just as well. As I say, you wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. Those Robillards- the women especially, they say- are proud as Lucifer. Not even the black sheep of the Butler family would have a chance.”
It wasn’t that he wanted a chance, Rhett wanted to say; it wasn’t that he was eager to settle down, court the right kind of belle, step into the place of beau. It was only that there was something odd and beguiling about young Miss Robillard; something which made him deeply regretful. He couldn’t quite put a finger on where, or why it should do so; but it did.
“It’s useless trying to explain it to you,” he told his cousin, and shoved his hands in his pockets.
The news arrived later that week that Ellen Robillard had accepted the hand of an Irishman nearly thirty years older than she. The house was abuzz with it, though there was no appearance of scandal. Merely wonder that the young woman should take an offer so soon- and such an offer! She would have to leave her family behind, as well, and take up residence on some plantation to the south.
The news gave Rhett pause.
The beautiful Ellen Robillard and an upstart, stubborn Irishman? He could hardly credit it, but it was more than a rumor; it would be announced the next week by Ellen’s father. Such a marriage, such a union, would be bound to have interesting results.
He couldn’t help wondering what the results would be.
As Lucifer
1842 went out like a lamb, an irrational snowfall softening everything in sight and stemming the boisterous New Years Eve parties that otherwise might have carried on well into the next morning. In the crowd that swelled towards the doors, calling goodbyes to friends and relatives, Rhett swam amidst strangers, caught partial conversations with a listless ear.
“And tomorrow? What of tomorrow?”
“I’ll be there, Henry.”
“Call for me jus’ about five, then-”
“I’ll see you to your carriage, Miss-”
His parents were still embroiled in the midst of the throng, making protracted farewells to friends and family they’d not seen for over a year. Rhett found them- his mother’s outdated bonnet, looking almost farcical in the sea of latest trends, his father’s high forehead shining under the guttering lamps- and found difficulty in suppressing a sneer. Relentlessly pretending that everything was just fine, thank you ma’am. Not that their elder son was a disappointment to them at all, no sir. Not that they’d had an argument in the carriage on the way to this very ball, oh no.
Perhaps he’d walk home. It wasn’t far, and despite the misleading snowfall, the cold was not sharp. He could put his hands in his pockets and whistle as he walked and there was no one to say him nay.
Rhett emerged from the stuffy hall, breathing deeply, shaking his head to rid himself of the cloudy atmosphere of the New Years ball. Full of some he knew only vaguely, and most he knew not at all; and, worse, all were uninteresting. Perhaps his father was right, and perhaps it was usual for a boy his age to take an interest in such gatherings; but Rhett had little use for usual. He set off down the street with the intention of meandering as much as possible. Let his parents get home first and worry about him a little, if they wished.
The carriages of the partygoers were parked up and down the street, and some arranged in rows in the empty lot next to the hall. The drivers had all been let into the cellar, which served as withdrawing room for servants during the colder months. The lot was a boneyard of carriages, still and ghostly in the eerie light reflected off the snow. Rhett pushed his hands deeper into his pockets and began to whistle cheerfully, as though the noise might ward off any haints that might be lingering around the carriage yard.
As if in answer, there was noise and movement from one of the carriages. He caught a flash of paleness at the window, quickly removed; then the door opened and a young man stepped out into the snow. He buttoned his jacket as Rhett watched, shook back his long dark hair, and fixed Rhett with imposing black eyes.
“Out for a stroll?” he inquired drily. His voice was marked by an accent that strongly hinted towards a foreign education, most likely French. Everyone in Savannah seemed to have either French or English blood. As far as Rhett could tell from conversations overheard, they spent most of their time trying to outdo each other with tales of increasingly debauched ancestors.
“On my way home,” said Rhett, and made the older man a bow. “For your prurient information, the party is breaking up. They’ll be abandoning the hall in droves, shortly.”
The young man eyed Rhett for a moment, then grinned, sharp and wily as a wolf. “Your warning is duly noted, and appreciated. I will conclude my own business in a rapid manner. Philippe Robillard,” he added, offering Rhett his hand. Rhett shook it.
