Gone with the Wind

Chapter XXXI

On a cold January afternoon in 1866, Scarlett sat in the office writing a letter to Aunt Pitty, explaining in detail for the tenth time why neither she, Melanie nor Ashley could come back to Atlanta to live with her. She wrote impatiently because she knew Aunt Pitty would read no farther than the opening lines and then write her again, wailing: “But I’m afraid to live by myself!”

Her hands were chilled and she paused to rub them together and to scuff her feet deeper into the strip of old quilting wrapped about them. The soles of her slippers were practically gone and were reinforced with pieces of carpet. The carpet kept her feet off the floor but did little to keep them warm. That morning Will had taken the horse to Jonesboro to get him shod. Scarlett thought grimly that things were indeed at a pretty pass when horses had shoes and people’s feet were as bare as yard dogs’.

She picked up her quill to resume her writing but laid it down when she heard Will coming in at the back door. She heard the thumpthump of his wooden leg in the hall outside the office and then he stopped. She waited for a moment for him to enter and when he made no move she called to him. He came in, his ears red from the cold, his pinkish hair awry, and stood looking down at her, a faintly humorous smile on his lips.

“Miss Scarlett,” he questioned, “just how much cash money have you got?”

“Are you going to try to marry me for my money, Will?” she asked somewhat crossly.

“No, Ma’m. But I just wanted to know.”

She stared at him inquiringly. Will didn’t look serious, but then he never looked serious. However, she felt that something was wrong.

“I’ve got ten dollars in gold,” she said. “The last of that Yankee’s money.”

“Well, Ma’m, that won’t be enough.”

“Enough for what?”

“Enough for the taxes,” he answered and, stumping over to the fireplace, he leaned down and held his red hands to the blaze.

“Taxes?” she repeated. “Name of God, Will! We’ve already paid the taxes.”

“Yes’m. But they say you didn’t pay enough. I heard about it today over to Jonesboro.”

“But, Will, I can’t understand. What do you mean?”

“Miss Scarlett, I sure hate to bother you with more trouble when you’ve had your share but I’ve got to tell you. They say you ought to paid lots more taxes than you did. They’re runnin’ the assessment up on Tara sky high—higher than any in the County, I’ll be bound.”

“But they can’t make us pay more taxes when we’ve already paid them once.”

“Miss Scarlett, you don’t never go to Jonesboro often and I’m glad you don’t. It ain’t no place for a lady these days. But if you’d been there much, you’d know there’s a mighty rough bunch of Scallawags and Republicans and Carpetbaggers been runnin’ things recently. They’d make you mad enough to pop. And then, too, niggers pushin’ white folks off the sidewalks and—”

“But what’s that got to do with our taxes?”

“I’m gettin’ to it, Miss Scarlett. For some reason the rascals have histed the taxes on Tara till you’d think it was a thousandbale place. After I heard about it, I sorter oozed around the barrooms pickin’ up gossip and I found out that somebody wants to buy in Tara cheap at the sheriff’s sale, if you can’t pay the extra taxes. And everybody knows pretty well that you can’t pay them. I don’t know yet who it is wants this place. I couldn’t find out. But I think that pusillanimous feller, Hilton, that married Miss Cathleen knows, because he laughed kind of nasty when I tried to sound him out.”

Will sat down on the sofa and rubbed the stump of his leg. It ached in cold weather and the wooden peg was neither well padded nor comfortable. Scarlett looked at him wildly. His manner was so casual when he was sounding the death knell of Tara. Sold out at the sheriff’s sale? Where would they all go? And Tara belonging to some one else! No, that was unthinkable!

She had been so engrossed with the job of making Tara produce she had paid little heed to what was going on in the world outside. Now that she had Will and Ashley to attend to whatever business she might have in Jonesboro and Fayetteville, she seldom left the plantation. And even as she had listened with deaf ears to her father’s war talk in the days before the war came, so she had paid little heed to Will and Ashley’s discussions around the table after supper about the beginnings of Reconstruction.

Oh, of course, she knew about the Scallawags—Southerners who had turned Republican very profitably—and the Carpetbaggers, those Yankees who came South like buzzards after the surrender with all their worldly possessions in one carpetbag. And she had had a few unpleasant experiences with the Freedmen’s Bureau. She had gathered, also, that some of the free negroes were getting quite insolent. This last she could hardly believe, for she had never seen an insolent negro in her life.

But there were many things which Will and Ashley had conspired to keep from her. The scourge of war had been followed by the worse scourge of Reconstruction, but the two men had agreed not to mention the more alarming details when they discussed the situation at home. And when Scarlett took the trouble to listen to them at all, most of what they said went in one ear and out the other.

She had heard Ashley say that the South was being treated as a conquered province and that vindictiveness was the dominant policy of the conquerors. But that was the kind of statement which meant less than nothing at all to Scarlett. Politics was men’s business. She had heard Will say it looked to him like the North just wasn’t aiming to let the South get on its feet again. Well, thought Scarlett, men always had to have something foolish to worry about. As far as she was concerned, the Yankees hadn’t whipped her once and they wouldn’t do it this time. The thing to do was to work like the devil and stop worrying about the Yankee government. After all, the war was over.

Scarlett did not realize that all the rules of the game had been changed and that honest labor could no longer earn its just reward. Georgia was virtually under martial law now. The Yankee soldiers garrisoned throughout the section and the Freedmen’s Bureau were in complete command of everything and they were fixing the rules to suit themselves.

This Bureau, organized by the Federal government to take care of the idle and excited ex-slaves, was drawing them from the plantations into the villages and cities by the thousands. The Bureau fed them while they loafed and poisoned their minds against their former owners. Gerald’s old overseer, Jonas Wilkerson, was in charge of the local Bureau, and his assistant was Hilton, Cathleen Calvert’s husband. These two industriously spread the rumor that the Southerners and Democrats were just waiting for a good chance to put the negroes back into slavery and that the negroes’ only hope of escaping this fate was the protection given them by the Bureau and the Republican party.

Wilkerson and Hilton furthermore told the negroes they were as good as the whites in every way and soon white and negro marriages would be permitted, soon the estates of their former owners would be divided and every negro would be given forty acres and a mule for his own. They kept the negroes stirred up with tales of cruelty perpetrated by the whites and, in a section long famed for the affectionate relations between slaves and slave owners, hate and suspicion began to grow.

The Bureau was backed up by the soldiers and the military had issued many and conflicting orders governing the conduct of the conquered. It was easy to get arrested, even for snubbing the officials of the Bureau. Military orders had been promulgated concerning the schools, sanitation, the kind of buttons one wore on one’s suit, the sale of commodities and nearly everything else. Wilkerson and Hilton had the power to interfere in any trade Scarlett might make and to fix their own prices on anything she sold or swapped.

Fortunately Scarlett had come into contact with the two men very little, for Will had persuaded her to let him handle the trading while she managed the plantation. In his mild-tempered way, Will had straightened out several difficulties of this kind and said nothing to her about them. Will could get along with Carpetbaggers and Yankees—if he had to. But now a problem had arisen which was too big for him to handle. The extra tax assessment and the danger of losing Tara were matters Scarlett had to know about—and right away.

She looked at him with flashing eyes.

“Oh, damn the Yankees!” she cried. “Isn’t it enough that they’ve licked us and beggared us without turning loose scoundrels on us?”

The war was over, peace had been declared, but the Yankees could still rob her, they could still starve her, they could still drive her from her house. And fool that she was, she had thought through weary months that if she could just hold out until spring, everything would be all right. This crushing news brought by Will, coming on top of a year of back-breaking work and hope deferred, was the last straw.

“Oh, Will, and I thought our troubles were all over when the war ended!”

“No’m.” Will raised his lantern-jawed, country-looking face and gave her a long steady look. “Our troubles are just gettin’ started.”

“How much extra taxes do they want us to pay?”

“Three hundred dollars.”

She was struck dumb for a moment. Three hundred dollars! It might just as well be three million dollars.

“Why,” she floundered, “why—why, then we’ve got to raise three hundred, somehow.”

“Yes’m—and a rainbow and a moon or two.”

“Oh, but Will! They couldn’t sell out Tara. Why—”

His mild pale eyes showed more hate and bitterness than she thought possible.

“Oh, couldn’t they? Well, they could and they will and they’ll like doin’ it! Miss Scarlett, the country’s gone plumb to hell, if you’ll pardon me. Those Carpetbaggers and Scallawags can vote and most of us Democrats can’t. Can’t no Democrat in this state vote if he was on the tax books for more than two thousand dollars in ’sixty-five. That lets out folks like your pa and Mr. Tarleton and the McRaes and the Fontaine boys. Can’t nobody vote who was a colonel and over in the war and, Miss Scarlett, I bet this state’s got more colonels than any state in the Confederacy. And can’t nobody vote who held office under the Confederate government and that lets out everybody from the notaries to the judges, and the woods are full of folks like that. Fact is, the way the Yankees have framed up that amnesty oath, can’t nobody who was somebody before the war vote at all. Not the smart folks nor the quality folks nor the rich folks.

“Huh! I could vote if I took their damned oath. I didn’t have any money in ’sixty-five and I certainly warn’t a colonel or nothin’ remarkable. But I ain’t goin’ to take their oath. Not by a dinged sight! If the Yankees had acted right, I’d have taken their oath of allegiance but I ain’t now. I can be restored to the Union but I can’t be reconstructed into it. I ain’t goin’ to take their oath even if I don’t never vote again—But scum like that Hilton feller, he can vote, and scoundrels like Jonas Wilkerson and pore whites like the Slatterys and no-counts like the MacIntoshes, they can vote. And they’re runnin’ things now. And if they want to come down on you for extra taxes a dozen times, they can do it. Just like a nigger can kill a white man and not get hung or—” He paused, embarrassed, and the memory of what had happened to a lone white woman on an isolated farm near Lovejoy was in both their minds… “Those niggers can do anything against us and the Freedmen’s Bureau and the soldiers will back them up with guns and we can’t vote or do nothin’ about it.”

“Vote!” she cried. “Vote! What on earth has voting got to do with all this, Will? It’s taxes we’re talking about… Will, everybody knows what a good plantation Tara is. We could mortgage it for enough to pay the taxes, if we had to.”

“Miss Scarlett, you ain’t any fool but sometimes you talk like one. Who’s got any money to lend you on this property? Who except the Carpetbaggers who are tryin’ to take Tara away from you? Why, everybody’s got land. Everybody’s land pore. You can’t give away land.”

“I’ve got those diamond earbobs I got off that Yankee. We could sell them.”

“Miss Scarlett, who ’round here has got money for earbobs? Folks ain’t got money to buy side meat, let alone gewgaws. If you’ve got ten dollars in gold, I take oath that’s more than most folks have got.”

They were silent again and Scarlett felt as if she were butting her head against a stone wall. There had been so many stone walls to butt against this last year.

“What are we goin’ to do, Miss Scarlett?”

“I don’t know,” she said dully and felt that she didn’t care. This was one stone wall too many and she suddenly felt so tired that her bones ached. Why should she work and struggle and wear herself out? At the end of every struggle it seemed that defeat was waiting to mock her.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But don’t let Pa know. It might worry him.”

“I won’t.”

“Have you told anyone?”

“No, I came right to you.”

Yes, she thought, everyone always came right to her with bad news and she was tired of it.

“Where is Mr. Wilkes? Perhaps he’ll have some suggestion.”

Will turned his mild gaze on her and she felt, as from the first day when Ashley came home, that he knew everything.

“He’s down in the orchard splittin’ rails. I heard his axe when I was puttin’ up the horse. But he ain’t got any money any more than we have.”

“If I want to talk to him about it, I can, can’t I?” she snapped, rising to her feet and kicking the fragment of quilting from her ankles.

Will did not take offense but continued rubbing his hands before the flame. “Better get your shawl, Miss Scarlett. It’s raw outside.”

But she went without the shawl, for it was upstairs and her need to see Ashley and lay her troubles before him was too urgent to wait.

How lucky for her if she could find him alone! Never once since his return had she had a private word with him. Always the family clustered about him, always Melanie was by his side, touching his sleeve now and again to reassure herself he was really there. The sight of that happy possessive gesture had aroused in Scarlett all the jealous animosity which had slumbered during the months when she had thought Ashley probably dead. Now she was determined to see him alone. This time no one was going to prevent her from talking with him alone.

She went through the orchard under the bare boughs and the damp weeds beneath them wet her feet. She could hear the sound of the axe ringing as Ashley split into rails the logs hauled from the swamp. Replacing the fences the Yankees had so blithely burned was a long hard task. Everything was a long hard task, she thought wearily, and she was tired of it, tired and mad and sick of it all. If only Ashley were her husband, instead of Melanie’s, how sweet it would be to go to him and lay her head upon his shoulder and cry and shove her burdens onto him to work out as best he might.

She rounded a thicket of pomegranate trees which were shaking bare limbs in the cold wind and saw him leaning on his axe, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. He was wearing the remains of his butternut trousers and one of Gerald’s shirts, a shirt which in better times went only to Court days and barbecues, a ruffled shirt which was far too short for its present owner. He had hung his coat on a tree limb, for the work was hot, and he stood resting as she came up to him.

At the sight of Ashley in rags, with an axe in his hand, her heart went out in a surge of love and of fury at fate. She could not bear to see him in tatters, working, her debonaire immaculate Ashley. His hands were not made for work or his body for anything but broadcloth and fine linen. God intended him to sit in a great house, talking with pleasant people, playing the piano and writing things which sounded beautiful and made no sense whatsoever.

She could endure the sight of her own child in aprons made of sacking and the girls in dingy old gingham, could bear it that Will worked harder than any field hand, but not Ashley. He was too fine for all this, too infinitely dear to her. She would rather split logs herself than suffer while he did it.

“They say Abe Lincoln got his start splitting rails,” he said as she came up to him. “Just think to what heights I may climb!”

She frowned. He was always saying light things like this about their hardships. They were deadly serious matters to her and sometimes she was almost irritated at his remarks.

Abruptly she told him Will’s news, tersely and in short words, feeling a sense of relief as she spoke. Surely, he’d have something helpful to offer. He said nothing but, seeing her shiver, he took his coat and placed it about her shoulders.

“Well,” she said finally, “doesn’t it occur to you that we’ll have to get the money somewhere?”

“Yes,” he said, “but where?”

“I’m asking you,” she replied, annoyed. The sense of relief at unburdening herself had disappeared. Even if he couldn’t help, why didn’t he say something comforting, even if it was only: “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

He smiled.

“In all these months since I’ve been home I’ve only heard of one person, Rhett Butler, who actually has money,” he said.

Aunt Pittypat had written Melanie the week before that Rhett was back in Atlanta with a carriage and two fine horses and pocketfuls of greenbacks. She had intimated, however, that he didn’t come by them honestly. Aunt Pitty had a theory, largely shared by Atlanta, that Rhett had managed to get away with the mythical millions of the Confederate treasury.

“Don’t let’s talk about him,” said Scarlett shortly. “He’s a skunk if ever there was one. What’s to become of us all?”

Ashley put down the axe and looked away and his eyes seemed to be journeying to some far-off country where she could not follow.

“I wonder,” he said. “I wonder not only what will become of us at Tara but what will become of everybody in the South.”

She felt like snapping out abruptly: “To hell with everybody in the South! What about us?” but she remained silent because the tired feeling was back on her more strongly than ever. Ashley wasn’t being any help at all.

“In the end what will happen will be what has happened whenever a civilization breaks up. The people who have brains and courage come through and the ones who haven’t are winnowed out. At least, it has been interesting, if not comfortable, to witness a Gotterdammerung.”

“A what?”

“A dusk of the gods. Unfortunately, we Southerners did think we were gods.”

“For Heaven’s sake, Ashley Wilkes! Don’t stand there and talk nonsense at me when it’s us who are going to be winnowed out!”

Something of her exasperated weariness seemed to penetrate his mind, calling it back from its wanderings, for he raised her hands with tenderness and, turning them palm up, looked at the calluses.

“These are the most beautiful hands I know,” he said and kissed each palm lightly. “They are beautiful because they are strong and every callus is a medal, Scarlett, every blister an award for bravery and unselfishness. They’ve been roughened for all of us, your father, the girls, Melanie, the baby, the negroes and for me. My dear, I know what you are thinking. You’re thinking, ‘Here stands an impractical fool talking tommyrot about dead gods when living people are in danger.’ Isn’t that true?”

She nodded, wishing he would keep on holding her hands forever, but he dropped them.

“And you came to me, hoping I could help you. Well, I can’t.”

His eyes were bitter as he looked toward the axe and the pile of logs.

“My home is gone and all the money that I so took for granted I never realized I had it. And I am fitted for nothing in this world, for the world I belonged in has gone. I can’t help you, Scarlett, except by learning with as good grace as possible to be a clumsy farmer. And that won’t keep Tara for you. Don’t you think I realize the bitterness of our situation, living here on your charity—Oh, yes, Scarlett, your charity. I can never repay you what you’ve done for me and for mine out of the kindness of your heart. I realize it more acutely every day. And every day I see more clearly how helpless I am to cope with what has come on us all—Every day my accursed shrinking from realities makes it harder for me to face the new realities. Do you know what I mean?”

She nodded. She had no very clear idea what he meant but she clung breathlessly on his words. This was the first time he had ever spoken to her of the things he was thinking when he seemed so remote from her. It excited her as if she were on the brink of a discovery.

“It’s a curse—this not wanting to look on naked realities. Until the war, life was never more real to me than a shadow show on a curtain. And I preferred it so. I do not like the outlines of things to be too sharp. I like them gently blurred, a little hazy.”

He stopped and smiled faintly, shivering a little as the cold wind went through his thin shirt.

“In other words, Scarlett, I am a coward.”

His talk of shadow shows and hazy outlines conveyed no meaning to her but his last words were in language she could understand. She knew they were untrue. Cowardice was not in him. Every line of his slender body spoke of generations of brave and gallant men and Scarlett knew his war record by heart.

“Why, that’s not so! Would a coward have climbed on the cannon at Gettysburg and rallied the men? Would the General himself have written Melanie a letter about a coward? And—”

“That’s not courage,” he said tiredly. “Fighting is like champagne. It goes to the heads of cowards as quickly as of heroes. Any fool can be brave on a battle field when it’s be brave or else be killed. I’m talking of something else. And my kind of cowardice is infinitely worse than if I had run the first time I heard a cannon fired.”

His words came slowly and with difficulty as if it hurt to speak them and he seemed to stand off and look with a sad heart at what he had said. Had any other man spoken so, Scarlett would have dismissed such protestations contemptuously as mock modesty and a bid for praise. But Ashley seemed to mean them and there was a look in his eyes which eluded her—not fear, not apology, but the bracing to a strain which was inevitable and overwhelming. The wintry wind swept her damp ankles and she shivered again but her shiver was less from the wind than from the dread his words evoked in her heart.

“But, Ashley, what are you afraid of?”

“Oh, nameless things. Things which sound very silly when they are put into words. Mostly of having life suddenly become too real, of being brought into personal, too personal, contact with some of the simple facts of life. It isn’t that I mind splitting logs here in the mud, but I do mind what it stands for. I do mind, very much, the loss of the beauty of the old life I loved. Scarlett, before the war, life was beautiful. There was a glamor to it, a perfection and a completeness and a symmetry to it like Grecian art. Maybe it wasn’t so to everyone. I know that now. But to me, living at Twelve Oaks, there was a real beauty to living. I belonged in that life. I was a part of it. And now it is gone and I am out of place in this new life, and I am afraid. Now, I know that in the old days it was a shadow show I watched. I avoided everything which was not shadowy, people and situations which were too real, too vital. I resented their intrusion. I tried to avoid you too, Scarlett. You were too full of living and too real and I was cowardly enough to prefer shadows and dreams.”

“But—but—Melly?”

“Melanie is the gentlest of dreams and a part of my dreaming. And if the war had not come I would have lived out my life, happily buried at Twelve Oaks, contentedly watching life go by and never being a part of it. But when the war came, life as it really is thrust itself against me. The first time I went into action—it was at Bull Run, you remember—I saw my boyhood friends blown to bits and heard dying horses scream and learned the sickeningly horrible feeling of seeing men crumple up and spit blood when I shot them. But those weren’t the worst things about the war, Scarlett. The worst thing about the war was the people I had to live with.

“I had sheltered myself from people all my life, I had carefully selected my few friends. But the war taught me I had created a world of my own with dream people in it. It taught me what people really are, but it didn’t teach me how to live with them. And I’m afraid I’ll never learn. Now, I know that in order to support my wife and child, I will have to make my way among a world of people with whom I have nothing in common. You, Scarlett, are taking life by the horns and twisting it to your will. But where do I fit in the world any more? I tell you I am afraid.”

While his low resonant voice went on, desolate, with a feeling she could not understand, Scarlett clutched at words here and there, trying to make sense of them. But the words swooped from her hands like wild birds. Something was driving him, driving him with a cruel goad, but she did not understand what it was.

“Scarlett, I don’t know just when it was that the bleak realization came over me that my own private shadow show was over. Perhaps in the first five minutes at Bull Run when I saw the first man I killed drop to the ground. But I knew it was over and I could no longer be a spectator. No, I suddenly found myself on the curtain, an actor, posturing and making futile gestures. My little inner world was gone, invaded by people whose thoughts were not my thoughts, whose actions were as alien as a Hottentot’s. They’d tramped through my world with slimy feet and there was no place left where I could take refuge when things became too bad to stand. When I was in prison, I thought: When the war is over, I can go back to the old life and the old dreams and watch the shadow show again. But, Scarlett, there’s no going back. And this which is facing all of us now is worse than war and worse than prison—and, to me, worse than death… So, you see, Scarlett, I’m being punished for being afraid.”

“But, Ashley,” she began, floundering in a quagmire of bewilderment, “if you’re afraid we’ll starve, why—why—Oh, Ashley, we’ll manage somehow! I know we will!”

For a moment, his eyes came back to her, wide and crystal gray, and there was admiration in them. Then, suddenly, they were remote again and she knew with a sinking heart that he had not been thinking about starving. They were always like two people talking to each other in different languages. But she loved him so much that, when he withdrew as he had now done, it was like the warm sun going down and leaving her in chilly twilight dews. She wanted to catch him by the shoulders and hug him to her, make him realize that she was flesh and blood and not something he had read or dreamed. If she could only feel that sense of oneness with him for which she had yearned since that day, so long ago, when he had come home from Europe and stood on the steps of Tara and smiled up at her.

“Starving’s not pleasant,” he said. “I know for I’ve starved, but I’m not afraid of that. I am afraid of facing life without the slow beauty of our old world that is gone.”

Scarlett thought despairingly that Melanie would know what he meant. Melly and he were always talking such foolishness, poetry and books and dreams and moonrays and star dust. He was not fearing the things she feared, not the gnawing of an empty stomach, nor the keenness of the winter wind nor eviction from Tara. He was shrinking before some fear she had never known and could not imagine. For, in God’s name, what was there to fear in this wreck of a world but hunger and cold and the loss of home?

And she had thought that if she listened closely she would know the answer to Ashley.

“Oh!” she said and the disappointment in her voice was that of a child who opens a beautifully wrapped package to find it empty. At her tone, he smiled ruefully as though apologizing.

“Forgive me, Scarlett, for talking so. I can’t make you understand because you don’t know the meaning of fear. You have the heart of a lion and an utter lack of imagination and I envy you both of those qualities. You’ll never mind facing realities and you’ll never want to escape from them as I do.”

“Escape!”

It was as if that were the only understandable word he had spoken. Ashley, like her, was tired of the struggle and he wanted to escape. Her breath came fast.

“Oh, Ashley,” she cried, “you’re wrong. I do want to escape, too. I am so very tired of it all!”

His eyebrows went up in disbelief and she laid a hand, feverish and urgent, on his arm.

“Listen to me,” she began swiftly, the words tumbling out one over the other. “I’m tired of it all, I tell you. Bone tired and I’m not going to stand it any longer. I’ve struggled for food and for money and I’ve weeded and hoed and picked cotton and I’ve even plowed until I can’t stand it another minute. I tell you, Ashley, the South is dead! It’s dead! The Yankees and the free niggers and the Carpetbaggers have got it and there’s nothing left for us. Ashley, let’s run away!”

He peered at her sharply, lowering his head to look into her face, now flaming with color.

“Yes, let’s run away—leave them all! I’m tired of working for the folks. Somebody will take care of them. There’s always somebody who takes care of people who can’t take care of themselves. Oh, Ashley, let’s run away, you and I. We could go to Mexico—they want officers in the Mexican Army and we could be so happy there. I’d work for you, Ashley. I’d do anything for you. You know you don’t love Melanie—”

He started to speak, a stricken look on his face, but she stemmed his words with a torrent of her own.

“You told me you loved me better than her that day—oh, you remember that day! And I know you haven’t changed! I can tell you haven’t changed! And you’ve just said she was nothing but a dream—Oh, Ashley, let’s go away! I could make you so happy. And anyway,” she added venomously, “Melanie can’t—Dr. Fontaine said she couldn’t ever have any more children and I could give you—”

His hands were on her shoulders so tightly that they hurt and she stopped, breathless.

“We were to forget that day at Twelve Oaks.”

“Do you think I could ever forget it? Have you forgotten it? Can you honestly say you don’t love me?”

He drew a deep breath and answered quickly.

“No. I don’t love you.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Even if it is a lie,” said Ashley and his voice was deadly quiet, “it is not something which can be discussed.”

“You mean—”

“Do you think I could go off and leave Melanie and the baby, even if I hated them both? Break Melanie’s heart? Leave them both to the charity of friends? Scarlett, are you mad? Isn’t there any sense of loyalty in you? You couldn’t leave your father and the girls. They’re your responsibility, just as Melanie and Beau are mine, and whether you are tired or not, they are here and you’ve got to bear them.”

“I could leave them—I’m sick of them—tired of them—”

He leaned toward her and, for a moment, she thought with a catch at her heart that he was going to take her in his arms. But instead, he patted her arm and spoke as one comforting a child.

“I know you’re sick and tired. That’s why you are talking this way. You’ve carried the load of three men. But I’m going to help you—I won’t always be so awkward—”

“There’s only one way you can help me,” she said dully, “and that’s to take me away from here and give us a new start somewhere, with a chance for happiness. There’s nothing to keep us here.”

“Nothing,” he said quietly, “nothing—except honor.”

She looked at him with baffled longing and saw, as if for the first time, how the crescents of his lashes were the thick rich gold of ripe wheat, how proudly his head sat upon his bared neck and how the look of race and dignity persisted in his slim erect body, even through its grotesque rags. Her eyes met his, hers naked with pleading, his remote as mountain lakes under gray skies.

She saw in them defeat of her wild dream, her mad desires.

Heartbreak and weariness sweeping over her, she dropped her head in her hands and cried. He had never seen her cry. He had never thought that women of her strong mettle had tears, and a flood of tenderness and remorse swept him. He came to her swiftly and in a moment had her in his arms, cradling her comfortingly, pressing her black head to his heart, whispering: “Dear! My brave dear—don’t! You mustn’t cry!”

At his touch, he felt her change within his grip and there was madness and magic in the slim body he held and a hot soft glow in the green eyes which looked up at him. Of a sudden, it was no longer bleak winter. For Ashley, spring was back again, that halfforgotten balmy spring of green rustlings and murmurings, a spring of ease and indolence, careless days when the desires of youth were warm in his body. The bitter years since then fell away and he saw that the lips turned up to his were red and trembling and he kissed her.

There was a curious low roaring sound in her ears as of sea shells held against them and through the sound she dimly heard the swift thudding of her heart. Her body seemed to melt into his and, for a timeless time, they stood fused together as his lips took hers hungrily as if he could never have enough.

When he suddenly released her she felt that she could not stand alone and gripped the fence for support. She raised eyes blazing with love and triumph to him.

“You do love me! You do love me! Say it—say it!”

His hands still rested on her shoulders and she felt them tremble and loved their trembling. She leaned toward him ardently but he held her away from him, looking at her with eyes from which all remoteness had fled, eyes tormented with struggle and despair.

“Don’t!” he said. “Don’t! If you do, I shall take you now, here.”

She smiled a bright hot smile which was forgetful of time or place or anything but the memory of his mouth on hers.

Suddenly he shook her, shook her until her black hair tumbled down about her shoulders, shook her as if in a mad rage at her—and at himself.

“We won’t do this!” he said. “I tell you we won’t do it!”

It seemed as if her neck would snap if he shook her again. She was blinded by her hair and stunned by his action. She wrenched herself away and stared at him. There were small beads of moisture on his forehead and his fists were curled into claws as if in pain. He looked at her directly, his gray eyes piercing.

“It’s all my fault—none of yours and it will never happen again, because I am going to take Melanie and the baby and go.”

“Go?” she cried in anguish. “Oh, no!”

“Yes, by God! Do you think I’ll stay here after this? When this might happen again—”

“But, Ashley, you can’t go. Why should you go? You love me—”

“You want me to say it? All right, I’ll say it. I love you.”

He leaned over her with a sudden savagery which made her shrink back against the fence.

“I love you, your courage and your stubbornness and your fire and your utter ruthlessness. How much do I love you? So much that a moment ago I would have outraged the hospitality of the house which has sheltered me and my family, forgotten the best wife any man ever had—enough to take you here in the mud like a—”

She struggled with a chaos of thoughts and there was a cold pain in her heart as if an icicle had pierced it. She said haltingly: “If you felt like that—and didn’t take me—then you don’t love me.”

“I can never make you understand.”

They fell silent and looked at each other. Suddenly Scarlett shivered and saw, as if coming back from a long journey, that it was winter and the fields were bare and harsh with stubble and she was very cold. She saw too that the old aloof face of Ashley, the one she knew so well, had come back and it was wintry too, and harsh with hurt and remorse.

She would have turned and left him then, seeking the shelter of the house to hide herself, but she was too tired to move. Even speech was a labor and a weariness.

“There is nothing left,” she said at last. “Nothing left for me. Nothing to love. Nothing to fight for. You are gone and Tara is going.”

He looked at her for a long space and then, leaning, scooped up a small wad of red clay from the ground.

“Yes, there is something left,” he said, and the ghost of his old smile came back, the smile which mocked himself as well as her. “Something you love better than me, though you may not know it. You’ve still got Tara.”

He took her limp hand and pressed the damp clay into it and closed her fingers about it. There was no fever in his hands now, nor in hers. She looked at the red soil for a moment and it meant nothing to her. She looked at him and realized dimly that there was an integrity of spirit in him which was not to be torn apart by her passionate hands, nor by any hands.

If it killed him, he would never leave Melanie. If he burned for Scarlett until the end of his days, he would never take her and he would fight to keep her at a distance. She would never again get through that armor. The words, hospitality and loyalty and honor, meant more to him than she did.

The clay was cold in her hand and she looked at it again.

“Yes,” she said, “I’ve still got this.”

At first, the words meant nothing and the clay was only red clay. But unbidden came the thought of the sea of red dirt which surrounded Tara and how very dear it was and how hard she had fought to keep it—how hard she was going to have to fight if she wished to keep it hereafter. She looked at him again and wondered where the hot flood of feeling had gone. She could think but could not feel, not about him nor Tara either, for she was drained of all emotion.

“You need not go,” she said clearly. “I won’t have you all starve, simply because I’ve thrown myself at your head. It will never happen again.”

She turned away and started back toward the house across the rough fields, twisting her hair into a knot upon her neck. Ashley watched her go and saw her square her small thin shoulders as she went. And that gesture went to his heart, more than any words she had spoken.

Chapter XXXII

She was still clutching the ball of red clay when she went up the front steps. She had carefully avoided the back entrance, for Mammy’s sharp eyes would certainly have seen that something was greatly amiss. Scarlett did not want to see Mammy or anyone else. She did not feel that she could endure seeing anyone or talking to anyone again. She had no feeling of shame or disappointment or bitterness now, only a weakness of the knees and a great emptiness of heart. She squeezed the clay so tightly it ran out from her clenched fist and she said over and over, parrot-like: “I’ve still got this. Yes, I’ve still got this.”

There was nothing else she did have, nothing but this red land, this land she had been willing to throw away like a torn handkerchief only a few minutes before. Now, it was dear to her again and she wondered dully what madness had possessed her to hold it so lightly. Had Ashley yielded, she could have gone away with him and left family and friends without a backward look but, even in her emptiness, she knew it would have torn her heart to leave these dear red hills and long washed gullies and gaunt black pines. Her thoughts would have turned back to them hungrily until the day she died. Not even Ashley could have filled the empty spaces in her heart where Tara had been uprooted. How wise Ashley was and how well he knew her! He had only to press the damp earth into her hand to bring her to her senses.

She was in the hall preparing to close the door when she heard the sound of horse’s hooves and turned to look down the driveway. To have visitors at this of all times was too much. She’d hurry to her room and plead a headache.

But when the carriage came nearer, her flight was checked by her amazement. It was a new carriage, shiny with varnish, and the harness was new too, with bits of polished brass here and there. Strangers, certainly. No one she knew had the money for such a grand new turn-out as this.

She stood in the doorway watching, the cold draft blowing her skirts about her damp ankles. Then the carriage stopped in front of the house and Jonas Wilkerson alighted. Scarlett was so surprised at the sight of their former overseer driving so fine a rig and in so splendid a greatcoat she could not for a moment believe her eyes. Will had told her he looked quite prosperous since he got his new job with the Freedmen’s Bureau. Made a lot of money, Will said, swindling the niggers or the government, one or tuther, or confiscating folks’ cotton and swearing it was Confederate government cotton. Certainly he never came by all that money honestly in these hard times.

And here he was now, stepping out of an elegant carriage and handing down a woman dressed within an inch of her life. Scarlett saw in a glance that the dress was bright in color to the point of vulgarity but nevertheless her eyes went over the outfit hungrily. It had been so long since she had even seen stylish new clothes. Well! So hoops aren’t so wide this year, she thought, scanning the red plaid gown. And, as she took in the black velvet paletot, how short jackets are! And what a cunning hat! Bonnets must be out of style, for this hat was only an absurd flat red velvet affair, perched on the top of the woman’s head like a stiffened pancake. The ribbons did not tie under the chin as bonnet ribbons tied but in the back under the massive bunch of curls which fell from the rear of the hat, curls which Scarlett could not help noticing did not match the woman’s hair in either color or texture.

As the woman stepped to the ground and looked toward the house, Scarlett saw there was something familiar about the rabbity face, caked with white powder.

“Why, it’s Emmie Slattery!” she cried, so surprised she spoke the words aloud.

“Yes’m, it’s me,” said Emmie, tossing her head with an ingratiating smile and starting toward the steps.

Emmie Slattery! The dirty tow-headed slut whose illegitimate baby Ellen had baptized, Emmie who had given typhoid to Ellen and killed her. This overdressed, common, nasty piece of poor white trash was coming up the steps of Tara, bridling and grinning as if she belonged here. Scarlett thought of Ellen and, in a rush, feeling came back into the emptiness of her mind, a murderous rage so strong it shook her like the ague.

“Get off those steps, you trashy wench!” she cried. “Get off this land! Get out!”

Emmie’s jaw sagged suddenly and she glanced at Jonas who came up with lowering brows. He made an effort at dignity, despite his anger.

“You must not speak that way to my wife,” he said.

“Wife?” said Scarlett and burst into a laugh that was cutting with contempt. “High time you made her your wife. Who baptized your other brats after you killed my mother?”

Emmie said “Oh!” and retreated hastily down the steps but Jonas stopped her flight toward the carriage with a rough grip on her arm.

“We came out here to pay a call—a friendly call,” he snarled. “And talk a little business with old friends—”

“Friends?” Scarlett’s voice was like a whiplash. “When were we ever friends with the like of you? The Slatterys lived on our charity and paid it back by killing Mother—and you—you—Pa discharged you about Emmie’s brat and you know it. Friends? Get off this place before I call Mr. Benteen and Mr. Wilkes.”

Under the words, Emmie broke her husband’s hold and fled for the carriage, scrambling in with a flash of patent-leather boots with bright-red tops and red tassels.

Now Jonas shook with a fury equal to Scarlett’s and his sallow face was as red as an angry turkey gobbler’s.

“Still high and mighty, aren’t you? Well, I know all about you. I know you haven’t got shoes for your feet. I know your father’s turned idiot—”

“Get off this place!”

“Oh, you won’t sing that way very long. I know you’re broke. I know you can’t even pay your taxes. I came out here to offer to buy this place from you—to make you a right good offer. Emmie had a hankering to live here. But, by God, I won’t give you a cent now! You highflying, bog-trotting Irish will find out who’s running things around here when you get sold out for taxes. And I’ll buy this place, lock, stock and barrel-furniture and all—and I’ll live in it.”

So it was Jonas Wilkerson who wanted Tara—Jonas and Emmie, who in some twisted way thought to even past slights by living in the home where they had been slighted. All her nerves hummed with hate, as they had hummed that day when she shoved the pistol barrel into the Yankee’s bearded face and fired. She wished she had that pistol now.

“I’ll tear this house down, stone by stone, and burn it and sow every acre with salt before I see either of you put foot over this threshold,” she shouted. “Get out, I tell you! Get out!”

Jonas glared at her, started to say more and then walked toward the carriage. He climbed in beside his whimpering wife and turned the horse. As they drove off, Scarlett had the impulse to spit at them. She did spit. She knew it was a common, childish gesture but it made her feel better. She wished she had done it while they could see her.

Those damned nigger lovers daring to come here and taunt her about her poverty! That hound never intended offering her a price for Tara. He just used that as an excuse to come and flaunt himself and Emmie in her face. The dirty Scallawags, the lousy trashy poor whites, boasting they would live at Tara!

Then, sudden terror struck her and her rage melted. God’s nightgown! They will come and live here! There was nothing she could do to keep them from buying Tara, nothing to keep them from levying on every mirror and table and bed, on Ellen’s shining mahogany and rosewood, and every bit of it precious to her, scarred though it was by the Yankee raiders. And the Robillard silver too. I won’t let them do it, thought Scarlett vehemently. No, not if I’ve got to burn the place down! Emmie Slattery will never set her foot on a single bit of flooring Mother ever walked on!

She closed the door and leaned against it and she was very frightened. More frightened even than she had been that day when Sherman’s army was in the house. That day the worst she could fear was that Tara would be burned over her head. But this was worse—these low common creatures living in this house, bragging to their low common friends how they had turned the proud O’Haras out. Perhaps they’d even bring negroes here to dine and sleep. Will had told her Jonas made a great to-do about being equal with the negroes, ate with them, visited in their houses, rode them around with him in his carriage, put his arms around their shoulders.

When she thought of the possibility of this final insult to Tara, her heart pounded so hard she could scarcely breathe. She was trying to get her mind on her problem, trying to figure some way out, but each time she collected her thoughts, fresh gusts of rage and fear shook her. There must be some way out, there must be someone somewhere who had money she could borrow. Money couldn’t just dry up and blow away. Somebody had to have money. Then the laughing words of Ashley came back to her:

“Only one person, Rhett Butler… who has money.”

Rhett Butler. She walked quickly into the parlor and shut the door behind her. The dim gloom of drawn blinds and winter twilight closed about her. No one would think of hunting for her here and she wanted time to think, undisturbed. The idea which had just occurred to her was so simple she wondered why she had not thought of it before.

“I’ll get the money from Rhett. I’ll sell him the diamond earbobs. Or I’ll borrow the money from him and let him keep the earbobs till I can pay him back.”

For a moment, relief was so great she felt weak. She would pay the taxes and laugh in Jonas Wilkerson’s face. But close on this happy thought came relentless knowledge.

“It’s not only for this year that I’ll need tax money. There’s next year and all the years of my life. If I pay up this time, they’ll raise the taxes higher next time till they drive me out. If I make a good cotton crop, they’ll tax it till I’ll get nothing for it or maybe confiscate it outright and say it’s Confederate cotton. The Yankees and the scoundrels teamed up with them have got me where they want me. All my life, as long as I live, I’ll be afraid they’ll get me somehow. All my life I’ll be scared and scrambling for money and working myself to death, only to see my work go for nothing and my cotton stolen… Just borrowing three hundred dollars for the taxes will be only a stopgap. What I want is to get out of this fix, for good—so I can go to sleep at night without worrying over what’s going to happen to me tomorrow, and next month, and next year.”

Her mind ticked on steadily. Coldly and logically an idea grew in her brain. She thought of Rhett, a flash of white teeth against swarthy skin, sardonic black eyes caressing her. She recalled the hot night in Atlanta, close to the end of the siege, when he sat on Aunt Pitty’s porch half hidden in the summer darkness, and she felt again the heat of his hand upon her arm as he said: “I want you more than I have ever wanted any woman—and I’ve waited longer for you than I’ve ever waited for any woman.”

“I’ll marry him,” she thought coolly. “And then I’ll never have to bother about money again.”

Oh, blessed thought, sweeter than hope of Heaven, never to worry about money again, to know that Tara was safe, that the family was fed and clothed, that she would never again have to bruise herself against stone walls!

She felt very old. The afternoon’s events had drained her of all feeling, first the startling news about the taxes, then Ashley and, last, her murderous rage at Jonas Wilkerson. No, there was no emotion left in her. If all her capacity to feel had not been utterly exhausted, something in her would have protested against the plan taking form in her mind, for she hated Rhett as she hated no other person in all the world. But she could not feel. She could only think and her thoughts were very practical.

“I said some terrible things to him that night when he deserted us on the road, but I can make him forget them,” she thought contemptuously, still sure of her power to charm. “Butter won’t melt in my mouth when I’m around him. I’ll make him think I always loved him and was just upset and frightened that night. Oh, men are so conceited they’ll believe anything that flatters them… I must never let him dream what straits we’re in, not till I’ve got him. Oh, he mustn’t know! If he even suspected how poor we are, he’d know it was his money I wanted and not himself. After all, there’s no way he could know, for even Aunt Pitty doesn’t know the worst. And after I’ve married him, he’ll have to help us. He can’t let his wife’s people starve.”

His wife. Mrs. Rhett Butler. Something of repulsion, buried deep beneath her cold thinking, stirred faintly and then was stilled. She remembered the embarrassing and disgusting events of her brief honeymoon with Charles, his fumbling hands, his awkwardness, his incomprehensible emotions—and Wade Hampton.

“I won’t think about it now. I’ll bother about it after I’ve married him… ”

After she had married him. Memory rang a bell. A chill went down her spine. She remembered again that night on Aunt Pitty’s porch, remembered how she asked him if he was proposing to her, remembered how hatefully he had laughed and said: “My dear, I’m not a marrying man.”

Suppose he was still not a marrying man. Suppose despite all her charms and wiles, he refused to marry her. Suppose—oh, terrible thought!—suppose he had completely forgotten about her and was chasing after some other woman.

“I want you more than I have ever wanted any woman… ”

Scarlett’s nails dug into her palms as she clenched her fists. “If he’s forgotten me, I’ll make him remember me. I’ll make him want me again.”

And, if he would not marry her but still wanted her, there was a way to get the money. After all, he had once asked her to be his mistress.

In the dim grayness of the parlor she fought a quick decisive battle with the three most binding ties of her soul—the memory of Ellen, the teachings of her religion and her love for Ashley. She knew that what she had in her mind must be hideous to her mother even in that warm far-off Heaven where she surely was. She knew that fornication was a mortal sin. And she knew that, loving Ashley as she did, her plan was doubly prostitution.

But all these things went down before the merciless coldness of her mind and the goad of desperation. Ellen was dead and perhaps death gave an understanding of all things. Religion forbade fornication on pain of hell fire but if the Church thought she was going to leave one stone unturned in saving Tara and saving the family from starving—well, let the Church bother about that. She wouldn’t. At least, not now. And Ashley—Ashley didn’t want her. Yes, he did want her. The memory of his warm mouth on hers told her that. But he would never take her away with him. Strange that going away with Ashley did not seem like a sin, but with Rhett—

In the dull twilight of the winter afternoon she came to the end of the long road which had begun the night Atlanta fell. She had set her feet upon that road a spoiled, selfish and untried girl, full of youth, warm of emotion, easily bewildered by life. Now, at the end of the road, there was nothing left of that girl. Hunger and hard labor, fear and constant strain, the terrors of war and the terrors of Reconstruction had taken away all warmth and youth and softness. About the core of her being, a shell of hardness had formed and, little by little, layer by layer, the shell had thickened during the endless months.

But until this very day, two hopes had been left to sustain her. She had hoped that the war being over, life would gradually resume its old face. She had hoped that Ashley’s return would bring back some meaning into life. Now both hopes were gone. The sight of Jonas Wilkerson in the front walk of Tara had made her realize that for her, for the whole South, the war would never end. The bitterest fighting, the most brutal retaliations, were just beginning. And Ashley was imprisoned forever by words which were stronger than any jail.

Peace had failed her and Ashley had failed her, both in the same day, and it was as if the last crevice in the shell had been sealed, the final layer hardened. She had become what Grandma Fontaine had counseled against, a woman who had seen the worst and so had nothing else to fear. Not life nor Mother nor loss of love nor public opinion. Only hunger and her nightmare dream of hunger could make her afraid.

A curious sense of lightness, of freedom, pervaded her now that she had finally hardened her heart against all that bound her to the old days and the old Scarlett. She had made her decision and, thank God, she wasn’t afraid. She had nothing to lose and her mind was made up.

If she could only coax Rhett into marrying her, all would be perfect. But if she couldn’t—well she’d get the money just the same. For a brief moment she wondered with impersonal curiosity what would be expected of a mistress. Would Rhett insist on keeping her in Atlanta as people said he kept the Watling woman? If he made her stay in Atlanta, he’d have to pay well-pay enough to balance what her absence from Tara would be worth. Scarlett was very ignorant of the hidden side of men’s lives and had no way of knowing just what the arrangement might involve. And she wondered if she would have a baby. That would be distinctly terrible.

“I won’t think of that now. I’ll think of it later,” and she pushed the unwelcome idea into the back of her mind lest it shake her resolution. She’d tell the family tonight she was going to Atlanta to borrow money, to try to mortgage the farm if necessary. That would be all they needed to know until such an evil day when they might find out differently.

With the thought of action, her head went up and her shoulders went back. This affair was not going to be easy, she knew. Formerly, it had been Rhett who asked for her favors and she who held the power. Now she was the beggar and a beggar in no position to dictate terms.

“But I won’t go to him like a beggar. I’ll go like a queen granting favors. He’ll never know.”

She walked to the long pier glass and looked at herself, her head held high. And she saw framed in the cracking gilt molding a stranger. It was as if she were really seeing herself for the first time in a year. She had glanced in the mirror every morning to see that her face was clean and her hair tidy but she had always been too pressed by other things to really see herself. But this stranger! Surely this thin hollow-cheeked woman couldn’t be Scarlett O’Hara! Scarlett O’Hara had a pretty, coquettish, highspirited face. This face at which she stared was not pretty at all and had none of the charm she remembered so well. It was white and strained and the black brows above slanting green eyes swooped up startlingly against the white skin like frightened bird’s wings. There was a hard and hunted look about this face.

“I’m not pretty enough to get him!” she thought and desperation came back to her. “I’m thin—oh, I’m terribly thin!”

She patted her cheeks, felt frantically at her collar bones, feeling them stand out through her basque. And her breasts were so small, almost as small as Melanie’s. She’d have to put ruffles in her bosom to make them look larger and she had always had contempt for girls who resorted to such subterfuges. Ruffles! That brought up another thought. Her clothes. She looked down at her dress, spreading its mended folds wide between her hands. Rhett liked women who were well dressed, fashionably dressed. She remembered with longing the flounced green dress she had worn when she first came out of mourning, the dress she wore with the green plumed bonnet he had brought her and she recalled the approving compliments he had paid her. She remembered, too, with hate sharpened by envy the red plaid dress, the red-topped boots with tassels and the pancake hat of Emmie Slattery. They were gaudy but they were new and fashionable and certainly they caught the eye. And, oh, how she wanted to catch the eye! Especially the eye of Rhett Butler! If he should see her in her old clothes, he’d know everything was wrong at Tara. And he must not know.

What a fool she had been to think she could go to Atlanta and have him for the asking, she with her scrawny neck and hungry cat eyes and raggedy dress! If she hadn’t been able to pry a proposal from him at the height of her beauty, when she had her prettiest clothes, how could she expect to get one now when she was ugly and dressed tackily? If Miss Pitty’s story was true, he must have more money than anyone in Atlanta and probably had his pick of all the pretty ladies, good and bad. Well, she thought grimly, I’ve got something that most pretty ladies haven’t got—and that’s a mind that’s made up. And if I had just one nice dress—

There wasn’t a nice dress in Tara or a dress which hadn’t been turned twice and mended.

