"Ruin and Redemption"

Leaving Time

“Scarlett, what are you doing in there?” Derrick asked. He had knocked on the door three times already, and Scarlett was not answering. Was she that angry with him still? Perhaps he should just go away and try back later, though he hated to concede to the whims of a slave.

He was just walking away from the house, when he saw a man coming out of the window near Scarlett’s room and running towards the slave cabins. What was he doing? Derrick wondered initially. How strange!

And then, it hit him. The man was running from him. The man was Scarlett’s lover, and he was running away from Derrick, his Master! Derrick felt incredibly ridiculous and humiliated standing there watching his slave running away, and wondering what Scarlett thought of him, who he was. Was the man a better lover than Derrick? Was that possible?

Was Derrick just a meal ticket for her, then? Did she really just want to be with another slave like herself?  How long had he been sharing her with this unknown fieldhand? Derrick felt disgusted just thinking about it!

How could she do that when he had set her up in this house and given her everything she needed, had even allowed her and her children access to books and tutoring from Lizzie? Scarlett was an ungrateful bitch! How dare she treat him like this! Well, if she wanted to be with a slave, she could go back to the fields!

But it wouldn’t be his fields. She, and her lover could go elsewhere, together. He would let her know right now. He would keep the children, if they wanted to stay. But Scarlett was going to go. There was no other way; She wasn’t going to stay here and take advantage of his and Lizzie’s charity anymore while she cuckolded him with one of the hands!

Derrick was outraged, when Scarlett came to the door and called for him.

“What?!” He turned on her angrily.

“Derrick…I, what’ wrong, honey?”

“Don’t honey me!” How dare she pretend she had a relationship with him! She was just using him to gain special privileges, just like Lizzie had thought at first!

“What do you mean, Derrick?”

“You shouldn’t even be addressing me by my first name, Scarlett! After all, you’re just my slave aren’t you? You could care less about me one way or the other! As long as you’ve got a nice place of your own to live in away from the fields! But you never really left the fields, did you?” He demanded, getting in her face, and snarling the words at her. “First it was Nathan and now its, I don’t know who the hell that was, Scarlett! Leaving your house!” He pointed towards the fields in frustration. Now he was enraged, thinking about the other man leaving and Scarlett trying to cover things up as if he had no brains to figure things out!

“He was just…”

“F--king you? Right?”

“He was just vis’tin’, Derrick.” How could she tell him that she had been reading to him? That now she knew enough to share her knowledge, and Ben had figured it out and come to her for a lesson? He’d be even angrier wouldn’t he?

“And what exactly was he doing on his visit, Scarlett?” Derrick demanded, sarcastically. What other explanation could there be but that she had invited him in to satisfy her needs?

“He was just, he was just…he was learnin’ to read, Mr. Derrick.”

“What?!” He grabbed her arm. “Who gave you permission to teach anyone else, Scarlett? I specifically allowed Lizzie to teach you and the kids, just you three!”

“I, I, he asked me, Derrick. He knew I was learnin’ somehow. I couldn’t say no.”

“Yes, you could have said no! And you should have! I only let you learn to read because the kids are free, and they belonged to Michael, and I can’t stand looking at them anymore, lately, thinking about him! He won’t f--king leave me alone about it, putting a guilt trip on me to let his kids be educated, like its my fault somehow what happened to him!”

“What do you mean, Derrick?” He pulled back and let her go. How could it be she didn’t know what he had mistakenly done? He hadn’t really wanted Michael to die, not in the end.

“Nothing, Scarlett. I just meant he talks to me, the same as all of us. We were friends once, you know. And I guess he wasn’t exactly an ordinary slave, was he? Maybe he really was a chief’s son, I don’t know. Mr. Henderson wanted him to be educated and now Michael wants the same for his kids.”

“But what do you have to do with what happened to Michael, Derrick? You weren’t with them patrollers were you?” She asked suspiciously. Then it came to her. “Oh my God…Patsy said she couldn’t ever tell Lizzie who set things up, it would just kill her…it was too good a friend… It was you, wasn’t it?” She looked on him in horror and disbelief. Her lover for the past six years had had her husband murdered! She had thought Michael had only spoken out of jealousy when he had told her to stay away from Derrick; Now she understood.

He cringed back from the look in her eyes. “I didn’t set anything up, Scarlett! I was just trying to make sure he didn’t get away!”

“Oh, my God, Derrick! He practically told me! I didn’t believe it! I didn’t believe a thing! I just thought they were there, waitin’. I thought Patsy was half crazy from grief like I was! Or maybe it was Mr. Stack who told ‘em!” She screamed at him.

“You got my husband kilt Derrick!” She came towards him and started beating her fists against his chest. He crushed her to him, and pulled her in tightly so she wouldn’t be able to pound her fists on him anymore. He hoped he could offer her some comfort as well. Why was this one thing still haunting him all these years later?

“I’m sorry, Scarlett. I tried to stop it; I changed my mind! Why doesn’t he ever give me any credit for that, at least?” He said as much to himself as to Scarlett.

After the incident, Scarlett hardly talked to Derrick for two weeks. She opened the door sullenly, dully fed him if he asked, and pushed him away when he tried to come close to her. Every time he was rebuffed, Derrick went back to his formal relationship with Lizzie feeling more lonely and morose than before. The situation was just intolerable; He wanted to return to Charleston and visit the prostitutes again, but he didn’t want to be so close to all the fighting. It wouldn’t be long before the war was here and he would have to join it, but right now he preferred to stay away if he could. He could take his wounded pride with him and visit Rebecca again, but after the humiliation of last time, and her rejection of his offer to take care of her as his Mistress, he hardly wanted to go back as a mere client. He might have to, though. Unless he broke the promise he had made to himself  when he had seen those men take Mary away. He would never take another woman from the fields again. But what was he going to do? He couldn’t just go indefinitely like this being rejected by both Scarlett and Lizzie. How was he going to last like this?