“Rhett Butler. A visitor to your fair city.”
“And how do you like it?”
Rhett glanced around the quiet streets.
“I’ve often heard that Savannah was haunted by more ghosts and haints than any other city in Georgia. Having met most of its adult population, I can readily believe it.”
Philippe had an engaging laugh; he threw his dark head back and shouted briefly to the sky in his amusement. Rhett saw a face appear at the carriage window; pale, luminous, of striking beauty. The unknown girl glanced quickly towards Rhett, more lingeringly towards Philippe, and disappeared once more.
Philippe grinned once again at Rhett, and made him a bow in return. Rhett waved a hand and went on his way, unwilling to risk his goodwill by staying to observe just who it was in the carriage with him. As he went, he heard Philippe call to his lady softly, through the now-open door.
“Come on out, Ellen. It is snowing.”
Rhett sped his steps towards home, grinning to himself.
Home, for the next month or so, was the house of his widowed maternal uncle, Mathew Oglethorpe, and his sons Stillman and Boyd. Rhett’s cousin Stillman was seven years his senior, but had taken a liking to the elder son of Langston Butler, and decided promptly upon meeting him to become his mentor. Rhett was quite sure he did not need a mentor; but Stillman was jolly company, and as bored as Rhett became in Savannah, he accepted his cousin’s interest, somewhat equivocally.
Uncle Mathew lived in a house that was small by plantation standards, but rather more the norm in town. The evening after the New Year’s ball, Rhett had found a chess set and badgered Stillman into a game, seated by the fire in the otherwise empty front room.
“I don’t play chess particularly well,” Stillman said ruminatively.
“That’s because you only seem to move your rook,” said Rhett, eyeing the board. “At any rate, it’s that much easier for me. Check.”
Stillman dawdled his rook two squares sideways, and yawned. “I can think of better things to do, you know. You say this town is dead- but there’s some livebloods still, tucked away.”
Rhett grumbled under his breath. “It’s not hardly even worth playing, if you’re only going to be distracted so easily. Shah mat.”
“Hmm?”
“Check mate, for you laymen.”
Stillman cleared his throat. “Speaking of laymen, cousin-” He eyed the younger man for a moment, then appeared to come to a decision. “Up on your feet. Put on your coat.”
“It’s late. Where are we going?”
“It can hardly matter to you, can it? You won. Come along, Rhett, there’s nothing left for you here.” Grinning obscurely, Stillman took Rhett’s arm and pulled him out of the room, bullied him into his coat, glanced in a few open doorways to make certain they were not observed, and conducted him out of the house. “Tell me,” he said, once they were walking down the frozen streets, “what do you do in Charleston for entertainment?”
Rhett considered the circumstances, and his cousin’s furtive, gleeful tone.
“You mean, after we’ve trounced our cousins at chess, I presume?”
Stillman took a tighter grip on Rhett’s arm, as though he feared Rhett would run away.
“When the married folks are all asleep,” Rhett went on, “or, at least, half of them. The female half. The nightgoing species, the illicit male, sallies forth to Sally, forcibly. Is that what you’re getting after, hmm?”
Stillman shushed him, but Rhett was much too amused by his cousin’s obvious embarrassment to stop now.
“Well, cousin, it was your idea, if I recall. I said shah mat- ‘the King is ambushed,’ or possibly ‘dead’- and it obviously stirred some sort of memory in you. I said check, and immediately your keen and incisive mind said mate-”
“It’s a long walk,” said the flustered Stillman, still good natured. “I doubt you’d find the way on your own.”
Rhett took the hint and walked on in silence; but his grin was eloquent. Their destination lay several streets away, towards the outskirts of town, and they made the journey with increasingly hurried steps, heads down and shoulders hunched against the cold. The establishment in question was in the upstairs of a large, columned house that loomed up out of the darkness with a curious luminescence. Rhett stopped and stared at it questioningly.
“It’s painted pink,” Stillman told him, grinning, “but if I were you I wouldn’t come back during the daylight to investigate.”