“That’s that,” she thought, disconsolately looking down at the floor. She saw Ellen’s moss-green velvet carpet, now worn and scuffed and torn and spotted from the numberless men who had slept upon it, and the sight depressed her more, for it made her realize that Tara was just as ragged as she. The whole darkening room depressed her and, going to the window, she raised the sash, unlatched the shutters and let the last light of the wintry sunset into the room. She closed the window and leaned her head against the velvet curtains and looked out across the bleak pasture toward the dark cedars of the burying ground.

The moss-green velvet curtains felt prickly and soft beneath her cheek and she rubbed her face against them gratefully, like a cat. And then suddenly she looked at them.

A minute later, she was dragging a heavy marble-topped table across the floor. Its rusty castors screeching in protest. She rolled the table under the window, gathered up her skirts, climbed on it and tiptoed to reach the heavy curtain pole. It was almost out of her reach and she jerked at it so impatiently the nails came out of the wood, and the curtains, pole and all, fell to the floor with a clatter.

As if by magic, the door of the parlor opened and the wide black face of Mammy appeared, ardent curiosity and deepest suspicion evident in every wrinkle. She looked disapprovingly at Scarlett, poised on the table top, her skirts above her knees, ready to leap to the floor. There was a look of excitement and triumph on her face which brought sudden distrust to Mammy.

“Whut you up to wid Miss Ellen’s po’teers?” she demanded.

“What are you up to listening outside doors?” asked Scarlett, leaping nimbly to the floor and gathering up a length of the heavy dusty velvet.

“Dat ain’ needer hyah no dar,” countered Mammy, girding herself for combat. “You ain’ got no bizness wid Miss Ellen’s po’teers, juckin’ de poles plum outer de wood, an’ drappin’ dem on de flo’ in de dust. Miss Ellen set gret sto’ by dem po’teers an’ Ah ain’ ’tendin’ ter have you muss dem up dat way.”

Scarlett turned green eyes on Mammy, eyes which were feverishly gay, eyes which looked like the bad little girl of the good old days Mammy sighed about.

“Scoot up to the attic and get my box of dress patterns, Mammy,” she cried, giving her a slight shove. “I’m going to have a new dress.”

Mammy was torn between indignation at the very idea of her two hundred pounds scooting anywhere, much less to the attic, and the dawning of a horrid suspicion. Quickly she snatched the curtain lengths from Scarlett, holding them against her monumental, sagging breasts as if they were holy relics.

“Not outer Miss Ellen’s po’teers is you gwine have a new dress, ef dat’s whut you figgerin’ on. Not w’ile Ah got breaf in mah body.”

For a moment the expression Mammy was wont to describe to herself as “bullheaded” flitted over her young mistress’ face and then it passed into a smile, so difficult for Mammy to resist. But it did not fool the old woman. She knew Miss Scarlett was employing that smile merely to get around her and in this matter she was determined not to be gotten around.

“Mammy, don’t be mean. I’m going to Atlanta to borrow some money and I’ve got to have a new dress.”

“You doan need no new dress. Ain’ no other ladies got new dresses. Dey weahs dey ole ones an’ dey weahs dem proudfully. Ain’ no reason why Miss Ellen’s chile kain weah rags ef she wants ter, an’ eve’ybody respec’ her lak she wo’ silk.”

The bullheaded expression began to creep back. Lordy, ’twus right funny how de older Miss Scarlett git de mo’ she look lak Mist’ Gerald and de less lak Miss Ellen!

“Now, Mammy you know Aunt Pitty wrote us that Miss Fanny Elsing is getting married this Saturday, and of course I’ll go to the wedding. And I’ll need a new dress to wear.”

“De dress you got on’ll be jes’ as nice as Miss Fanny’s weddin’ dress. Miss Pitty done wrote dat de Elsings mighty po’.”

“But I’ve got to have a new dress! Mammy, you don’t know how we need money. The taxes—”

“Yas’m, Ah knows all ’bout de taxes but—”

“You do?”

“Well’m, Gawd give me ears, din’ he, an’ ter hear wid? Specially w’en Mist’ Will doan never tek trouble ter close de do’.”

Was there nothing Mammy did not overhear? Scarlett wondered how that ponderous body which shook the floors could move with such savage stealth when its owner wished to eavesdrop.

“Well, if you heard all that, I suppose you heard Jonas Wilkerson and that Emmie—”

“Yas’m,” said Mammy with smoldering eyes.

“Well, don’t be a mule, Mammy. Don’t you see I’ve got to go to Atlanta and get money for the taxes? I’ve got to get some money. I’ve got to do it!” She hammered one small fist into the other. “Name of God, Mammy, they’ll turn us all out into the road and then where’ll we go? Are you going to argue with me about a little matter of Mother’s curtains when that trash Emmie Slattery who killed Mother is fixing to move into this house and sleep in the bed Mother slept in?”

Mammy shifted from one foot to another like a restive elephant. She had a dim feeling that she was being got around.

“No’m, Ah ain’ wantin’ ter see trash in Miss Ellen’s house or us all in de road but—” She fixed Scarlett with a suddenly accusing eye: “Who is you fixin’ ter git money frum dat you needs a new dress?”

“That,” said Scarlett, taken aback, “is my own business.”

Mammy looked at her piercingly, just as she had done when Scarlett was small and had tried unsuccessfully to palm off plausible excuses for misdeeds. She seemed to be reading her mind and Scarlett dropped her eyes unwillingly, the first feeling of guilt at her intended conduct creeping over her.

“So you needs a spang new pretty dress ter borry money wid. Dat doan lissen jes’ right ter me. An’ you ain’ sayin’ whar de money ter come frum.”

“I’m not saying anything,” said Scarlett indignantly. “It’s my own business. Are you going to give me that curtain and help me make the dress?”

“Yas’m,” said Mammy softly, capitulating with a suddenness which aroused all the suspicion in Scarlett’s mind. “Ah gwine he’p you mek it an’ Ah specs we mout git a petticoat outer de satin linin’ of de po’teers an’ trim a pa’r pantalets wid de lace cuttins.”

She handed the velvet curtain back to Scarlett and a sly smile spread over her face.

“Miss Melly gwine ter ’Lanta wid you, Miss Scarlett?”

“No,” said Scarlett sharply, beginning to realize what was coming. “I’m going by myself.”

“Dat’s whut you thinks,” said Mammy firmly, “but Ah is gwine wid you an’ dat new dress. Yas, Ma’m, eve’y step of de way.”

For an instant Scarlett envisaged her trip to Atlanta and her conversation with Rhett with Mammy glowering chaperonage like a large black Cerberus in the background. She smiled again and put a hand on Mammy’s arm.

“Mammy darling, you’re sweet to want to go with me and help me, but how on earth would the folks here get on without you? You know you just about run Tara.”

“Huh!” said Mammy. “Doan do no good ter sweet talk me, Miss Scarlett. Ah been knowin’ you sence Ah put de fust pa’r of diapers on you. Ah’s said Ah’s gwine ter ’Lanta wid you an’ gwine Ah is. Miss Ellen be tuhnin’ in her grabe at you gwine up dar by yo’seff wid dat town full up wid Yankees an’ free niggers an’ sech like.”

“But I’ll be at Aunt Pittypat’s,” Scarlett offered frantically.

“Miss Pittypat a fine woman an’ she think she see eve’ything but she doan,” said Mammy, and turning with the majestic air of having closed the interview, she went into the hall. The boards trembled as she called:

“Prissy, child! Fly up de stairs an’ fotch Miss Scarlett’s pattun box frum de attic an’ try an’ fine de scissors without takin’ all night ’bout it.”

“This is a fine mess,” thought Scarlett dejectedly. “I’d as soon have a bloodhound after me.”

After supper had been cleared away, Scarlett and Mammy spread patterns on the dining-room table while Suellen and Carreen busily ripped satin linings from curtains and Melanie brushed the velvet with a clean hairbrush to remove the dust. Gerald, Will and Ashley sat about the room smoking, smiling at the feminine tumult. A feeling of pleasurable excitement which seemed to emanate from Scarlett was on them all, an excitement they could not understand. There was color in Scarlett’s face and a bright hard glitter in her eyes and she laughed a good deal. Her laughter pleased them all, for it had been months since they had heard her really laugh. Especially did it please Gerald. His eyes were less vague than usual as they followed her swishing figure about the room and he patted her approvingly whenever she was within reach. The girls were as excited as if preparing for a ball and they ripped and cut and basted as if making a ball dress of their own.

Scarlett was going to Atlanta to borrow money or to mortgage Tara if necessary. But what was a mortgage, after all? Scarlett said they could easily pay it off out of next year’s cotton and have money left over, and she said it with such finality they did not think to question. And when they asked who was going to lend the money she said: “Layovers catch meddlers,” so archly they all laughed and teased her about her millionaire friend.

“It must be Captain Rhett Butler,” said Melanie slyly and they exploded with mirth at this absurdity, knowing how Scarlett hated him and never failed to refer to him as “that skunk, Rhett Butler.”

But Scarlett did not laugh at this and Ashley, who had laughed, stopped abruptly as he saw Mammy shoot a quick, guarded glance at Scarlett.

Suellen, moved to generosity by the party spirit of the occasion, produced her Irish-lace collar, somewhat worn but still pretty, and Carreen insisted that Scarlett wear her slippers to Atlanta, for they were in better condition than any others at Tara. Melanie begged Mammy to leave her enough velvet scraps to recover the frame of her battered bonnet and brought shouts of laughter when she said the old rooster was going to part with his gorgeous bronze and green-black tail feathers unless he took to the swamp immediately.

Scarlett, watching the flying fingers, heard the laughter and looked at them all with concealed bitterness and contempt.

“They haven’t an idea what is really happening to me or to themselves or to the South. They still think, in spite of everything, that nothing really dreadful can happen to any of them because they are who they are, O’Haras, Wilkeses, Hamiltons. Even the darkies feel that way. Oh, they’re all fools! They’ll never realize! They’ll go right on thinking and living as they always have, and nothing will change them. Melly can dress in rags and pick cotton and even help me murder a man but it doesn’t change her. She’s still the shy well-bred Mrs. Wilkes, the perfect lady! And Ashley can see death and war and be wounded and lie in jail and come home to less than nothing and still be the same gentleman he was when he had all Twelve Oaks behind him. Will is different. He knows how things really are but then Will never had anything much to lose. And as for Suellen and Carreen—they think all this is just a temporary matter. They don’t change to meet changed conditions because they think it’ll all be over soon. They think God is going to work a miracle especially for their benefit. But He won’t. The only miracle that’s going to be worked around here is the one I’m going to work on Rhett Butler… They won’t change. Maybe they can’t change. I’m the only one who’s changed—and I wouldn’t have changed if I could have helped it.”

Mammy finally turned the men out of the dining room and closed the door, so the fitting could begin. Pork helped Gerald upstairs to bed and Ashley and Will were left alone in the lamplight in the front hall. They were silent for a while and Will chewed his tobacco like a placid ruminant animal. But his mild face was far from placid.

“This goin’ to Atlanta,” he said at last in a slow voice, “I don’t like it. Not one bit.”

Ashley looked at Will quickly and then looked away, saying nothing but wondering if Will had the same awful suspicion which was haunting him. But that was impossible. Will didn’t know what had taken place in the orchard that afternoon and how it had driven Scarlett to desperation. Will couldn’t have noticed Mammy’s face when Rhett Butler’s name was mentioned and, besides, Will didn’t know about Rhett’s money or his foul reputation. At least, Ashley did not think he could know these things, but since coming back to Tara he had realized that Will, like Mammy, seemed to know things without being told, to sense them before they happened. There was something ominous in the air, exactly what Ashley did not know, but he was powerless to save Scarlett from it. She had not met his eyes once that evening and the hard bright gaiety with which she had treated him was frightening. The suspicions which tore at him were too terrible to be put into words. He did not have the right to insult her by asking her if they were true. He clenched his fists. He had no rights at all where she was concerned; this afternoon he had forfeited them all, forever. He could not help her. No one could help her. But when he thought of Mammy and the look of grim determination she wore as she cut into the velvet curtains, he was cheered a little. Mammy would take care of Scarlett whether Scarlett wished it or not.

“I have caused all this,” he thought despairingly. “I have driven her to this.”

He remembered the way she had squared her shoulders when she turned away from him that afternoon, remembered the stubborn lift of her head. His heart went out to her, torn with his own helplessness, wrenched with admiration. He knew she had no such word in her vocabulary as gallantry, knew she would have stared blankly if he had told her she was the most gallant soul he had ever known. He knew she would not understand how many truly fine things he ascribed to her when he thought of her as gallant. He knew that she took life as it came, opposed her tough-fibered mind to whatever obstacles there might be, fought on with a determination that would not recognize defeat, and kept on fighting even when she saw defeat was inevitable.

But, for four years, he had seen others who had refused to recognize defeat, men who rode gaily into sure disaster because they were gallant. And they had been defeated, just the same.

He thought as he stared at Will in the shadowy hall that he had never known such gallantry as the gallantry of Scarlett O’Hara going forth to conquer the world in her mother’s velvet curtains and the tail feathers of a rooster.

Chapter XXXIII

A cold wind was blowing stiffly and the scudding clouds overhead were the deep gray of slate when Scarlett and Mammy stepped from the train in Atlanta the next afternoon. The depot had not been rebuilt since the burning of the city and they alighted amid cinders and mud a few yards above the blackened ruins which marked the site. Habit strong upon her, Scarlett looked about for Uncle Peter and Pitty’s carriage, for she had always been met by them when returning from Tara to Atlanta during the war years. Then she caught herself with a sniff at her own absent-mindedness. Naturally, Peter wasn’t there for she had given Aunt Pitty no warning of her coming and, moreover, she remembered that one of the old lady’s letters had dealt tearfully with the death of the old nag Peter had “’quired” in Macon to bring her back to Atlanta after the surrender.

She looked about the rutted and cut-up space around the depot for the equipage of some old friend or acquaintance who might drive them to Aunt Pitty’s house but she recognized no one, black or white. Probably none of her old friends owned carriages now, if what Pitty had written them was true. Times were so hard it was difficult to feed and lodge humans, much less animals. Most of Pitty’s friends, like herself, were afoot these days.

There were a few wagons loading at the freight cars and several mud-splashed buggies with rough-looking strangers at the reins but only two carriages. One was a closed carriage, the other open and occupied by a well-dressed woman and a Yankee officer. Scarlett drew in her breath sharply at the sight of the uniform. Although Pitty had written that Atlanta was garrisoned and the streets full of soldiers, the first sight of the bluecoat startled and frightened her. It was hard to remember that the war was over and that this man would not pursue her, rob her and insult her.

The comparative emptiness around the train took her mind back to that morning in 1862 when she had come to Atlanta as a young widow, swathed in crepe and wild with boredom. She recalled how crowded this space had been with wagons and carriages and ambulances and how noisy with drivers swearing and yelling and people calling greetings to friends. She sighed for the light-hearted excitement of the war days and sighed again at the thought of walking all the way to Aunt Pitty’s house. But she was hopeful that once on Peachtree Street, she might meet someone she knew who would give them a ride.

As she stood looking about her a saddle-colored negro of middle age drove the closed carriage toward her and, leaning from the box, questioned: “Cah’ige, lady? Two bits fer any whar in ’Lanta.”

Mammy threw him an annihilating glance.

“A hired hack!” she rumbled. “Nigger, does you know who we is?”

Mammy was a country negro but she had not always been a country negro and she knew that no chaste woman ever rode in a hired conveyance—especially a closed carriage—without the escort of some male member of her family. Even the presence of a negro maid would not satisfy the conventions. She gave Scarlett a glare as she saw her look longingly at the hack.

“Come ’way frum dar, Miss Scarlett! A hired hack an’ a free issue nigger! Well, dat’s a good combination.”

“Ah ain’ no free issue nigger,” declared the driver with heat. “Ah b’longs ter Ole Miss Talbot an’ disyere her cah’ige an’ Ah drives it ter mek money fer us.”

“Whut Miss Talbot is dat?”

“Miss Suzannah Talbot of Milledgeville. Us done move up hyah affer Old Marse wuz kilt.”

“Does you know her, Miss Scarlett?”

“No,” said Scarlett, regretfully. “I know so few Milledgeville folks.”

“Den us’ll walk,” said Mammy sternly. “Drive on, nigger.”

She picked up the carpetbag which held Scarlett’s new velvet frock and bonnet and nightgown and tucked the neat bandanna bundle that contained her own belongings under her arm and shepherded Scarlett across the wet expanse of cinders. Scarlett did not argue the matter, much as she preferred to ride, for she wished no disagreement with Mammy. Ever since yesterday afternoon when Mammy had caught her with the velvet curtains, there had been an alert suspicious look in her eyes which Scarlett did not like. It was going to be difficult to escape from her chaperonage and she did not intend to rouse Mammy’s fighting blood before it was absolutely necessary.

As they walked along the narrow sidewalk toward Peachtree, Scarlett was dismayed and sorrowful, for Atlanta looked so devastated and different from what she remembered. They passed beside what had been the Atlanta Hotel where Rhett and Uncle Henry had lived and of that elegant hostelry there remained only a shell, a part of the blackened walls. The warehouses which had bordered the train tracks for a quarter of a mile and held tons of military supplies had not been rebuilt and their rectangular foundations looked dreary under the dark sky. Without the wall of buildings on either side and with the car shed gone, the railroad tracks seemed bare and exposed. Somewhere amid these ruins, undistinguishable from the others, lay what remained of her own warehouse on the property Charles had left her. Uncle Henry had paid last year’s taxes on it for her. She’d have to repay that money some time. That was something else to worry about.

As they turned the corner into Peachtree Street and she looked toward Five Points, she cried out with shock. Despite all Frank had told her about the town burning to the ground, she had never really visualized complete destruction. In her mind the town she loved so well still stood full of close-packed buildings and fine houses. But this Peachtree Street she was looking upon was so denuded of landmarks it was as unfamiliar as if she had never seen it before. This muddy street down which she had driven a thousand times during the war, along which she had fled with ducked head and fear-quickened legs when shells burst over her during the siege, this street she had last seen in the heat and hurry and anguish of the day of the retreat, was so strange looking she felt like crying.

Though many new buildings had sprung up in the year since Sherman marched out of the burning town and the Confederates returned, there were still wide vacant lots around Five Points where heaps of smudged broken bricks lay amid a jumble of rubbish, dead weeds and broom-sedge. There were the remains of a few buildings she remembered, roofless brick walls through which the dull daylight shone, glassless windows gaping, chimneys towering lonesomely. Here and there her eyes gladly picked out a familiar store which had partly survived shell and fire and had been repaired, the fresh red of new brick glaring bright against the smut of the old walls. On new store fronts and new office windows she saw the welcome names of men she knew but more often the names were unfamiliar, especially the dozens of shingles of strange doctors and lawyers and cotton merchants. Once she had known practically everyone in Atlanta and the sight of so many strange names depressed her. But she was cheered by the sight of new buildings going up all along the street.

There were dozens of them and several were three stories high! Everywhere building was going on, for as she looked down the street, trying to adjust her mind to the new Atlanta, she heard the blithe sound of hammers and saws, noticed scaffoldings rising and saw men climbing ladders with hods of bricks on their shoulders. She looked down the street she loved so well and her eyes misted a little.

“They burned you,” she thought, “and they laid you flat. But they didn’t lick you. They couldn’t lick you. You’ll grow back just as big and sassy as you used to be!”

As she walked along Peachtree, followed by the waddling Mammy, she found the sidewalks just as crowded as they were at the height of the war and there was the same air of rush and bustle about the resurrecting town which had made her blood sing when she came here, so long ago, on her first visit to Aunt Pitty. There seemed to be just as many vehicles wallowing in the mud holes as there had been then, except that there were no Confederate ambulances, and just as many horses and mules tethered to hitching racks in front of the wooden awnings of the stores. Though the sidewalks were jammed, the faces she saw were as unfamiliar as the signs overhead, new people, many rough-looking men and tawdrily dressed women. The streets were black with loafing negroes who leaned against walls or sat on the curbing watching vehicles go past with the naive curiosity of children at a circus parade.

“Free issue country niggers,” snorted Mammy. “Ain’ never seed a proper cah’ige in dere lives. An’ impident lookin’, too.”

They were impudent looking, Scarlett agreed, for they stared at her in an insolent manner, but she forgot them in the renewed shock of seeing blue uniforms. The town was full of Yankee soldiers, on horses, afoot, in army wagons, loafing on the street, reeling out of barrooms.

I’ll never get used to them, she thought, clenching her fists. Never! and over her shoulder: “Hurry, Mammy, let’s get out of this crowd.”

“Soon’s Ah kick dis black trash outer mah way,” answered Mammy loudly, swinging the carpetbag at a black buck who loitered tantalizingly in front of her and making him leap aside. “Ah doan lak disyere town, Miss Scarlett. It’s too full of Yankees an’ cheap free issue.”

“It’s nicer where it isn’t so crowded. When we get across Five Points, it won’t be so bad.”

They picked their way across the slippery stepping stones that bridged the mud of Decatur Street and continued up Peachtree, through a thinning crowd. When they reached Wesley Chapel where Scarlett had paused to catch her breath that day in 1864 when she had run for Dr. Meade, she looked at it and laughed aloud, shortly and grimly. Mammy’s quick old eyes sought hers with suspicion and question but her curiosity went unsatisfied. Scarlett was recalling with contempt the terror which had ridden her that day. She had been crawling with fear, rotten with fear, terrified by the Yankees, terrified by the approaching birth of Beau. Now she wondered how she could have been so frightened, frightened like a child at a loud noise. And what a child she had been to think that Yankees and fire and defeat were the worst things that could happen to her! What trivialities they were beside Ellen’s death and Gerald’s vagueness, beside hunger and cold and back-breaking work and the living nightmare of insecurity. How easy she would find it now to be brave before an invading army, but how hard to face the danger that threatened Tara! No, she would never again be afraid of anything except poverty.

Up Peachtree came a closed carriage and Scarlett went to the curb eagerly to see if she knew the occupant, for Aunt Pitty’s house was still several blocks away. She and Mammy leaned forward as the carriage came abreast and Scarlett, with a smile arranged, almost called out when a woman’s head appeared for a moment at the window—a too bright red head beneath a fine fur hat. Scarlett took a step back as mutual recognition leaped into both faces. It was Belle Watling and Scarlett had a glimpse of nostrils distended with dislike before she disappeared again. Strange that Belle’s should be the first familiar face she saw.

“Who dat?” questioned Mammy suspiciously. “She knowed you but she din’ bow. Ah ain’ never seed ha’r dat color in mah life. Not even in de Tarleton fambly. It look—well, it look dyed ter me!”

“It is,” said Scarlett shortly, walking faster.

“Does you know a dyed-ha’rd woman? Ah ast you who she is.”

“She’s the town bad woman,” said Scarlett briefly, “and I give you my word I don’t know her, so shut up.”

“Gawdlmighty!” breathed Mammy, her jaw dropping as she looked after the carriage with passionate curiosity. She had not seen a professional bad woman since she left Savannah with Ellen more than twenty years before and she wished ardently that she had observed Belle more closely.

“She sho dressed up fine an’ got a fine cah’ige an’ coachman,” she muttered. “Ah doan know whut de Lawd thinkin’ ’bout lettin’ de bad women flurrish lak dat w’en us good folks is hongry an’ mos’ barefoot.”

“The Lord stopped thinking about us years ago,” said Scarlett savagely. “And don’t go telling me Mother is turning in her grave to hear me say it, either.”

She wanted to feel superior and virtuous about Belle but she could not. If her plans went well, she might be on the same footing with Belle and supported by the same man. While she did not regret her decision one whit, the matter in its true light discomfited her. “I won’t think of it now,” she told herself and hurried her steps.

They passed the lot where the Meade house had stood and there remained of it only a forlorn pair of stone steps and a walk, leading up to nothing. Where the Whitings’ home had been was bare ground. Even the foundation stones and the brick chimneys were gone and there were wagon tracks where they had been carted away. The brick house of the Elsings still stood, with a new roof and a new second floor. The Bonnell home, awkwardly patched and roofed with rude boards instead of shingles, managed to look livable for all its battered appearance. But in neither house was there a face at the window or a figure on the porch, and Scarlett was glad. She did not want to talk to anyone now.

Then the new slate roof of Aunt Pitty’s house came in view with its red-brick walls, and Scarlett’s heart throbbed. How good of the Lord not to level it beyond repair! Coming out of the front yard was Uncle Peter, a market basket on his arm, and when he saw Scarlett and Mammy trudging along, a wide, incredulous smile split his black face.

I could kiss the old black fool, I’m so glad to see him, thought Scarlett, joyfully and she called: “Run get Auntie’s swoon bottle, Peter! It’s really me!”

That night the inevitable hominy and dried peas were on Aunt Pitty’s supper table and, as Scarlett ate them, she made a vow that these two dishes would never appear on her table when she had money again. And, no matter what price she had to pay, she was going to have money again, more than just enough to pay the taxes on Tara. Somehow, some day she was going to have plenty of money if she had to commit murder to get it.

In the yellow lamplight of the dining room, she asked Pitty about her finances, hoping against hope that Charles’ family might be able to lend her the money she needed. The questions were none too subtle but Pitty, in her pleasure at having a member of the family to talk to, did not even notice the bald way the questions were put. She plunged with tears into the details of her misfortunes. She just didn’t know where her farms and town property and money had gone but everything had slipped away. At least, that was what Brother Henry told her. He hadn’t been able to pay the taxes on her estate. Everything except the house she was living in was gone and Pitty did not stop to think that the house had never been hers but was the joint property of Melanie and Scarlett. Brother Henry could just barely pay taxes on this house. He gave her a little something every month to live on and, though it was very humiliating to take money from him, she had to do it.

“Brother Henry says he doesn’t know how he’ll make ends meet with the load he’s carrying and the taxes so high but, of course, he’s probably lying and has loads of money and just won’t give me much.”

Scarlett knew Uncle Henry wasn’t lying. The few letters she had had from him in connection with Charles’ property showed that. The old lawyer was battling valiantly to save the house and the one piece of downtown property where the warehouse had been, so Wade and Scarlett would have something left from the wreckage. Scarlett knew he was carrying these taxes for her at a great sacrifice.

“Of course, he hasn’t any money,” thought Scarlett grimly. “Well, check him and Aunt Pitty off my list. There’s nobody left but Rhett. I’ll have to do it. I must do it. But I mustn’t think about it now… I must get her to talking about Rhett so I can casually suggest to her to invite him to call tomorrow.”

She smiled and squeezed the plump palms of Aunt Pitty between her own.

“Darling Auntie,” she said, “don’t let’s talk about distressing things like money any more. Let’s forget about them and talk of pleasanter things. You must tell me all the news about our old friends. How is Mrs. Merriwether and Maybelle? I heard that Maybelle’s little Creole came home safely. How are the Elsings and Dr. and Mrs. Meade?”

Pittypat brightened at the change of subject and her baby face stopped quivering with tears. She gave detailed reports about old neighbors, what they were doing and wearing and eating and thinking. She told with accents of horror how, before Rene Picard came home from the war, Mrs. Merriwether and Maybelle had made ends meet by baking pies and selling them to the Yankee soldiers. Imagine that! Sometimes there were two dozen Yankees standing in the back yard of the Merriwether home, waiting for the baking to be finished. Now that Rene was home, he drove an old wagon to the Yankee camp every day and sold cakes and pies and beaten biscuits to the soldiers. Mrs. Merriwether said that when she made a little more money she was going to open a bake shop downtown. Pitty did not wish to criticize but after all—As for herself, said Pitty, she would rather starve than have such commerce with Yankees. She made a point of giving a disdainful look to every soldier she met, and crossed to the other side of the street in as insulting a manner as possible, though, she said, this was quite inconvenient in wet weather. Scarlett gathered that no sacrifice, even though it be muddy shoes, was too great to show loyalty to the Confederacy in so far as Miss Pittypat was concerned.

Mrs. Meade and the doctor had lost their home when the Yankees fired the town and they had neither the money nor the heart to rebuild, now that Phil and Darcy were dead. Mrs. Meade said she never wanted a home again, for what was a home without children and grandchildren in it? They were very lonely and had gone to live with the Elsings who had rebuilt the damaged part of their home. Mr. and Mrs. Whiting had a room there, too, and Mrs. Bonnell was talking of moving in, if she was fortunate enough to rent her house to a Yankee officer and his family.

“But how do they all squeeze in?” cried Scarlett. “There’s Mrs. Elsing and Fanny and Hugh—”

“Mrs. Elsing and Fanny sleep in the parlor and Hugh in the attic,” explained Pitty, who knew the domestic arrangements of all her friends. “My dear, I do hate to tell you this but—Mrs. Elsing calls them ‘paying guests’ but,” Pitty dropped her voice, “they are really nothing at all except boarders. Mrs. Elsing is running a boarding house! Isn’t that dreadful?”

“I think it’s wonderful,” said Scarlett shortly. “I only wish we’d had ‘paying guests’ at Tara for the last year instead of free boarders. Maybe we wouldn’t be so poor now.”

“Scarlett, how can you say such things? Your poor mother must be turning in her grave at the very thought of charging money for the hospitality of Tara! Of course, Mrs. Elsing was simply forced to it because, while she took in fine sewing and Fanny painted china and Hugh made a little money peddling firewood, they couldn’t make ends meet. Imagine darling Hugh forced to peddle wood! And he all set to be a fine lawyer! I could just cry at the things our boys are reduced to!”

Scarlett thought of the rows of cotton beneath the glaring coppery sky at Tara and how her back had ached as she bent over them. She remembered the feel of plow handles between her inexperienced, blistered palms and she felt that Hugh Elsing was deserving of no special sympathy. What an innocent old fool Pitty was and, despite the ruin all around her, how sheltered!

“If he doesn’t like peddling, why doesn’t he practice law? Or isn’t there any law practice left in Atlanta?”

“Oh dear, yes! There’s plenty of law practice. Practically everybody is suing everybody else these days. With everything burned down and boundary lines wiped out, no one knows just where their land begins or ends. But you can’t get any pay for suing because nobody has any money. So Hugh sticks to his peddling… Oh, I almost forgot! Did I write you? Fanny Elsing is getting married tomorrow night and, of course, you must attend. Mrs. Elsing will be only too pleased to have you when she knows you’re in town. I do hope you have some other frock besides that one. Not that it isn’t a very sweet frock, darling, but—well, it does look a bit worn. Oh, you have a pretty frock? I’m so glad because it’s going to be the first real wedding we’ve had in Atlanta since before the town fell. Cake and wine and dancing afterward, though I don’t know how the Elsings can afford it, they are so poor.”

“Who is Fanny marrying? I thought after Dallas McLure was killed at Gettysburg—”

“Darling, you mustn’t criticize Fanny. Everybody isn’t as loyal to the dead as you are to poor Charlie. Let me see. What is his name? I can never remember names—Tom somebody. I knew his mother well, we went to LaGrange Female Institute together. She was a Tomlinson from LaGrange and her mother was—let me see… Perkins? Parkins? Parkinson! That’s it. From Sparta. A very good family but just the same—well, I know I shouldn’t say it but I don’t see how Fanny can bring herself to marry him!”

“Does he drink or—”

“Dear, no! His character is perfect but, you see, he was wounded low down, by a bursting shell and it did something to his legs—makes them—makes them, well, I hate to use the word but it makes him spraddle. It gives him a very vulgar appearance when he walks—well, it doesn’t look very pretty. I don’t see why she’s marrying him.”

“Girls have to marry someone.”

“Indeed, they do not,” said Pitty, ruffling. “I never had to.”

“Now, darling, I didn’t mean you! Everybody knows how popular you were and still are! Why, old Judge Canton used to throw sheep’s eyes at you till I—”

“Oh, Scarlett, hush! That old fool!” giggled Pitty, good humor restored. “But, after all, Fanny was so popular she could have made a better match and I don’t believe she loves this Tom what’s-his-name. I don’t believe she’s ever gotten over Dallas McLure getting killed, but she’s not like you, darling. You’ve remained so faithful to dear Charlie, though you could have married dozens of times. Melly and I have often said how loyal you were to his memory when everyone else said you were just a heartless coquette.”

Scarlett passed over this tactless confidence and skillfully led Pitty from one friend to another but all the while she was in a fever of impatience to bring the conversation around to Rhett. It would never do for her to ask outright about him, so soon after arriving. It might start the old lady’s mind to working on channels better left untouched. There would be time enough for Pitty’s suspicions to be aroused if Rhett refused to marry her.

Aunt Pitty prattled on happily, pleased as a child at having an audience. Things in Atlanta were in a dreadful pass, she said, due to the vile doings of the Republicans. There was no end to their goings on and the worst thing was the way they were putting ideas in the poor darkies’ heads.

“My dear, they want to let the darkies vote! Did you ever hear of anything more silly? Though—I don’t know—now that I think about it, Uncle Peter has much more sense than any Republican I ever saw and much better manners but, of course, Uncle Peter is far too well bred to want to vote. But the very notion has upset the darkies till they’re right addled. And some of them are so insolent. Your life isn’t safe on the streets after dark and even in the broad daylight they push ladies off the sidewalks into the mud. And if any gentleman dares to protest, they arrest him and—My dear, did I tell you that Captain Butler was in jail?”

“Rhett Butler?”

Even with this startling news, Scarlett was grateful that Aunt Pitty had saved her the necessity of bringing his name into the conversation herself.

“Yes, indeed!” Excitement colored Pitty’s cheeks pink and she sat upright. “He’s in jail this very minute for killing a negro and they may hang him! Imagine Captain Butler hanging!”

For a moment, the breath went out of Scarlett’s lungs in a sickening gasp and she could only stare at the fat old lady who was so obviously pleased at the effect of her statement.

“They haven’t proved it yet but somebody killed this darky who had insulted a white woman. And the Yankees are very upset because so many uppity darkies have been killed recently. They can’t prove it on Captain Butler but they want to make an example of someone, so Dr. Meade says. The doctor says that if they do hang him it will be the first good honest job the Yankees ever did, but then, I don’t know… And to think that Captain Butler was here just a week ago and brought me the loveliest quail you ever saw for a present and he was asking about you and saying he feared he had offended you during the siege and you would never forgive him.”

“How long will he be in jail?”

“Nobody knows. Perhaps till they hang him, but maybe they won’t be able to prove the killing on him, after all. However, it doesn’t seem to bother the Yankees whether folks are guilty or not, so long as they can hang somebody. They are so upset”—Pitty dropped her voice mysteriously—“about the Ku Klux Klan. Do you have the Klan down in the County? My dear, I’m sure you must and Ashley just doesn’t tell you girls anything about it. Klansmen aren’t supposed to tell. They ride around at night dressed up like ghosts and call on Carpetbaggers who steal money and negroes who are uppity. Sometimes they just scare them and warn them to leave Atlanta, but when they don’t behave they whip them and,” Pitty whispered, “sometimes they kill them and leave them where they’ll be easily found with the Ku Klux card on them… And the Yankees are very angry about it and want to make an example of someone… But Hugh Elsing told me he didn’t think they’d hang Captain Butler because the Yankees think he does know where the money is and just won’t tell. They are trying to make him tell.”

“The money?”

“Didn’t you know? Didn’t I write you? My dear, you have been buried at Tara, haven’t you? The town simply buzzed when Captain Butler came back here with a fine horse and carriage and his pockets full of money, when all the rest of us didn’t know where our next meal was coming from. It simply made everybody furious that an old speculator who always said nasty things about the Confederacy should have so much money when we were all so poor. Everybody was bursting to know how he managed to save his money but no one had the courage to ask him—except me and he just laughed and said: ‘In no honest way, you may be sure.’ You know how hard it is to get anything sensible out of him.”

“But of course, he made his money out of the blockade—”

“Of course, he did, honey, some of it. But that’s not a drop in the bucket to what that man has really got. Everybody, including the Yankees, believes he’s got millions of dollars in gold belonging to the Confederate government hid out somewhere.”

“Millions—in gold?”

“Well, honey, where did all our Confederate gold go to? Somebody got it and Captain Butler must be one of the somebodies. The Yankees thought President Davis had it when he left Richmond but when they captured the poor man he had hardly a cent. There just wasn’t any money m the treasury when the war was over and everybody thinks some of the blockade runners got it and are keeping quiet about it.”

“Millions—in gold! But how—”

“Didn’t Captain Butler take thousands of bales of cotton to England and Nassau to sell for the Confederate government?” asked Pitty triumphantly. “Not only his own cotton but government cotton too? And you know what cotton brought in England during the war! Any price you wanted to ask! He was a free agent acting for the government and he was supposed to sell the cotton and buy guns with the money and run the guns in for us. Well, when the blockade got too tight, he couldn’t bring in the guns and he couldn’t have spent one one-hundredth of the cotton money on them anyway, so there were simply millions of dollars in English banks put there by Captain Butler and other blockaders, waiting till the blockade loosened. And you can’t tell me they banked that money in the name of the Confederacy. They put it in their own names and it’s still there… Everybody has been talking about it ever since the surrender and criticizing the blockaders severely, and when the Yankees arrested Captain Butler for killing this darky they must have heard the rumor, because they’ve been at him to tell them where the money is. You see, all of our Confederate funds belong to the Yankees now—at least, the Yankees think so. But Captain Butler says he doesn’t know anything… Dr. Meade says they ought to hang him anyhow, only hanging is too good for a thief and a profiteer—Dear, you look so oddly! Do you feel faint? Have I upset you talking like this? I knew he was once a beau of yours but I thought you’d fallen out long ago. Personally, I never approved of him, for he’s such a scamp—”

“He’s no friend of mine,” said Scarlett with an effort. “I had a quarrel with him during the siege, after you went to Macon. Where—where is he?”

“In the firehouse over near the public square!”

“In the firehouse?”

Aunt Pitty crowed with laughter.

“Yes, he’s in the firehouse. The Yankees use it for a military jail now. The Yankees are camped in huts all round the city hall in the square and the firehouse is just down the street, so that’s where Captain Butler is. And Scarlett, I heard the funniest thing yesterday about Captain Butler. I forget who told me. You know how well groomed he always was—really a dandy—and they’ve been keeping him in the firehouse and not letting him bathe and every day he’s been insisting that he wanted a bath and finally they led him out of his cell onto the square and there was a long horse trough where the whole regiment had bathed in the same water! And they told him he could bathe there and he said No, that he preferred his own brand of Southern dirt to Yankee dirt and—”

Scarlett heard the cheerful babbling voice going on and on but she did not hear the words. In her mind there were only two ideas, Rhett had more money than she had even hoped and he was in jail. The fact that he was in jail and possibly might be hanged changed the face of matters somewhat, in fact made them look a little brighter. She had very little feeling about Rhett being hanged. Her need of money was too pressing, too desperate, for her to bother about his ultimate fate. Besides, she half shared Dr. Meade’s opinion that hanging was too good for him. Any man who’d leave a woman stranded between two armies in the middle of the night, just to go off and fight for a Cause already lost, deserved hanging… If she could somehow manage to marry him while he was in jail, all those millions would be hers and hers alone should he be executed. And if marriage was not possible, perhaps she could get a loan from him by promising to marry him when he was released or by promising—oh promising anything! And if they hanged him, her day of settlement would never come.

For a moment her imagination flamed at the thought of being made a widow by the kindly intervention of the Yankee government. Millions in gold! She could repair Tara and hire hands and plant miles and miles of cotton. And she could have pretty clothes and all she wanted to eat and so could Suellen and Carreen. And Wade could have nourishing food to fill out his thin cheeks and warm clothes and a governess and afterward go to the university… and not grow up barefooted and ignorant like a Cracker. And a good doctor could look after Pa and as for Ashley—what couldn’t she do for Ashley!

Aunt Pittypat’s monologue broke off suddenly as she said inquiringly: “Yes, Mammy?” and Scarlett, coming back from dreams, saw Mammy standing in the doorway, her hands under her apron and in her eyes an alert piercing look. She wondered how long Mammy had been standing there and how much she had heard and observed. Probably everything, to judge by the gleam in her old eyes.

“Miss Scarlett look lak she tared. Ah spec she better go ter bed.”

“I am tired,” said Scarlett, rising and meeting Mammy’s eyes with a childlike, helpless look, “and I’m afraid I’m catching a cold too. Aunt Pitty, would you mind if I stayed in bed tomorrow and didn’t go calling with you? I can go calling any time and I’m so anxious to go to Fanny’s wedding tomorrow night. And if my cold gets worse I won’t be able to go. And a day in bed would be such a lovely treat for me.”

Mammy’s look changed to faint worry as she felt Scarlett’s hands and looked into her face. She certainly didn’t look well. The excitement of her thoughts had abruptly ebbed, leaving her white and shaking.

“Yo’ han’s lak ice, honey. You come ter bed an’ Ah’ll brew you some sassfrass tea an’ git you a hot brick ter mek you sweat.”

“How thoughtless I’ve been,” cried the plump old lady, hopping from her chair and patting Scarlett’s arm. “Just chattering on and not thinking of you. Honey, you shall stay in bed all tomorrow and rest up and we can gossip together—Oh, dear, no! I can’t be with you. I’ve promised to sit with Mrs. Bonnell tomorrow. She is down with la grippe and so is her cook. Mammy, I’m so glad you are here. You must go over with me in the morning and help me.”

Mammy hurried Scarlett up the dark stairs, muttering fussy remarks about cold hands and thin shoes and Scarlett looked meek and was well content. If she could only lull Mammy’s suspicions further and get her out of the house in the morning, all would be well. Then she could go to the Yankee jail and see Rhett. As she climbed the stairs, the faint rumbling of thunder began and, standing on the well-remembered landing, she thought how like the siege cannon it sounded. She shivered. Forever, thunder would mean cannon and war to her.

Chapter XXXIV

The sun shone intermittently the next morning and the hard wind that drove dark clouds swiftly across its face rattled the windowpanes and moaned faintly about the house. Scarlett said a brief prayer of thanksgiving that the rain of the previous night had ceased, for she had lain awake listening to it, knowing that it would mean the ruin of her velvet dress and new bonnet. Now that she could catch fleeting glimpses of the sun, her spirits soared. She could hardly remain in bed and look languid and make croaking noises until Aunt Pitty, Mammy and Uncle Peter were out of the house and on their way to Mrs. Bonnell’s. When, at last, the front gate banged and she was alone in the house, except for Cookie who was singing in the kitchen, she leaped from the bed and lifted her new clothes from the closet hooks.

Sleep had refreshed her and given her strength and from the cold hard core at the bottom of her heart, she drew courage. There was something about the prospect of a struggle of wits with a man—with any man—that put her on her mettle and, after months of battling against countless discouragements, the knowledge that she was at last facing a definite adversary, one whom she might unhorse by her own efforts, gave her a buoyant sensation.

Dressing unaided was difficult but she finally accomplished it and putting on the bonnet with its rakish feathers she ran to Aunt Pitty’s room to preen herself in front of the long mirror. How pretty she looked! The cock feathers gave her a dashing air and the dull-green velvet of the bonnet made her eyes startlingly bright, almost emerald colored. And the dress was incomparable, so rich and handsome looking and yet so dignified! It was wonderful to have a lovely dress again. It was so nice to know that she looked pretty and provocative, and she impulsively bent forward and kissed her reflection in the mirror and then laughed at her own foolishness. She picked up Ellen’s Paisley shawl to wrap about her but the colors of the faded old square clashed with the moss-green dress and made her appear a little shabby. Opening Aunt Pitty’s closet she removed a black broadcloth cloak, a thin fall garment which Pitty used only for Sunday wear, and put it on. She slipped into her pierced ears the diamond earrings she had brought from Tara, and tossed her head to observe the effect. They made pleasant clicking noises which were very satisfactory and she thought that she must remember to toss her head frequently when with Rhett. Dancing earrings always attracted a man and gave a girl such a spirited air.

What a shame Aunt Pitty had no other gloves than the ones now on her fat hands! No woman could really feel like a lady without gloves, but Scarlett had not had a pair since she left Atlanta. And the long months of hard work at Tara had roughened her hands until they were far from pretty. Well, it couldn’t be helped. She’d take Aunt Pitty’s little seal muff and hide her bare hands in it. Scarlett felt that it gave her the final finishing touch of elegance. No one, looking at her now, would suspect that poverty and want were standing at her shoulder.

It was so important that Rhett should not suspect. He must not think that anything but tender feelings were driving her.

She tiptoed down the stairs and out of the house while Cookie bawled on unconcernedly in the kitchen. She hastened down Baker Street to avoid the all seeing eyes of the neighbors and sat down on a carriage block on Ivy Street in front of a burned house, to wait for some passing carriage or wagon which would give her a ride. The sun dipped in and out from behind hurrying clouds, lighting the street with a false brightness which had no warmth in it, and the wind fluttered the lace of her pantalets. It was colder than she had expected and she wrapped Aunt Pitty’s thin cloak about her and shivered impatiently. Just as she was preparing to start walking the long way across town to the Yankee encampment, a battered wagon appeared. In it was an old woman with a lip full of snuff and a weather-beaten face under a drab sunbonnet, driving a dawdling old mule. She was going in the direction of the city hall and she grudgingly gave Scarlett a ride. But it was obvious that the dress, bonnet and muff found no favor with her.

“She thinks I’m a hussy,” thought Scarlett. “And perhaps she’s right at that!”

When at last they reached the town square and the tall white cupola of the city hall loomed up, she made her thanks, climbed down from the wagon and watched the country woman drive off. Looking around carefully to see that she was not observed, she pinched her cheeks to give them color and bit her lips until they stung to make them red. She adjusted the bonnet and smoothed back her hair and looked about the square. The two-story red-brick city hall had survived the burning of the city. But it looked forlorn and unkempt under the gray sky. Surrounding the building completely and covering the square of land of which it was the center were row after row of army huts, dingy and mud splashed. Yankee soldiers loitered everywhere and Scarlett looked at them uncertainly, some of her courage deserting her. How would she go about finding Rhett in this enemy camp?

She looked down the street toward the firehouse and saw that the wide arched doors were closed and heavily barred and two sentries passed and repassed on each side of the building. Rhett was in there. But what should she say to the Yankee soldiers? And what would they say to her? She squared her shoulders. If she hadn’t been afraid to kill one Yankee, she shouldn’t fear merely talking to another.

She picked her way precariously across the stepping stones of the muddy street and walked forward until a sentry, his blue overcoat buttoned high against the wind, stopped her.

“What is it, Ma’m?” His voice had a strange mid-Western twang but it was polite and respectful.

“I want to see a man in there—he is a prisoner.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the sentry, scratching his head. “They are mighty particular about visitors and—” He stopped and peered into her face sharply. “Lord, lady! Don’t you cry! You go over to post headquarters and ask the officers. They’ll let you see him, I bet.”

Scarlett, who had no intention of crying, beamed at him. He turned to another sentry who was slowly pacing his beat: “Yee-ah, Bill. Come’eer.”

The second sentry, a large man muffled in a blue overcoat from which villainous black whiskers burst, came through the mud toward them.

“You take this lady to headquarters.”

Scarlett thanked him and followed the sentry.

“Mind you don’t turn your ankle on those stepping stones,” said the soldier, taking her arm. “And you’d better hist up your skirts a little to keep them out of the mud.”

The voice issuing from the whiskers had the same nasal twang but was kind and pleasant and his hand was firm and respectful. Why, Yankees weren’t bad at all!

“It’s a mighty cold day for a lady to be out in,” said her escort. “Have you come a fer piece?”

“Oh, yes, from clear across the other side of town,” she said, warming to the kindness in his voice.

“This ain’t no weather for a lady to be out in,” said the soldier reprovingly, “with all this la grippe in the air. Here’s Post Command, lady—What’s the matter?”

“This house—this house is your headquarters?” Scarlett looked up at the lovely old dwelling facing on the square and could have cried. She had been to so many parties in this house during the war. It had been a gay beautiful place and now—there was a large United States flag floating over it.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing—only—only—I used to know the people who lived here.”

“Well, that’s too bad. I guess they wouldn’t know it themselves if they saw it, for it shore is torn up on the inside. Now, you go on in, Ma’m, and ask for the captain.”

She went up the steps, caressing the broken white banisters, and pushed open the front door. The hall was dark and as cold as a vault and a shivering sentry was leaning against the closed folding doors of what had been, in better days, the dining room.

“I want to see the captain,” she said.

He pulled back the doors and she entered the room, her heart beating rapidly, her face flushing with embarrassment and excitement. There was a close stuffy smell in the room, compounded of the smoking fire, tobacco fumes, leather, damp woolen uniforms and unwashed bodies. She had a confused impression of bare walls with torn wallpaper, rows of blue overcoats and slouch hats hung on nails, a roaring fire, a long table covered with papers and a group of officers in blue uniforms with brass buttons.

She gulped once and found her voice. She mustn’t let these Yankees know she was afraid. She must look and be her prettiest and most unconcerned self.

