Rhett Butler's people (47 page)

"How could you shame me, dear? Please, come in."

Belle eased into the kitchen. When Melanie suggested they proceed to the parlor, Belle demurred. "Thank you, ma'am, but the kitchen's fine."

Staring at the stranger, Beau wrapped around his mother's legs.

Melanie pulled out a stool. "Won't you sit? Will you take a cup of tea?"

Belle's mouth was dry from nervousness. "I wouldn't mind a glass of water."

Melanie worked the pitcher pump until cool water splashed. Like all Atlanta well water, it tasted of iron.

"Mrs. Wilkes, I thank you for seein' me and I won't pester you much. You ain't so snooty as them other ladies and I thought I might ask you ..."

Melanie's gentle smile invited Belle's confidence.

There were fresh daisies in a vase beside the sink and bright windows overlooked a lovingly tended garden.

"Right nice garden," Belle said. "Right nice greens."

"Thank you. You shall take some with you."

"Oh, no Mrs. Wilkes. I didn't mean I wanted none." Belle dropped her eyes. "I was just sayin' they was nice."

"Well," Melanie said, "I always have a cup of tea this time of day. Won't you join me?" She stooped to shake the stove grate and add wood to the firebox.

It was a newfangled stove with a water tank perched beside the hood. When Belle admired it, Melanie said ready hot water was convenient. Belle

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asked if Mr. Wilkes liked managing a sawmill, and after a slight hesitation, Melanie told her, "Mr. Wilkes was reared as a gentleman."

Belle asked if Miss Pittypat Hamilton still owned the house behind the garden and Melanie said yes, that she and her brother, Charles, had been raised by Miss Pittypat and when the Wilkeses returned to Atlanta after the war, they'd been fortunate to rent the house that backed up on Melanie's childhood home. So many memories.

"Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy livin' with Miss Pittypat now?"

"Why yes, they are. We're doubly blessed. My son and I spent the last year of the War on Mrs. Kennedy's family plantation, Tara." Melanie added, "Of course Scarlett wasn't Mrs. Kennedy at that time. Scarlett is my brother Charles's widow."

Belle yearned to ask if the Kennedys' marriage was happy, but she couldn't think how to phrase that question. She set her teacup down so quickly, it clicked against the saucer. "Mrs. Wilkes, a gentleman has took my heart."

"Why Belle, what good news! My own marriage has been so fortunate, I pity women who've never wed."

"Things ain't gone so far as that. The thing is, Mrs. Wilkes" -- Belle's face glowed with earnestness -- "my gentleman's a Gentleman and I ain't no Lady."

Melanie thought before replying. "I'm not sure, Miss Watling, how important that distinction is. Doesn't God love all his children?"

"Maybe He does, but all His children surely don't love all His other children. Generally, Gentlemen, they love Ladies, and the Other Sort loves the Other Sort."

Belle wished she could be as serene as Mrs. Wilkes. She wished she didn't feel sweat starting. What if a drop ran down her arm, where Mrs. Wilkes could see it? She gulped tea and pressed on. "I came to ask you, Mrs. Wilkes. How can I turn myself into a lady?"

The tiny flicker at the back of Melanie's eyes almost killed Belle's hopes then and there, but Melanie's smile was kind. She said, "I've never thought about it. To be a lady doesn't one act and seem like a lady?"

"I don't know, Mrs. Wilkes. That's why I come."

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"But your ... occupation ..."

"I don't see no more callers. I just own the place."

"I see."

"I mean, how can I

seem

like a lady? I dunno know how to act and I dunno how to dress. Mrs. Wilkes, I dunno know how to think like a lady thinks!" When Belle opened her hands helplessly, a cold drop of sweat trickled down her rib cage. "Mrs. Wilkes, where can I get clothes like yours?"

"Dear me, Miss Watling. Being a lady is more than -- "

"I got money."

"I'm afraid money -- "

"But right clothes and money are a start, aren't they?"

"Well, I suppose they might be...."

So later that week, without telling a soul, Melanie Wilkes escorted Belle Watling to Atlanta's best dressmaker. Miss Smithers was an octoroon who had been free colored before the War, and no white women had higher standards of propriety.

Nowadays, most of Miss Smithers's business came from Carpetbaggers' or Yankee officers' wives. Her establishment was a shotgun house on Mitchell Street. In her front room, one dressmaker's dummy wore a delicate high-necked blouse, while another was naked brown muslin stretched over a wire frame. Bolts of cloth -- piques, lawns, worsteds, failles, velvets, and brocades -- draped Miss Smithers's counters and pattern books were stacked higher than the diminutive dressmaker's head.

She touched the pattern books. "What style do you fancy, Miss Watling? Paris, London, New York, Boston?"

"You make Mrs. Kennedy's clothes?"

"Why yes, I do."

"I want to be somewheres between her and" -- Belle pointed at her companion -- "Mrs. Wilkes here."

Unwrapped, the parcel Belle held so tenderly contained the gray dress Pyhett had given her. "Oh dear, I'm afraid I cannot alter this garment." Miss Smithers held the dress up. "The neckline and bodice ... I'm afraid not. And we don't wear hoops these days."

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"Can't you find the same fabric? My dearest friend give me this."

Miss Smithers thought to explain that no two fabrics were exactly alike, that this weave was French, that... the seamstress relented at the hope in Belle's eyes. "I will see what I can do," she said.

After they had arranged for dresses, blouses, and jackets, Melanie took Belle to the German shoemaker, where Belle was fitted for three pairs, one in patent leather.