They went on towards the steps. As they were angling around the broken gate, which was stuck ajar but wouldn’t swing any further in either direction, the front door opened, spilling light and noise out onto the snow-drifted porch. Two bodies came forth- one doing the ejecting, one being ejected. The troublemaker was tossed out carelessly, rolling down the steps and getting to his knees once he came to a stop. He put a hand to his forehead and swayed. Stillman wisely held back, but Rhett hurried forward to see if he was alright.
The light shining on the man’s face proved it a familiar one. Dark eyes, turned torrid with drink and anger, and a thin-lipped, once good-natured mouth now mouthed curses and threats. The man at the top of the steps waved a hand at him.
“Calm down, Robillard. Things will go better for you if you do. You’re barred from this establishment as it is, and if you don’t want everyone in town knowing you frequent-”
Philippe spat into the snow. “As if they would not know already! Savannah is rife with tell-tales and gossipy hens. Let them talk about me! It will be good amusement for a long winter by the fire.”
“That’s about the only amusement you’re likely to get,” said the man soberly, then glanced past Rhett to fix on Stillman. “Mr. Oglethorpe, sure is good to see you again. You’re welcome into the warm as soon as you step past that wretch.”
“Hold on,” said Rhett, though no one had spoken to him. He checked Philippe’s head. “Do you feel alright?”
Philippe grinned up at him, still swaying. “Never better, friend. I’ll get up now.” With Rhett’s hasty assistance, he made it to his feet. “No need for such a place, for such low-class girls! For sharing! When I have the very highest class for my own. Yes- yes, I will go to Ellen’s. She will not turn me out, on a night like this.”
Rhett held onto the older boy with both arms. “I wouldn’t advise that, Mr. Robillard. You’re in no condition-”
“You’d best leave Ellen Robillard alone, boy,” put in Stillman. “Her father’s not going to much like-”
“Don’t bother with him,” said the man on the steps. He was a dark shadow, turning away, moving towards the door. “We sent a messenger to his father. He’ll be here to collect him, shortly. Leave him in the snow and come on in, gentlemen.”
Philippe sagged in Rhett’s arms, and Rhett nodded to Stillman. “Go on in, cousin. I’ll wait with him.”
Stillman heaved a sigh, shook his head at Rhett’s ludicrous show of kindness, and went up the steps. The door closed behind him, taking with it the light and promise of warmth. Rhett maneuvered Philippe to sit on the steps, brushing snow away from both of them.
“Made a mess, didn’t I,” mumbled Philippe into Rhett’s shoulder. “What are they going to do this time, I wonder?”
“This time?”
Philippe grinned. “If nothing else, friend, I always persevere. If I have a habit, bad or good, I will stick with it, you see?”
“Everybody causes trouble at one point or another,” said Rhett, uneasy. “You apologize, or don’t apologize depending on who you caused trouble for, and you move on again.”
“Wrong,” said Philippe. “You cause trouble, and trouble follows you. It hounds you at every step. You cause trouble once too often and it will never leave you be. You will walk down the street and people will say, ‘Quick, let us cross to the other side. Here comes Philippe Robillard and he is trouble.’” He sighed. “And you- what is your name again, friend?”
“Rhett Butler.”
“‘Here comes that dastardly Rhett Butler,’” said Philippe, mimicking some high-society belle in his tone. “‘He always causes the trouble.’”
Rhett was not entirely sure he liked the implication that there was no coming back for trouble-makers; he’d not thought of such a thing before. Though frequently threatened with disinheritance and disownment from his father, he had never taken it seriously. Once struck from the family Bible, were you struck from society’s consciousness as well? The idea bothered him in a niggling sort of way, like a thistle working its way down his boot.
Philippe was talking on- rambling a bit, now. “It’s only Ellen who sees me for who and what I really am. Have you heard of Ellen, Butler? Have you met the girl? She’s my cousin, you see. We’re going to be married.” He smiled a little, fondly. “Never saw a girl so deeply in love. You wouldn’t think the object of her affection could see it, would you? But I see it. She’s alive when I’m with her. She’s real.”