“The captain?”

“I’m one captain,” said a fat man whose tunic was unbuttoned.

“I want to see a prisoner, Captain Rhett Butler.”

“Butler again? He’s popular, that man,” laughed the captain, taking a chewed cigar from his mouth. “You a relative, Ma’m?”

“Yes—his—his sister.”

He laughed again.

“He’s got a lot of sisters, one of them here yesterday.”

Scarlett flushed. One of those creatures Rhett consorted with, probably that Watling woman. And these Yankees thought she was another one. It was unendurable. Not even for Tara would she stay here another minute and be insulted. She turned to the door and reached angrily for the knob but another officer was by her side quickly. He was clean shaven and young and had merry, kind eyes.

“Just a minute, Ma’m. Won’t you sit down here by the fire where it’s warm? I’ll go see what I can do about it. What is your name? He refused to see the—lady who called yesterday.”

She sank into the proffered chair, glaring at the discomfited fat captain, and gave her name. The nice young officer slipped on his overcoat and left the room and the others took themselves off to the far end of the table where they talked in low tones and pawed at the papers. She stretched her feet gratefully toward the fire, realizing for the first time how cold they were and wishing she had thought to put a piece of cardboard over the hole in the sole of one slipper. After a time, voices murmured outside the door and she heard Rhett’s laugh. The door opened, a cold draft swept the room and Rhett appeared, hatless, a long cape thrown carelessly across his shoulders. He was dirty and unshaven and without a cravat but somehow jaunty despite his dishabille, and his dark eyes were snapping joyfully at the sight of her.

“Scarlett!”

He had her hands in both of his and, as always, there was something hot and vital and exciting about his grip. Before she quite knew what he was about, he had bent and kissed her cheek, his mustache tickling her. As he felt the startled movement of her body away from him, he hugged her about the shoulders and said: “My darling little sister!” and grinned down at her as if he relished her helplessness in resisting his caress. She couldn’t help laughing back at him for the advantage he had taken. What a rogue he was! Jail had not changed him one bit.

The fat captain was muttering through his cigar to the merry-eyed officer.

“Most irregular. He should be in the firehouse. You know the orders.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Henry! The lady would freeze in that barn.”

“Oh, all right, all right! It’s your responsibility.”

“I assure you, gentlemen,” said Rhett, turning to them but still keeping a grip on Scarlett’s shoulders, “my—sister hasn’t brought me any saws or files to help me escape.”

They all laughed and, as they did, Scarlett looked quickly about her. Good Heavens, was she going to have to talk to Rhett before six Yankee officers! Was he so dangerous a prisoner they wouldn’t let him out of their sight? Seeing her anxious glance, the nice officer pushed open a door and spoke brief low words to two privates who had leaped to their feet at his entrance. They picked up their rifles and went out into the hall, closing the door behind them.

“If you wish, you may sit here in the orderly room,” said the young captain. “And don’t try to bolt through that door. The men are just outside.”

“You see what a desperate character I am, Scarlett,” said Rhett. “Thank you, Captain. This is most kind or you.”

He bowed carelessly and taking Scarlett’s arm pulled her to her feet and propelled her into the dingy orderly room. She was never to remember what the room looked like except that it was small and dim and none too warm and there were handwritten papers tacked on the mutilated walls and chairs which had cowhide seats with the hair still on them.

When he had closed the door behind them, Rhett came to her swiftly and bent over her. Knowing his desire, she turned her head quickly but smiled provocatively at him out of the corners of her eyes.

“Can’t I really kiss you now?”

“On the forehead, like a good brother,” she answered demurely.

“Thank you, no. I prefer to wait and hope for better things.” His eyes sought her lips and lingered there a moment. “But how good of you to come to see me, Scarlett! You are the first respectable citizen who has called on me since my incarceration, and being in jail makes one appreciate friends. When did you come to town?”

“Yesterday afternoon.”

“And you came out this morning? Why, my dear, you are more than good.” He smiled down at her with the first expression of honest pleasure she had ever seen on his face. Scarlett smiled inwardly with excitement and ducked her head as if embarrassed.

“Of course, I came out right away. Aunt Pitty told me about you last night and I—I just couldn’t sleep all night for thinking how awful it was. Rhett, I’m so distressed!”

“Why, Scarlett!”

His voice was soft but there was a vibrant note in it, and looking up into his dark face she saw in it none of the skepticism, the jeering humor she knew so well. Before his direct gaze her eyes fell again in real confusion. Things were going even better than she hoped.

“It’s worth being in jail to see you again and to hear you say things like that. I really couldn’t believe my ears when they brought me your name. You see, I never expected you to forgive me for my patriotic conduct that night on the road near Rough and Ready. But I take it that this call means you have forgiven me?”

She could feel swift anger stir, even at this late date, as she thought of that night but she subdued it and tossed her head until the earrings danced.

“No, I haven’t forgiven you,” she said and pouted.

“Another hope crushed. And after I offered up myself for my country and fought barefooted in the snow at Franklin and got the finest case of dysentery you ever heard of for my pains!”

“I don’t want to hear about your—pains,” she said, still pouting but smiling at him from up-tilted eyes. “I still think you were hateful that night and I never expect to forgive you. Leaving me alone like that when anything might have happened to me!”

“But nothing did happen to you. So, you see, my confidence in you was justified. I knew you’d get home safely and God help any Yankee who got in your way!”

“Rhett, why on earth did you do such a silly thing—enlisting at the last minute when you knew we were going to get licked? And after all you’d said about idiots who went out and got shot!”

“Scarlett, spare me! I am always overcome with shame when I think about it.”

“Well, I’m glad to learn you are ashamed of the way you treated me.”

“You misunderstand. I regret to say that my conscience has not troubled me at all about deserting you. But as for enlisting—when I think of joining the army in varnished boots and a white linen suit and armed with only a pair of dueling pistols—And those long cold miles in the snow after my boots wore out and I had no overcoat and nothing to eat… I cannot understand why I did not desert. It was all the purest insanity. But it’s in one’s blood. Southerners can never resist a losing cause. But never mind my reasons. It’s enough that I’m forgiven.”

“You’re not. I think you’re a hound.” But she caressed the last word until it might have been “darling.”

“Don’t fib. You’ve forgiven me. Young ladies don’t dare Yankee sentries to see a prisoner, just for charity’s sweet sake, and come all dressed up in velvet and feathers and seal muffs too. Scarlett, how pretty you look! Thank God, you aren’t in rags or mourning! I get so sick of women in dowdy old clothes and perpetual crepe. You look like the Rue de la Paix. Turn around, my dear, and let me look at you.”

So he had noticed the dress. Of course, he would notice such things, being Rhett. She laughed in soft excitement and spun about on her toes, her arms extended, her hoops tilting up to show her lace trimmed pantalets. His black eyes took her in from bonnet to heels in a glance that missed nothing, that old impudent unclothing glance which always gave her goose bumps.

“You look very prosperous and very, very tidy. And almost good enough to eat. If it wasn’t for the Yankees outside—but you are quite safe, my dear. Sit down. I won’t take advantage of you as I did the last time I saw you.” He rubbed his cheek with pseudo ruefulness. “Honestly, Scarlett, don’t you think you were a bit selfish that night? Think of all I had done for you, risked my life—stolen a horse—and such a horse! Rushed to the defense of Our Glorious Cause! And what did I get for my pains? Some hard words and a very hard slap in the face.”

She sat down. The conversation was not going in quite the direction she hoped. He had seemed so nice when he first saw her, so genuinely glad she had come. He had almost seemed like a human being and not the perverse wretch she knew so well.

“Must you always get something for your pains?”

“Why, of course! I am a monster of selfishness, as you ought to know. I always expect payment for anything I give.”

That sent a slight chill through her but she rallied and jingled her earbobs again.

“Oh, you really aren’t so bad, Rhett. You just like to show off.”

“My word, but you have changed!” he said and laughed. “What has made a Christian of you? I have kept up with you through Miss Pittypat but she gave me no intimation that you had developed womanly sweetness. Tell me more about yourself, Scarlett. What have you been doing since I last saw you?”

The old irritation and antagonism which he roused in her was hot in her heart and she yearned to speak tart words. But she smiled instead and the dimple crept into her cheek. He had drawn a chair close beside hers and she leaned over and put a gentle hand on his arm, in an unconscious manner.

“Oh, I’ve been doing nicely, thank you, and everything at Tara is fine now. Of course, we had a dreadful time right after Sherman went through but, after all, he didn’t burn the house and the darkies saved most of the livestock by driving it into the swamp. And we cleared a fair crop this last fall, twenty bales. Of course, that’s practically nothing compared with what Tara can do but we haven’t many field hands. Pa says, of course, we’ll do better next year. But, Rhett, it’s so dull in the country now! Imagine, there aren’t any balls or barbecues and the only thing people talk about is hard times! Goodness, I get sick of it! Finally last week I got too bored to stand it any longer, so Pa said I must take a trip and have a good time. So I came up here to get me some frocks made and then I’m going over to Charleston to visit my aunt. It’ll be lovely to go to balls again.”

There, she thought with pride, I delivered that with just the right airy way! Not too rich but certainly not poor.

“You look beautiful in ball dresses, my dear, and you know it too, worse luck! I suppose the real reason you are going visiting is that you have run through the County swains and are seeking fresh ones in fields afar.”

Scarlett had a thankful thought that Rhett had spent the last several months abroad and had only recently come back to Atlanta. Otherwise, he would never have made so ridiculous a statement. She thought briefly of the County swains, the ragged embittered little Fontaines, the poverty-stricken Munroe boys, the Jonesboro and Fayetteville beaux who were so busy plowing, splitting rails and nursing sick old animals that they had forgotten such things as balls and pleasant flirtations ever existed. But she put down this memory and giggled self-consciously as if admitting the truth of his assertion.

“Oh, well,” she said deprecatingly.

“You are a heartless creature, Scarlett, but perhaps that’s part of your charm.” He smiled in his old way, one corner of his mouth curving down, but she knew he was complimenting her. “For, of course, you know you have more charm than the law should permit. Even I have felt it, case-hardened though I am. I’ve often wondered what it was about you that made me always remember you, for I’ve known many ladies who were prettier than you and certainly more clever and, I fear, morally more upright and kind. But, somehow, I always remembered you. Even during the months since the surrender when I was in France and England and hadn’t seen you or heard of you and was enjoying the society of many beautiful ladies, I always remembered you and wondered what you were doing.”

For a moment she was indignant that he should say other women were prettier, more clever and kind than she, but that momentary flare was wiped out in her pleasure that he had remembered her and her charm. So he hadn’t forgotten! That would make things easier. And he was behaving so nicely, almost like a gentleman would do under the circumstances. Now, all she had to do was bring the subject around to himself, so she could intimate that she had not forgotten him either and then—

She gently squeezed his arm and dimpled again.

“Oh, Rhett, how you do run on, teasing a country girl like me! I know mighty well you never gave me a thought after you left me that night. You can’t tell me you ever thought of me with all those pretty French and English girls around you. But I didn’t come all the way out here to hear you talk foolishness about me. I came—I came—because—”

“Because?”

“Oh, Rhett, I’m so terribly distressed about you! So frightened for you! When will they let you out of that terrible place?”

He swiftly covered her hand with his and held it hard against his arm.

“Your distress does you credit. There’s no telling when I’ll be out. Probably when they’ve stretched the rope a bit more.”

“The rope?”

“Yes, I expect to make my exit from here at the rope’s end.”

“They won’t really hang you?”

“They will if they can get a little more evidence against me.”

“Oh, Rhett!” she cried, her hand at her heart.

“Would you be sorry? If you are sorry enough, I’ll mention you in my will.”

His dark eyes laughed at her recklessly and he squeezed her hand.

His will! She hastily cast down her eyes for fear of betrayal but not swiftly enough, for his eyes gleamed, suddenly curious.

“According to the Yankees, I ought to have a fine will. There seems to be considerable interest in my finances at present. Every day, I am hauled up before another board of inquiry and asked foolish questions. The rumor seems current that I made off with the mythical gold of the Confederacy.”

“Well—did you?”

“What a leading question! You know as well as I do that the Confederacy ran a printing press instead of a mint.”

“Where did you get all your money? Speculating? Aunt Pittypat said—”

“What probing questions you ask!”

Damn him! Of course, he had the money. She was so excited it became difficult to talk sweetly to him.

“Rhett, I’m so upset about your being here. Don’t you think there’s a chance of your getting out?”

“‘Nihil desperandum’ is my motto.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means ‘maybe,’ my charming ignoramus.”

She fluttered her thick lashes up to look at him and fluttered them down again.

“Oh, you’re too smart to let them hang you! I know you’ll think of some clever way to beat them and get out! And when you do—”

“And when I do?” he asked softly, leaning closer.

“Well, I—” and she managed a pretty confusion and a blush. The blush was not difficult for she was breathless and her heart was beating like a drum. “Rhett, I’m so sorry about what I—I said to you that night—you know—at Rough and Ready. I was—oh, so very frightened and upset and you were so—so—” She looked down and saw his brown hand tighten over hers. “And—I thought then that I’d never, never forgive you! But when Aunt Pitty told me yesterday that you—that they might hang you—it came over me of a sudden and I—I—” She looked up into his eyes with one swift imploring glance and in it she put an agony of heartbreak. “Oh, Rhett, I’d die if they hanged you! I couldn’t bear it! You see, I—” And, because she could not longer sustain the hot leaping light that was in his eyes, her lids fluttered down again.

In a moment I’ll be crying, she thought in a frenzy of wonder and excitement. Shall I let myself cry? Would that seem more natural?

He said quickly: “My God, Scarlett, you can’t mean that you—” and his hands closed over hers in so hard a grip that it hurt.

She shut her eyes tightly, trying to squeeze out tears, but remembered to turn her face up slightly so he could kiss her with no difficulty. Now, in an instant his lips would be upon hers, the hard insistent lips which she suddenly remembered with a vividness that left her weak. But he did not kiss her. Disappointment queerly stirring her, she opened her eyes a trifle and ventured a peep at him. His black head was bent over her hands and, as she watched, he lifted one and kissed it and, taking the other, laid it against his cheek for a moment. Expecting violence, this gentle and loverlike gesture startled her. She wondered what expression was on his face but could not tell for his head was bowed.

She quickly lowered her gaze lest he should look up suddenly and see the expression on her face. She knew that the feeling of triumph surging through her was certain to be plain in her eyes. In a moment he would ask her to marry him—or at least say that he loved her and then… As she watched him through the veil of her lashes he turned her hand over, palm up, to kiss it too, and suddenly he drew a quick breath. Looking down she saw her own palm, saw it as it really was for the first time in a year, and a cold sinking fear gripped her. This was a stranger’s palm, not Scarlett O’Hara’s soft, white, dimpled, helpless one. This hand was rough from work, brown with sunburn, splotched with freckles. The nails were broken and irregular, there were heavy calluses on the cushions of the palm, a half-healed blister on the thumb. The red scar which boiling fat had left last month was ugly and glaring. She looked at it in horror and, before she thought, she swiftly clenched her fist.

Still he did not raise his head. Still she could not see his face. He pried her fist open inexorably and stared at it, picked up her other hand and held them both together silently, looking down at them.

“Look at me,” he said finally raising his head, and his voice was very quiet. “And drop that demure expression.”

Unwillingly she met his eyes, defiance and perturbation on her face. His black brows were up and his eyes gleamed.

“So you have been doing very nicely at Tara, have you? Cleared so much money on the cotton you can go visiting. What have you been doing with your hands—plowing?”

She tried to wrench them away but he held them hard, running his thumbs over the calluses.

“These are not the hands of a lady,” he said and tossed them into her lap.

“Oh, shut up!” she cried, feeling a momentary intense relief at being able to speak her feelings. “Whose business is it what I do with my hands?”

What a fool I am, she thought vehemently. I should have borrowed or stolen Aunt Pitty’s gloves. But I didn’t realize my hands looked so bad. Of course, he would notice them. And now I’ve lost my temper and probably ruined everything. Oh, to have this happen when he was right at the point of a declaration!

“Your hands are certainly no business of mine,” said Rhett coolly and lounged back in his chair indolently, his face a smooth blank.

So he was going to be difficult. Well, she’d have to bear it meekly, much as she disliked it, if she expected to snatch victory from this debacle. Perhaps if she sweet-talked him—

“I think you’re real rude to throw off on my poor hands. Just because I went riding last week without my gloves and ruined them—”

“Riding, hell!” he said in the same level voice. “You’ve been working with those hands, working like a nigger. What’s the answer? Why did you lie to me about everything being nice at Tara?”

“Now, Rhett—”

“Suppose we get down to the truth. What is the real purpose of your visit? Almost, I was persuaded by your coquettish airs that you cared something about me and were sorry for me.”

“Oh, I am sorry! Indeed—”

“No, you aren’t. They can hang me higher than Haman for all you care. It’s written as plainly on your face as hard work is written on your hands. You wanted something from me and you wanted it badly enough to put on quite a show. Why didn’t you come out in the open and tell me what it was? You’d have stood a much better chance of getting it, for if there’s one virtue I value in women it’s frankness. But no, you had to come jingling your earbobs and pouting and frisking like a prostitute with a prospective client.”

He did not raise his voice at the last words or emphasize them in any way but to Scarlett they cracked like a whiplash, and with despair she saw the end of her hopes of getting him to propose marriage. Had he exploded with rage and injured vanity or upbraided her, as other men would have done, she could have handled him. But the deadly quietness of his voice frightened her, left her utterly at a loss as to her next move. Although he was a prisoner and the Yankees were in the next room, it came to her suddenly that Rhett Butler was a dangerous man to run afoul of.

“I suppose my memory is getting faulty. I should have recalled that you are just like me and that you never do anything without an ulterior motive. Now, let me see. What could you have had up your sleeve, Mrs. Hamilton? It isn’t possible that you were so misguided as to think I would propose matrimony?”

Her face went crimson and she did not answer.

“But you can’t have forgotten my oft-repeated remark that I am not a marrying man?”

When she did not speak, he said with sudden violence:

“You hadn’t forgotten? Answer me.”

“I hadn’t forgotten,” she said wretchedly.

“What a gambler you are, Scarlett,” he jeered. “You took a chance that my incarceration away from female companionship would put me in such a state I’d snap at you like a trout at a worm.”

And that’s what you did, thought Scarlett with inward rage, and if it hadn’t been for my hands—

“Now, we have most of the truth, everything except your reason. See if you can tell me the truth about why you wanted to lead me into wedlock.”

There was a suave, almost teasing note in his voice and she took heart. Perhaps everything wasn’t lost, after all. Of course, she had ruined any hope of marriage but, even in her despair, she was glad. There was something about this immobile man which frightened her, so that now the thought of marrying him was fearful. But perhaps if she was clever and played on his sympathies and his memories, she could secure a loan. She pulled her face into a placating and childlike expression.

“Oh, Rhett, you can help me so much—if you’ll just be sweet.”

“There’s nothing I like better than being—sweet.”

“Rhett, for old friendship’s sake, I want you to do me a favor.”

“So, at last the horny-handed lady comes to her real mission. I feared that ‘visiting the sick and the imprisoned’ was not your proper role. What do you want? Money?”

The bluntness of his question ruined all hopes of leading up to the matter in any circuitous and sentimental way.

“Don’t be mean, Rhett,” she coaxed. “I do want some money. I want you to lend me three hundred dollars.”

“The truth at last. Talking love and thinking money. How truly feminine! Do you need the money badly?”

“Oh, ye—Well, not so terribly but I could use it.”

“Three hundred dollars. That’s a vast amount of money. What do you want it for?”

“To pay taxes on Tara.”

“So you want to borrow some money. Well, since you’re so businesslike, I’ll be businesslike too. What collateral will you give me?”

“What what?”

“Collateral. Security on my investment. Of course, I don’t want to lose all that money.” His voice was deceptively smooth, almost silky, but she did not notice. Maybe everything would turn out nicely after all.

“My earrings.”

“I’m not interested in earrings.”

“I’ll give you a mortgage on Tara.”

“Now just what would I do with a farm?”

“Well, you could—you could—it’s a good plantation. And you wouldn’t lose. I’d pay you back out of next year’s cotton.”

“I’m not so sure.” He tilted back in his chair and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Cotton prices are dropping. Times are so hard and money’s so tight.”

“Oh, Rhett, you are teasing me! You know you have millions!”

There was a warm dancing malice in his eyes as he surveyed her.

“So everything is going nicely and you don’t need the money very badly. Well, I’m glad to hear that. I like to know that all is well with old friends.”

“Oh, Rhett, for God’s sake…” she began desperately, her courage and control breaking.

“Do lower your voice. You don’t want the Yankees to hear you, I hope. Did anyone ever tell you you had eyes like a cat—a cat in the dark?”

“Rhett, don’t! I’ll tell you everything. I do need the money so badly. I—I lied about everything being all right. Everything’s as wrong as it could be. Father is—is—he’s not himself. He’s been queer ever since Mother died and he can’t help me any. He’s just like a child. And we haven’t a single field hand to work the cotton and there’s so many to feed, thirteen of us. And the taxes—they are so high. Rhett, I’ll tell you everything. For over a year we’ve been just this side of starvation. Oh, you don’t know! You can’t know! We’ve never had enough to eat and it’s terrible to wake up hungry and go to sleep hungry. And we haven’t any warm clothes and the children are always cold and sick and—”

“Where did you get the pretty dress?”

“It’s made out of Mother’s curtains,” she answered, too desperate to lie about this shame. “I could stand being hungry and cold but now—now the Carpetbaggers have raised our taxes. And the money’s got to be paid right away. And I haven’t any money except one five-dollar gold piece. I’ve got to have money for the taxes! Don’t you see? If I don’t pay them, I’ll—we’ll lose Tara and we just can’t lose it! I can’t let it go!”

“Why didn’t you tell me all this at first instead of preying on my susceptible heart—always weak where pretty ladies are concerned? No, Scarlett, don’t cry. You’ve tried every trick except that one and I don’t think I could stand it. My feelings are already lacerated with disappointment at discovering it was my money and not my charming self you wanted.”

She remembered that he frequently told bald truths about himself when he spoke mockingly—mocking himself as well as others, and she hastily looked up at him. Were his feelings really hurt? Did he really care about her? Had he been on the verge of a proposal when he saw her palms? Or had he only been leading up to another such odious proposal as he had made twice before? If he really cared about her, perhaps she could smooth him down. But his black eyes raked her in no lover-like way and he was laughing softly.

“I don’t like your collateral. I’m no planter. What else have you to offer?”

Well, she had come to it at last. Now for it! She drew a deep breath and met his eyes squarely, all coquetry and airs gone as her spirit rushed out to grapple that which she feared most.

“I—I have myself.”

“Yes?”

Her jaw line tightened to squareness and her eyes went emerald.

“You remember that night on Aunt Pitty’s porch, during the siege? You said—you said then that you wanted me.”

He leaned back carelessly in his chair and looked into her tense face and his own dark face was inscrutable. Something flickered behind his eyes but he said nothing.

“You said—you said you’d never wanted a woman as much as you wanted me. If you still want me, you can have me. Rhett, I’ll do anything you say but, for God’s sake, write me a draft for the money! My word’s good. I swear it. I won’t go back on it. I’ll put it in writing if you like.”

He looked at her oddly, still inscrutable and as she hurried on she could not tell if he were amused or repelled. If he would only say something, anything! She felt her cheeks getting hot.

“I have got to have the money soon, Rhett. They’ll turn us out in the road and that damned overseer of Father’s will own the place and—”

“Just a minute. What makes you think I still want you? What makes you think you are worth three hundred dollars? Most women don’t come that high.”

She blushed to her hair line and her humiliation was complete.

“Why are you doing this? Why not let the farm go and live at Miss Pittypat’s. You own half that house.”

“Name of God!” she cried. “Are you a fool? I can’t let Tara go. It’s home. I won’t let it go. Not while I’ve got breath left in me!”

“The Irish,” said he, lowering his chair back to level and removing his hands from his pockets, “are the damnedest race. They put so much emphasis on so many wrong things. Land, for instance. And every bit of earth is just like every other bit. Now, let me get this straight, Scarlett. You are coming to me with a business proposition. I’ll give you three hundred dollars and you’ll become my mistress.”

“Yes.”

Now that the repulsive word had been said, she felt somehow easier and hope awoke in her again. He had said “I’ll give you.” There was a diabolic gleam in his eyes as if something amused him greatly.

“And yet, when I had the effrontery to make you this same proposition, you turned me out of the house. And also you called me a number of very hard names and mentioned in passing that you didn’t want a ‘passel of brats.’ No, my dear, I’m not rubbing it in. I’m only wondering at the peculiarities of your mind. You wouldn’t do it for your own pleasure but you will to keep the wolf away from the door. It proves my point that all virtue is merely a matter of prices.”

“Oh, Rhett, how you run on! If you want to insult me, go on and do it but give me the money.”

She was breathing easier now. Being what he was, Rhett would naturally want to torment and insult her as much as possible to pay her back for past slights and for her recent attempted trickery. Well, she could stand it. She could stand anything. Tara was worth it all. For a brief moment it was mid-summer and the afternoon skies were blue and she lay drowsily in the thick clover of Tara’s lawn, looking up at the billowing cloud castles, the fragrance of white blossoms in her nose and the pleasant busy humming of bees in her ears. Afternoon and hush and the far-off sound of the wagons coming in from the spiraling red fields. Worth it all, worth more.

Her head went up.

“Are you going to give me the money?”

He looked as if he were enjoying himself and when he spoke there was suave brutality in his voice.

“No, I’m not,” he said.

For a moment her mind could not adjust itself to his words.

“I couldn’t give it to you, even if I wanted to. I haven’t a cent on me. Not a dollar in Atlanta. I have some money, yes, but not here. And I’m not saying where it is or how much. But if I tried to draw a draft on it, the Yankees would be on me like a duck on a June bug and then neither of us would get it. What do you think of that?”

Her face went an ugly green, freckles suddenly standing out across her nose and her contorted mouth was like Gerald’s in a killing rage. She sprang to her feet with an incoherent cry which made the hum of voices in the next room cease suddenly. Swift as a panther, Rhett was beside her, his heavy hand across her mouth, his arm tight about her waist. She struggled against him madly, trying to bite his hand, to kick his legs, to scream her rage, despair, hate, her agony of broken pride. She bent and twisted every way against the iron of his arm, her heart near bursting, her tight stays cutting off her breath. He held her so tightly, so roughly that it hurt and the hand over her mouth pinched into her jaws cruelly. His face was white under its tan, his eyes hard and anxious as he lifted her completely off her feet, swung her up against his chest and sat down in the chair, holding her writhing in his lap.

“Darling, for God’s sake! Stop! Hush! Don’t yell. They’ll be in here in a minute if you do. Do calm yourself. Do you want the Yankees to see you like this?”

She was beyond caring who saw her, beyond anything except a fiery desire to kill him, but dizziness was sweeping her. She could not breathe; he was choking her; her stays were like a swiftly compressing band of iron; his arms about her made her shake with helpless hate and fury. Then his voice became thin and dim and his face above her swirled in a sickening mist which became heavier and heavier until she no longer saw him—or anything else.

When she made feeble swimming motions to come back to consciousness, she was tired to her bones, weak, bewildered. She was lying back in the chair, her bonnet off, Rhett was slapping her wrist, his black eyes searching her face anxiously. The nice young captain was trying to pour a glass of brandy into her mouth and had spilled it down her neck. The other officers hovered helplessly about, whispering and waving their hands.

“I—guess I must have fainted,” she said, and her voice sounded so far away it frightened her.

“Drink this,” said Rhett, taking the glass and pushing it against her lips. Now she remembered and glared feebly at him but she was too tired for anger.

“Please, for my sake.”

She gulped and choked and began coughing but he pushed it to her mouth again. She swallowed deeply and the hot liquid burned suddenly in her throat.

“I think she’s better now, gentlemen,” said Rhett, “and I thank you very much. The realization that I’m to be executed was too much for her.”

The group in blue shuffled their feet and looked embarrassed and after several clearings of throats, they tramped out. The young captain paused in the doorway.

“If there’s anything more I can do—”

“No, thank you.”

He went out, closing the door behind him.

“Drink some more,” said Rhett.

“No.”

“Drink it.”

She swallowed another mouthful and the warmth began spreading through her body and strength flowed slowly back into her shaking legs. She pushed away the glass and tried to rise but he pressed her back.

“Take your hands off me. I’m going.”

“Not yet. Wait a minute. You might faint again.”

“I’d rather faint in the road than be here with you.”

“Just the same, I won’t have you fainting in the road.”

“Let me go. I hate you.”

A faint smile came back to his face at her words.

“That sounds more like you. You must be feeling better.”

She lay relaxed for a moment, trying to summon anger to her aid, trying to draw on her strength. But she was too tired. She was too tired to hate or to care very much about anything. Defeat lay on her spirit like lead. She had gambled everything and lost everything. Not even pride was left. This was the dead end of her last hope. This was the end of Tara, the end of them all. For a long time she lay back with her eyes closed, hearing his heavy breathing near her, and the glow of the brandy crept gradually over her, giving a false strength and warmth. When finally she opened her eyes and looked him in the face, anger had roused again. As her slanting eyebrows rushed down together in a frown Rhett’s old smile came back.

“Now you are better. I can tell it by your scowl.”

“Of course, I’m all right. Rhett Butler, you are hateful, a skunk, if ever I saw one! You knew very well what I was going to say as soon as I started talking and you knew you weren’t going to give me the money. And yet you let me go right on. You could have spared me—”

“Spared you and missed hearing all that? Not much. I have so few diversions here. I don’t know when I’ve ever heard anything so gratifying.” He laughed his sudden mocking laugh. At the sound she leaped to her feet, snatching up her bonnet.

He suddenly had her by the shoulders.

“Not quite yet. Do you feel well enough to talk sense?”

“Let me go!”

“You are well enough, I see. Then, tell me this. Was I the only iron you had in the fire?” His eyes were keen and alert, watching every change in her face.

“What do you mean?”

“Was I the only man you were going to try this on?”

“Is that any of your business?”

“More than you realize. Are there any other men on your string? Tell me!”

“No.”

“Incredible. I can’t imagine you without five or six in reserve. Surely someone will turn up to accept your interesting proposition. I feel so sure of it that I want to give you a little advice.”

“I don’t want your advice.”

“Nevertheless I will give it. Advice seems to be the only thing I can give you at present. Listen to it, for it’s good advice. When you are trying to get something out of a man, don’t blurt it out as you did to me. Do try to be more subtle, more seductive. It gets better results. You used to know how, to perfection. But just now when you offered me your—er—collateral for my money you looked as hard as nails. I’ve seen eyes like yours above a dueling pistol twenty paces from me and they aren’t a pleasant sight. They evoke no ardor in the male breast. That’s no way to handle men, my dear. You are forgetting your early training.”

“I don’t need you to tell me how to behave,” she said and wearily put on her bonnet. She wondered how he could jest so blithely with a rope about his neck and her pitiful circumstances before him. She did not even notice that his hands were jammed in his pockets in hard fists as if he were straining at his own impotence.

“Cheer up,” he said, as she tied the bonnet strings. “You can come to my hanging and it will make you feel lots better. It’ll even up all your old scores with me—even this one. And I’ll mention you in my will.”

“Thank you, but they may not hang you till it’s too late to pay the taxes,” she said with a sudden malice that matched his own, and she meant it.

Chapter XXXV

It was raining when she came out of the building and the sky was a dull putty color. The soldiers on the square had taken shelter in their huts and the streets were deserted. There was no vehicle in sight and she knew she would have to walk the long way home.

The brandy glow faded as she trudged along. The cold wind made her shiver and the chilly needle-like drops drove hard into her face. The rain quickly penetrated Aunt Pitty’s thin cloak until it hung in clammy folds about her. She knew the velvet dress was being ruined and as for the tail feathers on the bonnet, they were as drooping and draggled as when their former owner had worn them about the wet barn yard of Tara. The bricks of the sidewalk were broken and, for long stretches, completely gone. In these spots the mud was ankle deep and her slippers stuck in it as if it were glue, even coming completely off her feet. Every time she bent over to retrieve them, the hem of the dress fell in the mud. She did not even try to avoid puddles but stepped dully into them, dragging her heavy skirts after her. She could feel her wet petticoat and pantalets cold about her ankles, but she was beyond caring about the wreck of the costume on which she had gambled so much. She was chilled and disheartened and desperate.

How could she ever go back to Tara and face them after her brave words? How could she tell them they must all go—somewhere? How could she leave it all, the red fields, the tall pines, the dark swampy bottom lands, the quiet burying ground where Ellen lay in the cedars’ deep shade?

Hatred of Rhett burned in her heart as she plodded along the slippery way. What a blackguard he was! She hoped they did hang him, so she would never have to face him again with his knowledge of her disgrace and her humiliation. Of course, he could have gotten the money for her if he’d wanted to get it. Oh, hanging was too good for him! Thank God, he couldn’t see her now, with her clothes soaking wet and her hair straggling and her teeth chattering. How hideous she must look and how he would laugh!

The negroes she passed turned insolent grins at her and laughed among themselves as she hurried by, slipping and sliding in the mud, stopping, panting to replace her slippers. How dared they laugh, the black apes! How dared they grin at her, Scarlett O’Hara of Tara! She’d like to have them all whipped until the blood ran down their backs. What devils the Yankees were to set them free, free to jeer at white people!

As she walked down Washington Street, the landscape was as dreary as her own heart. Here there was none of the bustle and cheerfulness which she had noted on Peachtree Street. Here many handsome homes had once stood, but few of them had been rebuilt. Smoked foundations and the lonesone blackened chimneys, now known as “Sherman’s Sentinels,” appeared with disheartening frequency. Overgrown paths led to what had been houses—old lawns thick with dead weeds, carriage blocks bearing names she knew so well, hitching posts which would never again know the knot of reins. Cold wind and rain, mud and bare trees, silence and desolation. How wet her feet were and how long the journey home!

She heard the splash of hooves behind her and moved farther over on the narrow sidewalk to avoid more mud splotches on Aunt Pittypat’s cloak. A horse and buggy came slowly up the road and she turned to watch it, determined to beg a ride if the driver was a white person. The rain obscured her vision as the buggy came abreast, but she saw the driver peer over the tarpaulin that stretched from the dashboard to his chin. There was something familiar about his face and as she stepped out into the road to get a closer view, there was an embarrassed little cough from the man and a well-known voice cried in accents of pleasure and astonishment: “Surely, it can’t be Miss Scarlett!”

“Oh, Mr. Kennedy!” she cried, splashing across the road and leaning on the muddy wheel, heedless of further damage to the cloak. “I was never so glad to see anybody in my life!”

He colored with pleasure at the obvious sincerity of her words, hastily squirted a stream of tobacco juice from the opposite side of the buggy and leaped spryly to the ground. He shook her hand enthusiastically and holding up the tarpaulin, assisted her into the buggy.

“Miss Scarlett, what are you doing over in this section by yourself? Don’t you know it’s dangerous these days? And you are soaking wet. Here, wrap the robe around your feet.”

As he fussed over her, clucking like a hen, she gave herself up to the luxury of being taken care of. It was nice to have a man fussing and clucking and scolding, even if it was only that old maid in pants, Frank Kennedy. It was especially soothing after Rhett’s brutal treatment. And oh, how good to see a County face when she was so far from home! He was well dressed, she noticed, and the buggy was new too. The horse looked young and well fed, but Frank looked far older than his years, older than on that Christmas eve when he had been at Tara with his men. He was thin and sallow faced and his yellow eyes were watery and sunken in creases of loose flesh. His ginger-colored beard was scantier than ever, streaked with tobacco juice and as ragged as if he clawed at it incessantly. But he looked bright and cheerful, in contrast with the lines of sorrow and worry and weariness which Scarlett saw in faces everywhere.

“It’s a pleasure to see you,” said Frank warmly. “I didn’t know you were in town. I saw Miss Pittypat only last week and she didn’t tell me you were coming. Did—er—ahem—did anyone else come up from Tara with you?”

He was thinking of Suellen, the silly old fool.

“No,” she said, wrapping the warm lap robe about her and trying to pull it up around her neck. “I came alone. I didn’t give Aunt Pitty any warning.”

He chirruped to the horse and it plodded off, picking its way carefully down the slick road.

“All the folks at Tara well?”

“Oh, yes, so-so.”

She must think of something to talk about, yet it was so hard to talk. Her mind was leaden with defeat and all she wanted was to lie back in this warm blanket and say to herself: “I won’t think of Tara now. I’ll think of it later, when it won’t hurt so much.” If she could just get him started talking on some subject which would hold him all the way home, so she would have nothing to do but murmur “How nice” and “You certainly are smart” at intervals.

“Mr. Kennedy, I’m so surprised to see you. I know I’ve been a bad girl, not keeping up with old friends, but I didn’t know you were here in Atlanta. I thought somebody told me you were in Marietta.”

“I do business in Marietta, a lot of business,” he said. “Didn’t Miss Suellen tell you I had settled in Atlanta? Didn’t she tell you about my store?”

Vaguely she had a memory of Suellen chattering about Frank and a store but she never paid much heed to anything Suellen said. It had been sufficient to know that Frank was alive and would some day take Suellen off her hands.

“No, not a word,” she lied. “Have you a store? How smart you must be!”

He looked a little hurt at hearing that Suellen had not published the news but brightened at the flattery.

“Yes, I’ve got a store, and a pretty good one I think. Folks tell me I’m a born merchant.”

He laughed pleasedly, the tittery cackling laugh which she always found so annoying.

Conceited old fool, she thought.

“Oh, you could be a success at anything you turned your hand to, Mr. Kennedy. But how on earth did you ever get started with the store? When I saw you Christmas before last you said you didn’t have a cent in the world.”

He cleared his throat raspingly, clawed at his whiskers and smiled his nervous timid smile.

“Well, it’s a long story, Miss Scarlett.”

Thank the Lord! she thought. Perhaps it will hold him till we get home. And aloud: “Do tell!”

“You recall when we came to Tara last, hunting for supplies? Well, not long after that I went into active service. I mean real fighting. No more commissary for me. There wasn’t much need for a commissary, Miss Scarlett, because we couldn’t hardly pick up a thing for the army, and I thought the place for an able-bodied man was in the fighting line. Well, I fought along with the cavalry for a spell till I got a minie ball through the shoulder.”

He looked very proud and Scarlett said: “How dreadful!”

“Oh, it wasn’t so bad, just a flesh wound,” he said deprecatingly. “I was sent down south to a hospital and when I was just about well, the Yankee raiders came through. My, my, but that was a hot time! We didn’t have much warning and all of us who could walk helped haul out the army stores and the hospital equipment to the train tracks to move it. We’d gotten one train about loaded when the Yankees rode in one end of town and out we went the other end as fast as we could go. My, my, that was a mighty sad sight, sitting on top of that train and seeing the Yankees burn those supplies we had to leave at the depot. Miss Scarlett, they burned about a half-mile of stuff we had piled up there along the tracks. We just did get away ourselves.”

“How dreadful!”

“Yes, that’s the word. Dreadful. Our men had come back into Atlanta then and so our train was sent here. Well, Miss Scarlett, it wasn’t long before the war was over and—well, there was a lot of china and cots and mattresses and blankets and nobody claiming them. I suppose rightfully they belonged to the Yankees. I think those were the terms of the surrender, weren’t they?”

“Um,” said Scarlett absently. She was getting warmer now and a little drowsy.

“I don’t know till now if I did right,” he said, a little querulously. “But the way I figured it, all that stuff wouldn’t do the Yankees a bit of good. They’d probably burn it. And our folks had paid good solid money for it, and I thought it still ought to belong to the Confederacy or to the Confederates. Do you see what I mean?”

“Um.”

“I’m glad you agree with me, Miss Scarlett. In a way, it’s been on my conscience. Lots of folks have told me: ‘Oh, forget about it, Frank,’ but I can’t. I couldn’t hold up my head if I thought I’d done what wasn’t right. Do you think I did right?”

“Of course,” she said, wondering what the old fool had been talking about. Some struggle with his conscience. When a man got as old as Frank Kennedy he ought to have learned not to bother about things that didn’t matter. But he always was so nervous and fussy and old maidish.

“I’m glad to hear you say it. After the surrender I had about ten dollars in silver and nothing else in the world. You know what they did to Jonesboro and my house and store there. I just didn’t know what to do. But I used the ten dollars to put a roof on an old store down by Five Points and I moved the hospital equipment in and started selling it. Everybody needed beds and china and mattresses and I sold them cheap, because I figured it was about as much other folks’ stuff as it was mine. But I cleared money on it and bought some more stuff and the store just went along fine. I think I’ll make a lot of money on it if things pick up.”

At the word “money,” her mind came back to him, crystal clear.

“You say you’ve made money?”

He visibly expanded under her interest. Few women except Suellen had ever given him more than perfunctory courtesy and it was very flattering to have a former belle like Scarlett hanging on his words. He slowed the horse so they would not reach home before he had finished his story.

“I’m not a millionaire, Miss Scarlett, and considering the money I used to have, what I’ve got now sounds small. But I made a thousand dollars this year. Of course, five hundred of it went to paying for new stock and repairing the store and paying the rent. But I’ve made five hundred clear and as things are certainly picking up, I ought to clear two thousand next year. I can sure use it, too, for you see, I’ve got another iron in the fire.”

Interest had sprung up sharply in her at the talk of money. She veiled her eyes with thick bristly lashes and moved a little closer to him.

“What does that mean, Mr. Kennedy?”

He laughed and slapped the reins against the horse’s back.

“I guess I’m boring you, talking about business, Miss Scarlett. A pretty little woman like you doesn’t need to know anything about business.”

The old fool.

“Oh, I know I’m a goose about business but I’m so interested! Please tell me all about it and you can explain what I don’t understand.”

“Well, my other iron is a sawmill.”

“A what?”

“A mill to cut up lumber and plane it. I haven’t bought it yet but I’m going to. There’s a man named Johnson who has one, way out Peachtree road, and he’s anxious to sell it. He needs some cash right away, so he wants to sell and stay and run it for me at a weekly wage. It’s one of the few mills in this section, Miss Scarlett. The Yankees destroyed most of them. And anyone who owns a sawmill owns a gold mine, for nowadays you can ask your own price for lumber. The Yankees burned so many houses here and there aren’t enough for people to live in and it looks like folks have gone crazy about rebuilding. They can t get enough lumber and they can’t get it fast enough. People are just pouring into Atlanta now, all the folks from the country districts who can’t make a go of farming without darkies and the Yankees and Carpetbaggers who are swarming in trying to pick our bones a little barer than they already are. I tell you Atlanta’s going to be a big town soon. They’ve got to have lumber for their houses, so I’m going to buy this mill just as soon as—well, as soon as some of the bills owing me are paid. By this time next year, I ought to be breathing easier about money. I—I guess you know why I’m so anxious to make money quickly, don’t you?”

He blushed and cackled again. He’s thinking of Suellen, Scarlett thought in disgust.

For a moment she considered asking him to lend her three hundred dollars, but wearily she rejected the idea. He would be embarrassed; he would stammer; he would offer excuses, but he wouldn’t lend it to her. He had worked hard for it, so he could marry Suellen in the spring and if he parted with it, his wedding would be postponed indefinitely. Even if she worked on his sympathies and his duty toward his future family and gained his promise of a loan, she knew Suellen would never permit it. Suellen was getting more and more worried over the fact that she was practically an old maid and she would move heaven and earth to prevent anything from delaying her marriage.

What was there in that whining complaining girl to make this old fool so anxious to give her a soft nest? Suellen didn’t deserve a loving husband and the profits of a store and a sawmill. The minute Sue got her hands on a little money she’d give herself unendurable airs and never contribute one cent toward the upkeep of Tara. Not Suellen! She’d think herself well out of it and not care if Tara went for taxes or burned to the ground, so long as she had pretty clothes and a “Mrs.” in front of her name.

As Scarlett thought of Suellen’s secure future and the precarious one of herself and Tara, anger flamed in her at the unfairness of life. Hastily she looked out of the buggy into the muddy street, lest Frank should see her expression. She was going to lose everything she had, while Sue—Suddenly a determination was born in her.

Suellen should not have Frank and his store and his mill!

Suellen didn’t deserve them. She was going to have them herself. She thought of Tara and remembered Jonas Wilkerson, venomous as a rattler, at the foot of the front steps, and she grasped at the last straw floating above the shipwreck of her life. Rhett had failed her but the Lord had provided Frank.

But can I get him? Her fingers clenched as she looked unseeingly into the rain. Can I make him forget Sue and propose to me real quick? If I could make Rhett almost propose, I know I could get Frank! Her eyes went over him, her lids flickering. Certainly, he’s no beauty, she thought coolly, and he’s got very bad teeth and his breath smells bad and he’s old enough to be my father. Moreover, he’s nervous and timid and well meaning, and I don’t know of any more damning qualities a man can have. But at least, he’s a gentleman and I believe I could stand living with him better than with Rhett. Certainly I could manage him easier. At any rate, beggars can’t be choosers.

That he was Suellen’s fiancé caused her no qualm of conscience. After the complete moral collapse which had sent her to Atlanta and to Rhett, the appropriation of her sister’s betrothed seemed a minor affair and one not to be bothered with at this time.

With the rousing of fresh hope, her spine stiffened and she forgot that her feet were wet and cold. She looked at Frank so steadily, her eyes narrowing, that he became somewhat alarmed and she dropped her gaze swiftly, remembering Rhett’s words: “I’ve seen eyes like yours above a dueling pistol… They evoke no ardor in the male breast.”

“What’s the matter, Miss Scarlett? You got a chill?”

“Yes,” she answered helplessly. “Would you mind—” She hesitated timidly. “Would you mind if I put my hand in your coat pocket? It’s so cold and my muff is soaked through.”

“Why—why—of course not! And you haven’t any gloves! My, my, what a brute I’ve been idling along like this, talking my head off when you must be freezing and wanting to get to a fire. Giddap, Sally! By the way, Miss Scarlett, I’ve been so busy talking about myself I haven’t even asked you what you were doing in this section in this weather?”

“I was at the Yankee headquarters,” she answered before she thought. His sandy brows went up in astonishment.

“But Miss Scarlett! The soldiers—Why—”

“Mary, Mother of God, let me think of a real good lie,” she prayed hastily. It would never do for Frank to suspect she had seen Rhett. Frank thought Rhett the blackest of blackguards and unsafe for decent women to speak to.

“I went there—I went there to see if—if any of the officers would buy fancy work from me to send home to their wives. I embroider very nicely.”

He sank back against the seat aghast, indignation struggling with bewilderment.

“You went to the Yankees—But Miss Scarlett! You shouldn’t. Why—why… Surely your father doesn’t know! Surely, Miss Pittypat—”

“Oh, I shall die if you tell Aunt Pittypat!” she cried in real anxiety and burst into tears. It was easy to cry, because she was so cold and miserable, but the effect was startling. Frank could not have been more embarrassed or helpless if she had suddenly begun disrobing. He clicked his tongue against his teeth several times, muttering “My! My!” and made futile gestures at her. A daring thought went through his mind that he should draw her head onto his shoulder and pat her but he had never done this to any woman and hardly knew how to go about it. Scarlett O’Hara, so high spirited and pretty, crying here in his buggy. Scarlett O’Hara, the proudest of the proud, trying to sell needlework to the Yankees. His heart burned.

She sobbed on, saying a few words now and then, and he gathered that all was not well at Tara. Mr. O’Hara was still “not himself at all,” and there wasn’t enough food to go around for so many. So she had to come to Atlanta to try to make a little money for herself and her boy. Frank clicked his tongue again and suddenly he found that her head was on his shoulder. He did not quite know how it got there. Surely he had not placed it there, but there her head was and there was Scarlett helplessly sobbing against his thin chest, an exciting and novel sensation for him. He patted her shoulder timidly, gingerly at first, and when she did not rebuff him he became bolder and patted her firmly. What a helpless, sweet, womanly little thing she was. And how brave and silly to try her hand at making money by her needle. But dealing with the Yankees—that was too much.

“I won’t tell Miss Pittypat, but you must promise me, Miss Scarlett, that you won’t do anything like this again. The idea of your father’s daughter—”

Her wet green eyes sought his helplessly.

“But, Mr. Kennedy, I must do something. I must take care of my poor little boy and there is no one to look after us now.”

“You are a brave little woman,” he pronounced, “but I won’t have you do this sort of thing. Your family would die of shame.”

“Then what will I do?” The swimming eyes looked up to him as if she knew he knew everything and was hanging on his words.

“Well, I don’t know right now. But I’ll think of something.”

“Oh, I know you will! You are so smart—Frank.”