Before they parted, Melanie said, "I'm afraid, Belle, that being a lady is more than proper clothes. It is an attitude. From your ... experience, you may know more of business and politics than ladies are supposed to know. Gentlemen are pleased to think ladies are ornamental, and it is an ill-advised ornament who contradicts her gentleman."

"Thank you."

"You'll want to read books -- novels, because ladies are frivolous; poetry because ladies are sentimental; and sermons, because we are pious. If you must read essays, Mr. Emerson might be best. Your gentleman may have a nodding acquaintance with his works." Melanie paused. "Your diction, Belle ..."

"The way I talk, you mean?"

"Imitate the heroines of novels. Ladies talk as they do."

Although Mr. Belmont's jewelry store had burned and his safe hadn't proved as fireproof as its maker had promised, Belmont had set up again not far from his prewar location. Belle wanted ear bobs to match the cameo she showed him. "They got to match this brooch. It is my prized possession."

Fine jewelers are as discreet as undertakers and priests. Belmont admired the cameo extravagantly, as if he'd never seen it before, and sold Belle the most expensive cameo ear bobs he had.

Belle's new gowns were prints in muted shades. Her blouses were lawn and silk, with lace at the neckline. When Belle stood before Miss Smithers's pier glass, she didn't recognize the lady looking back at her.

"Mercy me," Belle gasped.

"Yes, Miss Watling." The dressmaker smiled, satisfied. "Yes indeed!"

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Emboldened, Belle promenaded into the Kimball House, Atlanta's newest hotel. Glittering crystal chandeliers hung over a lobby whose black-and-white checkerboard floor was scattered with Oriental rugs. A porter waited, poised, beside Atlanta's first steam "elevator." Although Belle saw a few gentlemen she'd known in a business way, none recognized her. Over tea -- "So refreshing, don't you think?" Belle told the waiter -- Belle studied real ladies covertly, how they held their teacups, where they set their spoons, and how they folded their napkins.

Tuesdays and Thursdays, Belle took tea at the Kimball House, and one fine Sunday she attended church -- not St. Philip's Episcopal, where the Wilkeses worshiped, but the Second Presbyterian, which Belle figured wouldn't be so hoity-toity.

After the service, Belle introduced herself to the preacher as Mrs. Butler -- the Savannah Butlers -- visiting Atlanta kin.

"I hope you'll worship with us again, Mrs. Butler," the clergyman said.

Tazewell Watling wrote his mother about his friends at his English school, their sports, and his successes on the rugby team. Not long after he arrived at Shrewsbury School, he'd concluded a letter with "When Captain Butler visited London after the Confederate surrender, he telegraphed the Headmaster his intent to visit me. I asked the Head to tell Captain Butler that I would not see him."

When she began her transformation, Belle wrote:

Dear Taz,

Do you see many lords and ladies in England? Have you ever seen Queen Victoria? I would love to see the Queen and all those fancy castles.

Minette is running the house while I try on fancy dresses and drink tea at the Kimball House. Atlanta is so up-to-date! They've even got an elevator!

Say, what do you think of Sir Walter Scott's

Ivanhoer'

It's a funny old book, but I'm partial to it.

Dear son, there have been some mighty changes in your old Ma's life. I ain't going to let anybody tell me who I am!

Who knows, I might even marry somebody!

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I miss you, dear Taz!

Your loving Ma, Ruth Belle Watling

Rhett was out of town two weeks in three and Belle forwarded his mail to the St. Nicholas Hotel in New York City, the Spotswood in Richmond, or the St. Louis in New Orleans.

When Rhett was in Atlanta, Belle lingered in his office, knitting while he did accounts, answered correspondence, and signed documents she didn't pretend to understand. Having learned from

Godey's Lady's Book

about British tea customs, every afternoon at three, she brought a tray with biscuits, cups, and her new china teapot.

Her Cyprians exchanged knowing looks.

Lisa, the country girl who'd been Belle's housemaid during the war, returned to the Chapeau Rouge looking for work. Lisa confessed she'd fallen on hard times, become nothing better than "a slut" and "a common drunk." She confessed, "Miz Watling, I can't half tell you the wickedness I got up to." Lisa hadn't touched a drop in six months, and Belle had always had a soft spot for the girl.

Two days later, Rhett came downstairs and met her.

Lisa licked her lips, "Please, Captain Butler, I ain't that girl no more."

"Get out," Rhett said.

For fear he'd murder her, Lisa departed so precipitously that she left her belongings, which MacBeth bundled and took to the sporting house where she'd found work. Belle didn't dare ask Rhett why he'd banished the girl. Some months later, Belle heard Lisa had been taken up by a rich Scalawag and Belle figured things had turned out as well for little Lisa as they were going to.

Three days after the Georgia legislature unanimously refused to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment, a telegram came for Rhett: "Father died today. Burial Friday. Please come. Rosemary."

"Oh Rhett, I'm sorry," Belle said.

"Funnily," Rhett said, "I am, too."

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Chapter

Chapter Thirty-two

Miss Elizabeth Kneels

Langston Butler's anger had defied the undertaker's art: The poor man's attempts to pad and pinch the corpse's features into a pleasant expression had been defeated by the resolutely down-turned mouth, puckered lips, and frown lines no embalmer's wax could disguise.

Langston Butler had sought deference, obedience, and power. He'd never pleasured in the inconsequential: a heron's awkward flight, the evanescence of riffles on a sandy beach, the astonishing softness of the underside of a woman's arm. In his entire lifetime, Langston Butler had never once chanced being a fool.