There was a noise from the street; Philippe’s father was coming to collect him. He was a tall man, imposing, somewhere in his sixties, and not at all pleased at the sight of his son. He advanced on the steps with a long, swinging gait, and without preamble gripped Philippe by the arm and hauled him upright. Rhett, choosing the better part of valor, remained seated.
Philippe shoved his father away, and stood on his own, swaying. His father spoke rapidly in French, so rapidly that Rhett- who had been temporarily well-educated: the knowledge dissipated from his brain as soon as he left school- caught only a word or two. But the words were not necessary; from the tone, he could tell that Philippe was getting a thorough dressing-down. Philippe stood it for a moment, then shook his head angrily.
“I’ll go where I like,” he said. “I come here when I like, I leave here when I like. They cannot throw me out of everywhere.” He sat down again on the steps, and his father, livid with anger, grasped him once more by the arm. Philippe shot to his feet again, and before any of the three were quite aware, swung his fist at his father. It hit him on the chin, and the older man staggered back a step or two.
They froze in a bizarre tableau for a moment or two; then Philippe’s shoulders slumped, his head went down, and all the fight and fine white fire went out of him.
“You will leave,” said his father quietly. “You will go from here at once, and never return.”
He turned from the house of ill repute, shaking the snow from his feet. Philippe slumped along at his heels, like a dog with tail tucked. Rhett watched them go, then shook his head and rose to his feet decisively.
Philippe was probably right, he reasoned. If you sought out trouble while you were young, likely it got used to the company and followed you the rest of your days, too. But that was no reason to let it interfere with tonight.
He found his way into the warm house, and shivered the snow from his clothing.
Two days later, already chafing at Savannah traditions and the endless gossip, Rhett took a walk. He purposefully left as soon as dinner started, in order to remain unaccompanied and alone. Stillman made no move to get up from his meat course, and from Rhett’s parents, he received only a glare of disapproval. Such expressions were practically meaningless to Rhett, however. At least, when it came to escaping his family. He faced the outside with a grin. Wild glares couldn’t keep him away.
His thoughts, as he walked, returned always to the conversation with Philippe. The young man had not been seen since that night; and there were rumors that he had been discreetly shipped west, to stay with family in a town where there was less emphasis on being a gentleman. The discussion on once a troublemaker, always a troublemaker was a constant refrain in Rhett’s mind. He could not shake loose from it.
Without realizing it, he had retraced his steps to the very house where the conversation had taken place. In the daylight, even waning as it was, the house was still and silent. Just waiting for the onset of darkness to come to life. Rhett paused outside the gate and looked at it for a moment. The snow had continued to fall that night, and obliterated all signs of his presence.
There was movement to the side of the house, where the oncoming dusk had already begun to gather. Rhett stepped inside the gate without a second thought, and moved towards the shadows. As he thought, it was a woman; a dark figure trying unsuccessfully to hide around the corner of the house. Rhett stepped in front of her, full in the light, and waited.
“I don’t suppose I can offer you an escort home, Miss Robillard?”
The figure started, and in the dark he made out the movement as she clasped her hands.
“Do I know you, sir?”
“Not to speak to,” said Rhett, and grinned. “Such is my lot in life- I am rarely if ever known well enough to speak to. No, I’m a passing acquaintance of your cousin, Philippe Robillard.”
“Ah!” she said. “I understand now.”
“I sincerely doubt you do,” said Rhett, “but that doesn’t matter at the moment. I don’t suppose I can persuade you to leave the vicinity before someone who matters finds you lurking around a house of ill repute?”
She stepped forward, head held high. “I am only waiting for someone.”
“Someone who isn’t there,” said Rhett, kindly, and held his hand out for her to take. She kept her hands clasped, however, and took no notice of his offer. Rhett withdrew and put his hands on his hips. “You ought to have realized by now that he isn’t hiding out anywhere in town.”
She did realize it; it took him a moment to come to this conclusion. But Ellen Robillard’s face was marred by a look of tender desperation, as though nothing quite mattered, now that Philippe was nowhere to be seen. Rhett scrutinized her for a moment.