She had never called him by his first name before and the sound came to him as a pleasant shock and surprise. The poor girl was probably so upset she didn’t even notice her slip. He felt very kindly toward her and very protecting. If there was anything he could do for Suellen O’Hara’s sister, he would certainly do it. He pulled out a red bandanna handkerchief and handed it to her and she wiped her eyes and began to smile tremulously.

“I’m such a silly little goose,” she said apologetically. “Please forgive me.”

“You aren’t a silly little goose. You’re a very brave little woman and you are trying to carry to heavy a load. I’m afraid Miss Pittypat isn’t going to be much help to you. I hear she lost most of her property and Mr. Henry Hamilton’s in bad shape himself. I only wish I had a home to offer you shelter in. But, Miss Scarlett, you just remember this, when Miss Suellen and I are married, there’ll always be a place for you under our roof and for Wade Hampton too.”

Now was the time! Surely the saints and angels watched over her to give her such a Heaven-sent opportunity. She managed to look very startled and embarrassed and opened her mouth as if to speak quickly and then shut it with a pop.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know I was to be your brother-in-law this spring,” he said with nervous jocularity.

And then, seeing her eyes fill up with tears, he questioned in alarm: “What’s the matter? Miss Sue’s not ill, is she?”

“Oh, no! No!”

“There is something wrong. You must tell me.”

“Oh, I can’t! I didn’t know! I thought surely she must have written you—Oh, how mean!”

“Miss Scarlett, what is it?”

“Oh, Frank, I didn’t mean to let it out but I thought, of course, you knew—that she had written you—”

“Written me what?” He was trembling.

“Oh, to do this to a fine man like you!”

“What’s she done?”

“She didn’t write you? Oh, I guess she was too ashamed to write you. She should be ashamed! Oh, to have such a mean sister!”

By this time, Frank could not even get questions to his lips. He sat staring at her, gray faced, the reins slack in his hands.

“She’s going to marry Tony Fontaine next month. Oh, I’m so sorry, Frank. So sorry to be the one to tell you. She just got tired of waiting and she was afraid she’d be an old maid.”

Mammy was standing on the front porch when Frank helped Scarlett out of the buggy. She had evidently been standing there for some time, for her head rag was damp and the old shawl clutched tightly about her showed rain spots. Her wrinkled black face was a study in anger and apprehension and her lip was pushed out farther than Scarlett could ever remember. She peered quickly at Frank and, when she saw who it was, her face changed—pleasure, bewilderment and something akin to guilt spreading over it. She waddled forward to Frank with pleased greetings and grinned and curtsied when he shook her hand.

“It sho is good ter see home folks,” she said. “How is you, Mist’ Frank? My, ain’ you lookin’ fine an’ gran’! Effen Ah’d knowed Miss Scarlett wuz out wid you, Ah wouldn’ worrit so. Ah’d knowed she wuz tekken keer of. Ah come back hyah an’ fine she gone an’ Ah been as ’stracted as a chicken wid its haid off, thinkin’ she runnin’ roun’ dis town by herseff wid all dese trashy free issue niggers on de street. Huccome you din’ tell me you gwine out, honey? An’ you wid a cole!”

Scarlett winked slyly at Frank and, for all his distress at the bad news he had just heard, he smiled, knowing she was enjoining silence and making him one in a pleasant conspiracy.

“You run up and fix me some dry clothes, Mammy,” she said. “And some hot tea.”

“Lawd, yo’ new dress is plum ruint,” grumbled Mammy. “Ah gwine have a time dryin’ it an’ brushin’ it, so it’ll be fit ter be wo’ ter de weddin’ ternight.”

She went into the house and Scarlett leaned close to Frank and whispered: “Do come to supper tonight. We are so lonesome. And we’re going to the wedding afterward. Do be our escort! And, please don’t say anything to Aunt Pitty about—about Suellen. It would distress her so much and I can’t bear for her to know that my sister—”

“Oh, I won’t! I won’t!” Frank said hastily, wincing from the very thought.

“You’ve been so sweet to me today and done me so much good. I feel right brave again.” She squeezed his hand in parting and turned the full battery of her eyes upon him.

Mammy, who was waiting just inside the door, gave her an inscrutable look and followed her, puffing, up the stairs to the bedroom. She was silent while she stripped off the wet clothes and hung them over chairs and tucked Scarlett into bed. When she had brought up a cup of hot tea and a hot brick, rolled in flannel, she looked down at Scarlett and said, with the nearest approach to an apology in her voice Scarlett had ever heard: “Lamb, huccome you din’ tell yo’ own Mammy whut you wuz upter? Den Ah wouldn’ had ter traipse all dis way up hyah ter ’Lanta. Ah is too ole an’ too fat fer sech runnin’ roun’.”

“What do you mean?”

“Honey, you kain fool me. Ah knows you. An’ Ah seed Mist’ Frank’s face jes’ now an’ Ah seed yo’ face, an’ Ah kin read yo’ mine lak a pahson read a Bible. An’ Ah heerd dat whisperin’ you wuz givin’ him ’bout Miss Suellen. Effen Ah’d had a notion ’twuz Mist’ Frank you wuz affer, Ah’d stayed home whar Ah b’longs.”

“Well,” said Scarlett shortly, snuggling under the blankets and realizing it was useless to try to throw Mammy off the scent, “who did you think it was?”

“Chile, Ah din’ know but Ah din’ lak de look on yo’ face yestiddy. An’ Ah ’membered Miss Pittypat writin’ Miss Melly dat dat rapscallion Butler man had lots of money an’ Ah doan fergit whut Ah hears. But Mist’ Frank, he a gempmum even ef he ain’ so pretty.”

Scarlett gave her a sharp look and Mammy returned the gaze with calm omniscience.

“Well, what are you going to do about it? Tattle to Suellen?”

“Ah is gwine ter he’p you pleasure Mist’ Frank eve’y way Ah knows how,” said Mammy, tucking the covers about Scarlett’s neck.

Scarlett lay quietly for a while, as Mammy fussed about the room, relief flooding her that there was no need for words between them. No explanations were asked, no reproaches made. Mammy understood and was silent. In Mammy, Scarlett had found a realist more uncompromising than herself. The mottled wise old eyes saw deeply, saw clearly, with the directness of the savage and the child, undeterred by conscience when danger threatened her pet. Scarlett was her baby and what her baby wanted, even though it belonged to another, Mammy was willing to help her obtain. The rights of Suellen and Frank Kennedy did not even enter her mind, save to cause a grim inward chuckle. Scarlett was in trouble and doing the best she could, and Scarlett was Miss Ellen’s child. Mammy rallied to her with never a moment’s hesitation.

Scarlett felt the silent reinforcement and, as the hot brick at her feet warmed her, the hope which had flickered faintly on the cold ride home grew into a flame. It swept through her, making her heart pump the blood through her veins in pounding surges. Strength was coming back and a reckless excitement which made her want to laugh aloud. Not beaten yet, she thought exultantly.

“Hand me the mirror, Mammy,” she said.

“Keep yo’ shoulders unner dat kivver,” ordered Mammy, passing the hand mirror to her, a smile on her thick lips.

Scarlett looked at herself.

“I look white as a hant,” she said, “and my hair is as wild as a horse’s tail.”

“You doan look peart as you mout.”

“Hum… Is it raining very hard?”

“You know it’s po’in’.”

“Well, just the same, you’ve got to go downtown for me.”

“Not in dis rain, Ah ain’.”

“Yes, you are or I’ll go myself.”

“Whut you got ter do dat woan wait? Look ter me lak you done nuff fer one day.”

“I want,” said Scarlett, surveying herself carefully in the mirror, “a bottle of cologne water. You can wash my hair and rinse it with cologne. And buy me a jar of quince-seed jelly to make it lie down flat.”

“Ah ain’ gwine wash yo’ ha’r in dis wedder an’ you ain’ gwine put no cologne on yo’ haid lak a fas’ woman needer. Not w’ile Ah got breaf in mah body.”

“Oh, yes, I am. Look in my purse and get that five-dollar gold piece out and go to town. And—er, Mammy, while you are downtown, you might get me a—a pot of rouge.”

“Whut dat?” asked Mammy suspiciously.

Scarlett met her eyes with a coldness she was far from feeling. There was never any way of knowing just how far Mammy could be bullied.

“Never you mind. Just ask for it.”

“Ah ain’ buyin nuthin’ dat Ah doan know whut ’tis.”

“Well, it’s paint, if you’re so curious! Face paint. Don’t stand there and swell up like a toad. Go on.”

“Paint!” ejaculated Mammy. “Face paint! Well, you ain’ so big dat Ah kain whup you! Ah ain’ never been so scan’lized! You is los’ yo’ mine! Miss Ellen be tuhnin’ in her grabe dis minute! Paintin’ yo face lak a—”

“You know very well Grandma Robillard painted her face and—”

“Yas’m, an’ wo’ only one petticoat an’ it wrang out wid water ter mek it stick an’ show de shape of her laigs, but dat ain’ sayin’ you is gwine do sumpin’ lak dat! Times wuz scan’lous w’en Ole Miss wuz young but times changes, dey do an’—”

“Name of God!” cried Scarlett, losing her temper and throwing back the covers. “You can go straight back to Tara!”

“You kain sen’ me ter Tara ness Ah wants ter go. Ah is free,” said Mammy heatedly. “An’ Ah is gwine ter stay right hyah. Git back in dat baid. Does you want ter ketch pneumony jes’ now? Put down dem stays! Put dem down, honey. Now, Miss Scarlett, you ain’ gwine nowhars in dis wedder. Lawd God! But you sho look lak yo’ pa! Git back in baid—Ah kain go buyin’ no paint! Ah die of shame, eve’ybody knowin ’it wud fer mah chile! Miss Scarlett, you is so sweet an’ pretty lookin’ you doan need no paint. Honey, doan nobody but bad womens use dat stuff.”

“Well, they get results, don’t they?”

“Jesus, hear her! Lamb, doan say bad things lak dat! Put down dem wet stockin’s, honey. Ah kain have you buy dat stuff yo’seff. Miss Ellen would hant me. Git back in baid. Ah’ll go. Maybe Ah fine me a sto’ whar dey doan know us.”

That night at Mrs. Elsing’s, when Fanny had been duly married and old Levi and the other musicians were tuning up for the dance, Scarlett looked about her with gladness. It was so exciting to be actually at a party again. She was pleased also with the warm reception she had received. When she entered the house on Frank’s arm, everyone had rushed to her with cries of pleasure and welcome, kissed her, shaken her hand, told her they had missed her dreadfully and that she must never go back to Tara. The men seemed gallantly to have forgotten she had tried her best to break their hearts in other days and the girls that she had done everything in her power to entice their beaux away from them. Even Mrs. Merriwether, Mrs. Whiting, Mrs. Meade and the other dowagers who had been so cool to her during the last days of the war, forgot her flighty conduct and their disapproval of it and recalled only that she had suffered in their common defeat and that she was Pitty’s niece and Charles’ widow. They kissed her and spoke gently with tears in their eyes of her dear mother’s passing and asked at length about her father and her sisters. Everyone asked about Melanie and Ashley, demanding the reason why they, too, had not come back to Atlanta.

In spite of her pleasure at the welcome, Scarlett felt a slight uneasiness which she tried to conceal, an uneasiness about the appearance of her velvet dress. It was still damp to the knees and still spotted about the hem, despite the frantic efforts of Mammy and Cookie with a steaming kettle, a clean hair brush and frantic wavings in front of an open fire. Scarlett was afraid someone would notice her bedraggled state and realize that this was her only nice dress. She was a little cheered by the fact that many of the dresses of the other guests looked far worse than hers. They were so old and had such carefully mended and pressed looks. At least, her dress was whole and new, damp though it was—in fact, the only new dress at the gathering with the exception of Fanny’s white-satin wedding gown.

Remembering what Aunt Pitty had told her about the Elsing finances, she wondered where the money for the satin dress had been obtained and for the refreshments and decorations and musicians too. It must have cost a pretty penny. Borrowed money probably or else the whole Elsing clan had contributed to give Fanny this expensive wedding. Such a wedding in these hard times seemed to Scarlett an extravagance on a par with the tombstones of the Tarleton boys and she felt the same irritation and lack of sympathy she had felt as she stood in the Tarleton burying ground. The days when money could be thrown away carelessly had passed. Why did these people persist in making the gestures of the old days when the old days were gone?

But she shrugged off her momentary annoyance. It wasn’t her money and she didn’t want her evening’s pleasure spoiled by irritation at other people’s foolishness.

She discovered she knew the groom quite well, for he was Tommy Wellburn from Sparta and she had nursed him in 1863 when he had a wound in his shoulder. He had been a handsome young six-footer then and had given up his medical studies to go in the cavalry. Now he looked like a little old man, so bent was he by the wound in his hip. He walked with some difficulty and, as Aunt Pitty had remarked, spraddled in a very vulgar way. But he seemed totally unaware of his appearance, or unconcerned about it, and had the manner of one who asks no odds from any man. He had given up all hope of continuing his medical studies and was now a contractor, working a labor crew of Irishmen who were building the new hotel. Scarlett wondered how he managed so onerous a job in his condition but asked no questions, realizing wryly that almost anything was possible when necessity drove.

Tommy and Hugh Elsing and the little monkey-like Rene Picard stood talking with her while the chairs and furniture were pushed back to the wall in preparation for the dancing. Hugh had not changed since Scarlett last saw him in 1862. He was still the thin sensitive boy with the same lock of pale brown hair hanging over his forehead and the same delicate useless-looking hands she remembered so well. But Rene had changed since that furlough when he married Maybelle Merriwether. He still had the Gallic twinkle in his black eyes and the Creole zest for living but, for all his easy laughter, there was something hard about his face which had not been there in the early days of the war. And the air of supercilious elegance which had clung about him in his striking Zouave uniform was completely gone.

“Cheeks lak ze rose, eyes lak ze emerald!” he said, kissing Scarlett’s hand and paying tribute to the rouge upon her face. “Pretty lak w’en I first see you at ze bazaar. You remembaire? Nevaire have I forgot how you toss your wedding ring in my basket. Ha, but zat was brave! But I should nevaire have zink you wait so long to get anothaire ring!”

His eyes sparkled wickedly and he dug his elbow into Hugh’s ribs.

“And I never thought you’d be driving a pie wagon, Renny Picard,” she said. Instead of being ashamed at having his degrading occupation thrown in his face, he seemed pleased and laughed uproariously, slapping Hugh on the back.

“Touché!” he cried. “Belle Merè, Madame Merriwether, she mek me do eet, ze first work I do en all my life, Rene Picard, who was to grow old breeding ze race horse, playing ze feedle! Now, I drive ze pie wagon and I lak eet! Madame Belle Merè, she can mek a man do annyzing. She should have been ze general and we win ze war, eh, Tommy?”

Well! thought Scarlett. The idea of liking to drive a pie wagon when his people used to own ten miles along the Mississippi River and a big house in New Orleans, too!

“If we’d had our mothers-in-law in the ranks, we’d have beat the Yankees in a week,” agreed Tommy, his eyes straying to the slender, indomitable form of his new mother-in-law. “The only reason we lasted as long as we did was because of the ladies behind us who wouldn’t give up.”

“Who’ll never give up,” amended Hugh, and his smile was proud but a little wry. “There’s not a lady here tonight who has surrendered, no matter what her men folks did at Appomattox. It’s a lot worse on them than it ever was on us. At least, we took it out in fighting.”

“And they in hating,” finished Tommy. “Eh, Scarlett? It bothers the ladies to see what their men folks have come down to lots more than it bothers us. Hugh was to be a judge, Rene was to play the fiddle before the crowned heads of Europe—” He ducked as Rene aimed a blow at him. “And I was to be a doctor and now—”

“Geeve us ze time!” cried Rene. “Zen I become ze Pie Prince of ze South! And my good Hugh ze King of ze Kindling and you, my Tommy, you weel own ze Irish slaves instead of ze darky slaves. What changes—what fun! And what eet do for you, Mees Scarlett, and Mees Melly? You meelk ze cow, peek ze cotton?”

“Indeed, no!” said Scarlett coolly, unable to understand Rene’s gay acceptance of hardships. “Our darkies do that.”

“Mees Melly, I hear she call her boy ‘Beauregard.’ You tell her I, Rene, approve and say that except for ‘Jesus’ there is no bettaire name.”

And though he smiled, his eyes glowed proudly at the name of Louisiana’s dashing hero.

“Well, there’s ‘Robert Edward Lee,’” observed Tommy. “And while I’m not trying to lessen Old Beau’s reputation, my first son is going to be named ‘Bob Lee Wellburn.”

Rend laughed and shrugged.

“I recount to you a joke but eet eez a true story. And you see how Creoles zink of our brave Beauregard and of your General Lee. On ze train near New Orleans a man of Virginia, a man of General Lee, he meet wiz a Creole of ze troops of Beauregard. And ze man of Virginia, he talk, talk, talk how General Lee do zis, General Lee say zat. And ze Creole, he look polite and he wreenkle hees forehead lak he try to remembaire, and zen he smile and say: ‘General Lee! Ah, oui! Now I know! General Lee! Ze man General Beauregard speak well of!’”

Scarlett tried to join politely in the laughter but she did not see any point to the story except that Creoles were just as stuck up as Charleston and Savannah people. Moreover, she had always thought Ashley’s son should have been named after him.

The musicians after preliminary tunings and whangings broke into “Old Dan Tucker” and Tommy turned to her.

“Will you dance, Scarlett? I can’t favor you but Hugh or Rene—”

“No, thank you. I’m still mourning my mother,” said Scarlett hastily. “I will sit them out.”

Her eyes singled out Frank Kennedy and beckoned him from the side of Mrs. Elsing.

“I’ll sit in that alcove yonder if you’ll bring me some refreshments and then we can have a nice chat,” she told Frank as the other three men moved off.

When he had hurried away to bring her a glass of wine and a paper thin slice of cake, Scarlett sat down in the alcove at the end of the drawing room and carefully arranged her skirts so that the worst spots would not show. The humiliating events of the morning with Rhett were pushed from her mind by the excitement of seeing so many people and hearing music again. Tomorrow she would think of Rhett’s conduct and her shame and they would make her writhe again. Tomorrow she would wonder if she had made any impression on Frank’s hurt and bewildered heart. But not tonight. Tonight she was alive to her finger tips, every sense alert with hope, her eyes sparkling.

She looked from the alcove into the huge drawing room and watched the dancers, remembering how beautiful this room had been when first she came to Atlanta during the war. Then the hardwood floors had shone like glass, and overhead the chandelier with its hundreds of tiny prisms had caught and reflected every ray of the dozens of candles it bore, flinging them, like gleams from diamonds, flame and sapphire about the room. The old portraits on the walls had been dignified and gracious and had looked down upon guests with an air of mellowed hospitality. The rosewood sofas had been soft and inviting and one of them, the largest, had stood in the place of honor in this same alcove where she now sat. It had been Scarlett’s favorite seat at parties. From this point stretched the pleasant vista of drawing room and dining room beyond, the oval mahogany table which seated twenty and the twenty slim-legged chairs demurely against the walls, the massive sideboard and buffet weighted with heavy silver, with seven-branched candlesticks, goblets, cruets, decanters and shining little glasses. Scarlett had sat on that sofa so often in the first years of the war, always with some handsome officer beside her, and listened to violin and bull fiddle, accordion and banjo, and heard the exciting swishing noises which dancing feet made on the waxed and polished floor.

Now the chandelier hung dark. It was twisted askew and most of the prisms were broken, as if the Yankee occupants had made their beauty a target for their boots. Now an oil lamp and a few candles lighted the room and the roaring fire in the wide hearth gave most of the illumination. Its flickering light showed how irreparably scarred and splintered the dull old floor was. Squares on the faded paper on the wall gave evidence that once the portraits had hung there, and wide cracks in the plaster recalled the day during the siege when a shell had exploded on the house and torn off parts of the roof and second floor. The heavy old mahogany table, spread with cake and decanters, still presided in the empty-looking dining room but it was scratched and the broken legs showed signs of clumsy repair. The sideboard, the silver and the spindly chairs were gone. The dull-gold damask draperies which had covered the arching French windows at the back of the room were missing, and only the remnants of the lace curtains remained, clean but obviously mended.

In place of the curved sofa she had liked so much was a hard bench that was none too comfortable. She sat upon it with as good grace as possible, wishing her skirts were in such condition that she could dance. It would be so good to dance again. But, of course, she could do more with Frank in this sequestered alcove than in a breathless reel and she could listen fascinated to his talk and encourage him to greater flights of foolishness.

But the music certainly was inviting. Her slipper patted longingly in time with old Levi’s large splayed foot as he twanged a strident banjo and called the figures of the reel. Feet swished and scraped and patted as the twin lines danced toward each other, retreated, whirled and made arches of their arms.

After the dull and exhausting months at Tara it was good to hear music again and the sound of dancing feet, good to see familiar friendly faces laughing in the feeble light, calling old jokes and catchwords, bantering, rallying, coquetting. It was like coming to life again after being dead. It almost seemed that the bright days of five years ago had come back again. If she could close her eyes and not see the worn made-over dresses and the patched boots and mended slippers, if her mind did not call up the faces of boys missing from the reel, she might almost think that nothing had changed. But as she looked, watching the old men grouped about the decanter in the dining room, the matrons lining the walls, talking behind fanless hands, and the swaying, skipping young dancers, it came to her suddenly, coldly, frighteningly that it was all as greatly changed as if these familiar figures were ghosts.

They looked the same but they were different. What was it? Was it only that they were five years older? No, it was something more than the passing of time. Something had gone out of them, out of their world. Five years ago, a feeling of security had wrapped them all around so gently they were not even aware of it. In its shelter they had flowered. Now it was gone and with it had gone the old thrill, the old sense of something delightful and exciting just around the corner, the old glamor of their way of living.

She knew she had changed too, but not as they had changed, and it puzzled her. She sat and watched them and she felt herself an alien among them, as alien and lonely as if she had come from another world, speaking a language they did not understand and she not understanding theirs. Then she knew that this feeling was the same one she felt with Ashley. With him and with people of his kind—and they made up most of her world—she felt outside of something she could not understand.

Their faces were little changed and their manners not at all but it seemed to her that these two things were all that remained of her old friends. An ageless dignity, a timeless gallantry still clung about them and would cling until they died but they would carry undying bitterness to their graves, a bitterness too deep for words. They were a soft-spoken, fierce, tired people who were defeated and would not know defeat, broken yet standing determinedly erect. They were crushed and helpless, citizens of conquered provinces. They were looking on the state they loved, seeing it trampled by the enemy, rascals making a mock of the law, their former slaves a menace, their men disfranchised, their women insulted. And they were remembering graves.

Everything in their old world had changed but the old forms. The old usages went on, must go on, for the forms were all that were left to them. They were holding tightly to the things they knew best and loved best in the old days, the leisured manners, the courtesy, the pleasant casualness in human contacts and, most of all, the protecting attitude of the men toward their women. True to the tradition in which they had been reared, the men were courteous and tender and they almost succeeded in creating an atmosphere of sheltering their women from all that was harsh and unfit for feminine eyes. That, thought Scarlett, was the height of absurdity, for there was little, now, which even the most cloistered women had not seen and known in the last five years. They had nursed the wounded, closed dying eyes, suffered war and fire and devastation, known terror and flight and starvation.

But, no matter what sights they had seen, what menial tasks they had done and would have to do, they remained ladies and gentlemen, royalty in exile—bitter, aloof, incurious, kind to one another, diamond hard, as bright and brittle as the crystals of the broken chandelier over their heads. The old days had gone but these people would go their ways as if the old days still existed, charming, leisurely, determined not to rush and scramble for pennies as the Yankees did, determined to part with none of the old ways.

Scarlett knew that she, too, was greatly changed. Otherwise she could not have done the things she had done since she was last in Atlanta; otherwise she would not now be contemplating doing what she desperately hoped to do. But there was a difference in their hardness and hers and just what the difference was, she could not, for the moment, tell. Perhaps it was that there was nothing she would not do, and there were so many things these people would rather die than do. Perhaps it was that they were without hope but still smiling at life, bowing gracefully and passing it by. And this Scarlett could not do.

She could not ignore life. She had to live it and it was too brutal, too hostile, for her even to try to gloss over its harshness with a smile. Of the sweetness and courage and unyielding pride of her friends, Scarlett saw nothing. She saw only a silly stiff-neckedness which observed facts but smiled and refused to look them in the face.

As she stared at the dancers, flushed from the reel, she wondered if things drove them as she was driven, dead lovers, maimed husbands, children who were hungry, acres slipping away, beloved roofs that sheltered strangers. But, of course, they were driven! She knew their circumstances only a little less thoroughly than she knew her own. Their losses had been her losses, their privations her privations, their problems her same problems. Yet they had reacted differently to them. The faces she was seeing in the room were not faces; they were masks, excellent masks which would never drop.

But if they were suffering as acutely from brutal circumstances as she was—and they were—how could they maintain this air of gaiety and lightness of heart? Why, indeed, should they even try to do it? They were beyond her comprehension and vaguely irritating. She couldn’t be like them. She couldn’t survey the wreck of the world with an air of casual unconcern. She was as hunted as a fox, running with a bursting heart, trying to reach a burrow before the hounds caught up.

Suddenly she hated them all because they were different from her, because they carried their losses with an air that she could never attain, would never wish to attain. She hated them, these smiling, light-footed strangers, these proud fools who took pride in something they had lost, seeming to be proud that they had lost it. The women bore themselves like ladies and she knew they were ladies, though menial tasks were their daily lot and they didn’t know where their next dress was coming from. Ladies all! But she could not feel herself a lady, for all her velvet dress and scented hair, for all the pride of birth that stood behind her and the pride of wealth that had once been hers. Harsh contact with the red earth of Tara had stripped gentility from her and she knew she would never feel like a lady again until her table was weighted with silver and crystal and smoking with rich food, until her own horses and carriages stood in her stables, until black hands and not white took the cotton from Tara.

“Ah!” she thought angrily, sucking in her breath. “That’s the difference! Even though they’re poor, they still feel like ladies and I don’t. The silly fools don’t seem to realize that you can’t be a lady without money!”

Even in this flash of revelation, she realized vaguely that, foolish though they seemed, theirs was the right attitude. Ellen would have thought so. This disturbed her. She knew she should feel as these people felt, but she could not. She knew she should believe devoutly, as they did, that a born lady remained a lady, even if reduced to poverty, but she could not make herself believe it now.

All her life she had heard sneers hurled at the Yankees because their pretensions to gentility were based on wealth, not breeding. But at this moment, heresy though it was, she could not help thinking the Yankees were right on this one matter, even if wrong in all others. It took money to be a lady. She knew Ellen would have fainted had she ever heard such words from her daughter. No depth of poverty could ever have made Ellen feel ashamed. Ashamed! Yes, that was how Scarlett felt. Ashamed that she was poor and reduced to galling shifts and penury and work that negroes should do.

She shrugged in irritation. Perhaps these people were right and she was wrong but, just the same, these proud fools weren’t looking forward as she was doing, straining every nerve, risking even honor and good name to get back what they had lost. It was beneath the dignity of any of them to indulge in a scramble for money. The times were rude and hard. They called for rude and hard struggle if one was to conquer them. Scarlett knew that family tradition would forcibly restrain many of these people from such a struggle—with the making of money admittedly its aim. They all thought that obvious money-making and even talk of money were vulgar in the extreme. Of course, there were exceptions. Mrs. Merriwether and her baking and Rene driving the pie wagon. And Hugh Elsing cutting and peddling firewood and Tommy contracting. And Frank having the gumption to start a store. But what of the rank and file of them? The planters would scratch a few acres and live in poverty. The lawyers and doctors would go back to their professions and wait for clients who might never come. And the rest, those who had lived in leisure on their incomes? What would happen to them?

But she wasn’t going to be poor all her life. She wasn’t going to sit down and patiently wait for a miracle to help her. She was going to rush into life and wrest from it what she could. Her father had started as a poor immigrant boy and had won the broad acres of Tara. What he had done, his daughter could do. She wasn’t like these people who had gambled everything on a Cause that was gone and were content to be proud of having lost that Cause, because it was worth any sacrifice. They drew their courage from the past. She was drawing hers from the future. Frank Kennedy, at present, was her future. At least, he had the store and he had cash money. And if she could only marry him and get her hands on that money, she could make ends meet at Tara for another year. And after that—Frank must buy the sawmill. She could see for herself how quickly the town was rebuilding and anyone who could establish a lumber business now, when there was so little competition, would have a gold mine.

There came to her, from the recesses of her mind, words Rhett had spoken in the early years of the war about the money he made in the blockade. She had not taken the trouble to understand them then, but now they seemed perfectly clear and she wondered if it had been only her youth or plain stupidity which had kept her from appreciating them.

“There’s just as much money to be made in the wreck of a civilization as in the upbuilding of one.”

“This is the wreck he foresaw,” she thought, “and he was right. There’s still plenty of money to be made by anyone who isn’t afraid to work—or to grab.”

She saw Frank coming across the floor toward her with a glass of blackberry wine in his hand and a morsel of cake on a saucer and she pulled her face into a smile. It did not occur to her to question whether Tara was worth marrying Frank. She knew it was worth it and she never gave the matter a second thought.

She smiled up at him as she sipped the wine, knowing that her cheeks were more attractively pink than any of the dancers’. She moved her skirts for him to sit by her and waved her handkerchief idly so that the faint sweet smell of the cologne could reach his nose. She was proud of the cologne, for no other woman in the room was wearing any and Frank had noticed it. In a fit of daring he had whispered to her that she was as pink and fragrant as a rose.

If only he were not so shy! He reminded her of a timid old brown field rabbit. If only he had the gallantry and ardor of the Tarleton boys or even the coarse impudence of Rhett Butler. But, if he possessed those qualities, he’d probably have sense enough to feel the desperation that lurked just beneath her demurely fluttering eyelids. As it was, he didn’t know enough about women even to suspect what she was up to. That was her good fortune but it did not increase her respect for him.

Chapter XXXVI

She married Frank Kennedy two weeks later after a whirlwind courtship which she blushingly told him left her too breathless to oppose his ardor any longer.

He did not know that during those two weeks she had walked the floor at night, gritting her teeth at the slowness with which he took hints and encouragements, praying that no untimely letter from Suellen would reach him and ruin her plans. She thanked God that her sister was the poorest of correspondents, delighting to receive letters and disliking to write them. But there was always a chance, always a chance, she thought in the long night hours as she padded back and forth across the cold floor of her bedroom, with Ellen’s faded shawl clutched about her nightdress. Frank did not know she had received a laconic letter from Will, relating that Jonas Wilkerson had paid another call at Tara and, finding her gone to Atlanta, had stormed about until Will and Ashley threw him bodily off the place. Will’s letter hammered into her mind the fact she knew only too well—that time was getting shorter and shorter before the extra taxes must be paid. A fierce desperation drove her as she saw the days slipping by and she wished she might grasp the hourglass in her hands and keep the sands from running.

But so well did she conceal her feelings, so well did she enact her role, Frank suspected nothing, saw no more than what lay on the surface—the pretty and helpless young widow of Charles Hamilton who greeted him every night in Miss Pittypat’s parlor and listened, breathless with admiration, as he told of future plans for his store and how much money he expected to make when he was able to buy the sawmill. Her sweet sympathy and her bright-eyed interest in every word he uttered were balm upon the wound left by Suellen’s supposed defection. His heart was sore and bewildered at Suellen’s conduct and his vanity, the shy, touchy vanity of a middle-aged bachelor who knows himself to be unattractive to women, was deeply wounded. He could not write Suellen, upbraiding her for her faithlessness; he shrank from the very idea. But he could ease his heart by talking about her to Scarlett. Without saying a disloyal word about Suellen, she could tell him she understood how badly her sister had treated him and what good treatment he merited from a woman who really appreciated him.

Little Mrs. Hamilton was such a pretty pink-cheeked person, alternating between melancholy sighs when she thought of her sad plight, and laughter as gay and sweet as the tinkling of tiny silver bells when he made small jokes to cheer her. Her green gown, now neatly cleaned by Mammy, showed off her slender figure with its tiny waist to perfection, and how bewitching was the faint fragrance which always clung about her handkerchief and her hair! It was a shame that such a fine little woman should be alone and helpless in a world so rough that she didn’t even understand its harshness. No husband nor brother nor even a father now to protect her. Frank thought the world too rude a place for a lone woman and, in that idea, Scarlett silently and heartily concurred.

He came to call every night, for the atmosphere of Pitty’s house was pleasant and soothing. Mammy’s smile at the front door was the smile reserved for quality folks, Pitty served him coffee laced with brandy and fluttered about him and Scarlett hung on his every utterance. Sometimes in the afternoons he took Scarlett riding with him in his buggy when he went out on business. These rides were merry affairs because she asked so many foolish questions—“just like a woman,” he told himself approvingly. He couldn’t help laughing at her ignorance about business matters and she laughed too, saying: “Well, of course, you can’t expect a silly little woman like me to understand men’s affairs.”

She made him feel, for the first time in his old-maidish life, that he was a strong upstanding man fashioned by God in a nobler mold than other men, fashioned to protect silly helpless women.

When, at last, they stood together to be married, her confiding little hand in his and her downcast lashes throwing thick black crescents on her pink cheeks, he still did not know how it all came about. He only knew he had done something romantic and exciting for the first time in his life. He, Frank Kennedy, had swept this lovely creature off her feet and into his strong arms. That was a heady feeling.

No friend or relative stood up with them at their marriage. The witnesses were strangers called in from the street. Scarlett had insisted on that and he had given in, though reluctantly, for he would have liked his sister and his brother-in-law from Jonesboro to be with him. And a reception with toasts drunk to the bride in Miss Pitty’s parlor amid happy friends would have been a joy to him. But Scarlett would not hear of even Miss Pitty being present.

“Just us two, Frank,” she begged, squeezing his arm. “Like an elopement. I always did want to run away and be married! Please, sweetheart, just for me!”

It was that endearing term, still so new to his ears, and the bright teardrops which edged her pale green eyes as she looked up pleadingly at him that won him over. After all, a man had to make some concessions to his bride, especially about the wedding, for women set such a store by sentimental things.

And before he knew it, he was married.

Frank gave her the three hundred dollars, bewildered by her sweet urgency, reluctant at first, because it meant the end of his hope of buying the sawmill immediately. But he could not see her family evicted, and his disappointment soon faded at the sight of her radiant happiness, disappeared entirely at the loving way she “took on” over his generosity. Frank had never before had a woman “take on” over him and he came to feel that the money had been well spent, after all.

Scarlett dispatched Mammy to Tara immediately for the triple purpose of giving Will the money, announcing her marriage and bringing Wade to Atlanta. In two days she had a brief note from Will which she carried about with her and read and reread with mounting joy. Will wrote that the taxes had been paid and Jonas Wilkerson “acted up pretty bad” at the news but had made no other threats so far. Will closed by wishing her happiness, a laconic formal statement which he qualified in no way. She knew Will understood what she had done and why she had done it and neither blamed nor praised. But what must Ashley think? she wondered feverishly. What must he think of me now, after what I said to him so short a while ago in the orchard at Tara?

She also had a letter from Suellen, poorly spelled, violent, abusive, tear splotched, a letter so full of venom and truthful observations upon her character that she was never to forget it nor forgive the writer. But even Suellen’s words could not dim her happiness that Tara was safe, at least from immediate danger.

It was hard to realize that Atlanta and not Tara was her permanent home now. In her desperation to obtain the tax money, no thought save Tara and the fate which threatened it had any place in her mind. Even at the moment of marriage, she had not given a thought to the fact that the price she was paying for the safety of home was permanent exile from it. Now that the deed was done, she realized this with a wave of homesickness hard to dispel. But there it was. She had made her bargain and she intended to stand by it. And she was so grateful to Frank for saving Tara she felt a warm affection for him and an equally warm determination that he should never regret marrying her.

The ladies of Atlanta knew their neighbors’ business only slightly less completely than they knew their own and were far more interested in it. They all knew that for years Frank Kennedy had had an “understanding” with Suellen O’Hara. In fact, he had said, sheepishly, that he expected to get married in the spring. So the tumult of gossip, surmise and deep suspicion which followed the announcement of his quiet wedding to Scarlett was not surprising. Mrs. Merriwether, who never let her curiosity go long unsatisfied if she could help it, asked him point-blank just what he meant by marrying one sister when he was betrothed to the other. She reported to Mrs. Elsing that all the answer she got for her pains was a silly look. Not even Mrs. Merriwether, doughty soul that she was, dared to approach Scarlett on the subject. Scarlett seemed demure and sweet enough these days, but there was a pleased complacency in her eyes which annoyed people and she carried a chip on her shoulder which no one cared to disturb.

She knew Atlanta was talking but she did not care. Alter all, there wasn’t anything immoral in marrying a man. Tara was safe. Let people talk. She had too many other matters to occupy her mind. The most important was how to make Frank realize, in a tactful manner, that his store should bring in more money. After the fright Jonas Wilkerson had given her, she would never rest easy until she and Frank had some money ahead. And even if no emergency developed, Frank would need to make more money, if she was going to save enough for next year’s taxes. Moreover, what Frank had said about the sawmill stuck in her mind. Frank could make lots of money out of a mill. Anybody could, with lumber selling at such outrageous prices. She fretted silently because Frank’s money had not been enough to pay the taxes on Tara and buy the mill as well. And she made up her mind that he had to make more money on the store somehow, and do it quickly, so he could buy that mill before some one else snapped it up. She could see it was a bargain.

If she were a man she would have that mill, if she had to mortgage the store to raise the money. But, when she intimated this delicately to Frank, the day after they married, he smiled and told her not to bother her sweet pretty little head about business matters. It had come as a surprise to him that she even knew what a mortgage was and, at first, he was amused. But this amusement quickly passed and a sense of shock took its place in the early days of their marriage. Once, incautiously, he had told her that “people” (he was careful not to mention names) owed him money but could not pay just now and he was, of course, unwilling to press old friends and gentlefolk. Frank regretted ever mentioning it for, thereafter, she had questioned him about it again and again. She had the most charmingly childlike air but she was just curious, she said, to know who owed him and how much they owed. Frank was very evasive about the matter. He coughed nervously and waved his hands and repeated his annoying remark about her sweet pretty little head.

It had begun to dawn on him that this same sweet pretty little head was a “good head for figures.” In fact, a much better one than his own and the knowledge was disquieting. He was thunderstruck to discover that she could swiftly add a long column of figures in her head when he needed a pencil and paper for more than three figures. And fractions presented no difficulties to her at all. He felt there was something unbecoming about a woman understanding fractions and business matters and he believed that, should a woman be so unfortunate as to have such unladylike comprehension, she should pretend not to. Now he disliked talking business with her as much as he had enjoyed it before they were married. Then he had thought it all beyond her mental grasp and it had been pleasant to explain things to her. Now he saw that she understood entirely too well and he felt the usual masculine indignation at the duplicity of women. Added to it was the usual masculine disillusionment in discovering that a woman has a brain.

Just how early in his married life Frank learned of the deception Scarlett had used in marrying him, no one ever knew. Perhaps the truth dawned on him when Tony Fontaine, obviously fancy free, came to Atlanta on business. Perhaps it was told him more directly in letters from his sister in Jonesboro who was astounded at his marriage. Certainly he never learned from Suellen herself. She never wrote him and naturally he could not write her and explain. What good would explanations do anyway, now that he was married? He writhed inwardly at the thought that Suellen would never know the truth and would always think he had senselessly jilted her. Probably everyone else was thinking this too and criticizing him. It certainly put him in an awkward position. And he had no way of clearing himself, for a man couldn’t go about saying he had lost his head about a woman—and a gentleman couldn’t advertise the fact that his wife had entrapped him with a lie.

Scarlett was his wife and a wife was entitled to the loyalty of her husband. Furthermore, he could not bring himself to believe she had married him coldly and with no affection for him at all. His masculine vanity would not permit such a thought to stay long in his mind. It was more pleasant to think she had fallen so suddenly in love with him she had been willing to lie to get him. But it was all very puzzling. He knew he was no great catch for a woman half his age and pretty and smart to boot, but Frank was a gentleman and he kept his bewilderment to himself. Scarlett was his wife and he could not insult her by asking awkward questions which, after all, would not remedy matters.

Not that Frank especially wanted to remedy matters, for it appeared that his marriage would be a happy one. Scarlett was the most charming and exciting of women and he thought her perfect in all things—except that she was so headstrong. Frank learned early in his marriage that so long as she had her own way, life could be very pleasant, but when she was opposed—Given her own way, she was as gay as a child, laughed a good deal, made foolish little jokes, sat on his knee and tweaked his beard until he vowed he felt twenty years younger. She could be unexpectedly sweet and thoughtful, having his slippers toasting at the fire when he came home at night, fussing affectionately about his wet feet and interminable head colds, remembering that he always liked the gizzard of the chicken and three spoonfuls of sugar in his coffee. Yes, life was very sweet and cozy with Scarlett—as long as she had her own way.

When the marriage was two weeks old, Frank contracted the grippe and Dr. Meade put him to bed. In the first year of the war, Frank had spent two months in the hospital with pneumonia and he had lived in dread of another attack since that time, so he was only too glad to lie sweating under three blankets and drink the hot concoctions Mammy and Aunt Pitty brought him every hour.

The illness dragged on and Frank worried more and more about the store as each day passed. The place was in charge of the counter boy, who came to the house every night to report on the day’s transactions, but Frank was not satisfied. He fretted until Scarlett who had only been waiting for such an opportunity laid a cool hand on his forehead and said: “Now, sweetheart, I shall be vexed if you take on so. I’ll go to town and see how things are.”

And she went, smiling as she smothered his feeble protests. During the three weeks of her new marriage, she had been in a fever to see his account books and find out just how money matters stood. What luck that he was bedridden!

The store stood near Five Points, its new roof glaring against the smoked bricks of the old walls. Wooden awnings covered the sidewalk to the edge of the street, and at the long iron bars connecting the uprights horses and mules were hitched, their heads bowed against the cold misty rain, their backs covered with torn blankets and quilts. The inside of the store was almost like Bullard’s store in Jonesboro, except that there were no loungers about the roaring red-hot stove, whittling and spitting streams of tobacco juice at the sand boxes. It was bigger than Bullard’s store and much darker. The wooden awnings cut off most of the winter daylight and the interior was dim and dingy, only a trickle of light coming in through the small fly-specked windows high up on the side walls. The floor was covered with muddy sawdust and everywhere was dust and dirt. There was a semblance of order in the front of the store, where tall shelves rose into the gloom stacked with bright bolts of cloth, china, cooking utensils and notions. But in the back, behind the partition, chaos reigned.

Here there was no flooring and the assorted jumble of stock was piled helter-skelter on the hard-packed earth. In the semidarkness she saw boxes and bales of goods, plows and harness and saddles and cheap pine coffins. Secondhand furniture, ranging from cheap gum to mahogany and rosewood, reared up in the gloom, and the rich but worn brocade and horsehair upholstery gleamed incongruously in the dingy surroundings. China chambers and bowl and pitcher sets littered the floor and all around the four walls were deep bins, so dark she had to hold the lamp directly over them to discover they contained seeds, nails, bolts and carpenters’ tools.

“I’d think a man as fussy and old maidish as Frank would keep things tidier,” she thought, scrubbing her grimy hands with her handkerchief. “This place is a pig pen. What a way to run a store! If he’d only dust up this stuff and put it out in front where folks could see it, he could sell things much quicker.”

And if his stock was in such condition, what mustn’t his accounts be!

I’ll look at his account book now, she thought and, picking up the lamp, she went into the front of the store. Willie, the counter boy, was reluctant to give her the large dirty-backed ledger. It was obvious that, young as he was, he shared Frank’s opinion that women had no place in business. But Scarlett silenced him with a sharp word and sent him out to get his dinner. She felt better when he was gone, for his disapproval annoyed her, and she settled herself in a split-bottomed chair by the roaring stove, tucked one foot under her and spread the book across her lap. It was dinner time and the streets were deserted. No customers called and she had the store to herself.

She turned the pages slowly, narrowly scanning the rows of names and figures written in Frank’s cramped copperplate hand. It was just as she had expected, and she frowned as she saw this newest evidence of Frank’s lack of business sense. At least five hundred dollars in debts, some of them months old, were set down against the names of people she knew well, the Merriwethers and the Elsings among other familiar names. From Frank’s deprecatory remarks about the money “people” owed him, she had imagined the sums to be small. But this!

“If they can’t pay, why do they keep on buying?” she thought irritably. “And if he knows they can’t pay, why does he keep on selling them stuff? Lots of them could pay if he’d just make them do it. The Elsings certainly could if they could give Fanny a new satin dress and an expensive wedding. Frank’s just too soft hearted, and people take advantage of him. Why, if he’d collected half this money, he could have bought the sawmill and easily spared me the tax money, too.”

Then she thought: “Just imagine Frank trying to operate a sawmill! God’s nightgown! If he runs this store like a charitable institution, how could he expect to make money on a mill? The sheriff would have it in a month. Why, I could run this store better than he does! And I could run a mill better than he could, even if I don’t know anything about the lumber business!”

A startling thought this, that a woman could handle business matters as well as or better than a man, a revolutionary thought to Scarlett who had been reared in the tradition that men were omniscient and women none too bright. Of course, she had discovered that this was not altogether true but the pleasant fiction still stuck in her mind. Never before had she put this remarkable idea into words. She sat quite still, with the heavy book across her lap, her mouth a little open with surprise, thinking that during the lean months at Tara she had done a man’s work and done it well. She had been brought up to believe that a woman alone could accomplish nothing, yet she had managed the plantation without men to help her until Will came. Why, why, her mind stuttered, I believe women could manage everything in the world without men’s help—except having babies, and God knows, no woman in her right mind would have babies if she could help it.

With the idea that she was as capable as a man came a sudden rush of pride and a violent longing to prove it, to make money for herself as men made money. Money which would be her own, which she would neither have to ask for nor account for to any man.

“I wish I had money enough to buy that mill myself,” she said aloud and sighed. “I’d sure make it hum. And I wouldn’t let even one splinter go out on credit.”

She sighed again. There was nowhere she could get any money, so the idea was out of the question. Frank would simply have to collect this money owing him and buy the mill. It was a sure way to make money, and when he got the mill, she would certainly find some way to make him be more businesslike in its operation than he had been with the store.

She pulled a back page out of the ledger and began copying the list of debtors who had made no payments in several months. She’d take the matter up with Frank just as soon as she reached home. She’d make him realize that these people had to pay their bills even if they were old friends, even if it did embarrass him to press them for money. That would probably upset Frank, for he was timid and fond of the approbation of his friends. He was so thin skinned he’d rather lose the money than be businesslike about collecting it.

And he’d probably tell her that no one had any money with which to pay him. Well, perhaps that was true. Poverty was certainly no news to her. But nearly everybody had saved some silver or jewelry or was hanging on to a little real estate. Frank could take them in lieu of cash.

She could imagine how Frank would moan when she broached such an idea to him. Take the jewelry and property of his friends! Well, she shrugged, he can moan all he likes. I’m going to tell him that he may be willing to stay poor for friendship’s sake but I’m not. Frank will never get anywhere if he doesn’t get up some gumption. And he’s got to get somewhere! He’s got to make money, even if I’ve got to wear the pants in the family to make him do.

She was writing busily, her face screwed up with the effort, her tongue clamped between her teeth, when the front door opened and a great draft of cold wind swept the store. A tall man came into the dingy room walking with a light Indian-like tread, and looking up she saw Rhett Butler.

He was resplendent in new clothes and a greatcoat with a dashing cape thrown back from his heavy shoulders. His tall hat was off in a deep bow when her eyes met his and his hand went to the bosom of a spotless pleated shirt. His white teeth gleamed startlingly against his brown face and his bold eyes raked her.

“My dear Mrs. Kennedy,” he said, walking toward her. “My very dear Mrs. Kennedy!” and he broke into a loud merry laugh.

At first she was as startled as if a ghost had invaded the store and then, hastily removing her foot from beneath her, she stiffened her spine and gave him a cold stare.

“What are you doing here?”

“I called on Miss Pittypat and learned of your marriage and so I hastened here to congratulate you.”

The memory of her humiliation at his hands made her go crimson with shame.

“I don’t see how you have the gall to face me!” she cried.

“On the contrary! How have you the gall to face me?”

“Oh, you are the most—”

“Shall we let the bugles sing truce?” he smiled down at her, a wide flashing smile that had impudence in it but no shame for his own actions or condemnation for hers. In spite of herself, she had to smile too, but it was a wry, uncomfortable smile.

“What a pity they didn’t hang you!”

“Others share your feeling, I fear. Come, Scarlett, relax. You look like you’d swallowed a ramrod and it isn’t becoming. Surely, you’ve had time to recover from my—er—my little joke.”

“Joke? Ha! I’ll never get over it!”

“Oh, yes, you will. You are just putting on this indignant front because you think it’s proper and respectable. May I sit down?”

“No.”

He sank into a chair beside her and grinned.

“I hear you couldn’t even wait two weeks for me,” he said and gave a mock sigh. “How fickle is woman!”

When she did not reply he continued.

“Tell me, Scarlett, just between friends—between very old and very intimate friends—wouldn’t it have been wiser to wait until I got out of jail? Or are the charms of wedlock with old Frank Kennedy more alluring than illicit relations with me?”

As always when his mockery aroused wrath within her, wrath fought with laughter at his impudence.

“Don’t be absurd.”

“And would you mind satisfying my curiosity on one point which has bothered me for some time? Did you have no womanly repugnance, no delicate shrinking from marrying not just one man but two for whom you had no love or even affection? Or have I been misinformed about the delicacy of our Southern womanhood?”

“Rhett!”

“I have my answer. I always felt that women had a hardness and endurance unknown to men, despite the pretty idea taught me in childhood that women are frail, tender, sensitive creatures. But after all, according to the Continental code of etiquette, it’s very bad form for husband and wife to love each other. Very bad taste, indeed. I always felt that the Europeans had the right idea in that matter. Marry for convenience and love for pleasure. A sensible system, don’t you think? You are closer to the old country than I thought.”

How pleasant it would be to shout at him: “I did not marry for convenience!” But unfortunately, Rhett had her there and any protest of injured innocence would only bring more barbed remarks from him.

“How you do run on,” she said coolly. Anxious to change the subject, she asked: “How did you ever get out of jail?”

“Oh, that!” he answered, making an airy gesture. “Not much trouble. They let me out this morning. I employed a delicate system of blackmail on a friend in Washington who is quite high in the councils of the Federal government. A splendid fellow—one of the staunch Union patriots from whom I used to buy muskets and hoop skirts for the Confederacy. When my distressing predicament was brought to his attention in the right way, he hastened to use his influence, and so I was released. Influence is everything, and guilt or innocence merely an academic question.”

“I’ll take oath you weren’t innocent.”

“No, now that I am free of the toils, I’ll frankly admit that I’m as guilty as Cain. I did kill the nigger. He was uppity to a lady, and what else could a Southern gentleman do? And while I’m confessing, I must admit that I shot a Yankee cavalryman after some words in a barroom. I was not charged with that peccadillo, so perhaps some other poor devil has been hanged for it, long since.”

He was so blithe about his murders her blood chilled. Words of moral indignation rose to her lips but suddenly she remembered the Yankee who lay under the tangle of scuppernong vines at Tara. He had not been on her conscience any more than a roach upon which she might have stepped. She could not sit in judgment on Rhett when she was as guilty as he.

“And, as I seem to be making a clean breast of it, I must tell you, in strictest confidence (that means, don’t tell Miss Pittypat!) that I did have the money, safe in a bank in Liverpool.”

“The money?”

“Yes, the money the Yankees were so curious about. Scarlett, it wasn’t altogether meanness that kept me from giving you the money you wanted. If I’d drawn a draft they could have traced it somehow and I doubt if you’d have gotten a cent. My only hope lay in doing nothing. I knew the money was pretty safe, for if worst came to worst, if they had located it and tried to take it away from me, I would have named every Yankee patriot who sold me bullets and machinery during the war. Then there would have been a stink, for some of them are high up in Washington now. In fact, it was my threat to unbosom my conscience about them that got me out of jail. I—”

“Do you mean you—you actually have the Confederate gold?”

“Not all of it. Good Heavens, no! There must be fifty or more exblockaders who have plenty salted away in Nassau and England and Canada. We will be pretty unpopular with the Confederates who weren’t as slick as we were. I have got close to half a million. Just think, Scarlett, a half-million dollars, if you’d only restrained your fiery nature and not rushed into wedlock again!”

A half-million dollars. She felt a pang of almost physical sickness at the thought of so much money. His jeering words passed over her head and she did not even hear them. It was hard to believe there was so much money in all this bitter and povertystricken world. So much money, so very much money, and someone else had it, someone who took it lightly and didn’t need it. And she had only a sick elderly husband and this dirty, piddling, little store between her and a hostile world. It wasn’t fair that a reprobate like Rhett Butler should have so much and she, who carried so heavy a load, should have so little. She hated him, sitting there in his dandified attire, taunting her. Well, she wouldn’t swell his conceit by complimenting him on his cleverness. She longed viciously for sharp words with which to cut him.

“I suppose you think it’s honest to keep the Confederate money. Well, it isn’t. It’s plain out and out stealing and you know it. I wouldn’t have that on my conscience.”

“My! How sour the grapes are today!” he exclaimed, screwing up his face. “And just whom am I stealing from?”

She was silent, trying to think just whom indeed. After all, he had only done what Frank had done on a small scale.

“Half the money is honestly mine,” he continued, “honestly made with the aid of honest Union patriots who were willing to sell out the Union behind its back—for one-hundred-per-cent profit on their goods. Part I made out of my little investment in cotton at the beginning of the war, the cotton I bought cheap and sold for a dollar a pound when the British mills were crying for it. Part I got from food speculation. Why should I let the Yankees have the fruits of my labor? But the rest did belong to the Confederacy. It came from Confederate cotton which I managed to run through the blockade and sell in Liverpool at sky-high prices. The cotton was given me in good faith to buy leather and rifles and machinery with. And it was taken by me in good faith to buy the same. My orders were to leave the gold in English banks, under my own name, in order that my credit would be good. You remember when the blockade tightened, I couldn’t get a boat out of any Confederate port or into one, so there the money stayed in England. What should I have done? Drawn out all that gold from English banks, like a simpleton, and tried to run it into Wilmington? And let the Yankees capture it? Was it my fault that the blockade got too tight? Was it my fault that our Cause failed? The money belonged to the Confederacy. Well, there is no Confederacy now—though you’d never know it, to hear some people talk. Whom shall I give the money to? The Yankee government? I should so hate for people to think me a thief.”

He removed a leather case from his pocket, extracted a long cigar and smelled it approvingly, meanwhile watching her with pseudo anxiety as if he hung on her words.

Plague take him, she thought, he’s always one jump ahead of me. There is always something wrong with his arguments but I never can put my finger on just what it is.

“You might,” she said with dignity, “distribute it to those who are in need. The Confederacy is gone but there are plenty of Confederates and their families who are starving.”

He threw back his bead and laughed rudely.

“You are never so charming or so absurd as when you are airing some hypocrisy like that,” he cried in frank enjoyment. “Always tell the truth, Scarlett. You can’t lie. The Irish are the poorest liars in the world. Come now, be frank. You never gave a damn about the late lamented Confederacy and you care less about the starving Confederates. You’d scream in protest if I even suggested giving away all the money unless I started off by giving you the lion’s share.”

“I don’t want your money,” she began, trying to be coldly dignified.

“Oh, don’t you! Your palm is itching to beat the band this minute. If I showed you a quarter, you’d leap on it.”

“If you have come here to insult me and laugh at my poverty, I will wish you good day,” she retorted, trying to rid her lap of the heavy ledger so she might rise and make her words more impressive. Instantly, he was on his feet bending over her, laughing as he pushed her back into her chair.

“When will you ever get over losing your temper when you hear the truth? You never mind speaking the truth about other people, so why should you mind hearing it about yourself? I’m not insulting you. I think acquisitiveness is a very fine quality.”

She was not sure what acquisitiveness meant but as he praised it she felt slightly mollified.

“I didn’t come to gloat over your poverty but to wish you long life and happiness in your marriage. By the way, what did sister Sue think of your larceny?”

“My what?”

“Your stealing Frank from under her nose.”

“I did not—”

“Well, we won’t quibble about the word. What did she say?”

“She said nothing,” said Scarlett. His eyes danced as they gave her the lie.

“How unselfish of her. Now, let’s hear about your poverty. Surely I have the right to know, after your little trip out to the jail not long ago. Hasn’t Frank as much money as you hoped?”

There was no evading his impudence. Either she would have to put up with it or ask him to leave. And now she did not want him to leave. His words were barbed but they were the barbs of truth. He knew what she had done and why she had done it and he did not seem to think the less of her for it. And though his questions were unpleasantly blunt, they seemed actuated by a friendly interest. He was one person to whom she could tell the truth. That would be a relief, for it had been so long since she had told anyone the truth about herself and her motives. Whenever she spoke her mind everyone seemed to be shocked. Talking to Rhett was comparable only to one thing, the feeling of ease and comfort afforded by a pair of old slippers after dancing in a pair too tight.

“Didn’t you get the money for the taxes? Don’t tell me the wolf is still at the door of Tara.” There was a different tone in his voice.

She looked up to meet his dark eyes and caught an expression which startled and puzzled her at first, and then made her suddenly smile, a sweet and charming smile which was seldom on her face these days. What a perverse wretch he was, but how nice he could be at times! She knew now that the real reason for his call was not to tease her but to make sure she had gotten the money for which she had been so desperate. She knew now that he had hurried to her as soon as he was released, without the slightest appearance of hurry, to lend her the money if she still needed it. And yet he would torment and insult her and deny that such was his intent, should she accuse him. He was quite beyond all comprehension. Did he really care about her, more than he was willing to admit? Or did he have some other motive? Probably the latter, she thought. But who could tell? He did such strange things sometimes.

“No,” she said, “the wolf isn’t at the door any longer. I—I got the money.”

“But not without a struggle, I’ll warrant. Did you manage to restrain yourself until you got the wedding ring on your finger?”

She tried not to smile at his accurate summing up of her conduct but she could not help dimpling. He seated himself again, sprawling his long legs comfortably.

“Well, tell me about your poverty. Did Frank, the brute, mislead you about his prospects? He should be soundly thrashed for taking advantage of a helpless female. Come, Scarlett, tell me everything. You should have no secrets from me. Surely, I know the worst about you.”

“Oh, Rhett, you’re the worst—well, I don’t know what! No, he didn’t exactly fool me but—” Suddenly it became a pleasure to unburden herself. “Rhett, if Frank would just collect the money people owe him, I wouldn’t be worried about anything. But, Rhett, fifty people owe him and he won’t press them. He’s so thin skinned. He says a gentleman can’t do that to another gentleman. And it may be months and may be never before we get the money.”

“Well, what of it? Haven’t you enough to eat on until he does collect?”

“Yes, but—well, as a matter of fact, I could use a little money right now.” Her eyes brightened as she thought of the mill. “Perhaps—”

“What for? More taxes?”

“Is that any of your business?”

“Yes, because you are getting ready to touch me for a loan. Oh, I know all the approaches. And I’ll lend it to you—without, my dear Mrs. Kennedy, that charming collateral you offered me a short while ago. Unless, of course, you insist.”

“You are the coarsest—”

“Not at all. I merely wanted to set your mind at ease. I knew you’d be worried about that point. Not much worried but a little. And I’m willing to lend you the money. But I do want to know how you are going to spend it. I have that right, I believe. If it’s to buy you pretty frocks or a carriage, take it with my blessing. But if it’s to buy a new pair of breeches for Ashley Wilkes, I fear I must decline to lend it.”

She was hot with sudden rage and she stuttered until words came.

“Ashley Wilkes has never taken a cent from me! I couldn’t make him take a cent if he were starving! You don’t understand him, how honorable, how proud he is! Of course, you can’t understand him, being what you are—”

“Don’t let’s begin calling names. I could call you a few that would match any you could think of for me. You forget that I have been keeping up with you through Miss Pittypat, and the dear soul tells all she knows to any sympathetic listener. I know that Ashley has been at Tara ever since he came home from Rock Island. I know that you have even put up with having his wife around, which must have been a strain on you.”

“Ashley is—”

“Oh, yes,” he said, waving his hand negligently. “Ashley is too sublime for my earthy comprehension. But please don’t forget I was an interested witness to your tender scene with him at Twelve Oaks and something tells me he hasn’t changed since then. And neither have you. He didn’t cut so sublime a figure that day, if I remember rightly. And I don’t think the figure he cuts now is much better. Why doesn’t he take his family and get out and find work? And stop living at Tara? Of course, it’s just a whim of mine, but I don’t intend to lend you a cent for Tara to help support him. Among men, there’s a very unpleasant name for men who permit women to support them.”

“How dare you say such things? He’s been working like a field hand!” For all her rage, her heart was wrung by the memory of Ashley splitting fence rails.

“And worth his weight in gold, I dare say. What a hand he must be with the manure and—”

“He’s—”

“Oh, yes, I know. Let’s grant that he does the best he can but I don’t imagine he’s much help. You’ll never make a farm hand out of a Wilkes—or anything else that’s useful. The breed is purely ornamental. Now, quiet your ruffled feathers and overlook my boorish remarks about the proud and honorable Ashley. Strange how these illusions will persist even in women as hard headed as you are. How much money do you want and what do you want it for?”

When she did not answer he repeated:

“What do you want it for? And see if you can manage to tell me the truth. It will do as well as a lie. In fact, better, for if you lie to me, I’ll be sure to find it out, and think how embarrassing that would be. Always remember this, Scarlett, I can stand anything from you but a lie—your dislike for me, your tempers, all your vixenish ways, but not a lie. Now what do you want it for?”

Raging as she was at his attack on Ashley, she would have given anything to spit on him and throw his offer of money proudly into his mocking face. For a moment she almost did, but the cold hand of common sense held her back. She swallowed her anger with poor grace and tried to assume an expression of pleasant dignity. He leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs toward the stove.

“If there’s one thing in the world that gives me more amusement than anything else,” he remarked, “it’s the sight of your mental struggles when a matter of principle is laid up against something practical like money. Of course, I know the practical in you will always win, but I keep hanging around to see if your better nature won’t triumph some day. And when that day comes I shall pack my bag and leave Atlanta forever. There are too many women whose better natures are always triumphing… Well, let’s get back to business. How much and what for?”

“I don’t know quite how much I’ll need,” she said sulkily. “But I want to buy a sawmill—and I think I can get it cheap. And I’ll need two wagons and two mules. I want good mules, too. And a horse and buggy for my own use.”

“A sawmill?”

“Yes, and if you’ll lend me the money, I’ll give you a halfinterest in it.”

“Whatever would I do with a sawmill?”

“Make money! We can make loads of money. Or I’ll pay you interest on the loan—let’s see, what is good interest?”

“Fifty per cent is considered very fine.”

“Fifty—oh, but you are joking! Stop laughing, you devil. I’m serious.”

“That’s why I’m laughing. I wonder if anyone but me realizes what goes on in that head back of your deceptively sweet face.”

“Well, who cares? Listen, Rhett, and see if this doesn’t sound like good business to you. Frank told me about this man who has a sawmill, a little one out Peachtree road, and he wants to sell it. He’s got to have cash money pretty quick and he’ll sell it cheap. There aren’t many sawmills around here now, and the way people are rebuilding—why, we could sell lumber sky high. The man will stay and run the mill for a wage. Frank told me about it. Frank would buy the mill himself if he had the money. I guess he was intending buying it with the money he gave me for the taxes.”

“Poor Frank! What is he going to say when you tell him you’ve bought it yourself right out from under him? And how are you going to explain my lending you the money without compromising your reputation?”

Scarlett had given no thought to this, so intent was she upon the money the mill would bring in.

“Well, I just won’t tell him.”

“He’ll know you didn’t pick it off a bush.”

“I’ll tell him—why, yes, I’ll tell him I sold you my diamond earbobs. And I will give them to you, too. That’ll be my collat—my whatchucallit.”

“I wouldn’t take your earbobs.”

“I don’t want them. I don’t like them. They aren’t really mine, anyway.”

“Whose are they?”

Her mind went swiftly back to the still hot noon with the country hush deep about Tara and the dead man in blue sprawled in the hall.

“They were left with me—by someone who’s dead. They’re mine all right. Take them. I don’t want them. I’d rather have the money for them.”

“Good Lord!” he cried impatiently. “Don’t you ever think of anything but money?”

“No,” she replied frankly, turning hard green eyes upon him. “And if you’d been through what I have, you wouldn’t either. I’ve found out that money is the most important thing in the world and, as God is my witness, I don’t ever intend to be without it again.”

She remembered the hot sun, the soft red earth under her sick head, the niggery smell of the cabin behind the ruins of Twelve Oaks, remembered the refrain her heart had beaten: “I’ll never be hungry again. I’ll never be hungry again.”

“I’m going to have money some day, lots of it, so I can have anything I want to eat. And then there’ll never be any hominy or dried peas on my table. And I’m going to have pretty clothes and all of them are going to be silk—”

“All?”

“All,” she said shortly, not even troubling to blush at his implication. “I’m going to have money enough so the Yankees can never take Tara away from me. And I’m going to have a new roof for Tara and a new barn and fine mules for plowing and more cotton than you ever saw. And Wade isn’t ever going to know what it means to do without the things he needs. Never! He’s going to have everything in the world. And all my family, they aren’t ever going to be hungry again. I mean it. Every word. You don’t understand, you’re such a selfish hound. You’ve never had the Carpetbaggers trying to drive you out. You’ve never been cold and ragged and had to break your back to keep from starving!”

He said quietly: “I was in the Confederate Army for eight months. I don’t know any better place for starving.”

“The army! Bah! You’ve never had to pick cotton and weed corn. You’ve—Don’t you laugh at me!”

His hands were on hers again as her voice rose harshly.

“I wasn’t laughing at you. I was laughing at the difference in what you look and what you really are. And I was remembering the first time I ever saw you, at the barbecue at the Wilkes’. You had on a green dress and little green slippers, and you were knee deep in men and quite full of yourself. I’ll wager you didn’t know then how many pennies were in a dollar. There was only one idea in your whole mind then and that was ensnaring Ash—”

She jerked her hands away from him.

“Rhett, if we are to get on at all, you’ll have to stop talking about Ashley Wilkes. We’ll always fall out about him, because you can’t understand him.”

“I suppose you understand him like a book,” said Rhett maliciously. “No, Scarlett, if I am to lend you the money I reserve the right to discuss Ashley Wilkes in any terms I care to. I waive the right to collect interest on my loan but not that right. And there are a number of things about that young man I’d like to know.”

“I do not have to discuss him with you,” she answered shortly.

“Oh, but you do! I hold the purse strings, you see. Some day when you are rich, you can have the power to do the same to others… It’s obvious that you still care about him—”

“I do not.”

“Oh, it’s so obvious from the way you rush to his defense. You—”

“I won’t stand having my friends sneered at.”

“Well, we’ll let that pass for the moment. Does he still care for you or did Rock Island make him forget? Or perhaps he’s learned to appreciate what a jewel of a wife he has?”

At the mention of Melanie, Scarlett began to breathe hard and could scarcely restrain herself from crying out the whole story, that only honor kept Ashley with Melanie. She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it.

“Oh. So he still hasn’t enough sense to appreciate Mrs. Wilkes? And the rigors of prison didn’t dim his ardor for you?”

“I see no need to discuss the subject.”

“I wish to discuss it,” said Rhett. There was a low note in his voice which Scarlett did not understand but did not like to hear. “And, by God, I will discuss it and I expect you to answer me. So he’s still in love with you?”

“Well, what if he is?” cried Scarlett, goaded. “I don’t care to discuss him with you because you can’t understand him or his kind of love. The only kind of love you know about is just—well, the kind you carry on with creatures like that Watling woman.”

“Oh,” said Rhett softly. “So I am only capable of carnal lusts?”

“Well, you know it’s true.”

“Now I appreciate your hesitance in discussing the matter with me. My unclean hands and lips besmirch the purity of his love.”

“Well, yes—something like that.”

“I’m interested in this pure love—”

“Don’t be so nasty, Rhett Butler. If you are vile enough to think there’s ever been anything wrong between us—”

“Oh, the thought never entered my head, really. That’s why it all interests me. Just why hasn’t there been anything wrong between you?”

“If you think that Ashley would—”

“Ah, so it’s Ashley, and not you, who has fought the fight for purity. Really, Scarlett, you should not give yourself away so easily.”

Scarlett looked into his smooth unreadable face in confusion and indignation.

“We won’t go any further with this and I don’t want your money. So, get out!”

“Oh, yes, you do want my money and, as we’ve gone this far, why stop? Surely there can be no harm in discussing so chaste an idyl—when there hasn’t been anything wrong. So Ashley loves you for your mind, your soul, your nobility of character?”

Scarlett writhed at his words. Of course, Ashley loved her for just these things. It was this knowledge that made life endurable, this knowledge that Ashley, bound by honor, loved her from afar for beautiful things deep buried in her that he alone could see. But they did not seem so beautiful when dragged to the light by Rhett, especially in that deceptively smooth voice that covered sarcasm.

“It gives me back my boyish ideals to know that such a love can exist in this naughty world,” he continued. “So there’s no touch of the flesh in his love for you? It would be the same if you were ugly and didn’t have that white skin? And if you didn’t have those green eyes which make a man wonder just what you would do if he took you in his arms? And a way of swaying your hips, that’s an allurement to any man under ninety? And those lips which are—well, I mustn’t let my carnal lusts obtrude. Ashley sees none of these things? Or if he sees them, they move him not at all?”

Unbidden, Scarlett’s mind went back to that day in the orchard when Ashley’s arms shook as he held her, when his mouth was hot on hers as if he would never let her go. She went crimson at the memory and her blush was not lost on Rhett.

“So,” he said and there was a vibrant note almost like anger in his voice. “I see. He loves you for your mind alone.”

How dare he pry with dirty fingers, making the one beautiful sacred thing in her life seem vile? Coolly, determinedly, he was breaking down the last of her reserves and the information he wanted was forthcoming.

“Yes, he does!” she cried, pushing back the memory of Ashley’s lips.

“My dear, he doesn’t even know you’ve got a mind. If it was your mind that attracted him, he would not need to struggle against you, as he must have done to keep this love so—shall we say ‘holy’? He could rest easily for, after all, a man can admire a woman’s mind and soul and still be an honorable gentleman and true to his wife. But it must be difficult for him to reconcile the honor of the Wilkeses with coveting your body as he does.”

“You judge everybody’s mind by your own vile one!”

“Oh, I’ve never denied coveting you, if that’s what you mean. But, thank God, I’m not bothered about matters of honor. What I want I take if I can get it, and so I wrestle neither with angels nor devils. What a merry hell you must have made for Ashley! Almost I can be sorry for him.”

“I—I make a hell for him?”

“Yes, you! There you are, a constant temptation to him, but like most of his breed he prefers what passes in these parts as honor to any amount of love. And it looks to me as if the poor devil now had neither love nor honor to warm himself!”

“He has love!… I mean, he loves me!”

“Does he? Then answer me this and we are through for the day and you can take the money and throw it in the gutter for all I care.”

Rhett rose to his feet and threw his half-smoked cigar into the spittoon. There was about his movements the same pagan freedom and leashed power Scarlett had noted that night Atlanta fell, something sinister and a little frightening. “If he loved you, then why in hell did he permit you to come to Atlanta to get the tax money? Before I’d let a woman I loved do that, I’d—”

“He didn’t know! He had no idea that I—”

“Doesn’t it occur to you that he should have known?” There was barely suppressed savagery in his voice. “Loving you as you say he does, he should have known just what you would do when you were desperate. He should have killed you rather than let you come up here—and to me, of all people! God in Heaven!”

“But he didn’t know!”

“If he didn’t guess it without being told, he’ll never know anything about you and your precious mind.”

How unfair he was! As if Ashley was a mind reader! As if Ashley could have stopped her, even had he known! But, she knew suddenly, Ashley could have stopped her. The faintest intimation from him, in the orchard, that some day things might be different and she would never have thought of going to Rhett. A word of tenderness, even a parting caress when she was getting on the train, would have held her back. But he had only talked of honor. Yet—was Rhett right? Should Ashley have known her mind? Swiftly she put the disloyal thought from her. Of course, he didn’t suspect. Ashley would never suspect that she would even think of doing anything so immoral. Ashley was too fine to have such thoughts. Rhett was just trying to spoil her love. He was trying to tear down what was most precious to her. Some day, she thought viciously, when the store was on its feet and the mill doing nicely and she had money, she would make Rhett Butler pay for the misery and humiliation he was causing her.

He was standing over her, looking down at her, faintly amused. The emotion which had stirred him was gone.

“What does it all matter to you anyway?” she asked. “It’s my business and Ashley’s and not yours.”

He shrugged.

“Only this. I have a deep and impersonal admiration for your endurance, Scarlett, and I do not like to see your spirit crushed beneath too many millstones. There’s Tara. That’s a man-sized job in itself. There’s your sick father added on. He’ll never be any help to you. And the girls and the darkies. And now you’ve taken on a husband and probably Miss Pittypat, too. You’ve enough burdens without Ashley Wilkes and his family on your hands.”

“He’s not on my hands. He helps—”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” he said impatiently. “Don’t let’s have any more of that. He’s no help. He’s on your hands and he’ll be on them, or on somebody’s, till he dies. Personally, I’m sick of him as a topic of conversation… How much money do you want?”

Vituperative words rushed to her lips. After all his insults, after dragging from her those things which were most precious to her and trampling on them, he still thought she would take his money!

But the words were checked unspoken. How wonderful it would be to scorn his offer and order him out of the store! But only the truly rich and the truly secure could afford this luxury. So long as she was poor, just so long would she have to endure such scenes as this. But when she was rich—oh, what a beautiful warming thought that was!—when she was rich, she wouldn’t stand anything she didn’t like, do without anything she desired or even be polite to people unless they pleased her.

I shall tell them all to go to Halifax, she thought, and Rhett Butler will be the first one!

The pleasure in the thought brought a sparkle into her green eyes and a half-smile to her lips. Rhett smiled too.

“You’re a pretty person, Scarlett,” he said. “Especially when you are meditating devilment. And just for the sight of that dimple I’ll buy you a baker’s dozen of mules if you want them.”

The front door opened and the counter boy entered, picking his teeth with a quill. Scarlett rose, pulled her shawl about her and tied her bonnet strings firmly under her chin. Her mind was made up.

“Are you busy this afternoon? Can you come with me now?” she asked.

“Where?”

“I want you to drive to the mill with me. I promised Frank I wouldn’t drive out of town by myself.”

“To the mill in this rain?”

“Yes, I want to buy that mill now, before you change your mind.”

He laughed so loudly the boy behind the counter started and looked at him curiously.

“Have you forgotten you are married? Mrs. Kennedy can’t afford to be seen driving out into the country with that Butler reprobate, who isn’t received in the best parlors. Have you forgotten your reputation?”

“Reputation, fiddle-dee-dee! I want that mill before you change your mind or Frank finds out that I’m buying it. Don’t be a slow poke, Rhett. What’s a little rain? Let’s hurry.”

That sawmill! Frank groaned every time he thought of it, cursing himself for ever mentioning it to her. It was bad enough for her to sell her earrings to Captain Butler (of all people!) and buy the mill without even consulting her own husband about it, but it was worse still that she did not turn it over to him to operate. That looked bad. As if she did not trust him or his judgment.

Frank, in common with all men he knew, felt that a wife should be guided by her husband’s superior knowledge, should accept his opinions in full and have none of her own. He would have given most women their own way. Women were such funny little creatures and it never hurt to humor their small whims. Mild and gentle by nature, it was not in him to deny a wife much. He would have enjoyed gratifying the foolish notions of some soft little person and scolding her lovingly for her stupidity and extravagance. But the things Scarlett set her mind on were unthinkable.

That sawmill, for example. It was the shock of his life when she told him with a sweet smile, in answer to his questions, that she intended to run it herself. “Go into the lumber business myself,” was the way she put it. Frank would never forget the horror of that moment. Go into business for herself! It was unthinkable. There were no women in business in Atlanta. In fact, Frank had never heard of a woman in business anywhere. If women were so unfortunate as to be compelled to make a little money to assist their families in these hard times, they made it in quiet womanly ways—baking as Mrs. Merriwether was doing, or painting china and sewing and keeping boarders, like Mrs. Elsing and Fanny, or teaching school like Mrs. Meade or giving music lessons like Mrs. Bonnell. These ladies made money but they kept themselves at home while they did it, as a woman should. But for a woman to leave the protection of her home and venture out into the rough world of men, competing with them in business, rubbing shoulders with them, being exposed to insult and gossip… Especially when she wasn’t forced to do it, when she had a husband amply able to provide for her!

Frank had hoped she was only teasing or playing a joke on him, a joke of questionable taste, but he soon found she meant what she said. She did operate the sawmill. She rose earlier than he did to drive out Peachtree road and frequently did not come home until long after he had locked up the store and returned to Aunt Pitty’s for supper. She drove the long miles to the mill with only the disapproving Uncle Peter to protect her and the woods were full of free niggers and Yankee riffraff. Frank couldn’t go with her, the store took all of his time, but when he protested, she said shortly: “If I don’t keep an eye on that slick scamp, Johnson, he’ll steal my lumber and sell it and put the money in his pocket. When I can get a good man to run the mill for me, then I won’t have to go out there so often. Then I can spend my time in town selling lumber.”

Selling lumber in town! That was worst of all. She frequently did take a day off from the mill and peddle lumber and, on those days, Frank wished he could hide in the dark back room of his store and see no one. His wife selling lumber!

And people were talking terrible about her. Probably about him too, for permitting her to behave in so unwomanly a fashion. It embarrassed him to face his customers over the counter and hear them say: “I saw Mrs. Kennedy a few minutes ago over at…” Everyone took pains to tell him what she did. Everyone was talking about what happened over where the new hotel was being built. Scarlett had driven up just as Tommy Wellburn was buying some lumber from another man and she climbed down out of the buggy among the rough Irish masons who were laying the foundations, and told Tommy briefly that he was being cheated. She said her lumber was better and cheaper too, and to prove it she ran up a long column of figures in her head and gave him an estimate then and there. It was bad enough that she had intruded herself among strange rough workmen, but it was still worse for a woman to show publicly that she could do mathematics like that. When Tommy accepted her estimate and gave her the order, Scarlett had not taken her departure speedily and meekly but had idled about, talking to Johnnie Gallegher, the foreman of the Irish workers, a hard-bitten little gnome of a man who had a very bad reputation. The town talked about it for weeks.

On top of everything else, she was actually making money out of the mill, and no man could feel right about a wife who succeeded in so unwomanly an activity. Nor did she turn over the money or any part of it to him to use in the store. Most of it went to Tara and she wrote interminable letters to Will Benteen telling him just how it should be spent. Furthermore, she told Frank that if the repairs at Tara could ever be completed, she intended to lend out her money on mortgages.

“My! My!” moaned Frank whenever he thought of this. A woman had no business even knowing what a mortgage was.

Scarlett was full of plans these days and each one of them seemed worse to Frank than the previous one. She even talked of building a saloon on the property where her warehouse had been until Sherman burned it. Frank was no teetotaler but he feverishly protested against the idea. Owning saloon property was a bad business, an unlucky business, almost as bad as renting to a house of prostitution. Just why it was bad, he could not explain to her and to his lame arguments she said “Fiddle-dee-dee!”

“Saloons are always good tenants. Uncle Henry said so,” she told him. “They always pay their rent and, look here, Frank, I could put up a cheap salon out of poor-grade lumber I can’t sell and get good rent for it, and with the rent money and the money from the mill and what I could get from mortgages, I could buy some more sawmills.”

“Sugar, you don’t need any more sawmills!” cried Frank, appalled. “What you ought to do is sell the one you’ve got. It’s wearing you out and you know what trouble you have keeping free darkies at work there—”

“Free darkies are certainly worthless,” Scarlett agreed, completely ignoring his hint that she should sell. “Mr. Johnson says he never knows when he comes to work in the morning whether he’ll have a full crew or not. You just can’t depend on the darkies any more. They work a day or two and then lay off till they’ve spent their wages, and the whole crew is like as not to quit overnight. The more I see of emancipation the more criminal I think it is. It’s just ruined the darkies. Thousands of them aren’t working at all and the ones we can get to work at the mill are so lazy and shiftless they aren’t worth having. And if you so much as swear at them, much less hit them a few licks for the good of their souls, the Freedmen’s Bureau is down on you like a duck on a June bug.”

“Sugar, you aren’t letting Mr. Johnson beat those—”

“Of course not,” she returned impatiently. “Didn’t I just say the Yankees would put me in jail if I did?”

“I’ll bet your pa never hit a darky a lick in his life,” said Frank.

“Well, only one. A stable boy who didn’t rub down his horse after a day’s hunt. But, Frank; it was different then. Free issue niggers are something else, and a good whipping would do some of them a lot of good.”

Frank was not only amazed at his wife’s views and her plans but at the change which had come over her in the few months since their marriage. This wasn’t the soft, sweet, feminine person he had taken to wife. In the brief period of the courtship, he thought he had never known a woman more attractively feminine in her reactions to life, ignorant, timid and helpless. Now her reactions were all masculine. Despite her pink cheeks and dimples and pretty smiles, she talked and acted like a man. Her voice was brisk and decisive and she made up her mind instantly and with no girlish shillyshallying. She knew what she wanted and she went after it by the shortest route, like a man, not by the hidden and circuitous routes peculiar to women.

It was not that Frank had never seen commanding women before this. Atlanta, like all Southern towns, had its share of dowagers whom no one cared to cross. No one could be more dominating than stout Mrs. Merriwether, more imperious than frail Mrs. Elsing, more artful in securing her own ends than the silver-haired sweet-voiced Mrs. Whiting. But no matter what devices these ladies employed in order to get their own way, they were always feminine devices. They made a point of being deferential to men’s opinions, whether they were guided by them or not. They had the politeness to appear to be guided by what men said, and that was what mattered. But Scarlett was guided by no one but herself and was conducting her affairs in a masculine way which had the whole town talking about her.

“And,” thought Frank miserably, “probably talking about me too, for letting her act so unwomanly.”

Then, there was that Butler man. His frequent calls at Aunt Pitty’s house were the greatest humiliation of all. Frank had always disliked him, even when he had done business with him before the war. He often cursed the day he had brought Rhett to Twelve Oaks and introduced him to his friends. He despised him for the cold-blooded way he had acted in his speculations during the war and for the fact that he had not been in the army. Rhett’s eight months’ service with the Confederacy was known only to Scarlett, for Rhett had begged her, with mock fear, not to reveal his “shame” to anyone. Most of all Frank had contempt for him for holding on to the Confederate gold, when honest men like Admiral Bulloch and others confronted with the same situation had turned back thousands to the Federal treasury. But whether Frank liked it or not, Rhett was a frequent caller.

Ostensibly it was Miss Pitty he came to see and she had no better sense than to believe it and give herself airs over his visits. But Frank had an uncomfortable feeling that Miss Pitty was not the attraction which brought him. Little Wade was very fond of him, though the boy was shy of most people, and even called him “Uncle Rhett,” which annoyed Frank. And Frank could not help remembering that Rhett had squired Scarlett about during the war days and there had been talk about them then. He imagined there might be even worse talk about them now. None of his friends had the courage to mention anything of this sort to Frank, for all their outspoken words on Scarlett’s conduct in the matter of the mill. But he could not help noticing that he and Scarlett were less frequently invited to meals and parties and fewer and fewer people came to call on them. Scarlett disliked most of her neighbors and was too busy with her mill to care about seeing the ones she did like, so the lack of calls did not disturb her. But Frank felt it keenly.

All of his life, Frank had been under the domination of the phrase “What will the neighbors say?” and he was defenseless against the shocks of his wife’s repeated disregard of the proprieties. He felt that everyone disapproved of Scarlett and was contemptuous of him for permitting her to “unsex herself.” She did so many things a husband should not permit, according to his views, but if he ordered her to stop them, argued or even criticized, a storm broke on his head.

“My! My!” he thought helplessly. “She can get mad quicker and stay mad longer than any woman I ever saw!”

Even at the times when things were most pleasant, it was amazing how completely and how quickly the teasing, affectionate wife who hummed to herself as she went about the house could be transformed into an entirely different person. He had only to say: “Sugar, if I were you, I wouldn’t—” and the tempest would break.

Her black brows rushed together to meet in a sharp angle over her nose and Frank cowered, almost visibly. She had the temper of a Tartar and the rages of a wild cat and, at such times, she did not seem to care what she said or how much it hurt. Clouds of gloom hung over the house on such occasions. Frank went early to the store and stayed late. Pitty scrambled into her bedroom like a rabbit panting for its burrow. Wade and Uncle Peter retired to the carriage house and Cookie kept to her kitchen and forebore to raise her voice to praise the Lord in song. Only Mammy endured Scarlett’s temper with equanimity and Mammy had had many years of training with Gerald O’Hara and his explosions.

Scarlett did not mean to be short tempered and she really wanted to make Frank a good wife, for she was fond of him and grateful for his help in saving Tara. But he did try her patience to the breaking point so often and in so many different ways.

She could never respect a man who let her run over him and the timid, hesitant attitude he displayed in any unpleasant situation, with her or with others, irritated her unbearably. But she could have overlooked these things and even been happy, now that some of her money problems were being solved, except for her constantly renewed exasperation growing out of the many incidents which showed that Frank was neither a good business man nor did he want her to be a good business man.

As she expected, he had refused to collect the unpaid bills until she prodded him into it, and then he had done it apologetically and half heartedly. That experience was the final evidence she needed to show her that the Kennedy family would never have more than a bare living, unless she personally made the money she was determined to have. She knew now that Frank would be contented to dawdle along with his dirty little store for the rest of his life. He didn’t seem to realize what a slender fingerhold they had on security and how important it was to make more money in these troublous times when money was the only protection against fresh calamities.

Frank might have been a successful business man in the easy days before the war but he was so annoyingly old-fashioned, she thought, and so stubborn about wanting to do things in the old ways, when the old ways and the old days were gone. He was utterly lacking in the aggressiveness needed in these new bitter times. Well, she had the aggressiveness and she intended to use it, whether Frank liked it or not. They needed money and she was making money and it was hard work. The very least Frank could do, in her opinion, was not to interfere with her plans which were getting results.

With her inexperience, operating the new mill was no easy job and competition was keener now than it had been at first, so she was usually tired and worried and cross when she came home at nights. And when Frank would cough apologetically and say: “Sugar, I wouldn’t do this,” or “I wouldn’t do that, Sugar, if I were you,” it was all she could do to restrain herself from flying into a rage, and frequently she did not restrain herself. If he didn’t have the gumption to get out and make some money, why was he always finding fault with her? And the things he nagged her about were so silly! What difference did it make in times like these if she was being unwomanly? Especially when her unwomanly sawmill was bringing in money they needed so badly, she and the family and Tara, and Frank too.

Frank wanted rest and quiet. The war in which he had served so conscientiously had wrecked his health, cost him his fortune and made him an old man. He regretted none of these things and after four years of war, all he asked of life was peace and kindliness, loving faces about him and the approval of friends. He soon found that domestic peace had its price, and that price was letting Scarlett have her own way, no matter what she might wish to do. So, because he was tired, he bought peace at her own terms. Sometimes, he thought it was worth it to have her smiling when she opened the front door in the cold twilights, kissing him on the ear or the nose or some other inappropriate place, to feel her head snuggling drowsily on his shoulder at night under warm quilts. Home life could be so pleasant when Scarlett was having her own way. But the peace he gained was hollow, only an outward semblance, for he had purchased it at the cost of everything he held to be right in married life.

“A woman ought to pay more attention to her home and her family and not be gadding about like a man,” he thought. “Now, if she just had a baby—”

He smiled when he thought of a baby and he thought of a baby very often. Scarlett had been most outspoken about not wanting a child, but then babies seldom waited to be invited. Frank knew that many women said they didn’t want babies but that was all foolishness and fear. If Scarlett had a baby, she would love it and be content to stay home and tend it like other women. Then she would be forced to sell the mill and his problems would be ended. All women needed babies to make them completely happy and Frank knew that Scarlett was not happy. Ignorant as he was of women, he was not so blind that he could not see she was unhappy at times.

Sometimes he awoke at night and heard the soft sound of tears muffled in the pillow. The first time he had waked to feel the bed shaking with her sobbing, he had questioned, in alarm: “Sugar, what is it?” and had been rebuked by a passionate cry: “Oh, let me alone!”

Yes, a baby would make her happy and would take her mind off things she had no business fooling with. Sometimes Frank sighed, thinking he had caught a tropic bird, all flame and jewel color, when a wren would have served him just as well. In fact, much better.

Chapter XXXVII

It was on a wild wet night in April that Tony Fontaine rode in from Jonesboro on a lathered horse that was half dead from exhaustion and came knocking at their door, rousing her and Frank from sleep with their hearts in their throats. Then for the second time in four months, Scarlett was made to feel acutely what Reconstruction in all its implications meant, made to understand more completely what was in Will’s mind when he said “Our troubles have just begun,” to know that the bleak words of Ashley, spoken in the windswept orchard of Tara, were true: “This that’s facing all of us is worse than war—worse than prison—worse than death.”

The first time she had come face to face with Reconstruction was when she learned that Jonas Wilkerson with the aid of the Yankees could evict her from Tara. But Tony’s advent brought it all home to her in a far more terrifying manner. Tony came in the dark and the lashing rain and in a few minutes he was gone back into the night forever, but in the brief interval between he raised the curtain on a scene of new horror, a curtain that she felt hopelessly would never be lowered again.

That stormy night when the knocker hammered on the door with such hurried urgency, she stood on the landing, clutching her wrapper to her and, looking down into the hall below, had one glimpse of Tony’s swarthy saturnine face before he leaned forward and blew out the candle in Frank’s hand. She hurried down in the darkness to grasp his cold wet hand and hear him whisper: “They’re after me—going to Texas—my horse is about dead—and I’m about starved. Ashley said you’d—Don’t light the candle! Don’t wake the darkies… I don’t want to get you folks in trouble if I can help it.”

With the kitchen blinds drawn and all the shades pulled down to the sills, he permitted a light and he talked to Frank in swift jerky sentences as Scarlett hurried about, trying to scrape together a meal for him.

He was without a greatcoat and soaked to the skin. He was hatless and his black hair was plastered to his little skull. But the merriment of the Fontaine boys, a chilling merriment that night, was in his little dancing eyes as he gulped down the whisky she brought him. Scarlett thanked God that Aunt Pittypat was snoring undisturbed upstairs. She would certainly swoon if she saw this apparition.

“One damned bast—Scallawag less,” said Tony, holding out his glass for another drink. “I’ve ridden hard and it’ll cost me my skin if I don’t get out of here quick, but it was worth it. By God, yes! I’m going to try to get to Texas and lay low there. Ashley was with me in Jonesboro and he told me to come to you all. Got to have another horse, Frank, and some money. My horse is nearly dead—all the way up here at a dead run—and like a fool I went out of the house today like a bat out of hell without a coat or hat or a cent of money. Not that there’s much money in our house.”

He laughed and applied himself hungrily to the cold corn pone and cold turnip greens on which congealed grease was thick in white flakes.

“You can have my horse,” said Frank calmly. “I’ve only ten dollars with me but if you can wait till morning—”

“Hell’s afire, I can’t wait!” said Tony, emphatically but jovially. “They’re probably right behind me. I didn’t get much of a start. If it hadn’t been for Ashley dragging me out of there and making me get on my horse, I’d have stayed there like a fool and probably had my neck stretched by now. Good fellow, Ashley.”

So Ashley was mixed up in this frightening puzzle. Scarlett went cold, her hand at her throat. Did the Yankees have Ashley now? Why, why didn’t Frank ask what it was all about? Why did he take it all so coolly, so much as a matter of course? She struggled to get the question to her lips.

“What—” she began. “Who—”

“Your father’s old overseer—that damned—Jonas Wilkerson.”

“Did you—is he dead?”

“My God, Scarlett O’Hara!” said Tony peevishly. “When I start out to cut somebody up, you don’t think I’d be satisfied with scratching him with the blunt side of my knife, do you? No, by God, I cut him to ribbons.”

“Good,” said Frank casually. “I never liked the fellow.”

Scarlett looked at him. This was not the meek Frank she knew, the nervous beard clawer who she had learned could be bullied with such ease. There was an air about him that was crisp and cool and he was meeting the emergency with no unnecessary words. He was a man and Tony was a man and this situation of violence was men’s business in which a woman had no part.

“But Ashley—Did he—”

“No. He wanted to kill him but I told him it was my right, because Sally is my sister-in-law, and he saw reason finally. He went into Jonesboro with me, in case Wilkerson got me first. But I don’t think old Ash will get in any trouble about it. I hope not. Got any jam for this corn pone? And can you wrap me up something to take with me?”

“I shall scream if you don’t tell me everything.”

“Wait till I’ve gone and then scream if you’ve got to. I’ll tell you about it while Frank saddles the horse. That damned—Wilkerson has caused enough trouble already. I know how he did you about your taxes. That’s just one of his meannesses. But the worst thing was the way he kept the darkies stirred up. If anybody had told me I’d ever live to see the day when I’d hate darkies! Damn their black souls, they believe anything those scoundrels tell them and forget every living thing we’ve done for them. Now the Yankees are talking about letting the darkies vote. And they won’t let us vote. Why, there’s hardly a handful of Democrats in the whole County who aren’t barred from voting, now that they’ve ruled out every man who fought in the Confederate Army. And if they give the negroes the vote, it’s the end of us. Damn it, it’s our state! It doesn’t belong to the Yankees! By God, Scarlett, it isn’t to be borne! And it won’t be borne! We’ll do something about it if it means another war. Soon we’ll be having nigger judges, nigger legislators—black apes out of the jungle—”

“Please—hurry, tell me! What did you do?”

“Give me another mite of that pone before you wrap it up. Well, the word got around that Wilkerson had gone a bit too far with his nigger-equality business. Oh, yes, he talks it to those black fools by the hour. He had the gall—the—” Tony spluttered helplessly, “to say niggers had a right to—to—white women.”

“Oh, Tony, no!”

“By God, yes! I don’t wonder you look sick. But hell’s afire, Scarlett, it can’t be news to you. They’ve been telling it to them here in Atlanta.”

“I—I didn’t know.”

“Well, Frank would have kept it from you. Anyway, after that, we all sort of thought we’d call on Mr. Wilkerson privately by night and tend to him, but before we could—You remember that black buck, Eustis, who used to be our foreman?”

“Yes.”

“Came to the kitchen door today while Sally was fixing dinner and—I don’t know what he said to her. I guess I’ll never know now. But he said something and I heard her scream and I ran into the kitchen and there he was, drunk as a fiddler’s bitch—I beg your pardon, Scarlett, it just slipped out.”

“Go on.”

“I shot him and when Mother ran in to take care of Sally, I got my horse and started to Jonesboro for Wilkerson. He was the one to blame. The damned black fool would never have thought of it but for him. And on the way past Tara, I met Ashley and, of course, he went with me. He said to let him do it because of the way Wilkerson acted about Tara and I said No, it was my place because Sally was my own dead brother’s wife, and he went with me arguing the whole way. And when we got to town, by God, Scarlett, do you know I hadn’t even brought my pistol, I’d left it in the stable. So mad I forgot—”

He paused and gnawed the tough pone and Scarlett shivered. The murderous rages of the Fontaines had made County history long before this chapter had opened.

“So I had to take my knife to him. I found him in the barroom. I got him in a corner with Ashley holding back the others and I told him why before I lit into him. Why, it was over before I knew it,” said Tony reflecting. “First thing I knew, Ashley had me on my horse and told me to come to you folks. Ashley’s a good man in a pinch. He keeps his head.”

Frank came in, his greatcoat over his arm, and handed it to Tony. It was his only heavy coat but Scarlett made no protest. She seemed so much on the outside of this affair, this purely masculine affair.

“But Tony—they need you at home. Surely, if you went back and explained—”

“Frank, you’ve married a fool,” said Tony with a grin, struggling into the coat. “She thinks the Yankees will reward a man for keeping niggers off his women folks. So they will, with a drumhead court and a rope. Give me a kiss, Scarlett. Frank won’t mind and I may never see you again. Texas is a long way off. I won’t dare write, so let the home folks know I got this far in safety.”

She let him kiss her and the two men went out into the driving rain and stood for a moment, talking on the back porch. Then she heard a sudden splashing of hooves and Tony was gone. She opened the door a crack and saw Frank leading a heaving, stumbling horse into the carriage house. She shut the door again and sat down, her knees trembling.

Now she knew what Reconstruction meant, knew as well as if the house were ringed about by naked savages, squatting in breech clouts. Now there came rushing to her mind many things to which she had given little thought recently, conversations she had heard but to which she had not listened, masculine talk which had been checked half finished when she came into rooms, small incidents in which she had seen no significance at the time, Frank’s futile warnings to her against driving out to the mill with only the feeble Uncle Peter to protect her. Now they fitted themselves together into one horrifying picture.