“I almost didn’t recognize you in the light,” he said. The shoulders straightened.
“Pray tell, what do you intend by that remark?”
“I mean it was you in company with Philippe in the carriage, a few nights ago. Wasn’t it? I saw a face at the window, but I couldn’t be sure.”
“Mr. Robillard is my cousin,” said Ellen, dropping her eyes demurely. “We are shortly to be married.”
Rhett paused. “No,” he said, regretfully, “you’re not.”
Ellen allowed the silence to carry on a moment longer; Rhett admired her strength when she admitted, with only the slightest hitch in her breath, “No.”
He proffered his hand again; this time she took it. Her gloved hand was tiny, and beneath his fingers he felt the buttons up her palm and wrist. He led her from the garden, and through the gate to the street.
“Now. I dislike to repeat myself, but perhaps in this instance you’ll forgive me. May I offer you escort home?”
“It isn’t dark,” said Ellen, directing her cool blue eyes anywhere but at him. “And I do not even know your name.”
He took a breath. “It’s Rhett-”
“Nor,” she continued stormily, “would I care to. Thank you for your concern, sir. I can see myself home.”
He bowed deeply to the young woman- how old could she be? It was impossible to tell from her manner and bearing, and the face was misleading. And, of course, it was impolite to ask.
He asked anyway. The response was as frigid look from those blue eyes, and a lifted chin. Impertinent questions had no place here, apparently. Rhett grinned.
“I’ll only be in town a short while-” he began, and again the chin went up.
“Good,” said Ellen Robillard, shortly. He was close enough to see that her eyes were reddened from weeping, though her face showed no traces. She looked calm and collected, impossibly high above everyone else. He marveled at the distance.
Somewhere in there, he suspected, was a very intriguing lady; but she was shifting out of sight now, hidden in cloaks of gentility. Even the shortness of her recent reply was draining out of her. As he watched, her chin came down, and she looked on him, for once, as though he were more than a bug.
“Young man,” she said, “have you any idea what love is all about, I wonder?”
He considered for a moment. “Likely my ideas are unfit for such ladylike ears. I’ll say no.”
Ellen nodded, briefly, her eyes turning soft and sad. “That is well for you. I pray that you are never forced to find out.”
She had turned from beautiful young creature to a face of sorrowful experience before his eyes. Aghast at such a transformation, he started towards her, one hand held out. But Ellen made him a quick bow and left, trailing a wispy sort of sadness behind her like a widow’s veil. Rhett was left to stare after her with a beguiling, aching sense of having lost something important, something magical; not a loss just on his own part, but as though he’d seen it go out of the world, not even leaving one of Savannah’s famed haints behind it.
“You wouldn’t have gotten anywhere, anyway,” said Stillman comfortably.
“I didn’t try,” said Rhett, with a little indignation.
Stillman pulled on his pipe as he lit it, shook out the match, shrugged. “Just as well. As I say, you wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. Those Robillards- the women especially, they say- are proud as Lucifer. Not even the black sheep of the Butler family would have a chance.”
It wasn’t that he wanted a chance, Rhett wanted to say; it wasn’t that he was eager to settle down, court the right kind of belle, step into the place of beau. It was only that there was something odd and beguiling about young Miss Robillard; something which made him deeply regretful. He couldn’t quite put a finger on where, or why it should do so; but it did.
“It’s useless trying to explain it to you,” he told his cousin, and shoved his hands in his pockets.
The news arrived later that week that Ellen Robillard had accepted the hand of an Irishman nearly thirty years older than she. The house was abuzz with it, though there was no appearance of scandal. Merely wonder that the young woman should take an offer so soon- and such an offer! She would have to leave her family behind, as well, and take up residence on some plantation to the south.
The news gave Rhett pause.
The beautiful Ellen Robillard and an upstart, stubborn Irishman? He could hardly credit it, but it was more than a rumor; it would be announced the next week by Ellen’s father. Such a marriage, such a union, would be bound to have interesting results.
He couldn’t help wondering what the results would be.