The negroes were on top and behind them were the Yankee bayonets. She could be killed, she could be raped and, very probably, nothing would ever be done about it. And anyone who avenged her would be hanged by the Yankees, hanged without benefit of trial by judge and jury. Yankee officers who knew nothing of law and cared less for the circumstances of the crime could go through the motions of holding a trial and put a rope around a Southerner’s neck.

“What can we do?” she thought, wringing her hands in an agony of helpless fear. “What can we do with devils who’d hang a nice boy like Tony just for killing a drunken buck and a scoundrelly Scallawag to protect his women folks?”

“It isn’t to be borne!” Tony had cried and he was right. It couldn’t be borne. But what could they do except bear it, helpless as they were? She fell to trembling and, for the first time in her life, she saw people and events as something apart from herself, saw clearly that Scarlett O’Hara, frightened and helpless, was not all that mattered. There were thousands of women like her, all over the South, who were frightened and helpless. And thousands of men, who had laid down their arms at Appomattox, had taken them up again and stood ready to risk their necks on a minute’s notice to protect those women.

There had been something in Tony’s face which had been mirrored in Frank’s, an expression she had seen recently on the faces of other men in Atlanta, a look she had noticed but had not troubled to analyze. It was an expression vastly different from the tired helplessness she had seen in the faces of men coming home from the war after the surrender. Those men had not cared about anything except getting home. Now they were caring about something again, numbed nerves were coming back to life and the old spirit was beginning to burn. They were caring again with a cold ruthless bitterness. And, like Tony, they were thinking: “It isn’t to be borne!”

She had seen Southern men, soft voiced and dangerous in the days before the war, reckless and hard in the last despairing days of the fighting. But in the faces of the two men who stared at each other across the candle flame so short a while ago there had been something that was different, something that heartened her but frightened her—fury which could find no words, determination which would stop at nothing.

For the first time, she felt a kinship with the people about her, felt one with them in their fears, their bitterness, their determination. No, it wasn’t to be borne! The South was too beautiful a place to be let go without a struggle, too loved to be trampled by Yankees who hated Southerners enough to enjoy grinding them into the dirt, too dear a homeland to be turned over to ignorant negroes drunk with whisky and freedom.

As she thought of Tony’s sudden entrance and swift exit, she felt herself akin to him, for she remembered the old story how her father had left Ireland, left hastily and by night, after a murder which was no murder to him or to his family. Gerald’s blood was in her, violent blood. She remembered her hot joy in shooting the marauding Yankee. Violent blood was in them all, perilously close to the surface, lurking just beneath the kindly courteous exteriors. All of them, all the men she knew, even the drowsy-eyed Ashley and fidgety old Frank, were like that underneath—murderous, violent if the need arose. Even Rhett, conscienceless scamp that he was, had killed a negro for being “uppity to a lady.”

“Oh, Frank, how long will it be like this?” she leaped to her feet.

“As long as the Yankees hate us so, Sugar.”

“Is there nothing anybody can do?”

Frank passed a tired hand over his wet beard. “We are doing things.”

“What?”

“Why talk of them till we have accomplished something? It may take years. Perhaps—perhaps the South will always be like this.”

“Oh, no!”

“Sugar, come to bed. You must be chilled. You are shaking.”

“When will it all end?”

“When we can all vote again, Sugar. When every man who fought for the South can put a ballot in the box for a Southerner and a Democrat.”

“A ballot?” she cried despairingly. “What good’s a ballot when the darkies have lost their minds—when the Yankees have poisoned them against us?”

Frank went on to explain in his patient manner, but the idea that ballots could cure the trouble was too complicated for her to follow. She was thinking gratefully that Jonas Wilkerson would never again be a menace of Tara and she was thinking about Tony.

“Oh, the poor Fontaines!” she exclaimed. “Only Alex left and so much to do at Mimosa. Why didn’t Tony have sense enough to—to do it at night when no one would know who it was? A sight more good he’d do helping with the spring plowing than in Texas.”

Frank put an arm about her. Usually he was gingerly when he did this, as if he anticipated being impatiently shaken off, but tonight there was a far-off look in his eyes and his arm was firm about her waist.

“There are things more important now than plowing, Sugar. And scaring the darkies and teaching the Scallawags a lesson is one of them. As long as there are fine boys like Tony left, I guess we won’t need to worry about the South too much. Come to bed.”

“But, Frank—”

“If we just stand together and don’t give an inch to the Yankees, we’ll win, some day. Don’t you bother your pretty head about it, Sugar. You let your men folks worry about it. Maybe it won’t come in our time, but surely it will come some day. The Yankees will get tired of pestering us when they see they can’t even dent us, and then we’ll have a decent world to live in and raise our children in.”

She thought of Wade and the secret she had carried silently for some days. No, she didn’t want her children raised in this welter of hate and uncertainty, of bitterness and violence lurking just below the surface, of poverty and grinding hardships and insecurity. She never wanted children of hers to know what all this was like. She wanted a secure and well-ordered world in which she could look forward and know there was a safe future ahead for them, a world where her children would know only softness and warmth and good clothes and fine food.

Frank thought this could he accomplished by voting. Voting? What did votes matter? Nice people in the South would never have the vote again. There was only one thing in the world that was a certain bulwark against any calamity which fate could bring, and that was money. She thought feverishly that they must have money, lots of it to keep them safe against disaster.

Abruptly, she told him she was going to have a baby.

For weeks after Tony’s escape, Aunt Pitty’s house was subjected to repeated searches by parties of Yankee soldiers. They invaded the house at all hours and without warning. They swarmed through the rooms, asking questions, opening closets, prodding clothes hampers, peering under beds. The military authorities had heard that Tony had been advised to go to Miss Pitty’s house, and they were certain he was still hiding there or somewhere m the neighborhood.

As a result, Aunt Pitty was chronically in what Uncle Peter called a “state,” never knowing when her bedroom would be entered by an officer and a squad of men. Neither Frank nor Scarlett had mentioned Tony’s brief visit, so the old lady could have revealed nothing, even had she been so inclined. She was entirely honest in her fluttery protestations that she had seen Tony Fontaine only once in her life and that was at Christmas time in 1862.

“And,” she would add breathlessly to the Yankee soldiers, in an effort to be helpful, “he was quite intoxicated at the time.”

Scarlett, sick and miserable in the early stage of pregnancy, alternated between a passionate hatred of the bluecoats who invaded her privacy, frequently carrying away any little knick-knack that appealed to them, and an equally passionate fear that Tony might prove the undoing of them all. The prisons were full of people who had been arrested for much less reason. She knew that if one iota of the truth were proved against them, not only she and Frank but the innocent Pitty as well would go to jail.

For some time there had been an agitation in Washington to confiscate all “Rebel property” to pay the United States’ war debt and this agitation had kept Scarlett in a state of anguished apprehension. Now, in addition to this, Atlanta was full of wild rumors about the confiscation of property of offenders against military law, and Scarlett quaked lest she and Frank lose not only their freedom but the house, the store and the mill. And even if their property were not appropriated by the military, it would be as good as lost if she and Frank went to jail, for who would look after their business in their absence?

She hated Tony for bringing such trouble upon them. How could he have done such a thing to friends? And how could Ashley have sent Tony to them? Never again would she give aid to anyone if it meant having the Yankees come down on her like a swarm of hornets. No, she would bar the door against anyone needing help. Except, of course, Ashley. For weeks after Tony’s brief visit she woke from uneasy dreams at any sound in the road outside, fearing it might be Ashley trying to make his escape, fleeing to Texas because of the aid he had given Tony. She did not know how matters stood with him, for they did not dare write to Tara about Tony’s midnight visit. Their letters might be intercepted by the Yankees and bring trouble upon the plantation as well. But, when weeks went by and they heard no bad news, they knew that Ashley had somehow come clear. And finally, the Yankees ceased annoying them.

But even this relief did not free Scarlett from the state of dread which began when Tony came knocking at their door, a dread which was worse than the quaking fear of the siege shells, worse even than the terror of Sherman’s men during the last days of the war. It was as if Tony’s appearance that wild rainy night had stripped merciful blinders from her eyes and forced her to see the true uncertainty of her life.

Looking about her in that cold spring of 1866, Scarlett realized what was facing her and the whole South. She might plan and scheme, she might work harder than her slaves had ever worked, she might succeed in overcoming all of her hardships, she might through dint of determination solve problems for which her earlier life had provided no training at all. But for all her labor and sacrifice and resourcefulness, her small beginnings purchased at so great a cost might be snatched away from her at any minute. And should this happen, she had no legal rights, no legal redress, except those same drumhead courts of which Tony had spoken so bitterly, those military courts with their arbitrary powers. Only the negroes had rights or redress these days. The Yankees had the South prostrate and they intended to keep it so. The South had been tilted as by a giant malicious hand, and those who had once ruled were now more helpless than their former slaves had ever been.

Georgia was heavily garrisoned with troops and Atlanta had more than its share. The commandants of the Yankee troops in the various cities had complete power, even the power of life and death, over the civilian population, and they used that power. They could and did imprison citizens for any cause, or no cause, seize their property, hang them. They could and did harass and hamstring them with conflicting regulations about the operation of their business, the wages they must pay their servants, what they should say in public and private utterances and what they should write in newspapers. They regulated how, when and where they must dump their garbage and they decided what songs the daughters and wives of ex-Confederates could sing, so that the singing of “Dixie” or “Bonnie Blue Flag” became an offense only a little less serious than treason. They ruled that no one could get a letter our of the post office without taking the Iron Clad oath and, in some instances, they even prohibited the issuance of marriage licenses unless the couples had taken the hated oath.

The newspapers were so muzzled that no public protest could be raised against the injustices or depredations of the military, and individual protests were silenced with jail sentences. The jails were full of prominent citizens and there they stayed without hope of early trial. Trial by jury and the law of habeas corpus were practically suspended. The civil courts still functioned after a fashion but they functioned at the pleasure of the military, who could and did interfere with their verdicts, so that citizens so unfortunate as to get arrested were virtually at the mercy of the military authorities. And so many did get arrested. The very suspicion of seditious utterances against the government, suspected complicity in the Ku Klux Klan, or complaint by a negro that a white man had been uppity to him were enough to land a citizen in jail. Proof and evidence were not needed. The accusation was sufficient. And thanks to the incitement of the Freedmen’s Bureau, negroes could always be found who were willing to bring accusations.

The negroes had not yet been given the right to vote but the North was determined that they should vote and equally determined that their vote should be friendly to the North. With this in mind, nothing was too good for the negroes. The Yankee soldiers backed them up in anything they chose to do, and the surest way for a white person to get himself into trouble was to bring a complaint of any kind against a negro.

The former slaves were now the lords of creation and, with the aid of the Yankees, the lowest and most ignorant ones were on top. The better class of them, scorning freedom, were suffering as severely as their white masters. Thousands of house servants, the highest caste in the slave population, remained with their white folks, doing manual labor which had been beneath them in the old days. Many loyal field hands also refused to avail themselves of the new freedom, but the hordes of “trashy free issue niggers,” who were causing most of the trouble, were drawn largely from the field-hand class.

In slave days, these lowly blacks had been despised by the house negroes and yard negroes as creatures of small worth. Just as Ellen had done, other plantation mistresses throughout the South had put the pickaninnies through courses of training and elimination to select the best of them for the positions of greater responsibility. Those consigned to the fields were the ones least willing or able to learn, the least energetic, the least honest and trustworthy, the most vicious and brutish. And now this class, the lowest in the black social order, was making life a misery for the South.

Aided by the unscrupulous adventurers who operated the Freedmen’s Bureau and urged on by a fervor of Northern hatred almost religious in its fanaticism, the former field hands found themselves suddenly elevated to the seats of the mighty. There they conducted themselves as creatures of small intelligence might naturally be expected to do. Like monkeys or small children turned loose among treasured objects whose value is beyond their comprehension, they ran wild—either from perverse pleasure in destruction or simply because of their ignorance.

To the credit of the negroes, including the least intelligent of them, few were actuated by malice and those few had usually been “mean niggers” even in slave days. But they were, as a class, childlike in mentality, easily led and from long habit accustomed to taking orders. Formerly their white masters had given the orders. Now they had a new set of masters, the Bureau and the Carpetbaggers, and their orders were: “You’re just as good as any white man, so act that way. Just as soon as you can vote the Republican ticket, you are going to have the white man’s property. It’s as good as yours now. Take it, if you can get it!”

Dazzled by these tales, freedom became a never-ending picnic, a barbecue every day of the week, a carnival of idleness and theft and insolence. Country negroes flocked into the cities, leaving the rural districts without labor to make the crops. Atlanta was crowded with them and still they came by the hundreds, lazy and dangerous as a result of the new doctrines being taught them. Packed into squalid cabins, smallpox, typhoid and tuberculosis broke out among them. Accustomed to the care of their mistresses when they were ill in slave days, they did not know how to nurse themselves or their sick. Relying upon their masters in the old days to care for their aged and their babies, they now had no sense of responsibility for their helpless. And the Bureau was far too interested in political matters to provide the care the plantation owners had once given.

Abandoned negro children ran like frightened animals about the town until kind-hearted white people took them into their kitchens to raise. Aged country darkies, deserted by their children, bewildered and panic stricken in the bustling town, sat on the curbs and cried to the ladies who passed: “Mistis, please Ma’m, write mah old Marster down in Fayette County dat Ah’s up hyah. He’ll come tek dis ole nigger home agin. ‘Fo’ Gawd, Ah done got nuff of dis freedom!”

The Freedmen’s Bureau, overwhelmed by the numbers who poured in upon them, realized too late a part of the mistake and tried to send them back to their former owners. They told the negroes that if they would go back, they would go as free workers, protected by written contracts specifying wages by the day. The old darkies went back to the plantations gladly, making a heavier burden than ever on the poverty-stricken planters who had not the heart to turn them out, but the young ones remained in Atlanta. They did not want to be workers of any kind, anywhere. Why work when the belly is full?

For the first time in their lives the negroes were able to get all the whisky they might want. In slave days, it was something they never tasted except at Christmas, when each one received a “drap” along with his gift. Now they had not only the Bureau agitators and the Carpetbaggers urging them on, but the incitement of whisky as well, and outrages were inevitable. Neither life nor property was safe from them and the white people, unprotected by law, were terrorized. Men were insulted on the streets by drunken blacks, houses and barns were burned at night, horses and cattle and chickens stolen in broad daylight, crimes of all varieties were committed and few of the perpetrators were brought to justice.

But these ignominies and dangers were as nothing compared with the peril of white women, many bereft by the war of male protection, who lived alone in the outlying districts and on lonely roads. It was the large number of outrages on women and the ever-present fear for the safety of their wives and daughters that drove Southern men to cold and trembling fury and caused the Ku Klux Klan to spring up overnight. And it was against this nocturnal organization that the newspapers of the North cried out most loudly, never realizing the tragic necessity that brought it into being. The North wanted every member of the Ku Klux hunted down and hanged, because they had dared take the punishment of crime into their own hands at a time when the ordinary processes of law and order had been overthrown by the invaders.

Here was the astonishing spectacle of half a nation attempting, at the point of bayonet, to force upon the other half the rule of negroes, many of them scarcely one generation out of the African jungles. The vote must be given to them but it must be denied to most of their former owners. The South must be kept down and disfranchisement of the whites was one way to keep the South down. Most of those who had fought for the Confederacy, held office under it or given aid and comfort to it were not allowed to vote, had no choice in the selection of their public officials and were wholly under the power of an alien rule. Many men, thinking soberly of General Lee’s words and example, wished to take the oath, become citizens again and forget the past. But they were not permitted to take it. Others who were permitted to take the oath, hotly refused to do so, scorning to swear allegiance to a government which was deliberately subjecting them to cruelty and humiliation.

Scarlett heard over and over until she could have screamed at the repetition: “I’d have taken their damned oath right after the surrender if they’d acted decent. I can be restored to the Union, but by God, I can’t be reconstructed into it!”

Through these anxious days and nights, Scarlett was torn with fear. The ever-present menace of lawless negroes and Yankee soldiers preyed on her mind, the danger of confiscation was constantly with her, even in her dreams, and she dreaded worse terrors to come. Depressed by the helplessness of herself and her friends, of the whole South, it was not strange that she often remembered during these days the words which Tony Fontaine had spoken so passionately:

“Good God, Scarlett, it isn’t to be borne! And it won’t be borne!”

In spite of war, fire and Reconstruction, Atlanta had again become a boom town. In many ways, the place resembled the busy young city of the Confederacy’s early days. The only trouble was that the soldiers crowding the streets wore the wrong kind of uniforms, the money was in the hands of the wrong people, and the negroes were living in leisure while their former masters struggled and starved.

Underneath the surface were misery and fear, but all the outward appearances were those of a thriving town that was rapidly rebuilding from its ruins, a bustling, hurrying town. Atlanta, it seemed, must always be hurrying, no matter what its circumstances might be. Savannah, Charleston, Augusta, Richmond, New Orleans would never hurry. It was ill bred and Yankeefied to hurry. But in this period, Atlanta was more ill bred and Yankeefied than it had ever been before or would ever be again. With “new people” thronging in from all directions, the streets were choked and noisy from morning till night. The shiny carriages of Yankee officers’ wives and newly rich Carpetbaggers splashed mud on the dilapidated buggies of the townspeople, and gaudy new homes of wealthy strangers crowded in among the sedate dwellings of older citizens.

The war had definitely established the importance of Atlanta in the affairs of the South and the hitherto obscure town was now known far and wide. The railroads for which Sherman had fought an entire summer and killed thousands of men were again stimulating the life of the city they had brought into being. Atlanta was again the center of activities for a wide region, as it had been before its destruction, and the town was receiving a great influx of new citizens, both welcome and unwelcome.

Invading Carpetbaggers made Atlanta their headquarters and on the streets they jostled against representatives of the oldest families in the South who were likewise newcomers in the town. Families from the country districts who had been burned out during Sherman’s march and who could no longer make a living without the slaves to till the cotton had come to Atlanta to live. New settlers were coming in every day from Tennessee and the Carolinas where the hand of Reconstruction lay even heavier than in Georgia. Many Irish and Germans who had been bounty men in the Union Army had settled in Atlanta after their discharge. The wives and families of the Yankee garrison, filled with curiosity about the South after four years of war, came to swell the population. Adventurers of every kind swarmed in, hoping to make their fortunes, and the negroes from the country continued to come by the hundreds.

The town was roaring-wide open like a frontier village, making no effort to cover its vices and sins. Saloons blossomed overnight, two and sometimes three in a block, and after nightfall the streets were full of drunken men, black and white, reeling from wall to curb and back again. Thugs, pickpockets and prostitutes lurked in the unlit alleys and shadowy streets. Gambling houses ran full blast and hardly a night passed without its shooting or cutting affray. Respectable citizens were scandalized to find that Atlanta had a large and thriving red-light district, larger and more thriving than during the war. All night long pianos jangled from behind drawn shades and rowdy songs and laughter floated out, punctuated by occasional screams and pistol shots. The inmates of these houses were bolder than the prostitutes of the war days and brazenly hung out of their windows and called to passers-by. And on Sunday afternoons, the handsome closed carriages of the madams of the district rolled down the main streets, filled with girls in their best finery, taking the air from behind lowered silk shades.

Belle Watling was the most notorious of the madams. She had opened a new house of her own, a large two-story building that made neighboring houses in the district look like shabby rabbit warrens. There was a long barroom downstairs, elegantly hung with oil paintings, and a negro orchestra played every night. The upstairs, so rumor said, was fitted out with the finest of plush upholstered furniture, heavy lace curtains and imported mirrors in gilt frames. The dozen young ladies with whom the house was furnished were comely, if brightly painted, and comported themselves more quietly than those of other houses. At least, the police were seldom summoned to Belle’s.

This house was something that the matrons of Atlanta whispered about furtively and ministers preached against in guarded terms as a cesspool of iniquity, a hissing and a reproach. Everyone knew that a woman of Belle’s type couldn’t have made enough money by herself to set up such a luxurious establishment. She had to have a backer and a rich one at that. And Rhett Butler had never had the decency to conceal his relations with her, so it was obvious that he and no other must be that backer. Belle herself presented a prosperous appearance when glimpsed occasionally in her closed carriage driven by an impudent yellow negro. When she drove by, behind a fine pair of bays, all the little boys along the street who could evade their mothers ran to peer at her and whisper excitedly: “That’s her! That’s ole Belle! I seen her red hair!”

Shouldering the shell-pitted houses patched with bits of old lumber and smoke-blackened bricks, the fine homes of the Carpetbaggers and war profiteers were rising, with mansard roofs, gables and turrets, stained-glass windows and wide lawns. Night after night, in these newly built homes, the windows were ablaze with gas light and the sound of music and dancing feet drifted out upon the air. Women in stiff bright-colored silks strolled about long verandas, squired by men in evening clothes. Champagne corks popped, and on lace tablecloths seven-course dinners were laid. Hams in wine, pressed duck, pate de foie gras, rare fruits in and out of season, were spread in profusion.

Behind the shabby doors of the old houses, poverty and hunger lived—all the more bitter for the brave gentility with which they were borne, all the more pinching for the outward show of proud indifference to material wants. Dr. Meade could tell unlovely stories of those families who had been driven from mansions to boarding houses and from boarding houses to dingy rooms on back streets. He had too many lady patients who were suffering from “weak hearts” and “declines.” He knew, and they knew he knew, that slow starvation was the trouble. He could tell of consumption making inroads on entire families and of pellagra, once found only among poor whites, which was now appearing in Atlanta’s best families. And there were babies with thin rickety legs and mothers who could not nurse them. Once the old doctor had been wont to thank God reverently for each child he brought into the world. Now he did not think life was such a boon. It was a hard world for little babies and so many died in their first few months of life.

Bright lights and wine, fiddles and dancing, brocade and broadcloth in the showy big houses and, just around the corners, slow starvation and cold. Arrogance and callousness for the conquerors, bitter endurance and hatred for the conquered.

Chapter XXXVIII

Scarlett saw it all, lived with it by day, took it to bed with her at night, dreading always what might happen next. She knew that she and Frank were already in the Yankees’ black books, because of Tony, and disaster might descend on them at any hour. But, now of all times, she could not afford to be pushed back to her beginnings—not now with a baby coming, the mill just commencing to pay and Tara depending on her for money until the cotton came in in the fall. Oh, suppose she should lose everything! Suppose she should have to start all over again with only her puny weapons against this mad world! To have to pit her red lips and green eyes and her shrewd shallow brain against the Yankees and everything the Yankees stood for. Weary with dread, she felt that she would rather kill herself than try to make a new beginning.

In the ruin and chaos of that spring of 1866, she single mindedly turned her energies to making the mill pay. There was money in Atlanta. The wave of rebuilding was giving her the opportunity she wanted and she knew she could make money if only she could stay out of jail. But, she told herself time and again, she would have to walk easily, gingerly, be meek under insults, yielding to injustices, never giving offense to anyone, black or white, who might do her harm. She hated the impudent free negroes as much as anyone and her flesh crawled with fury every time she heard their insulting remarks and high-pitched laughter as she went by. But she never even gave them a glance of contempt. She hated the Carpetbaggers and Scallawags who were getting rich with ease while she struggled, but she said nothing in condemnation of them. No one in Atlanta could have loathed the Yankees more than she, for the very sight of a blue uniform made her sick with rage, but even in the privacy of her family she kept silent about them.

I won’t be a big-mouthed fool, she thought grimly. Let others break their hearts over the old days and the men who’ll never come back. Let others burn with fury over the Yankee rule and losing the ballot. Let others go to jail for speaking their minds and get themselves hanged for being in the Ku Klux Klan. (Oh, what a dreaded name that was, almost as terrifying to Scarlett as to the negroes.) Let other women be proud that their husbands belonged. Thank God, Frank had never been mixed up in it! Let others stew and fume and plot and plan about things they could not help. What did the past matter compared with the tense present and the dubious future? What did the ballot matter when bread, a roof and staying out of jail were the real problems? And, please God, just let me stay out of trouble until June!

Only till June! By that month Scarlett knew she would be forced to retire into Aunt Pitty’s house and remain secluded there until after her child was born. Already people were criticizing her for appearing in public when she was in such a condition. No lady ever showed herself when she was pregnant. Already Frank and Pitty were begging her not to expose herself—and them—to embarrassment and she had promised them to stop work in June.

Only till June! By June she must have the mill well enough established for her to leave it. By June she must have money enough to give her at least some little protection against misfortune. So much to do and so little time to do it! She wished for more hours of the day and counted the minutes, as she strained forward feverishly in her pursuit of money and still more money.

Because she nagged the timid Frank, the store was doing better now and he was even collecting some of the old bills. But it was the sawmill on which her hopes were pinned. Atlanta these days was like a giant plant which had been cut to the ground but now was springing up again with sturdier shoots, thicker foliage, more numerous branches. The demand for building materials was far greater than could be supplied. Prices of lumber, brick and stone soared and Scarlett kept the mill running from dawn until lantern light.

A part of every day she spent at the mill, prying into everything, doing her best to check the thievery she felt sure was going on. But most of the time she was riding about the town, making the rounds of builders, contractors and carpenters, even calling on strangers she had heard might build at future dates, cajoling them into promises of buying from her and her only.

Soon she was a familiar sight on Atlanta’s streets, sitting in her buggy beside the dignified, disapproving old darky driver, a lap robe pulled high about her, her little mittened hands clasped in her lap. Aunt Pitty had made her a pretty green mantelet which hid her figure and a green pancake hat which matched her eyes, and she always wore these becoming garments on her business calls. A faint dab of rouge on her cheeks and a fainter fragrance of cologne made her a charming picture, as long as she did not alight from the buggy and show her figure. And there was seldom any need for this, for she smiled and beckoned and the men came quickly to the buggy and frequently stood bareheaded in the rain to talk business with her.

She was not the only one who had seen the opportunities for making money out of lumber, but she did not fear her competitors. She knew with conscious pride in her own smartness that she was the equal of any of them. She was Gerald’s own daughter and the shrewd trading instinct she had inherited was now sharpened by her needs.

At first the other dealers had laughed at her, laughed with goodnatured contempt at the very idea of a woman in business. But now they did not laugh. They swore silently as they saw her ride by. The fact that she was a woman frequently worked in her favor, for she could upon occasion look so helpless and appealing that she melted hearts. With no difficulty whatever she could mutely convey the impression of a brave but timid lady, forced by brutal circumstance into a distasteful position, a helpless little lady who would probably starve if customers didn’t buy her lumber. But when ladylike airs failed to get results she was coldly businesslike and willingly undersold her competitors at a loss to herself if it would bring her a new customer. She was not above selling a poor grade of lumber for the price of good lumber if she thought she would not be detected, and she had no scruples about black-guarding the other lumber dealers. With every appearance of reluctance at disclosing the unpleasant truth, she would sigh and tell prospective customers that her competitors’ lumber was far too high in price, rotten, full of knot holes and in general of deplorably poor quality.

The first time Scarlett lied in this fashion she felt disconcerted and guilty—disconcerted because the lie sprang so easily and naturally to her lips, guilty because the thought flashed into her mind: What would Mother say?

There was no doubt what Ellen would say to a daughter who told lies and engaged in sharp practices. She would be stunned and incredulous and would speak gentle words that stung despite their gentleness, would talk of honor and honesty and truth and duty to one’s neighbor. Momentarily, Scarlett cringed as she pictured the look on her mother’s face. And then the picture faded, blotted out by an impulse, hard, unscrupulous and greedy, which had been born in the lean days at Tara and was now strengthened by the present uncertainty of life. So she passed this milestone as she had passed others before it—with a sigh that she was not as Ellen would like her to be, a shrug and the repetition of her unfailing charm: “I’ll think of all this later.”

But she never again thought of Ellen in connection with her business practices, never again regretted any means she used to take trade away from other lumber dealers. She knew she was perfectly safe in lying about them. Southern chivalry protected her. A Southern lady could lie about a gentleman but a Southern gentleman could not lie about a lady or, worse still, call the lady a liar. Other lumbermen could only fume inwardly and state heatedly, in the bosoms of their families, that they wished to God Mrs. Kennedy was a man for just about five minutes.

One poor white who operated a mill on the Decatur road did try to fight Scarlett with her own weapons, saying openly that she was a liar and a swindler. But it hurt him rather than helped, for everyone was appalled that even a poor white should say such shocking things about a lady of good family, even when the lady was conducting herself in such an unwomanly way. Scarlett bore his remarks with silent dignity and, as time went by, she turned all her attention to him and his customers. She undersold him so relentlessly and delivered, with secret groans, such an excellent quality of lumber to prove her probity that he was soon bankrupt. Then, to Frank’s horror, she triumphantly bought his mill at her own price.

Once in her possession there arose the perplexing problem of finding a trustworthy man to put in charge of it. She did not want another man like Mr. Johnson. She knew that despite all her watchfulness he was still selling her lumber behind her back, but she thought it would be easy to find the right sort of man. Wasn’t everybody as poor as Job’s turkey, and weren’t the streets full of men, some of them formerly rich, who were without work? The day never went by that Frank did not give money to some hungry exsoldier or that Pitty and Cookie did not wrap up food for gaunt beggars.

But Scarlett, for some reason she could not understand, did not want any of these. “I don’t want men who haven’t found something to do after a year,” she thought. “If they haven’t adjusted to peace yet, they couldn’t adjust to me. And they all look so hangdog and licked. I don’t want a man who’s licked. I want somebody who’s smart and energetic like Renny or Tommy Wellburn or Kells Whiting or one of the Simmons boys or—or any of that tribe. They haven’t got that I-don’t-care-about-anything look the soldiers had right after the surrender. They look like they cared a heap about a heap of things.”

But to her surprise the Simmons boys, who had started a brick kiln, and Kells Whiting, who was selling a preparation made up in his mother’s kitchen, that was guaranteed to straighten the kinkiest negro hair in six applications, smiled politely, thanked her and refused. It was the same with the dozen others she approached. In desperation she raised the wage she was offering but she was still refused. One of Mrs. Merriwether’s nephews observed impertinently that while he didn’t especially enjoy driving a dray, it was his own dray and he would rather get somewhere under his own steam than Scarlett’s.

One afternoon, Scarlett pulled up her buggy beside Rene Picard’s pie wagon and hailed Rene and the crippled Tommy Wellburn, who was catching a ride home with his friend.

“Look here, Renny, why don’t you come and work for me? Managing a mill is a sight more respectable than driving a pie wagon. I’d think you’d be ashamed.”

“Me, I am dead to shame,” grinned Rene. “Who would be respectable? All of my days I was respectable until ze war set me free lak ze darkies. Nevaire again must I be deegneefied and full of ennui. Free lak ze bird! I lak my pie wagon. I lak my mule. I lak ze dear Yankees who so kindly buy ze pie of Madame Belle Mere. No, my Scarlett, I must be ze King of ze Pies. Eet ees my destiny! Lak Napoleon, I follow my star.” He flourished his whip dramatically.

“But you weren’t raised to sell pies any more than Tommy was raised to wrastle with a bunch of wild Irish masons. My kind of work is more—”

“And I suppose you were raised to run a lumber mill,” said Tommy, the corners of his mouth twitching. “Yes, I can just see little Scarlett at her mother’s knee, lisping her lesson, ‘Never sell good lumber if you can get a better price for bad.’”

Rene roared at this, his small monkey eyes dancing with glee as he whacked Tommy on his twisted back.

“Don’t be impudent,” said Scarlett coldly, for she saw little humor in Tommy’s remark. “Of course, I wasn’t raised to run a sawmill.”

“I didn’t mean to be impudent. But you are running a sawmill, whether you were raised to it or not. And running it very well, too. Well, none of us, as far as I can see, are doing what we intended to do right now, but I think we’ll make out just the same. It’s a poor person and a poor nation that sits down and cries because life isn’t precisely what they expected it to be. Why don’t you pick up some enterprising Carpetbagger to work for you, Scarlett? The woods are full of them, God knows.”

“I don’t want a Carpetbagger. Carpetbaggers will steal anything that isn’t red hot or nailed down. If they amounted to anything they’d have stayed where they were, instead of coming down here to pick our bones. I want a nice man, from nice folks, who is smart and honest and energetic and—”

“You don’t want much. And you won’t get it for the wage you’re offering. All the men of that description, barring the badly maimed ones, have already got something to do. They may be round pegs in square holes but they’ve all got something to do. Something of their own that they’d rather do than work for a woman.”

“Men haven’t got much sense, have they, when you get down to rock bottom?”

“Maybe not but they’ve got a heap of pride,” said Tommy soberly.

“Pride! Pride tastes awfully good, especially when the crust is flaky and you put meringue on it,” said Scarlett tartly.

The two men laughed, a bit unwillingly, and it seemed to Scarlett that they drew together in united masculine disapproval of her. What Tommy said was true, she thought, running over in her mind the men she had approached and the ones she intended to approach. They were all busy, busy at something, working hard, working harder than they would have dreamed possible in the days before the war. They weren’t doing what they wanted to do perhaps, or what was easiest to do, or what they had been reared to do, but they were doing something. Times were too hard for men to be choosy. And if they were sorrowing for lost hopes, longing for lost ways of living, no one knew it but they. They were fighting a new war, a harder war than the one before. And they were caring about life again, caring with the same urgency and the same violence that animated them before the war had cut their lives in two.

“Scarlett,” said Tommy awkwardly, “I do hate to ask a favor of you, after being impudent to you, but I’m going to ask it just the same. Maybe it would help you anyway. My brother-in-law, Hugh Elsing, isn’t doing any too well peddling kindling wood. Everybody except the Yankees goes out and collects his own kindling wood. And I know things are mighty hard with the whole Elsing family. I—I do what I can, but you see I’ve got Fanny to support, and then, too, I’ve got my mother and two widowed sisters down in Sparta to look after. Hugh is nice, and you wanted a nice man, and he’s from nice folks, as you know, and he’s honest.”

“But—well, Hugh hasn’t got much gumption or else he’d make a success of his kindling.”

Tommy shrugged.

“You’ve got a hard way of looking at things, Scarlett,” he said. “But you think Hugh over. You could go far and do worse. I think his honesty and his willingness will outweigh his lack of gumption.”

Scarlett did not answer, for she did not want to be too rude. But to her mind there were few, if any, qualities that out-weighed gumption.

After she had unsuccessfully canvassed the town and refused the importuning of many eager Carpetbaggers, she finally decided to take Tommy’s suggestion and ask Hugh Elsing. He had been a dashing and resourceful officer during the war, but two severe wounds and four years of fighting seemed to have drained him of all his resourcefulness, leaving him to face the rigors of peace as bewildered as a child. There was a lost-dog look in his eyes these days as he went about peddling his firewood, and he was not at all the kind of man she had hoped to get.

“He’s stupid,” she thought. “He doesn’t know a thing about business and I’ll bet he can’t add two and two. And I doubt if he’ll ever learn. But, at least, he’s honest and won’t swindle me.”

Scarlett had little use these days for honesty in herself, but the less she valued it in herself the more she was beginning to value it in others.

“It’s a pity Johnnie Gallegher is tied up with Tommy Wellburn on that construction work,” she thought. “He’s just the kind of man I want. He’s hard as nails and slick as a snake, but he’d be honest if it paid him to be honest. I understand him and he understands me and we could do business together very well. Maybe I can get him when the hotel is finished and till then I’ll have to make out on Hugh and Mr. Johnson. If I put Hugh in charge of the new mill and leave Mr. Johnson at the old one, I can stay in town and see to the selling while they handle the milling and hauling. Until I can get Johnnie I’ll have to risk Mr. Johnson robbing me if I stay in town all the time. If only he wasn’t a thief! I believe I’ll build a lumber yard on half that lot Charles left me. If only Frank didn’t holler so loud about me building a saloon on the other half! Well, I shall build the saloon just as soon as I get enough money ahead, no matter how he takes on. If only Frank wasn’t so thin skinned. Oh, God, if only I wasn’t going to have a baby at this of all times! In a little while I’ll be so big I can’t go out. Oh, God, if only I wasn’t going to have a baby! And oh, God, if the damned Yankees will only let me alone! If—”

If! If! If! There were so many ifs in life, never any certainty of anything, never any sense of security, always the dread of losing everything and being cold and hungry again. Of course, Frank was making a little more money now, but Frank was always ailing with colds and frequently forced to stay in bed for days. Suppose he should become an invalid. No, she could not afford to count on Frank for much. She must not count on anything or anybody but herself. And what she could earn seemed so pitiably small. Oh, what would she do if the Yankees came and took it all away from her? If! If! If!

Half of what she made every month went to Will at Tara, part to Rhett to repay his loan and the rest she hoarded. No miser ever counted his gold oftener than she and no miser ever had greater fear of losing it. She would not put the money in the bank, for it might fail or the Yankees might confiscate it. So she carried what she could with her, tucked into her corset, and hid small wads of bills about the house, under loose bricks on the hearth, in her scrap bag, between the pages of the Bible. And her temper grew shorter and shorter as the weeks went by, for every dollar she saved would be just one more dollar to lose if disaster descended.

Frank, Pitty and the servants bore her outbursts with maddening kindness, attributing her bad disposition to her pregnancy, never realizing the true cause. Frank knew that pregnant women must be humored, so he put his pride in his pocket and said nothing more about her running the mills and her going about town at such a time, as no lady should do. Her conduct was a constant embarrassment to him but he reckoned he could endure it for a while longer. After the baby came, he knew she would be the same sweet, feminine girl he had courted. But in spite of everything he did to appease her, she continued to have her tantrums and often he thought she acted like one possessed.

No one seemed to realize what really possessed her, what drove her like a mad woman. It was a passion to get her affairs in order before she had to retire behind doors, to have as much money as possible in case the deluge broke upon her again, to have a stout levee of cash against the rising tide of Yankee hate. Money was the obsession dominating her mind these days. When she thought of the baby at all, it was with baffled rage at the untimeliness of it.

“Death and taxes and childbirth! There’s never any convenient time for any of them!”

Atlanta had been scandalized enough when Scarlett, a woman, began operating the sawmill but, as time went by, the town decided there was no limit to what she would do. Her sharp trading was shocking, especially when her poor mother had been a Robillard, and it was positively indecent the way she kept on going about the streets when everyone knew she was pregnant. No respectable white woman and few negroes ever went outside their homes from the moment they first suspected they were with child, and Mrs. Merriwether declared indignantly that from the way Scarlett was acting she was likely to have the baby on the public streets.

But all the previous criticism of her conduct was as nothing compared with the buzz of gossip that now went through the town. Scarlett was not only trafficking with the Yankees but was giving every appearance of really liking it!

Mrs. Merriwether and many other Southerners were also doing business with the newcomers from the North, but the difference was that they did not like it and plainly showed they did not like it. And Scarlett did, or seemed to, which was just as bad. She had actually taken tea with the Yankee officers’ wives in their homes! In fact, she had done practically everything short of inviting them into her own home, and the town guessed she would do even that, except for Aunt Pitty and Frank.

Scarlett knew the town was talking but she did not care, could not afford to care. She still hated the Yankees with as fierce a hate as on the day when they tried to burn Tara, but she could dissemble that hate. She knew that if she was going to make money, she would have to make it out of the Yankees, and she had learned that buttering them up with smiles and kind words was the surest way to get their business for her mill.

Some day when she was very rich and her money was hidden away where the Yankees could not find it, then, then she would tell them exactly what she thought of them, tell them how she hated and loathed and despised them. And what a joy that would be! But until that time came, it was just plain common sense to get along with them. And if that was hypocrisy, let Atlanta make the most of it.

She discovered that making friends with the Yankee officers was as easy as shooting birds on the ground. They were lonely exiles in a hostile land and many of them were starved for polite feminine associations in a town where respectable women drew their skirts aside in passing and looked as if they would like to spit on them. Only the prostitutes and the negro women had kind words for them. But Scarlett was obviously a lady and a lady of family, for all that she worked, and they thrilled to her flashing smile and the pleasant light in her green eyes.

Frequently when Scarlett sat in her buggy talking to them and making her dimples play, her dislike for them rose so strong that it was hard not to curse them to their faces. But she restrained herself and she found that twisting Yankee men around her finger was no more difficult than that same diversion had been with Southern men. Only this was no diversion but a grim business. The role she enacted was that of a refined sweet Southern lady in distress. With an air of dignified reserve she was able to keep her victims at their proper distance, but there was nevertheless a graciousness in her manner which left a certain warmth in the Yankee officers’ memories of Mrs. Kennedy.

This warmth was very profitable—as Scarlett had intended it to be. Many of the officers of the garrison, not knowing how long they would be stationed in Atlanta, had sent for their wives and families. As the hotels and boarding houses were overflowing, they were building small houses; and they were glad to buy their lumber from the gracious Mrs. Kennedy, who treated them more politely than anyone else in town. The Carpetbaggers and Scallawags also, who were building fine homes and stores and hotels with their new wealth, found it more pleasant to do business with her than with the former Confederate soldiers who were courteous but with a courtesy more formal and cold than outspoken hate.

So, because she was pretty and charming and could appear quite helpless and forlorn at times, they gladly patronized her lumber yard and also Frank’s store, feeling that they should help a plucky little woman who apparently had only a shiftless husband to support her. And Scarlett, watching the business grow, felt that she was safeguarding not only the present with Yankee money but the future with Yankee friends.

Keeping her relations with the Yankee officers on the plane she desired was easier than she expected, for they all seemed to be in awe of Southern ladies, but Scarlett soon found that their wives presented a problem she had not anticipated. Contacts with the Yankee women were not of her seeking. She would have been glad to avoid them but she could not, for the officers’ wives were determined to meet her. They had an avid curiosity about the South and Southern women, and Scarlett gave them their first opportunity to satisfy it. Other Atlanta women would have nothing to do with them and even refused to bow to them in church, so when business brought Scarlett to their homes, she was like an answer to prayer. Often when Scarlett sat in her buggy in front of a Yankee home talking of uprights and shingles with the man of the house, the wife came out to join in the conversation or insist that she come inside for a cup of tea. Scarlett seldom refused, no matter how distasteful the idea might be, for she always hoped to have an opportunity to suggest tactfully that they do their trading at Frank’s store. But her self-control was severely tested many times, because of the personal questions they asked and because of the smug and condescending attitude they displayed toward all things Southern.

Accepting Uncle Tom’s Cabin as revelation second only to the Bible, the Yankee women all wanted to know about the bloodhounds which every Southerner kept to track down runaway slaves. And they never believed her when she told them she had only seen one bloodhound in all her life and it was a small mild dog and not a huge ferocious mastiff. They wanted to know about the dreadful branding irons which planters used to mark the faces of their slaves and the cato’-nine-tails with which they beat them to death, and they evidenced what Scarlett felt was a very nasty and ill-bred interest in slave concubinage. Especially did she resent this in view of the enormous increase in mulatto babies in Atlanta since the Yankee soldiers had settled in the town.

Any other Atlanta woman would have expired in rage at having to listen to such bigoted ignorance but Scarlett managed to control herself. Assisting her in this was the fact that they aroused her contempt more than her anger. After all, they were Yankees and no one expected anything better from Yankees. So their unthinking insults to her state, her people and their morals, glanced off and never struck deep enough to cause her more than a well-concealed sneer until an incident occurred which made her sick with rage and showed her, if she needed any showing, how wide was the gap between North and South and how utterly impossible it was to bridge it.

While driving home with Uncle Peter one afternoon, she passed the house into which were crowded the families of three officers who were building their own homes with Scarlett’s lumber. The three wives were standing in the walk as she drove by and they waved to her to stop. Coming out to the carriage block they greeted her in accents that always made her feel that one could forgive Yankees almost anything except their voices.

“You are just the person I want to see, Mrs. Kennedy,” said a tall thin woman from Maine. “I want to get some information about this benighted town.”

Scarlett swallowed the insult to Atlanta with the contempt it deserved and smiled her best.

“And what can I tell you?”

“My nurse, my Bridget, has gone back North. She said she wouldn’t stay another day down here among the ‘naygurs’ as she calls them. And the children are just driving me distracted! Do tell me how to go about getting another nurse. I do not know where to apply.”

“That shouldn’t be difficult,” said Scarlett and laughed. “If you can find a darky just in from the country who hasn’t been spoiled by the Freedmen’s Bureau, you’ll have the best kind of servant possible. Just stand at your gate here and ask every darky woman who passes and I’m sure—”

The three women broke into indignant outcries.

“Do you think I’d trust my babies to a black nigger?” cried the Maine woman. “I want a good Irish girl.”

“I’m afraid you’ll find no Irish servants in Atlanta,” answered Scarlett, coolness in her voice. “Personally, I’ve never seen a white servant and I shouldn’t care to have one in my house. And,” she could not keep a slight note of sarcasm from her words, “I assure you that darkies aren’t cannibals and are quite trustworthy.”

“Goodness, no! I wouldn’t have one in my house. The idea!”

“I wouldn’t trust them any farther than I could see them and as for letting them handle my babies…”

Scarlett thought of the kind, gnarled hands of Mammy worn rough in Ellen’s service and hers and Wade’s. What did these strangers know of black hands, how dear and comforting they could be, how unerringly they knew how to soothe, to pat, to fondle? She laughed shortly.

“It’s strange you should feel that way when it was you all who freed them.”

“Lor’! Not I, dearie,” laughed the Maine woman. “I never saw a nigger till I came South last month and I don’t care if I never see another. They give me the creeps. I wouldn’t trust one of them… ”

For some moments Scarlett had been conscious that Uncle Peter was breathing hard and sitting up very straight as he stared steadily at the horse’s ears. Her attention was called to him more forcibly when the Maine woman broke off suddenly with a laugh and pointed him out to her companions.

“Look at that old nigger swell up like a toad,” she giggled. “I’ll bet he’s an old pet of yours, isn’t he? You Southerners don’t know how to treat niggers. You spoil them to death.”

Peter sucked in his breath and his wrinkled brow showed deep furrows but he kept his eyes straight ahead. He had never had the term “nigger” applied to him by a white person in all his life. By other negroes, yes. But never by a white person. And to be called untrustworthy and an “old pet,” he, Peter, who had been the dignified mainstay of the Hamilton family for years!

Scarlett felt, rather than saw, the black chin begin to shake with hurt pride, and a killing rage swept over her. She had listened with calm contempt while these women had underrated the Confederate Army, blackguarded Jeff Davis and accused Southerners of murder and torture of their slaves. If it were to her advantage she would have endured insults about her own virtue and honesty. But the knowledge that they had hurt the faithful old darky with their stupid remarks fired her like a match in gunpowder. For a moment she looked at the big horse pistol in Peter’s belt and her hands itched for the feel of it. They deserved killing, these insolent, ignorant, arrogant conquerors. But she bit down on her teeth until her jaw muscles stood out, reminding herself that the time had not yet come when she could tell the Yankees just what she thought of them. Some day, yes. My God, yes! But not yet.

“Uncle Peter is one of our family,” she said, her voice shaking. “Good afternoon. Drive on, Peter.”

Peter laid the whip on the horse so suddenly that the startled animal jumped forward and as the buggy jounced off, Scarlett heard the Maine woman say with puzzled accents: “Her family? You don’t suppose she meant a relative? He’s exceedingly black.”

God damn them! They ought to be wiped off the face of the earth. If ever I get money enough, I’ll spit in all their faces! I’ll—

She glanced at Peter and saw that a tear was trickling down his nose. Instantly a passion of tenderness, of grief for his humiliation swamped her, made her eyes sting. It was as though someone had been senselessly brutal to a child. Those women had hurt Uncle Peter—Peter who had been through the Mexican War with old Colonel Hamilton, Peter who had held his master in his arms when he died, who had raised Melly and Charles and looked after the feckless, foolish Pittypat, “pertecked” her when she refugeed, and “’quired” a horse to bring her back from Macon through a war-torn country after the surrender. And they said they wouldn’t trust niggers!

“Peter,” she said, her voice breaking as she put her hand on his thin arm. “I’m ashamed of you for crying. What do you care? They aren’t anything but damned Yankees!”

“Dey talked in front of me lak Ah wuz a mule an’ couldn’ unnerstan’ dem—lak Ah wuz a Affikun an’ din’ know whut dey wuz talkin’ ’bout,” said Peter, giving a tremendous sniff. “An’ dey call me a nigger an’ Ah’ ain’ never been call a nigger by no w’ite folks, an’ dey call me a ole pet an’ say dat niggers ain’ ter be trus’ed! Me not ter be trus’ed! Why, w’en de ole Cunnel wuz dyin’ he say ter me, ‘You, Peter! You look affer mah chillun. Tek keer of yo’ young Miss Pittypat,’ he say, ‘’cause she ain’ got no mo’ sense dan a hoppergrass.’ An’ Ah done tek keer of her good all dese y’ars—”

“Nobody but the Angel Gabriel could have done better,” said Scarlett soothingly. “We just couldn’t have lived without you.”

“Yas’m, thankee kinely, Ma’m. Ah knows it an’ you knows it, but dem Yankee folks doan know it an’ dey doan want ter know it. Huccome dey come mixin’ in our bizness, Miss Scarlett? Dey doan unnerstan’ us Confedruts.”

Scarlett said nothing for she was still burning with the wrath she had not exploded in the Yankee women’s faces. The two drove home in silence. Peter’s sniffles stopped and his underlip began to protrude gradually until it stuck out alarmingly. His indignation was mounting, now that the initial hurt was subsiding.

Scarlett thought: What damnably queer people Yankees are! Those women seemed to think that because Uncle Peter was black, he had no ears to hear with and no feelings, as tender as their own, to be hurt. They did not know that negroes had to be handled gently, as though they were children, directed, praised, petted, scolded. They didn’t understand negroes or the relations between the negroes and their former masters. Yet they had fought a war to free them. And having freed them, they didn’t want to have anything to do with them, except to use them to terrorize Southerners. They didn’t like them, didn’t trust them, didn’t understand them, and yet their constant cry was that Southerners didn’t know how to get along with them.

Not trust a darky! Scarlett trusted them far more than most white people, certainly more than she trusted any Yankee. There were qualities of loyalty and tirelessness and love in them that no strain could break, no money could buy. She thought of the faithful few who remained at Tara in the face of the Yankee invasion when they could have fled or joined the troops for lives of leisure. But they had stayed. She thought of Dilcey toiling in the cotton fields beside her, of Pork risking his life in neighboring hen houses that the family might eat, of Mammy coming to Atlanta with her to keep her from doing wrong. She thought of the servants of her neighbors who had stood loyally beside their white owners, protecting their mistresses while the men were at the front, refugeeing with them through the terrors of the war, nursing the wounded, burying the dead, comforting the bereaved, working, begging, stealing to keep food on the tables. And even now, with the Freedmen’s Bureau promising all manner of wonders, they still stuck with their white folks and worked much harder than they ever worked in slave times. But the Yankees didn’t understand these things and would never understand them.

“Yet they set you free,” she said aloud.

“No, Ma’m! Dey din’ sot me free. Ah wouldn’ let no sech trash sot me free,” said Peter indignantly. “Ah still b’longs ter Miss Pitty an’ w’en Ah dies she gwine lay me in de Hamilton buhyin’ groun’ whar Ah b’longs… Mah Miss gwine ter be in a state w’en Ah tells her ’bout how you let dem Yankee women ’sult me.”

“I did no such thing!” cried Scarlett, startled.

“You did so, Miss Scarlett,” said Peter, pushing out his lip even farther. “De pint is, needer you nor me had no bizness bein’ wid Yankees, so dey could ’sult me. Ef you hadn’t talked wid dem, dey wouldn’ had no chance ter treat me lak a mule or a Affikun. An’ you din’ tek up fer me, needer.”

“I did, too!” said Scarlett, stung by the criticism. “Didn’t I tell them you were one of the family?”

“Dat ain’ tekkin’ up. Dat’s jes’ a fac’,” said Peter. “Miss Scarlett, you ain’ got no bizness havin’ no truck wid Yankees. Ain’ no other ladies doin’ it. You wouldn’ ketch Miss Pitty wipin’ her lil shoes on sech trash. An’ she ain’ gwine lake it w’en she hear ’bout whut dey said ’bout me.”

Peter’s criticism hurt worse than anything Frank or Aunt Pitty or the neighbors had said and it so annoyed her she longed to shake the old darky until his toothless gums clapped together. What Peter said was true but she hated to hear it from a negro and a family negro, too. Not to stand high in the opinion of one’s servants was as humiliating a thing as could happen to a Southerner.

“A ole pet!” Peter grumbled. “Ah specs Miss Pitty ain’t gwine want me ter drive you roun’ no mo’ after dat. No, Ma’m!”

“Aunt Pitty will want you to drive me as usual,” she said sternly, “so let’s hear no more about it.”

“Ah’ll git a mizry in mah back,” warned Peter darkly. “Mah back huttin’ me so bad dis minute Ah kain sceercely set up. Mah Miss ain’ gwine want me ter do no drivin’ w’en Ah got a mizry… Miss Scarlett, it ain’ gwine do you no good ter stan’ high wid de Yankees an’ de w’ite trash, ef yo’ own folks doan ’prove of you.”

That was as accurate a summing up of the situation as could be made and Scarlett relapsed into infuriated silence. Yes, the conquerors did approve of her and her family and her neighbors did not. She knew all the things the town was saying about her. And now even Peter disapproved of her to the point of not caring to be seen in public with her. That was the last straw.

Heretofore she had been careless of public opinion, careless and a little contemptuous. But Peter’s words caused fierce resentment to burn in her breast, drove her to a defensive position, made her suddenly dislike her neighbors as much as she disliked the Yankees.

“Why should they care what I do?” she thought. “They must think I enjoy associating with Yankees and working like a field hand. They’re just making a hard job harder for me. But I don’t care what they think. I won’t let myself care. I can’t afford to care now. But some day—some day—”

Oh some day! When there was security in her world again, then she would sit back and fold her hands and be a great lady as Ellen had been. She would be helpless and sheltered, as a lady should be, and then everyone would approve of her. Oh, how grand she would be when she had money again! Then she could permit herself to be kind and gentle, as Ellen had been, and thoughtful of other people and of the proprieties, to. She would not be driven by fears, day and night, and life would be a placid, unhurried affair. She would have time to play with her children and listen to their lessons. There would be long warm afternoons when ladies would call and, amid the rustlings of taffeta petticoats and the rhythmic harsh cracklings of palmetto fans, she would serve tea and delicious sandwiches and cakes and leisurely gossip the hours away. And she would be so kind to those who were suffering misfortune, take baskets to the poor and soup and jelly to the sick and “air” those less fortunate in her fine carriage. She would be a lady in the true Southern manner, as her mother had been. And then, everyone would love her as they had loved Ellen and they would say how unselfish she was and call her “Lady Bountiful.”

Her pleasure in these thoughts of the future was undimmed by any realization that she had no real desire to be unselfish or charitable or kind. All she wanted was the reputation for possessing these qualities. But the meshes of her brain were too wide, too coarse, to filter such small differences. It was enough that some day, when she had money, everyone would approve of her.

Some day! But not now. Not now, in spite of what anyone might say of her. Now, there was no time to be a great lady.

Peter was as good as his word. Aunt Pitty did get into a state, and Peter’s misery developed overnight to such proportions that he never drove the buggy again. Thereafter Scarlett drove alone and the calluses which had begun to leave her palms came back again.

So the spring months went by, the cool rains of April passing into the warm balm of green May weather. The weeks were packed with work and worry and the handicaps of increasing pregnancy, with old friends growing cooler and her family increasingly more kind, more maddeningly solicitous and more completely blind to what was driving her. During those days of anxiety and struggle there was only one dependable, understanding person in her world, and that person was Rhett Butler. It was odd that he of all people should appear in this light, for he was as unstable as quicksilver and as perverse as a demon fresh from the pit. But he gave her sympathy, something she had never had from anyone and never expected from him.

Frequently he was out of town on those mysterious trips to New Orleans which he never explained but which she felt sure, in a faintly jealous way, were connected with a woman—or women. But after Uncle Peter’s refusal to drive her, he remained in Atlanta for longer and longer intervals.

While in town, he spent most of his time gambling in the rooms above the Girl of the Period Saloon, or in Belle Watling’s bar hobnobbing with the wealthier of the Yankees and Carpetbaggers in money-making schemes which made the townspeople detest him even more than his cronies. He did not call at the house now, probably in deference to the feelings of Frank and Pitty who would have been outraged at a male caller while Scarlett was in a delicate condition. But she met him by accident almost every day. Time and again, he came riding up to her buggy when she was passing through lonely stretches of Peachtree road and Decatur road where the mills lay. He always drew rein and talked and sometimes he tied his horse to the back of the buggy and drove her on her rounds. She tired more easily these days than she liked to admit and she was always silently grateful when he took the reins. He always left her before they reached the town again but all Atlanta knew about their meetings, and it gave the gossips something new to add to the long list of Scarlett’s affronts to the proprieties.

She wondered occasionally if these meetings were not more than accidental. They became more and more numerous as the weeks went by and as the tension in town heightened over negro outrages. But why did he seek her out, now of all times when she looked her worst? Certainly he had no designs upon her if he had ever had any, and she was beginning to doubt even this. It had been months since he made any joking references to their distressing scene at the Yankee jail. He never mentioned Ashley and her love for him, or made any coarse and ill-bred remarks about “coveting her.” She thought it best to let sleeping dogs lie, so she did not ask for an explanation of their frequent meetings. And finally she decided that, because he had little to do besides gamble and had few enough nice friends in Atlanta, he sought her out solely for companionship’s sake.

Whatever his reason might be, she found his company most welcome. He listened to her moans about lost customers and bad debts, the swindling ways of Mr. Johnson and the incompetency of Hugh. He applauded her triumphs, where Frank merely smiled indulgently and Pitty said “Dear me!” in a dazed manner. She was sure that he frequently threw business her way, for he knew all the rich Yankees and Carpetbaggers intimately, but he always denied being helpful. She knew him for what he was and she never trusted him, but her spirits always rose with pleasure at the sight of him riding around the curve of a shady road on his big black horse. When he climbed into the buggy and took the reins from her and threw her some impertinent remark, she felt young and gay and attractive again, for all her worries and her increasing bulk. She could talk to him about almost everything, with no care for concealing her motives or her real opinions and she never ran out of things to say as she did with Frank—or even with Ashley, if she must be honest with herself. But of course, in all her conversations with Ashley there were so many things which could not be said, for honor’s sake, that the sheer force of them inhibited other remarks. It was comforting to have a friend like Rhett, now that for some unaccountable reason he had decided to be on good behavior with her. Very comforting, for she had so few friends these days.

“Rhett,” she asked stormily, shortly after Uncle Peter’s ultimatum, “why do folks in this town treat me so scurvily and talk about me so? It’s a toss-up who they talk worst about, me or the Carpetbaggers! I’ve minded my own business and haven’t done anything wrong and—”

“If you haven’t done anything wrong, it’s because you haven’t had the opportunity, and perhaps they dimly realize it.”

“Oh, do be serious! They make me so mad. All I’ve done is try to make a little money and—”

“All you’ve done is to be different from other women and you’ve made a little success at it. As I’ve told you before, that is the one unforgivable sin in any society. Be different and be damned! Scarlett, the mere fact that you’ve made a success of your mill is an insult to every man who hasn’t succeeded. Remember, a well-bred female’s place is in the home and she should know nothing about this busy, brutal world.”

“But if I had stayed in my home, I wouldn’t have had any home left to stay in.”

“The inference is that you should have starved genteelly and with pride.”

“Oh, fiddle-dee-dee! But look at Mrs. Merriwether. She’s selling pies to Yankees and that’s worse than running a sawmill, and Mrs. Elsing takes in sewing and keeps boarders, and Fanny paints awfullooking china things that nobody wants and everybody buys to help her and—”

“But you miss the point, my pet. They aren’t successful and so they aren’t affronting the hot Southern pride of their men folks. The men can still say, ‘Poor sweet sillies, how hard they try! Well, I’ll let them think they’re helping.’ And besides, the ladies you mentioned don’t enjoy having to work. They let it be known that they are only doing it until some man comes along to relieve them of their unwomanly burdens. And so everybody feels sorry for them. But obviously you do like to work and obviously you aren’t going to let any man tend to your business for you, and so no one can feel sorry for you. And Atlanta is never going to forgive you for that. It’s so pleasant to feel sorry for people.”

“I wish you’d be serious, sometimes.”

“Did you ever hear the Oriental proverb: ‘The dogs bark but the caravan passes on?’ Let them bark, Scarlett. I fear nothing will stop your caravan.”

“But why should they mind my making a little money?”

“You can’t have everything, Scarlett. You can either make money in your present unladylike manner and meet cold shoulders everywhere you go, or you can be poor and genteel and have lots of friends. You’ve made your choice.”

“I won’t be poor,” she said swiftly. “But—it is the right choice, isn’t it?”

“If it’s money you want most.”

“Yes, I want money more than anything else in the world.”

“Then you’ve made the only choice. But there’s a penalty attached, as there is to most things you want. It’s loneliness.”

That silenced her for a moment. It was true. When she stopped to think about it, she was a little lonely—lonely for feminine companionship. During the war years she had had Ellen to visit when she felt blue. And since Ellen’s death, there had always been Melanie, though she and Melanie had nothing in common except the hard work at Tara. Now there was no one, for Aunt Pitty had no conception of life beyond her small round of gossip.

“I think—I think,” she began hesitantly, “that I’ve always been lonely where women were concerned. It isn’t just my working that makes Atlanta ladies dislike me. They just don’t like me anyway. No woman ever really liked me, except Mother. Even my sisters. I don’t know why, but even before the war, even before I married Charlie, ladies didn’t seem to approve of anything I did—”

“You forget Mrs. Wilkes,” said Rhett and his eyes gleamed maliciously. “She has always approved of you up to the hilt. I daresay she’d approve of anything you did, short of murder.”

Scarlett thought grimly: “She’s even approved of murder,” and she laughed contemptuously.

“Oh, Melly!” she said, and then, ruefully: “It’s certainly not to my credit that Melly is the only woman who approves of me, for she hasn’t the sense of a guinea hen. If she had any sense—” She stopped in some confusion.

“If she had any sense, she’d realize a few things and she couldn’t approve,” Rhett finished. “Well, you know more about that than I do, of course.”

“Oh, damn your memory and your bad manners!”

“I’ll pass over your unjustified rudeness with the silence it deserves and return to our former subject. Make up your mind to this. If you are different, you are isolated, not only from people of your own age but from those of your parents’ generation and from your children’s generation too. They’ll never understand you and they’ll be shocked no matter what you do. But your grandparents would probably be proud of you and say: ‘There’s a chip off the old block,’ and your grandchildren will sigh enviously and say: ‘What an old rip Grandma must have been!’ and they’ll try to be like you.”

Scarlett laughed with amusement.

“Sometimes you do hit on the truth! Now there was my Grandma Robillard. Mammy used to hold her over my head whenever I was naughty. Grandma was as cold as an icicle and strict about her manners and everybody else’s manners, but she married three times and had any number of duels fought over her and she wore rouge and the most shockingly low-cut dresses and no—well, er—not much under her dresses.”

“And you admired her tremendously, for all that you tried to be like your mother! I had a grandfather on the Butler side who was a pirate.”

“Not really! A walk-the-plank kind?”

“I daresay he made people walk the plank if there was any money to be made that way. At any rate, he made enough money to leave my father quite wealthy. But the family always referred to him carefully as a ‘sea captain.’ He was killed in a saloon brawl long before I was born. His death was, needless to say, a great relief to his children, for the old gentleman was drunk most of the time and when in his cups was apt to forget that he was a retired sea captain and give reminiscences that curled his children’s hair. However, I admired him and tried to copy him far more than I ever did my father, for Father is an amiable gentleman full of honorable habits and pious saws—so you see how it goes. I’m sure your children won’t approve of you, Scarlett, any more than Mrs. Merriwether and Mrs. Elsing and their broods approve of you now. Your children will probably be soft, prissy creatures, as the children of hard-bitten characters usually are. And to make them worse, you, like every other mother, are probably determined that they shall never know the hardships you’ve known. And that’s all wrong. Hardships make or break people. So you’ll have to wait for approval from your grandchildren.”

“I wonder what our grandchildren will be like!”

“Are you suggesting by that ‘our’ that you and I will have mutual grandchildren? Fie, Mrs. Kennedy!”

Scarlett, suddenly conscious of her error of speech, went red. It was more than his joking words that shamed her, for she was suddenly aware again of her thickening body. In no way had either of them ever hinted at her condition and she had always kept the lap robe high under her armpits when with him, even on warm days, comforting herself in the usual feminine manner with the belief that she did not show at all when thus covered, and she was suddenly sick with quick rage at her own condition and shame that he should know.

“You get out of this buggy, you dirty-minded varmit,” she said, her voice shaking.

“I’ll do nothing of the kind,” he returned calmly. “It’ll be dark before you get home and there’s a new colony of darkies living in tents and shanties near the next spring, mean niggers I’ve been told, and I see no reason why you should give the impulsive Ku Klux a cause for putting on their nightshirts and riding abroad this evening.”

“Get out!” she cried, tugging at the reins and suddenly nausea overwhelmed her. He stopped the horse quickly, passed her two clean handkerchiefs and held her head over the side of the buggy with some skill. The afternoon sun, slanting low through the newly leaved trees, spun sickeningly for a few moments in a swirl of gold and green. When the spell had passed, she put her head in her hands and cried from sheer mortification. Not only had she vomited before a man—in itself as horrible a contretemps as could overtake a woman—but by doing so, the humiliating fact of her pregnancy must now be evident. She felt that she could never look him in the face again. To have this happen with him, of all people, with Rhett who had no respect for women! She cried, expecting some coarse and jocular remark from him which she would never be able to forget.

“Don’t be a fool,” he said quietly. “And you are a fool, if you are crying for shame. Come, Scarlett, don’t be a child. Surely you must know that, not being blind, I knew you were pregnant.”

She said “Oh” in a stunned voice and tightened her fingers over her crimson face. The word itself horrified her. Frank always referred to her pregnancy embarrassedly as “your condition,” Gerald had been wont to say delicately “in the family way,” when he had to mention such matters, and ladies genteelly referred to pregnancy as being “in a fix.”

“You are a child if you thought I didn’t know, for all your smothering yourself under that hot lap robe. Of course, I knew. Why else do you think I’ve been—”

He stopped suddenly and a silence fell between them. He picked up the reins and clucked to the horse. He went on talking quietly and as his drawl fell pleasantly on her ears, some of the color faded from her down-tucked face.

“I didn’t think you could be so shocked, Scarlett. I thought you were a sensible person and I’m disappointed. Can it be possible that modesty still lingers in your breast? I’m afraid I’m not a gentleman to have mentioned the matter. And I know I’m not a gentleman, in view of the fact that pregnant women do not embarrass me as they should. I find it possible to treat them as normal creatures and not look at the ground or the sky or anywhere else in the universe except their waist lines—and then cast at them those furtive glances I’ve always thought the height of indecency. Why should I? It’s a perfectly normal state. The Europeans are far more sensible than we are. They compliment expectant mothers upon their expectations. While I wouldn’t advise going that far, still it’s more sensible than our way of trying to ignore it. It’s a normal state and women should be proud of it, instead of hiding behind closed doors as if they’d committed a crime.”

“Proud!” she cried in a strangled voice. “Proud—ugh!”

“Aren’t you proud to be having a child?”

“Oh dear God, no! I—I hate babies!”

“You mean—Frank’s baby.”

“No—anybody’s baby.”

For a moment she went sick again at this new error of speech, but his voice went on as easily as though he had not marked it.

“Then we’re different. I like babies.”

“You like them?” she cried, looking up, so startled at the statement that she forgot her embarrassment. “What a liar you are!”

“I like babies and I like little children, till they begin to grow up and acquire adult habits of thought and adult abilities to lie and cheat and be dirty. That can’t be news to you. You know I like Wade Hampton a lot, for all that he isn’t the boy he ought to be.”

That was true, thought Scarlett, suddenly marveling. He did seem to enjoy playing with Wade and often brought him presents.

“Now that we’ve brought this dreadful subject into the light and you admit that you expect a baby some time in the not too distant future, I’ll say something I’ve been wanting to say for weeks—two things. The first is that it’s dangerous for you to drive alone. You know it. You’ve been told it often enough. If you don’t care personally whether or not you are raped, you might consider the consequences. Because of your obstinacy, you may get yourself into a situation where your gallant fellow townsmen will be forced to avenge you by stringing up a few darkies. And that will bring the Yankees down on them and someone will probably get hanged. Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps one of the reasons the ladies do not like you is that your conduct may cause the neck-stretching of their sons and husbands? And furthermore, if the Ku Klux handles many more negroes, the Yankees are going to tighten up on Atlanta in a way that will make Sherman’s conduct look angelic. I know what I’m talking about, for I’m hand in glove with the Yankees. Shameful to state, they treat me as one of them and I hear them talk openly. They mean to stamp out the Ku Klux if it means burning the whole town again and hanging every male over ten. That would hurt you, Scarlett. You might lose money. And there’s no telling where a prairie fire will stop, once it gets started. Confiscation of property, higher taxes, fines for suspected women—I’ve heard them all suggested. The Ku Klux—”

“Do you know any Ku Klux? Is Tommy Wellburn or Hugh or—”

He shrugged impatiently.

“How should I know? I’m a renegade, a turncoat, a Scallawag. Would I be likely to know? But I do know men who are suspected by the Yankees and one false move from them and they are as good as hanged. While I know you would have no regrets at getting your neighbors on the gallows, I do believe you’d regret losing your mills. I see by the stubborn look on your face that you do not believe me and my words are falling on stony ground. So all I can say is, keep that pistol of yours handy—and when I’m in town, I’ll try to be on hand to drive you.”

“Rhett, do you really—is it to protect me that you—”

“Yes, my dear, it is my much advertised chivalry that makes me protect you.” The mocking light began to dance in his black eyes and all signs of earnestness fled from his face. “And why? Because of my deep love for you, Mrs. Kennedy. Yes, I have silently hungered and thirsted for you and worshipped you from afar; but being an honorable man, like Mr. Ashley Wilkes, I have concealed it from you. You are, alas, Frank’s wife and honor has forbidden my telling this to you. But even as Mr. Wilkes’ honor cracks occasionally, so mine is cracking now and I reveal my secret passion and my—”

“Oh, for God’s sake, hush!” interrupted Scarlett, annoyed as usual when he made her look like a conceited fool, and not caring to have Ashley and his honor become the subject of further conversation. “What was the other thing you wanted to tell me?”

“What! You change the subject when I am baring a loving but lacerated heart? Well, the other thing is this.” The mocking light died out of his eyes again and his face was dark and quiet.

“I want you to do something about this horse. He’s stubborn and he’s got a mouth as tough as iron. Tires you to drive him, doesn’t it? Well, if he chose to bolt, you couldn’t possibly stop him. And if you turned over in a ditch, it might kill your baby and you too. You ought to get the heaviest curb bit you can, or else let me swap him for a gentle horse with a more sensitive mouth.”

She looked up into his blank, smooth face and suddenly her irritation fell away, even as her embarrassment had disappeared after the conversation about her pregnancy. He had been kind, a few moments before, to put her at her ease when she was wishing that she were dead. And he was being kinder now and very thoughtful about the horse. She felt a rush of gratitude to him and she wondered why he could not always be this way.

“The horse is hard to drive,” she agreed meekly. “Sometimes my arms ache all night from tugging at him. You do what you think best about him, Rhett.”

His eyes sparkled wickedly.

“That sounds very sweet and feminine, Mrs. Kennedy. Not in your usual masterful vein at all. Well, it only takes proper handling to make a clinging vine out of you.”

She scowled and her temper came back.

“You will get out of this buggy this time, or I will hit you with the whip. I don’t know why I put up with you—why I try to be nice to you. You have no manners. You have no morals. You are nothing but a—Well, get out. I mean it.”

But when he had climbed down and untied his horse from the back of the buggy and stood in the twilight road, grinning tantalizingly at her, she could not smother her own grin as she drove off.

Yes, he was coarse, he was tricky, he was unsafe to have dealings with, and you never could tell when the dull weapon you put into his hands in an unguarded moment might turn into the keenest of blades. But, after all, he was as stimulating as—well, as a surreptitious glass of brandy!

During these months Scarlett had learned the use of brandy. When she came home in the late afternoons, damp from the rain, cramped and aching from long hours in the buggy, nothing sustained her except the thought of the bottle hidden in her top bureau drawer, locked against Mammy’s prying eyes. Dr. Meade had not thought to warn her that a woman in her condition should not drink, for it never occurred to him that a decent woman would drink anything stronger than scuppernong wine. Except, of course, a glass of champagne at a wedding or a hot toddy when confined to bed with a hard cold. Of course, there were unfortunate women who drank, to the eternal disgrace of their families, just as there were women who were insane or divorced or who believed, with Miss Susan B. Anthony, that women should have the vote. But as much as the doctor disapproved of Scarlett, he never suspected her of drinking.

Scarlett had found that a drink of neat brandy before supper helped immeasurably and she would always chew coffee or gargle cologne to disguise the smell. Why were people so silly about women drinking, when men could and did get reeling drunk whenever they wanted to? Sometimes when Frank lay snoring beside her and sleep would not come, when she lay tossing, torn with fears of poverty, dreading the Yankees, homesick for Tara and yearning for Ashley, she thought she would go crazy were it not for the brandy bottle. And when the pleasant familiar warmth stole through her veins, her troubles began to fade. After three drinks, she could always say to herself: “I’ll think of these things tomorrow when I can stand them better.”

But there were some nights when even brandy would not still the ache in her heart, the ache that was even stronger than fear of losing the mills, the ache to see Tara again. Atlanta, with its noises, its new buildings, its strange faces, its narrow streets crowded with horses and wagons and bustling crowds sometimes seemed to stifle her. She loved Atlanta but—oh, for the sweet peace and country quiet of Tara, the red fields and the dark pines about it! Oh, to be back at Tara, no matter how hard the life might be! And to be near Ashley, just to see him, to hear him speak, to be sustained by the knowledge of his love! Each letter from Melanie, saying that they were well, each brief note from Will reporting about the plowing, the planting, the growing of the cotton made her long anew to be home again.

I’ll go home in June. I can’t do anything here after that. I’ll go home for a couple of months, she thought, and her heart would rise. She did go home in June but not as she longed to go, for early in that month came a brief message from Will that Gerald was dead.

Chapter XXXIX

The train was very late and the long, deeply blue twilight of June was settling over the countryside when Scarlett alighted in Jonesboro. Yellow gleams of lamplight showed in the stores and houses which remained in the village, but they were few. Here and there were wide gaps between the buildings on the main street where dwellings had been shelled or burned. Ruined houses with shell holes in their roofs and half the walls torn away stared at her, silent and dark. A few saddle horses and mule teams were hitched outside the wooden awning of Bullard’s store. The dusty red road was empty and lifeless, and the only sounds in the village were a few whoops and drunken laughs that floated on the still twilight air from a saloon far down the street.

The depot had not been rebuilt since it was burned in the battle and in its place was only a wooden shelter, with no sides to keep out the weather. Scarlett walked under it and sat down on one of the empty kegs that were evidently put there for seats. She peered up and down the street for Will Benteen. Will should have been here to meet her. He should have known she would take the first train possible after receiving his laconic message that Gerald was dead.

She had come so hurriedly that she had in her small carpetbag only a nightgown and a tooth brush, not even a change of underwear. She was uncomfortable in the tight black dress she had borrowed from Mrs. Meade, for she had had no time to get mourning clothes for herself. Mrs. Meade was thin now, and Scarlett’s pregnancy being advanced, the dress was doubly uncomfortable. Even in her sorrow at Gerald’s death, she did not forget the appearance she was making and she looked down at her body with distaste. Her figure was completely gone and her face and ankles were puffy. Heretofore she had not cared very much how she looked but now that she would see Ashley within the hour she cared greatly. Even in her heartbreak, she shrank from the thought of facing him when she was carrying another man’s child. She loved him and he loved her, and this unwanted child now seemed to her a proof of infidelity to that love. But much as she disliked having him see her with the slenderness gone from her waist and the lightness from her step, it was something she could not escape now.

She patted her foot impatiently. Will should have met her. Of course, she could go over to Bullard’s and inquire after him or ask someone there to drive her over to Tara, should she find he had been unable to come. But she did not want to go to Bullard’s. It was Saturday night and probably half the men of the County would be there. She did not want to display her condition in this poorly fitting black dress which accentuated rather than hid her figure. And she did not want to hear the kindly sympathy that would be poured out about Gerald. She did not want sympathy. She was afraid she would cry if anyone even mentioned his name to her. And she wouldn’t cry. She knew if she once began it would be like the time she cried into the horse’s mane, that dreadful night when Atlanta fell and Rhett had left her on the dark road outside the town, terrible tears that tore her heart and could not be stopped.

No, she wouldn’t cry! She felt the lump in her throat rising again, as it had done so often since the news came, but crying wouldn’t do any good. It would only confuse and weaken her. Why, oh, why hadn’t Will or Melanie or the girls written her that Gerald was ailing? She would have taken the first train to Tara to care for him, brought a doctor from Atlanta if necessary. The fools—all of them! Couldn’t they manage anything without her? She couldn’t be in two places at once and the good Lord knew she was doing her best for them all in Atlanta.

She twisted about on the keg, becoming nervous and fidgety as Will still did not come. Where was he? Then she heard the scrunching of cinders on the railroad tracks behind her and, twisting her body, she saw Alex Fontaine crossing the tracks toward a wagon, a sack of oats on his shoulder.

“Good Lord! Isn’t that you, Scarlett?” he cried, dropping the sack and running to take her hand, pleasure written all over his bitter, swarthy little face. “I’m so glad to see you. I saw Will over at the blacksmith’s shop, getting the horse shod. The train was late and he thought he’d have time. Shall I run fetch him?”

“Yes, please, Alex,” she said, smiling in spite of her sorrow. It was good to see a County face again.

“Oh—er—Scarlett,” he began awkwardly, still holding her hand, “I’m mighty sorry about your father.”

“Thank you,” she replied, wishing he had not said it. His words brought up Gerald’s florid face and bellowing voice so clearly.

“If it’s any comfort to you, Scarlett, we’re mighty proud of him around here,” Alex continued, dropping her hand. “He—well, we figure he died like a soldier and in a soldier’s cause.”

Now what did he mean by that, she thought confusedly. A soldier? Had someone shot him? Had he gotten into a fight with the Scallawags as Tony had? But she mustn’t hear more. She would cry if she talked about him and she mustn’t cry, not until she was safely in the wagon with Will and out in the country where no stranger could see her. Will wouldn’t matter. He was just like a brother.

“Alex, I don’t want to talk about it,” she said shortly.

“I don’t blame you one bit, Scarlett,” said Alex while the dark blood of anger flooded his face. “If it was my sister, I’d—well, Scarlett, I’ve never yet said a harsh word about any woman, but personally I think somebody ought to take a rawhide whip to Suellen.”

What foolishness was he talking about now, she wondered. What had Suellen to do with it all?

“Everybody around here feels the same way about her, I’m sorry to say. Will’s the only one who takes up for her—and, of course, Miss Melanie, but she’s a saint and won’t see bad in anyone and—”

“I said I didn’t want to talk about it,” she said coldly but Alex did not seem rebuffed. He looked as though he understood her rudeness and that was annoying. She didn’t want to hear bad tidings about her own family from an outsider, didn’t want him to know of her ignorance of what had happened. Why hadn’t Will sent her the full details?

She wished Alex wouldn’t look at her so hard. She felt that he realized her condition and it embarrassed her. But what Alex was thinking as he peered at her in the twilight was that her face had changed so completely he wondered how he had ever recognized her. Perhaps it was because she was going to have a baby. Women did look like the devil at such times. And, of course, she must be feeling badly about old man O’Hara. She had been his pet. But, no, the change was deeper than that. She really looked as if she had three square meals a day. And the hunted-animal look had partly gone from her eyes. Now, the eyes which had been fearful and desperate were hard. There was an air of command, assurance and determination about her, even when she smiled. Bet she led old Frank a merry life! Yes, she had changed. She was a handsome woman, to be sure, but all that pretty, sweet softness had gone from her face and that flattering way of looking up at a man, like he knew more than God Almighty, had utterly vanished.

Well, hadn’t they all changed? Alex looked down at his rough clothes and his face fell into its usual bitter lines. Sometimes at night when he lay awake, wondering how his mother was going to get that operation and how poor dead Joe’s little boy was going to get an education and how he was going to get money for another mule, he wished the war was still going on, wished it had gone on forever. They didn’t know their luck then. There was always something to eat in the army, even if it was just corn bread, always somebody to give orders and none of this torturing sense of facing problems that couldn’t be solved—nothing to bother about in the army except getting killed. And then there was Dimity Munroe. Alex wanted to marry her and he knew he couldn’t when so many were already looking to him for support. He had loved her for so long and now the roses were fading from her cheeks and the joy from her eyes. If only Tony hadn’t had to run away to Texas. Another man on the place would make all the difference in the world. His lovable bad-tempered little brother, penniless somewhere in the West. Yes, they had all changed. And why not? He sighed heavily.

“I haven’t thanked you for what you and Frank did for Tony,” he said. “It was you who helped him get away, wasn’t it? It was fine of you. I heard in a roundabout way that he was safe in Texas. I was afraid to write and ask you—but did you or Frank lend him any money? I want to repay—”

“Oh, Alex, please hush! Not now!” cried Scarlett. For once, money meant nothing to her.

Alex was silent for a moment.

“I’ll get Will for you,” he said, “and we’ll all be over tomorrow for the funeral.”

As he picked up the sack of oats and turned away, a wobbly-wheeled wagon swayed out of a side street and creaked up to them. Will called from the seat: “I’m sorry I’m late, Scarlett.”

Climbing awkwardly down from the wagon, he stumped toward her and, bending, kissed her cheek. Will had never kissed her before, had never failed to precede her name with “Miss” and, while it surprised her, it warmed her heart and pleased her very much. He lifted her carefully over the wheel and into the wagon and, looking down, she saw that it was the same old rickety wagon in which she had fled from Atlanta. How had it ever held together so long? Will must have kept it patched up very well. It made her slightly sick to look at it and to remember that night. If it took the shoes off her feet or food from Aunt Pitty’s table, she’d see that there was a new wagon at Tara and this one burned.

Will did not speak at first and Scarlett was grateful. He threw his battered straw hat into the back of the wagon, clucked to the horse and they moved off. Will was just the same, lank and gangling, pink of hair, mild of eye, patient as a draft animal.

They left the village behind and turned into the red road to Tara. A faint pink still lingered about the edges of the sky and fat feathery clouds were tinged with gold and palest green. The stillness of the country twilight came down about them as calming as a prayer. How had she ever borne it, she thought, away for all these months, away from the fresh smell of country air, the plowed earth and the sweetness of summer nights? The moist red earth smelled so good, so familiar, so friendly, she wanted to get out and scoop up a handful. The honeysuckle which draped the gullied red sides of the road in tangled greenery was piercingly fragrant as always after rain, the sweetest perfume in the world. Above their heads a flock of chimney swallows whirled suddenly on swift wings and now and then a rabbit scurried startled across the road, his white tail bobbing like an eiderdown powder puff. She saw with pleasure that the cotton stood well, as they passed between plowed fields where the green bushes reared themselves sturdily out of the red earth. How beautiful all this was! The soft gray mist in the swampy bottoms, the red earth and growing cotton, the sloping fields with curving green rows and the black pines rising behind everything like sable walls. How had she ever stayed in Atlanta so long?

“Scarlett, before I tell you about Mr. O’Hara—and I want to tell you everything before you get home—I want to ask your opinion on a matter. I figger you’re the head of the house now.”

“What is it, Will?”

He turned his mild sober gaze on her for a moment.

“I just wanted your approval to my marryin’ Suellen.”

Scarlett clutched the seat, so surprised that she almost fell backwards. Marry Suellen! She’d never thought of anybody marrying Suellen since she had taken Frank Kennedy from her. Who would have Suellen?

“Goodness, Will!”

“Then I take it you don’t mind?”

“Mind? No, but—Why, Will, you’ve taken my breath away! You marry Suellen? Will, I always thought you were sweet on Carreen.”

Will kept his eyes on the horse and flapped the reins. His profile did not change but she thought he sighed slightly.

“Maybe I was,” he said.

“Well, won’t she have you?”

“I never asked her.”

“Oh, Will, you’re a fool. Ask her. She’s worth two of Suellen!”

“Scarlett, you don’t know a lot of things that’s been going on at Tara. You ain’t favored us with much of your attention these last months.”

“I haven’t, haven’t I?” she flared. “What do you suppose I’ve been doing in Atlanta? Riding around in a coach and four and going to balls? Haven’t I sent you money every month? Haven’t I paid the taxes and fixed the roof and bought the new plow and the mules? Haven’t—”

“Now, don’t fly off the handle and get your Irish up,” he interrupted imperturbably. “If anybody knows what you’ve done, I do, and it’s been two men’s work.”

Slightly mollified, she questioned, “Well then, what do you mean?”

“Well, you’ve kept the roof over us and food in the pantry and I ain’t denyin’ that, but you ain’t given much thought to what’s been goin’ on in anybody’s head here at Tara. I ain’t blamin’ you, Scarlett. That’s just your way. You warn’t never very much interested in what was in folks’ heads. But what I’m tryin’ to tell you is that I didn’t never ask Miss Carreen because I knew it wouldn’t be no use. She’s been like a little sister to me and I guess she talks to me plainer than to anybody in the world. But she never got over that dead boy and she never will. And I might as well tell you now she’s aimin’ to go in a convent over to Charleston.”

“Are you joking?”

“Well, I knew it would take you back and I just want to ask you, Scarlett, don’t you argue with her about it or scold her or laugh at her. Let her go. It’s all she wants now. Her heart’s broken.”

“But God’s nightgown! Lots of people’s hearts have been broken and they didn’t run off to convents. Look at me. I lost a husband.”

“But your heart warn’t broken,” Will said calmly and, picking up a straw from the bottom of the wagon, he put it in his mouth and chewed slowly. That remark took the wind out of her. As always when she heard the truth spoken, no matter how unpalatable it was, basic honesty forced her to acknowledge it as truth. She was silent a moment, trying to accustom herself to the idea of Carreen as a nun.

“Promise you won’t fuss at her.”

“Oh, well, I promise,” and then she looked at him with a new understanding and some amazement. Will had loved Carreen, loved her now enough to take her part and make her retreat easy. And yet he wanted to marry Suellen.

“Well, what’s all this about Suellen? You don’t care for her, do you?”

“Oh, yes, I do in a way,” he said removing the straw and surveying it as if it were highly interesting. “Suellen ain’t as bad as you think, Scarlett. I think we’ll get along right well. The only trouble with Suellen is that she needs a husband and some children and that’s just what every woman needs.”

The wagon jolted over the rutty road and for a few minutes while the two sat silent Scarlett’s mind was busy. There must be something more to it than appeared on the surface, something deeper, more important, to make the mild and soft-spoken Will want to marry a complaining nagger like Suellen.

“You haven’t told me the real reason, Will. If I’m head of the family, I’ve got a right to know.”

“That’s right,” said Will, “and I guess you’ll understand. I can’t leave Tara. It’s home to me, Scarlett, the only real home I ever knew and I love every stone of it. I’ve worked on it like it was mine. And when you put out work on somethin’, you come to love it. You know what I mean?”

She knew what he meant and her heart went out in a surge of warm affection for him, hearing him say he, too, loved the thing she loved best.

“And I figger it this way. With your pa gone and Carreen a nun, there’ll be just me and Suellen left here and, of course, I couldn’t live on at Tara without marryin’ Suellen. You know how folks talk.”

“But—but Will, there’s Melanie and Ashley—”

At Ashley’s name he turned and looked at her, his pale eyes unfathomable. She had the old feeling that Will knew all about her and Ashley, understood all and did not either censure or approve.

“They’ll be goin’ soon.”

“Going? Where? Tara is their home as well as yours.”

“No, it ain’t their home. That’s just what’s eatin’ on Ashley. It ain’t his home and he don’t feel like he’s earnin’ his keep. He’s a mighty pore farmer and he knows it. God knows he tries his best but he warn’t cut out for farmin’ and you know it as well as I do. If he splits kindlin’, like as not he’ll slice off his foot. He can’t no more keep a plow straight in a furrow than little Beau can, and what he don’t know about makin’ things grow would fill a book. It ain’t his fault. He just warn’t bred for it. And it worries him that he’s a man livin’ at Tara on a woman’s charity and not givin’ much in return.”

“Charity? Has he ever said—”

“No, he’s never said a word. You know Ashley. But I can tell. Last night when we were sittin’ up with your pa, I tole him I had asked Suellen and she’d said Yes. And then Ashley said that relieved him because he’d been feelin’ like a dog, stayin’ on at Tara, and he knew he and Miss Melly would have to keep stayin’ on, now that Mr. O’Hara was dead, just to keep folks from talkin’ about me and Suellen. So then he told me he was aimin’ to leave Tara and get work.”

“Work? What kind? Where?”

“I don’t know exactly what he’ll do but he said he was goin’ up North. He’s got a Yankee friend in New York who wrote him about workin’ in a bank up there.”

“Oh, no!” cried Scarlett from the bottom of her heart and, at the cry, Will gave her the same look as before.

“Maybe ’twould be better all ’round if he did go North.”

“No! No! I don’t think so.”

Her mind was working feverishly. Ashley couldn’t go North! She might never see him again. Even though she had not seen him in months, had not spoken to him alone since that fateful scene in the orchard, there had not been a day when she had not thought of him, been glad he was sheltered under her roof. She had never sent a dollar to Will that she had not been pleased that it would make Ashley’s life easier. Of course, he wasn’t any good as a farmer. Ashley was bred for better things, she thought proudly. He was born to rule, to live in a large house, ride fine horses, read books of poetry and tell negroes what to do. That there were no more mansions and horses and negroes and few books did not alter matters. Ashley wasn’t bred to plow and split rails. No wonder he wanted to leave Tara.

But she could not let him go away from Georgia. If necessary, she would bully Frank into giving him a job in the store, make Frank turn off the boy he now had behind the counter. But, no—Ashley’s place was no more behind a counter than it was behind a plow. A Wilkes a shopkeeper! Oh, never that! There must be something—why, her mill of course! Her relief at the thought was so great that she smiled. But would he accept an offer from her? Would he still think it was charity? She must manage it so he would think he was doing her a favor. She would discharge Mr. Johnson and put Ashley in charge of the old mill while Hugh operated the new one. She would explain to Ashley how Frank’s ill health and the pressure of work at the store kept him from helping her, and she would plead her condition as another reason why she needed his help.

She would make him realize somehow that she couldn’t do without his aid at this time. And she would give him a half-interest in the mill, if he would only take it over—anything just to have him near her, anything to see that bright smile light up his face, anything for the chance of catching an unguarded look in his eyes that showed he still cared. But, she promised herself, never, never would she again try to prod him into words of love, never again would she try to make him throw away that foolish honor he valued more than love. Somehow, she must delicately convey to him this new resolution of hers. Otherwise he might refuse, fearing another scene such as that last terrible one had been.

“I can get him something to do in Atlanta,” she said.

“Well, that’s yours and Ashley’s business,” said Will and put the straw back in his mouth. “Giddap, Sherman. Now, Scarlett, there’s somethin’ else I’ve got to ask you before I tell you about your pa. I won’t have you lightin’ into Suellen. What she’s done, she’s done, and you snatchin’ her baldheaded won’t bring Mr. O’Hara back. Besides she honestly thought she was actin’ for the best!”

“I wanted to ask you about that. What is all this about Suellen? Alex talked riddles and said she ought to be whipped. What has she done?”

“Yes, folks are pretty riled up about her. Everybody I run into this afternoon in Jonesboro was promisin’ to cut her dead the next time they seen her, but maybe they’ll get over it. Now, promise me you won’t light into her. I won’t be havin’ no quarrelin’ tonight with Mr. O’Hara layin’ dead in the parlor.”

He won’t be having any quarreling! thought Scarlett, indignantly. He talks like Tara was his already!

And then she thought of Gerald, dead in the parlor, and suddenly she began to cry, cry in bitter, gulping sobs. Will put his arm around her, drew her comfortably close and said nothing.

As they jolted slowly down the darkening road, her head on his shoulder, her bonnet askew, she had forgotten the Gerald of the last two years, the vague old gentleman who stared at doors waiting for a woman who would never enter. She was remembering the vital, virile old man with his mane of crisp white hair, his bellowing cheerfulness, his stamping boots, his clumsy jokes, his generosity. She remembered how, as a child, he had seemed the most wonderful man in the world, this blustering father who carried her before him on his saddle when he jumped fences, turned her up and paddled her when she was naughty, and then cried when she cried and gave her quarters to get her to hush. She remembered him coming home from Charleston and Atlanta laden with gifts that were never appropriate, remembered too, with a faint smile through tears, how he came home in the wee hours from Court Day at Jonesboro, drunk as seven earls, jumping fences, his rollicking voice raised in “The Wearin’ o’ the Green.” And how abashed he was, facing Ellen on the morning after. Well, he was with Ellen now.

“Why didn’t you write me that he was ill? I’d have come so fast—”

“He warn’t ill, not a minute. Here, honey, take my handkerchief and I’ll tell you all about it.”

She blew her nose on his bandanna, for she had come from Atlanta without even a handkerchief, and settled back into the crook of Will’s arm. How nice Will was. Nothing ever upset him.

“Well, it was this way, Scarlett. You been sendin’ us money right along and Ashley and me, well, we’ve paid taxes and bought the mule and seeds and what-all and a few hogs and chickens. Miss Melly’s done mighty well with the hens, yes sir, she has. She’s a fine woman, Miss Melly is. Well, anyway, after we bought things for Tara, there warn’t so much left over for folderols, but none of us warn’t complainin’. Except Suellen.

“Miss Melanie and Miss Carreen stay at home and wear their old clothes like they’re proud of them but you know Suellen, Scarlett. She hasn’t never got used to doin’ without. It used to stick in her craw that she had to wear old dresses every time I took her into Jonesboro or over to Fayetteville. ’Specially as some of those Carpetbaggers’ ladi-women was always flouncin’ around in fancy trimmin’s. The wives of those damn Yankees that run the Freedmen’s Bureau, do they dress up! Well, it’s kind of been a point of honor with the ladies of the County to wear their worstlookin’ dresses to town, just to show how they didn’t care and was proud to wear them. But not Suellen. And she wanted a horse and carriage too. She pointed out that you had one.”

“It’s not a carriage, it’s an old buggy,” said Scarlett indignantly.

“Well, no matter what. I might as well tell you Suellen never has got over your marryin’ Frank Kennedy and I don’t know as I blame her. You know that was a kind of scurvy trick to play on a sister.”

Scarlett rose from his shoulder, furious as a rattler ready to strike.

“Scurvy trick, hey? I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head, Will Benteen! Could I help it if he preferred me to her?”

“You’re a smart girl, Scarlett, and I figger, yes, you could have helped him preferrin’ you. Girls always can. But I guess you kind of coaxed him. You’re a mighty takin’ person when you want to be, but all the same, he was Suellen’s beau. Why, she’d had a letter from him a week before you went to Atlanta and he was sweet as sugar about her and talked about how they’d get married when he got a little more money ahead. I know because she showed me the letter.”

Scarlett was silent because she knew he was telling the truth and she could think of nothing to say. She had never expected Will, of all people, to sit in judgment on her. Moreover the lie she had told Frank had never weighed heavily upon her conscience. If a girl couldn’t keep a beau, she deserved to lose him.

“Now, Will, don’t be mean,” she said. “If Suellen had married him, do you think she’d ever have spent a penny on Tara or any of us?”

“I said you could be right takin’ when you wanted to,” said Will, turning to her with a quiet grin. “No, I don’t think we’d ever seen a penny of old Frank’s money. But still there’s no gettin’ ’round it, it was a scurvy trick and if you want to justify the end by the means, it’s none of my business and who am I to complain? But just the same Suellen has been like a hornet ever since. I don’t think she cared much about old Frank but it kind of teched her vanity and she’s been sayin’ as how you had good clothes and a carriage and lived in Atlanta while she was buried here at Tara. She does love to go callin’ and to parties, you know, and wear pretty clothes. I ain’t blamin’ her. Women are like that.

“Well, about a month ago I took her into Jonesboro and left her to go callin’ while I tended to business and when I took her home, she was still as a mouse but I could see she was so excited she was ready to bust. I thought she’d found out somebody was goin’ to have a-that she’d heard some gossip that was interestin’, and I didn’t pay her much mind. She went around home for about a week all swelled up and excited and didn’t have much to say. She went over to see Miss Cathleen Calvert—Scarlett, you’d cry your eyes out at Miss Cathleen. Pore girl, she’d better be dead than married to that pusillanimous Yankee Hilton. You knew he’d mortgaged the place and lost it and they’re goin’ to have to leave?”

“No, I didn’t know and I don’t want to know. I want to know about Pa.”

“Well, I’m gettin’ to that,” said Will patiently. “When she come back from over there she said we’d all misjudged Hilton. She called him Mr. Hilton and she said he was a smart man, but we just laughed at her. Then she took to takin’ your pa out to walk in the afternoons and lots of times when I was comin’ home from the field I’d see her sittin’ with him on the wall ’round the buryin’ ground, talkin’ at him hard and wavin’ her hands. And the old gentleman would just look at her sort of puzzled-like and shake his head. You know how he’s been, Scarlett. He just got kind of vaguer and vaguer, like he didn’t hardly know where he was or who we were. One time, I seen her point to your ma’s grave and the old gentleman begun to cry. And when she come in the house all happy and excited lookin’, I gave her a talkin’ to, right sharp, too, and I said: ‘Miss Suellen, why in hell are you devilin’ your poor pa and bringin’ up your ma to him? Most of the time he don’t realize she’s dead and here you are rubbin’ it in.’ And she just kind of tossed her head and laughed and said: ‘Mind your business. Some day you’ll be glad of what I’m doin’.’ Miss Melanie told me last night that Suellen had told her about her schemes but Miss Melly said she didn’t have no notion Suellen was serious. She said she didn’t tell none of us because she was so upset at the very idea.”

“What idea? Are you ever going to get to the point? We’re halfway home now. I want to know about Pa.”

“I’m trying to tell you,” said Will, “and we’re so near home, I guess I’d better stop right here till I’ve finished.”

He drew rein and the horse stopped and snorted. They had halted by the wild overgrown mock-orange hedge that marked the Macintosh property. Glancing under the dark trees Scarlett could just discern the tall ghostly chimneys still rearing above the silent ruin. She wished that Will had chosen any other place to stop.

“Well, the long and the short of her idea was to make the Yankees pay for the cotton they burned and the stock they drove off and the fences and the barns they tore down.”

“The Yankees?”

“Haven’t you heard about it? The Yankee government’s been payin’ claims on all destroyed property of Union sympathizers in the South.”

“Of course I’ve heard about that,” said Scarlett. “But what’s that got to do with us?”

“A heap, in Suellen’s opinion. That day I took her to Jonesboro, she run into Mrs. MacIntosh and when they were gossipin’ along, Suellen couldn’t help noticin’ what fine-lookin’ clothes Mrs. Macintosh had on and she couldn’t help askin’ about them. Then Mrs. MacIntosh gave herself a lot of airs and said as how her husband had put in a claim with the Federal government for destroyin’ the property of a loyal Union sympathizer who had never given aid and comfort to the Confederacy in any shape or form.”

“They never gave aid and comfort to anybody,” snapped Scarlett. “Scotch-Irish!”

“Well, maybe that’s true. I don’t know them. Anyway, the government gave them, well—I forget how many thousand dollars. A right smart sum it was, though. That started Suellen. She thought about it all week and didn’t say nothin’ to us because she knew we’d just laugh. But she just had to talk to somebody so she went over to Miss Cathleen’s and that damned white trash, Hilton, gave her a passel of new ideas. He pointed out that your pa warn’t even born in this country, that he hadn’t fought in the war and hadn’t had no sons to fight, and hadn’t never held no office under the Confederacy. He said they could strain a point about Mr. O’Hara bein’ a loyal Union sympathizer. He filled her up with such truck and she come home and begun workin’ on Mr. O’Hara. Scarlett, I bet my life your pa didn’t even know half the time what she was talkin’ about. That was what she was countin’ on, that he would take the Iron Clad oath and not even know it.”

“Pa take the Iron Clad oath!” cried Scarlett.

“Well, he’d gotten right feeble in his mind these last months and I guess she was countin’ on that. Mind you, none of us suspicioned nothin’ about it. We knew she was cookin’ up somethin’, but we didn’t know she was usin’ your dead ma to reproach him for his daughters bein’ in rags when he could get a hundred and fifty thousand dollars out of the Yankees.”

“One hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” murmured Scarlett, her horror at the oath fading.

What a lot of money that was! And to be had for the mere signing of an oath of allegiance to the United States government, an oath stating that the signer had always supported the government and never given aid and comfort to its enemies. One hundred and fifty thousand dollars! That much money for that small a lie! Well, she couldn’t blame Suellen. Good heavens! Was that what Alex meant by wanting to rawhide her? What the County meant by intending to cut her? Fools, every one of them. What couldn’t she do with that much money! What couldn’t any of the folks in the County do with it! And what did so small a lie matter? After all, anything you could get out of the Yankees was fair money, no matter how you got it.

“Yesterday, about noon when Ashley and me were splittin’ rails, Suellen got this wagon and got your pa in it and off they went to town without a word to anybody. Miss Melly had a notion what it was all about but she was prayin’ somethin’ would change Suellen, so she didn’t say nothin’ to the rest of us. She just didn’t see how Suellen could do such a thing.

“Today I heard all about what happened. That pusillanimous fellow, Hilton, had some influence with the other Scallawags and Republicans in town and Suellen had agreed to give them some of the money—I don’t know how much—if they’d kind of wink their eye about Mr. O’Hara bein’ a loyal Union man and play on how he was an Irishman and didn’t fight in the army and so on, and sign recommendations. All your pa had to do was take the oath and sign the paper and off it would go to Washington.

“They rattled off the oath real fast and he didn’t say nothin’ and it went right well till she got him up to the signin’ of it. And then the old gentleman kind of come to himself for a minute and shook his head. I don’t think he knew what it was all about but he didn’t like it and Suellen always did rub him the wrong way. Well, that just about gave her the nervous fits after all the trouble she’d gone to. She took him out of the office and rode him up and down the road and talked to him about your ma cryin’ out of her grave at him for lettin’ her children suffer when he could provide for them. They tell me your pa sat there in the wagon and cried like a baby, like he always does when he hears her name. Everybody in town saw them and Alex Fontaine went over to see what was the matter, but Suellen gave him the rough side of her tongue and told him to mind his own business, so he went off mad.

“I don’t know where she got the notion but some time in the afternoon she got a bottle of brandy and took Mr. O’Hara back to the office and begun pourin’ it for him. Scarlett, we haven’t had no spirits ’round Tara for a year, just a little blackberry wine and scuppernong wine Dilcey makes, and Mr. O’Hara warn’t used to it. He got real drunk, and after Suellen had argued and nagged a couple of hours he gave in and said Yes, he’d sign anything she wanted. They got the oath out again and just as he was about to put pen to paper, Suellen made her mistake. She said: ‘Well, now, I guess the Slatterys and the MacIntoshes won’t be givin’ themselves airs over us!’ You see, Scarlett, the Slatterys had put in a claim for a big amount for that little shack of theirs that the Yankees burned and Emmie’s husband had got it through Washington for them.

“They tell me that when Suellen said those names, your pa kind of straightened up and squared his shoulders and looked at her, sharplike. He warn’t vague no more and he said: ‘Have the Slatterys and the MacIntoshes signed somethin’ like this?’ and Suellen got nervous and said Yes and No and stuttered and he shouted right loud: ‘Tell me, did that God-damned Orangeman and that God-damned poor white sign somethin’ like this?’ And that feller Hilton spoke up smooth-like and said: ‘Yes sir, they did and they got a pile of money like you’ll get. ‘

“And then the old gentleman let out a roar like a bull. Alex Fontaine said he heard him from down the street at the saloon. And he said with a brogue you could cut with a butterknife: ‘And were ye afther thinkin’ an O’Hara of Tara would be follyin’ the dirthy thracks of a Goddamned Orangeman and a God-damned poor white?’ And he tore the paper in two and threw it in Suellen’s face and he bellowed: ‘Ye’re no daughter of mine!’ and he was out of the office before you could say Jack Robinson.

“Alex said he saw him come out on the street, chargin’ like a bull. He said the old gentleman looked like his old self for the first time since your ma died. Said he was reelin’ drunk and cussin’ at the top of his lungs. Alex said he never heard such fine cussin’. Alex’s horse was standin’ there and your pa climbed on it without a by-your-leave and off he went in a cloud of dust so thick it choked you, cussin’ every breath he drew.

“Well, about sundown Ashley and me were sittin’ on the front step, lookin’ down the road and mighty worried. Miss Melly was upstairs cryin’ on her bed and wouldn’t tell us nothin’. Terrectly, we heard a poundin’ down the road and somebody yellin’ like they was fox huntin’ and Ashley said: ‘That’s queer! That sounds like Mr. O’Hara when he used to ride over to see us before the war.’

“And then we seen him way down at the end of the pasture. He must have jumped the fence right over there. And he come ridin’ hell-for-leather up the hill, singin’ at the top of his voice like he didn’t have a care in the world. I didn’t know your pa had such a voice. He was singin’ ‘Peg in a Low-backed Car’ and beatin’ the horse with his hat and the horse was goin’ like mad. He didn’t draw rein when he come near the top and we seen he was goin’ to jump the pasture fence and we hopped up, scared to death, and then he yelled: ‘Look, Ellen! Watch me take this one!’ But the horse stopped right on his haunches at the fence and wouldn’t take the jump and your pa went right over his head. He didn’t suffer none. He was dead time we got to him. I guess it broke his neck.”

Will waited a minute for her to speak and when she did not he picked up the reins. “Giddap, Sherman,” he said, and the horse started on toward home.

Chapter XL

Scarlett slept little that night. When the dawn had come and the sun was creeping over the black pines on the hills to the east, she rose from her tumbled bed and, seating herself on a stool by the window, laid her tired head on her arm and looked out over the barn yard and orchard of Tara toward the cotton fields. Everything was fresh and dewy and silent and green and the sight of the cotton fields brought a measure of balm and comfort to her sore heart. Tara, at sunrise, looked loved, well tended and at peace, for all that its master lay dead. The squatty log chicken house was clay daubed against rats, weasels and clean with whitewash, and so was the log stable. The garden with its rows of corn, bright-yellow squash, butter beans and turnips was well weeded and neatly fenced with split-oak rails. The orchard was cleared of underbrush and only daisies grew beneath the long rows of trees. The sun picked out with faint glistening the apples and the furred pink peaches half hidden in the green leaves. Beyond lay the curving rows of cotton, still and green under the gold of the new sky. The ducks and chickens were waddling and strutting off toward the fields, for under the bushes in the soft plowed earth were found the choicest worms and slugs.

Scarlett’s heart swelled with affection and gratitude to Will who had done all of this. Even her loyalty to Ashley could not make her believe he had been responsible for much of this well-being, for Tara’s bloom was not the work of a planter-aristocrat, but of the plodding, tireless “small farmer” who loved his land. It was a “two-horse” farm, not the lordly plantation of other days with pastures full of mules and fine horses and cotton and corn stretching as far as eye could see. But what there was of it was good and the acres that were lying fallow could be reclaimed when times grew better, and they would be the more fertile for their rest.

Will had done more than merely farm a few acres. He had kept sternly at bay those two enemies of Georgia planters, the seedling pine and the blackberry brambles. They had not stealthily taken garden and pasture and cotton field and lawn and reared themselves insolently by the porches of Tara, as they were doing on numberless plantations throughout the state.

Scarlett’s heart failed a beat when she thought how close Tara had come to going back to wilderness. Between herself and Will, they had done a good job. They had held off the Yankees, the Carpetbaggers and the encroachments of Nature. And, best of all, Will had told her that after the cotton came in in the fall, she need send no more money—unless some other Carpetbagger coveted Tara and skyrocketed the taxes. Scarlett knew Will would have a hard pull without her help but she admired and respected his independence. As long as he was in the position of hired help he would take her money, but now that he was to become her brother-in-law and the man of the house, he intended to stand on his own efforts. Yes, Will was something the Lord had provided.

Pork had dug the grave the night before, close by Ellen’s grave, and he stood, spade in hand, behind the moist red clay he was soon to shovel back in place. Scarlett stood behind him in the patchy shade of a gnarled low-limbed cedar, the hot sun of the June morning dappling her, and tried to keep her eyes away from the red trench in front of her. Jim Tarleton, little Hugh Munroe, Alex Fontaine and old man McRae’s youngest grandson came slowly and awkwardly down the path from the house bearing Gerald’s coffin on two lengths of split oak. Behind them, at a respectful distance, followed a large straggling crowd of neighbors and friends, shabbily dressed, silent. As they came down the sunny path through the garden, Pork bowed his head upon the top of the spade handle and cried; and Scarlett saw with incurious surprise that the kinks on his head, so jettily black when she went to Atlanta a few months before, were now grizzled.

She thanked God tiredly that she had cried all her tears the night before, so now she could stand erect and dry eyed. The sound of Suellen’s tears, just back of her shoulder, irritated her unbearably and she had to clench her fists to keep from turning and slapping the swollen face. Sue had been the cause of her father’s death, whether she intended it or not, and she should have the decency to control herself in front of the hostile neighbors. Not a single person had spoken to her that morning or given her one look of sympathy. They had kissed Scarlett quietly, shaken her hand, murmured kind words to Carreen and even to Pork but had looked through Suellen as if she were not there.

To them she had done worse than murder her father. She had tried to betray him into disloyalty to the South. And to that grim and close-knit community it was as if she had tried to betray the honor of them all. She had broken the solid front the County presented to the world. By her attempt to get money from the Yankee government she had aligned herself with Carpetbaggers and Scallawags, more hated enemies than the Yankee soldiers had ever been. She, a member of an old and staunchly Confederate family, a planter’s family, had gone over to the enemy and by so doing had brought shame on every family in the County.

The mourners were seething with indignation and downcast with sorrow, especially three of them—old man McRae, who had been Gerald’s crony since he came to the up-country from Savannah so many years before, Grandma Fontaine who loved him because he was Ellen’s husband, and Mrs. Tarleton who had been closer to him than to any of her neighbors because, as she often said, he was the only man in the County who knew a stallion from a gelding.

The sight of the stormy faces of these three in the dim parlor where Gerald lay before the funeral had caused Ashley and Will some uneasiness and they had retired to Ellen’s office for a consultation.

“Some of them are goin’ to say somethin’ about Suellen,” said Will abruptly, biting his straw in half. “They think they got just cause to say somethin’. Maybe they have. It ain’t for me to say. But, Ashley, whether they’re right or not, we’ll have to resent it, bein’ the men of the family, and then there’ll be trouble. Can’t nobody do nothin’ with old man McRae because he’s deaf as a post and can’t hear folks tryin’ to shut him up. And you know there ain’t nobody in God’s world ever stopped Grandma Fontaine from speakin’ her mind. And as for Mrs. Tarleton—did you see her roll them russet eyes of hers every time she looked at Sue? She’s got her ears laid back and can’t hardly wait. If they say somethin’, we got to take it up and we got enough trouble at Tara now without bein’ at outs with our neighbors.”

Ashley sighed worriedly. He knew the tempers of his neighbors better than Will did and he remembered that fully half of the quarrels and some of the shootings of the days before the war had risen from the County custom of saying a few words over the coffins of departed neighbors. Generally the words were eulogistic in the extreme but occasionally they were not. Sometimes, words meant in the utmost respect were misconstrued by overstrung relatives of the dead and scarcely were the last shovels of earth mounded above the coffin before trouble began.

In the absence of a priest Ashley was to conduct the services with the aid of Carreen’s Book of Devotions, the assistance of the Methodist and Baptist preachers of Jonesboro and Fayetteville having been tactfully refused. Carreen, more devoutly Catholic than her sisters, had been very upset that Scarlett had neglected to bring a priest from Atlanta with her and had only been a little eased by the reminder that when the priest came down to marry Will and Suellen, he could read the services over Gerald. It was she who objected to the neighboring Protestant preachers and gave the matter into Ashley’s hands, marking passages in her book for him to read. Ashley, leaning against the old secretary, knew that the responsibility for preventing trouble lay with him and, knowing the hair-trigger tempers of the County, was at a loss as to how to proceed.

“There’s no help for it, Will,” he said, rumpling his bright hair. “I can’t knock Grandma Fontaine down or old man McRae either, and I can’t hold my hand over Mrs. Tarleton’s mouth. And the mildest thing they’ll say is that Suellen is a murderess and a traitor and but for her Mr. O’Hara would still be alive. Damn this custom of speaking over the dead. It’s barbarous.”

“Look, Ash,” said Will slowly. “I ain’t aimin’ to have nobody say nothin’ against Suellen, no matter what they think. You leave it to me. When you’ve finished with the readin’ and the prayin’ and you say: ‘If anyone would like to say a few words,’ you look right at me, so I can speak first.”

But Scarlett, watching the pallbearers’ difficulty in getting the coffin through the narrow entrance into the burying ground, had no thought of trouble to come after the funeral. She was thinking with a leaden heart that in burying Gerald she was burying one of the last links that joined her to the old days of happiness and irresponsibility.

Finally the pallbearers set the coffin down near the grave and stood clenching and unclenching their aching fingers. Ashley, Melanie and Will filed into the inclosure and stood behind the O’Hara girls. All the closer neighbors who could crowd in were behind them and the others stood outside the brick wall. Scarlett, really seeing them for the first time, was surprised and touched by the size of the crowd. With transportation so limited it was kind of so many to come. There were fifty or sixty people there, some of them from so far away she wondered how they had heard in time to come. There were whole families from Jonesboro and Fayetteville and Lovejoy and with them a few negro servants. Many small farmers from far across the river were present and Crackers from the backwoods and a scattering of swamp folk. The swamp men were lean bearded giants in homespun, coon-skin caps on their heads, their rifles easy in the crooks of their arms, their wads of tobacco stilled in their cheeks. Their women were with them, their bare feet sunk in the soft red earth, their lower lips full of snuff. Their faces beneath their sun-bonnets were sallow and malariallooking but shining clean and their freshly ironed calicoes glistened with starch.

The near neighbors were there in full force. Grandma Fontaine, withered, wrinkled and yellow as an old molted bird, was leaning on her cane, and behind her were Sally Munroe Fontaine and Young Miss Fontaine. They were trying vainly by whispered pleas and jerks at her skirt to make the old lady sit down on the brick wall. Grandma’s husband, the Old Doctor, was not there. He had died two months before and much of the bright malicious joy of life had gone from her old eyes. Cathleen Calvert Hilton stood alone as befitted one whose husband had helped bring about the present tragedy, her faded sunbonnet hiding her bowed face. Scarlett saw with amazement that her percale dress had grease spots on it and her hands were freckled and unclean. There were even black crescents under her fingernails. There was nothing of quality folks about Cathleen now. She looked Cracker, even worse. She looked poor white, shiftless, slovenly, trifling.

“She’ll be dipping snuff soon, if she isn’t doing it already,” thought Scarlett in horror. “Good Lord! What a comedown!”

She shuddered, turning her eyes from Cathleen as she realized how narrow was the chasm between quality folk and poor whites.

“There but for a lot of gumption am I,” she thought, and pride surged through her as she realized that she and Cathleen had started with the same equipment after the surrender—empty hands and what they had in their heads.

“I haven’t done so bad,” she thought, lifting her chin and smiling.

But she stopped in mid-smile as she saw the scandalized eyes of Mrs. Tarleton upon her. Her eyes were red-rimmed from tears and, after giving Scarlett a reproving look, she turned her gaze back to Suellen, a fierce angry gaze that boded ill for her. Behind her and her husband were the four Tarleton girls, their red locks indecorous notes in the solemn occasion, their russet eyes still looking like the eyes of vital young animals, spirited and dangerous.

Feet were stilled, hats were removed, hands folded and skirts rustled into quietness as Ashley stepped forward with Carreen’s worn Book of Devotions in his hand. He stood for a moment looking down, the sun glittering on his golden head. A deep silence fell on the crowd, so deep that the harsh whisper of the wind in the magnolia leaves came clear to their ears and the far-off repetitious note of a mockingbird sounded unendurably loud and sad. Ashley began to read the prayers and all heads bowed as his resonant, beautifully modulated voice rolled out the brief and dignified words.

“Oh!” thought Scarlett, her throat constricting. “How beautiful his voice is! If anyone has to do this for Pa, I’m glad it’s Ashley. I’d rather have him than a priest. I’d rather have Pa buried by one of his own folks than a stranger.”

When Ashley came to the part of the prayers concerning the souls in Purgatory, which Carreen had marked for him to read, he abruptly closed the book. Only Carreen noticed the omission and looked up puzzled, as he began the Lord’s Prayer. Ashley knew that half the people present had never heard of Purgatory and those who had would take it as a personal affront, if he insinuated, even in prayer, that so fine a man as Mr. O’Hara had not gone straight to Heaven. So, in deference to public opinion, he skipped all mention of Purgatory. The gathering joined heartily in the Lord’s Prayer but their voices trailed off into embarrassed silence when he began the Hail Mary. They had never heard that prayer and they looked furtively at each other as the O’Hara girls, Melanie and the Tara servants gave the response: “Pray for us, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

Then Ashley raised his head and stood for a moment, uncertain. The eyes of the neighbors were expectantly upon him as they settled themselves in easier positions for a long harangue. They were waiting for him to go on with the service, for it did not occur to any of them that he was at the end of the Catholic prayers. County funerals were always long. The Baptist and Methodist ministers who performed them had no set prayers but extemporized as the circumstances demanded and seldom stopped before all mourners were in tears and the bereaved feminine relatives screaming with grief. The neighbors would have been shocked, aggrieved and indignant, had these brief prayers been all the service over the body of their loved friend, and no one knew this better than Ashley. The matter would be discussed at dinner tables for weeks and the opinion of the County would be that the O’Hara girls had not shown proper respect for their father.

So he threw a quick apologetic glance at Carreen and, bowing his head again, began reciting from memory the Episcopal burial service which he had often read over slaves buried at Twelve Oaks.

“I am the Resurrection and the Life… and whosoever… believeth in Me shall never die.”

It did not come back to him readily and he spoke slowly, occasionally falling silent for a space as he waited for phrases to rise from his memory. But this measured delivery made his words more impressive, and mourners who had been dry-eyed before began now to reach for handkerchiefs. Sturdy Baptists and Methodists all, they thought it the Catholic ceremony and immediately rearranged their first opinion that the Catholic services were cold and Popish. Scarlett and Suellen were equally ignorant and thought the words comforting and beautiful. Only Melanie and Carreen realized that a devoutly Catholic Irishman was being laid to rest by the Church of England’s service. And Carreen was too stunned by grief and her hurt at Ashley’s treachery to interfere.

When he had finished, Ashley opened wide his sad gray eyes and looked about the crowd. After a pause, his eyes caught those of Will and he said: “Is there anyone present who would like to say a word?”

Mrs. Tarleton twitched nervously but before she could act, Will stumped forward and standing at the head of the coffin began to speak.

“Friends,” he began in his flat voice, “maybe you think I’m gettin’ above myself, speakin’ first—me who never knew Mr. O’Hara till ’bout a year ago when you all have known him twenty years or more. But this here is my excuse. If he’d lived a month or so longer, I’d have had the right to call him Pa.”

A startled ripple went over the crowd. They were too well bred to whisper but they shifted on their feet and stared at Carreen’s bowed head. Everyone knew his dumb devotion to her. Seeing the direction in which all eyes were cast, Will went on as if he had taken no note.

“So bein’ as how I’m to marry Miss Suellen as soon as the priest comes down from Atlanta, I thought maybe that gives me the right to speak first.”

The last part of his speech was lost in a faint sibilant buzz that went through the gathering, an angry beelike buzz. There were indignation and disappointment in the sound. Everyone liked Will, everyone respected him for what he had done for Tara. Everyone knew his affections lay with Carreen, so the news that he was to marry the neighborhood pariah instead sat ill upon them. Good old Will marrying that nasty, sneaking little Suellen O’Hara!

For a moment the air was tense. Mrs. Tarleton’s eyes began to snap and her lips to shape soundless words. In the silence, old man McRae’s high voice could be heard imploring his grandson to tell him what had been said. Will faced them all, still mild of face, but there was something in his pale blue eyes which dared them to say one word about his future wife. For a moment the balance hung between the honest affection everyone had for Will and their contempt for Suellen. And Will won. He continued as if his pause had been a natural one.

“I never knew Mr. O’Hara in his prime like you all done. All I knew personally was a fine old gentleman who was a mite addled. But I’ve heard tell from you all ’bout what he used to be like. And I want to say this. He was a fightin’ Irishman and a Southern gentleman and as loyal a Confederate as ever lived. You can’t get no better combination than that. And we ain’t likely to see many more like him, because the times that bred men like him are as dead as he is. He was born in a furrin country but the man we’re buryin’ here today was more of a Georgian than any of us mournin’ him. He lived our life, he loved our land and, when you come right down to it, he died for our Cause, same as the soldiers did. He was one of us and he had our good points and our bad points and he had our strength and he had our failin’s. He had our good points in that couldn’t nothin’ stop him when his mind was made up and he warn’t scared of nothin’ that walked in shoe leather. There warn’t nothin’ that come to him from the outside that could lick him.

“He warn’t scared of the English government when they wanted to hang him. He just lit out and left home. And when he come to this country and was pore, that didn’t scare him a mite neither. He went to work and he made his money. And he warn’t scared to tackle this section when it was part wild and the Injuns had just been run out of it. He made a big plantation out of a wilderness. And when the war come on and his money begun to go, he warn’t scared to be pore again. And when the Yankees come through Tara and might of burnt him out or killed him, he warn’t fazed a bit and he warn’t licked neither. He just planted his front feet and stood his ground. That’s why I say he had our good points. There ain’t nothin’ from the outside can lick any of us.

“But he had our failin’s too, ’cause he could be licked from the inside. I mean to say that what the whole world couldn’t do, his own heart could. When Mrs. O’Hara died, his heart died too and he was licked. And what we seen walking ’round here warn’t him.”

Will paused and his eyes went quietly around the circle of faces. The crowd stood in the hot sun as if enchanted to the ground and whatever wrath they had felt for Suellen was forgotten. Will’s eyes rested for a moment on Scarlett and they crinkled slightly at the corners as if he were inwardly smiling comfort to her. Scarlett, who had been fighting back rising tears, did feel comforted. Will was talking common sense instead of a lot of tootle about reunions in another and better world and submitting her will to God’s. And Scarlett had always found strength and comfort in common sense.

“And I don’t want none of you to think the less of him for breakin’ like he done. All you all and me, too, are like him. We got the same weakness and failin’. There ain’t nothin’ that walks can lick us, any more than it could lick him, not Yankees nor Carpetbaggers nor hard times nor high taxes nor even downright starvation. But that weakness that’s in our hearts can lick us in the time it takes to bat your eye. It ain’t always losin’ someone you love that does it, like it done Mr. O’Hara. Everybody’s mainspring is different. And I want to say this—folks whose main-springs are busted are better dead. There ain’t no place for them in the world these days, and they’re happier bein’ dead… That’s why I’m sayin’ you all ain’t got no cause to grieve for Mr. O’Hara now. The time to grieve was back when Sherman come through and he lost Mrs. O’Hara. Now that his body’s gone to join his heart, I don’t see that we got reason to mourn, unless we’re pretty damned selfish, and I’m sayin’ it who loved him like he was my own pa… There won’t be no more words said, if you folks don’t mind. The family is too cut up to listen and it wouldn’t be no kindness to them.”

Will stopped and, turning to Mrs. Tarleton, he said in a lower voice: “I wonder couldn’t you take Scarlett in the house, Ma’m? It ain’t right for her to be standin’ in the sun so long. And Grandma Fontaine don’t look any too peart neither, meanin’ no disrespect.”

Startled at the abrupt switching from the eulogy to herself, Scarlett went red with embarrassment as all eyes turned toward her. Why should Will advertise her already obvious pregnancy? She gave him a shamed indignant look, but Will’s placid gaze bore her down.

“Please,” his look said. “I know what I’m doin’.”

Already he was the man of the house and, not wishing to make a scene, Scarlett turned helplessly to Mrs. Tarleton. That lady, suddenly diverted, as Will had intended, from thoughts of Suellen to the always fascinating matter of breeding, be it animal or human, took Scarlett’s arm.

“Come in the house, honey.”

Her face took on a look of kind, absorbed interest and Scarlett suffered herself to be led through the crowd that gave way and made a narrow path for her. There was a sympathetic murmuring as she passed and several hands went out to pat her comfortingly. When she came abreast Grandma Fontaine, the old lady put out a skinny claw and said: “Give me your arm, child,” and added with a fierce glance at Sally and Young Miss: “No, don’t you come. I don’t want you.”

They passed slowly through the crowd which closed behind them and went up the shady path toward the house, Mrs. Tarleton’s eager helping hand so strong under Scarlett’s elbow that she was almost lifted from the ground at each step.

“Now, why did Will do that?” cried Scarlett heatedly, when they were out of earshot. “He practically said: ‘Look at her! She’s going to have a baby!’”

“Well, sake’s alive, you are, aren’t you?” said Mrs. Tarleton. “Will did right. It was foolish of you to stand in the hot sun when you might have fainted and had a miscarriage.”

“Will wasn’t bothered about her miscarrying,” said Grandma, a little breathless as she labored across the front yard toward the steps. There was a grim, knowing smile on her face. “Will’s smart. He didn’t want either you or me, Beatrice, at the graveside. He was scared of what we’d say and he knew this was the only way to get rid of us… And it was more than that. He didn’t want Scarlett to hear the clods dropping on the coffin. And he’s right. Just remember, Scarlett, as long as you don’t hear that sound, folks aren’t actually dead to you. But once you hear it… Well, it’s the most dreadfully final sound in the world… Help me up the steps, child, and give me a hand, Beatrice. Scarlett don’t any more need your arm than she needs crutches and I’m not so peart, as Will observed… Will knew you were your father’s pet and he didn’t want to make it worse for you than it already was. He figured it wouldn’t be so bad for your sisters. Suellen has her shame to sustain her and Carreen her God. But you’ve got nothing to sustain you, have you, child?”

“No,” answered Scarlett, helping the old lady up the steps, faintly surprised at the truth that sounded in the reedy old voice. “I’ve never had anything to sustain me—except Mother.”

“But when you lost her, you found you could stand alone, didn’t you? Well, some folks can’t. Your pa was one. Will’s right. Don’t you grieve. He couldn’t get along without Ellen and he’s happier where he is. Just like I’ll be happier when I join the Old Doctor.”

She spoke without any desire for sympathy and the two gave her none. She spoke as briskly and naturally as if her husband were alive and in Jonesboro and a short buggy ride would bring them together. Grandma was too old and had seen too much to fear death.

“But—you can stand alone too,” said Scarlett.

“Yes, but it’s powerful uncomfortable at times.”

“Look here, Grandma,” interrupted Mrs. Tarleton, “you ought not to talk to Scarlett like that. She’s upset enough already. What with her trip down here and that tight dress and her grief and the heat, she’s got enough to make her miscarry without your adding to it, talking grief and sorrow.”

“God’s nightgown!” cried Scarlett in irritation. “I’m not upset! And I’m not one of those sickly miscarrying fools!”

“You never can tell,” said Mrs. Tarleton omnisciently. “I lost my first when I saw a bull gore one of our darkies and—you remember my red mare, Nellie? Now, there was the healthiest-looking mare you ever saw but she was nervous and high strung and if I didn’t watch her, she’d—”

“Beatrice, hush,” said Grandma. “Scarlett wouldn’t miscarry on a bet. Let’s us sit here in the hall where it’s cool. There’s a nice draft through here. Now, you go fetch us a glass of buttermilk, Beatrice, if there’s any in the kitchen. Or look in the pantry and see if there’s any wine. I could do with a glass. We’ll sit here till the folks come up to say goodby.”

“Scarlett ought to be in bed,” insisted Mrs. Tarleton, running her eyes over her with the expert air of one who calculated a pregnancy to the last minute of its length.

“Get going,” said Grandma, giving her a prod with her cane, and Mrs. Tarleton went toward the kitchen, throwing her hat carelessly on the sideboard and running her hands through her damp red hair.

Scarlett lay back in her chair and unbuttoned the two top buttons of her tight basque. It was cool and dim in the high-ceilinged hall and the vagrant draft that went from back to front of the house was refreshing after the heat of the sun. She looked across the hall into the parlor where Gerald had lain and, wrenching her thoughts from him, looked up at the portrait of Grandma Robillard hanging above the fireplace. The bayonet-scarred portrait with its high-piled hair, hall-exposed breasts and cool insolence had, as always, a tonic effect upon her.

“I don’t know which hit Beatrice Tarleton worse, losing her boys or her horses,” said Grandma Fontaine. “She never did pay much mind to Jim or her girls, you know. She’s one of those folks Will was talking about. Her mainspring’s busted. Sometimes I wonder if she won’t go the way your pa went. She wasn’t ever happy unless horses or humans were breeding right in her face and none of her girls are married or got any prospects of catching husbands in this county, so she’s got nothing to occupy her mind. If she wasn’t such lady at heart, she’d be downright common… Was Will telling the truth about marrying Suellen?”

“Yes,” said Scarlett, looking the old lady full in the eye. Goodness, she could remember the time when she was scared to death of Grandma Fontaine! Well, she’d grown up since then and she’d just as soon as not tell her to go to the devil if she meddled in affairs at Tara.

“He could do better,” said Grandma candidly.

“Indeed?” said Scarlett haughtily.

“Come off your high horse, Miss,” said the old lady tartly. “I shan’t attack your precious sister, though I might have if I’d stayed at the burying ground. What I mean is with the scarcity of men in the neighborhood, Will could marry most any of the girls. There’s Beatrice’s four wild cats and the Munroe girls and the McRae—”

“He’s going to marry Sue and that’s that.”

“She’s lucky to get him.”

“Tara is lucky to get him.”

“You love this place, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“So much that you don’t mind your sister marrying out of her class as long as you have a man around to care for Tara?”

“Class?” said Scarlett, startled at the idea. “Class? What does class matter now, so long as a girl gets a husband who can take care of her?”

“That’s a debatable question,” said Old Miss. “Some folks would say you were talking common sense. Others would say you were letting down bars that ought never be lowered one inch. Will’s certainly not quality folks and some of your people were.”

Her sharp old eyes went to the portrait of Grandma Robillard.

Scarlett thought of Will, lank, unimpressive, mild, eternally chewing a straw, his whole appearance deceptively devoid of energy, like that of most Crackers. He did not have behind him a long line of ancestors of wealth, prominence and blood. The first of Will’s family to set foot on Georgia soil might even have been one of Oglethorpe’s debtors or a bond servant. Will had not been to college. In fact, four years in a backwoods school was all the education he had ever had. He was honest and he was loyal, he was patient and he was hard working, but certainly he was not quality. Undoubtedly by Robillard standards, Suellen was coming down in the world.

“So you approve of Will coming into your family?”

“Yes,” answered Scarlett fiercely, ready to pounce upon the old lady at the first words of condemnation.

“You may kiss me,” said Grandma surprisingly, and she smiled in her most approving manner. “I never liked you much till now, Scarlett. You were always hard as a hickory nut, even as a child, and I don’t like hard females, barring myself. But I do like the way you meet things. You don’t make a fuss about things that can’t be helped, even if they are disagreeable. You take your fences cleanly like a good hunter.”

Scarlett smiled uncertainly and pecked obediently at the withered cheek presented to her. It was pleasant to hear approving words again, even if she had little idea what they meant.

“There’s plenty of folks hereabouts who’ll have something to say about you letting Sue marry a Cracker—for all that everybody likes Will. They’ll say in one breath what a fine man he is and how terrible it is for an O’Hara girl to marry beneath her. But don’t you let it bother you.”

“I’ve never bothered about what people said.”

“So I’ve heard.” There was a hint of acid in the old voice. “Well, don’t bother about what folks say. It’ll probably be a very successful marriage. Of course, Will’s always going to look like a Cracker and marriage won’t improve his grammar any. And, even if he makes a mint of money, he’ll never lend any shine and sparkle to Tara, like your father did. Crackers are short on sparkle. But Will’s a gentleman at heart. He’s got the right instincts. Nobody but a born gentleman could have put his finger on what is wrong with us as accurately as he just did, down there at the burying. The whole world can’t lick us but we can lick ourselves by longing too hard for things we haven’t got any more—and by remembering too much. Yes, Will will do well by Suellen and by Tara.”

“Then you approve of me letting him marry her?”

“God, no!” The old voice was tired and bitter but vigorous. “Approve of Crackers marrying into old families? Bah! Would I approve of breeding scrub stock to thoroughbreds? Oh, Crackers are good and solid and honest but—”

“But you said you thought it would be a successful match!” cried Scarlett bewildered.

“Oh, I think it’s good for Suellen to marry Will—to marry anybody for that matter, because she needs a husband bad. And where else could she get one? And where else could you get as good a manager for Tara? But that doesn’t mean I like the situation any better than you do.”

But I do like it, thought Scarlett trying to grasp the old lady’s meaning. I’m glad Will is going to marry her. Why should she think I minded? She’s taking it for granted that I do mind, just like her.

She felt puzzled and a little ashamed, as always when people attributed to her emotions and motives they possessed and thought she shared.

Grandma fanned herself with her palmetto leaf and went on briskly: “I don’t approve of the match any more than you do but I’m practical and so are you. And when it comes to something that’s unpleasant but can’t be helped, I don’t see any sense in screaming and kicking about it. That’s no way to meet the ups and downs of life. I know because my family and the Old Doctor’s family have had more than our share of ups and downs. And if we folks have a motto, it’s this: ‘don’t holler—smile and bide your time.’ We’ve survived a passel of things that way, smiling and biding our time, and we’ve gotten to be experts at surviving. We had to be. We’ve always bet on the wrong horses. Run out of France with the Huguenots, run out of England with the Cavaliers, run out of Scotland with Bonnie Prince Charlie, run out of Haiti by the niggers and now licked by the Yankees. But we always turn up on top in a few years. You know why?”

She cocked her head and Scarlett thought she looked like nothing so much as an old, knowing parrot.

“No, I don’t know, I’m sure,” she answered politely. But she was heartily bored, even as she had been the day when Grandma launched on her memories of the Creek uprising.

“Well, this is the reason. We bow to the inevitable. We’re not wheat, we’re buckwheat! When a storm comes along it flattens ripe wheat because it’s dry and can’t bend with the wind. But ripe buckwheat’s got sap in it and it bends. And when the wind has passed, it springs up almost as straight and strong as before. We aren’t a stiff-necked tribe. We’re mighty limber when a hard wind’s blowing, because we know it pays to be limber. When trouble comes we bow to the inevitable without any mouthing, and we work and we smile and we bide our time. And we play along with lesser folks and we take what we can get from them. And when we’re strong enough, we kick the folks whose necks we’ve climbed over. That, my child, is the secret of the survival.” And after a pause, she added: “I pass it on to you.”

The old lady cackled, as if she were amused by her words, despite the venom in them. She looked as if she expected some comment from Scarlett but the words had made little sense to her and she could think of nothing to say.

“No, sir,” Old Miss went on, “our folks get flattened out but they rise up again, and that’s more than I can say for plenty of people not so far away from here. Look at Cathleen Calvert. You can see what she’s come to. Poor white! And a heap lower than the man she married. Look at the McRae family. Flat to the ground, helpless, don’t know what to do, don’t know how to do anything. Won’t even try. They spend their time whining about the good old days. And look at—well, look at nearly anybody in this County except my Alex and my Sally and you and Jim Tarleton and his girls and some others. The rest have gone under because they didn’t have any sap in them, because they didn’t have the gumption to rise up again. There never was anything to those folks but money and darkies, and now that the money and darkies are gone, those folks will be Cracker in another generation.”

“You forgot the Wilkes.”

“No, I didn’t forget them. I just thought I’d be polite and not mention them, seeing that Ashley’s a guest under this roof. But seeing as how you’ve brought up their names—look at them! There’s India who from all I hear is a dried-up old maid already, giving herself all kinds of widowed airs because Stu Tarleton was killed and not making any effort to forget him and try to catch another man. Of course, she’s old but she could catch some widower with a big family if she tried. And poor Honey was always a man-crazy fool with no more sense than a guinea hen. And as for Ashley, look at him!”

“Ashley is a very fine man,” began Scarlett hotly.

“I never said he wasn’t but he’s as helpless as a turtle on his back. If the Wilkes family pulls through these hard times, it’ll be Melly who pulls them through. Not Ashley.”

“Melly! Lord, Grandma! What are you talking about? I’ve lived with Melly long enough to know she’s sickly and scared and hasn’t the gumption to say Boo to a goose.”

“Now why on earth should anyone want to say Boo to a goose? It always sounded like a waste of time to me. She might not say Boo to a goose but she’d say Boo to the world or the Yankee government or anything else that threatened her precious Ashley or her boy or her notions of gentility. Her way isn’t your way, Scarlett, or my way. It’s the way your mother would have acted if she’d lived. Melly puts me in mind of your mother when she was young… And maybe she’ll pull the Wilkes family through.”

“Oh, Melly’s a well-meaning little ninny. But you are very unjust to Ashley. He’s—”

“Oh, foot! Ashley was bred to read books and nothing else. That doesn’t help a man pull himself out of a tough fix, like we’re all in now. From what I hear, he’s the worst plow hand in the County! Now you just compare him with my Alex! Before the war, Alex was the most worthless dandy in the world and he never had a thought beyond a new cravat and getting drunk and shooting somebody and chasing girls who were no better than they should be. But look at him now! He learned farming because he had to learn. He’d have starved and so would all of us. Now he raises the best cotton in the County—yes, Miss! It’s a heap better than Tara cotton!—and he knows what to do with hogs and chickens. Ha! He’s a fine boy for all his bad temper. He knows how to bide his time and change with changing ways and when all this Reconstruction misery is over, you’re going to see my Alex as rich a man as his father and his grandfather were. But Ashley—”

Scarlett was smarting at the slight to Ashley.

“It all sounds like tootle to me,” she said coldly.

“Well, it shouldn’t,” said Grandma, fastening a sharp eye upon her. “For it’s just exactly the course you’ve been following since you went to Atlanta. Oh, yes! We hear of your didoes, even if we are buried down here in the country. You’ve changed with the changing times too. We hear how you suck up to the Yankees and the white trash and the new-rich Carpetbaggers to get money out of them. Butter doesn’t melt in your mouth from all I can hear. Well, go to it, I say. And get every cent out of them you can, but when you’ve got enough money, kick them in the face, because they can’t serve you any longer. Be sure you do that and do it properly, for trash hanging onto your coat tails can ruin you.”

Scarlett looked at her, her brow wrinkling with the effort to digest the words. They still didn’t make much sense and she was still angry at Ashley being called a turtle on his back.

“I think you’re wrong about Ashley,” she said abruptly.

“Scarlett, you just aren’t smart.”

“That’s your opinion,” said Scarlett rudely, wishing it were permissible to smack old ladies’ jaws.

“Oh, you’re smart enough about dollars and cents. That’s a man’s way of being smart. But you aren’t smart at all like a woman. You aren’t a speck smart about folks.”

Scarlett’s eyes began to snap fire and her hands to clench and unclench.

“I’ve made you good and mad, haven’t I?” asked the old lady, smiling. “Well, I aimed to do just that.”

“Oh, you did, did you? And why, pray?”

“I had good and plenty reasons.”

Grandma sank back in her chair and Scarlett suddenly realized that she looked very tired and incredibly old. The tiny clawlike hands folded over the fan were yellow and waxy as a dead person’s. The anger went out of Scarlett’s heart as a thought came to her. She leaned over and took one of the hands in hers.

“You’re a mighty sweet old liar,” she said. “You didn’t mean a word of all this rigmarole. You’ve just been talking to keep my mind off Pa, haven’t you?”

“Don’t fiddle with me!” said Old Miss grumpily, jerking away her hand. “Partly for that reason, partly because what I’ve been telling you is the truth and you’re just too stupid to realize it.”

But she smiled a little and took the sting from her words. Scarlett’s heart emptied itself of wrath about Ashley. It was nice to know Grandma hadn’t meant any of it.

“Thank you, just the same. It was nice of you to talk to me—and I’m glad to know you’re with me about Will and Suellen, even if—even if a lot of other people do disapprove.”

Mrs. Tarleton came down the hall, carrying two glasses of buttermilk. She did all domestic things badly and the gasses were slopping over.

“I had to go clear to the spring house to get it,” she said. “Drink it quick because the folks are coming up from the burying ground. Scarlett, are you really going to let Suellen marry Will? Not that he isn’t a sight too good for her but you know he is a Cracker and—”

Scarlett’s eyes met those of Grandma. There was a wicked sparkle in the old eyes that found an answer in her own.

Chapter XLI

When the last good-by had been said and the last sound of wheels and hooves died away, Scarlett went into Ellen’s office and removed a gleaming object from where she had hidden it the night before between the yellowed papers in the pigeon-holes of the secretary. Hearing Pork sniffling in the dining room as he went about laying the table for dinner she called to him. He came to her, his black face as forlorn as a lost and masterless hound.

“Pork,” she said sternly, “you cry just once more and I’ll—I’ll cry, too. You’ve got to stop.”

“Yas’m. Ah try but eve’y time Ah try Ah thinks of Mist’ Gerald an’—”

“Well, don’t think. I can stand everybody else’s tears but not yours. There,” she broke off gently, “don’t you see? I can’t stand yours because I know how you loved him. Blow your nose, Pork. I’ve got a present for you.”

A little interest flickered in Pork’s eyes as he blew his nose loudly but it was more politeness than interest.

“You remember that night you got shot robbing somebody’s hen house?”

“Lawd Gawd, Miss Scarlett! Ah ain’ never—”

“Well, you did, so don’t lie to me about it at this late date. You remember I said I was going to give you a watch for being so faithful?”

“Yas’m, Ah ’members. Ah figgered you’d done fergot.”

“No, I didn’t forget and here it is.”

She held out for him a massive gold watch, heavily embossed, from which dangled a chain with many fobs and seals.

“Fo’ Gawd, Miss Scarlett!” cried Pork. “Dat’s Mist’ Gerald’s watch! Ah done seen him look at dat watch a milyun times!”

“Yes, it’s Pa’s watch, Pork, and I’m giving it to you. Take it.”

“Oh, no’m!” Pork retreated in horror. “Dat’s a w’ite gempmum’s watch an’ Mist’ Gerald’s ter boot. Huccome you talk ’bout givin’ it ter me, Miss Scnrlett? Dat watch belong by rights ter lil Wade Hampton.”

“It belongs to you. What did Wade Hampton ever do for Pa? Did he look after him when he was sick and feeble? Did he bathe him and dress him and shave him? Did he stick by him when the Yankees came? Did he steal for him? Don’t be a fool, Pork. If ever anyone deserved a watch, you do, and I know Pa would approve. Here.”

She picked up the black hand and laid the watch in the palm. Pork gazed at it reverently and slowly delight spread over his face.

“Fer me, truly, Miss Scarlett?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Well’m—thankee, Ma’m.”

“Would you like for me to take it to Atlanta and have it engraved?”

“Whut’s dis engrabed mean?” Pork’s voice was suspicious.

“It means to put writing on the back of it, like—like ‘To Pork from the O’Haras—Well done good and faithful servant.”

“No’m—thankee, Ma’m. Never mind de engrabin’.” Pork retreated a step, clutching the watch firmly.

A little smile twitched her lips.

“What’s the matter, Pork? Don’t you trust me to bring it back?”

“Yas’m, Ah trus’es you—only, well’m, you mout change yo’ mind.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Well’m, you mout sell it. Ah spec it’s wuth a heap.”

“Do you think I’d sell Pa’s watch?”

“Yas’m—ef you needed de money.”

“You ought to be beat for that, Pork. I’ve a mind to take the watch back.”

“No’m, you ain’!” The first faint smile of the day showed on Pork’s grief-worn face. “Ah knows you—An’ Miss Scarlett—”

“Yes, Pork?”

“Ef you wuz jes’ half as nice ter w’ite folks as you is ter niggers, Ah spec de worl’ would treat you better.”

“It treats me well enough,” she said. “Now, go find Mr. Ashley and tell him I want to see him here, right away.”

Ashley sat on Ellen’s little writing chair, his long body dwarfing the frail bit of furniture while Scarlett offered him a halfinterest in the mill. Not once did his eyes meet hers and he spoke no word of interruption. He sat looking down at his hands, turning them over slowly, inspecting first palms and then backs, as though he had never seen them before. Despite hard work, they were still slender and sensitive looking and remarkably well tended for a farmer’s hands.

His bowed head and silence disturbed her a little and she redoubled her efforts to make the mill sound attractive. She brought to bear, too, all the charm of smile and glance she possessed but they were wasted, for he did not raise his eyes. If he would only look at her! She made no mention of the information Will had given her of Ashley’s determination to go North and spoke with the outward assumption that no obstacle stood in the way of his agreement with her plan. Still he did not speak and finally, her words trailed into silence. There was a determined squareness about his slender shoulders that alarmed her. Surely he wouldn’t refuse! What earthly reason could he have for refusing?

“Ashley,” she began again and paused. She had not intended using her pregnancy as an argument, had shrunk from the thought of Ashley even seeing her so bloated and ugly, but as her other persuasions seemed to have made no impression, she decided to use it and her helplessness as a last card.

“You must come to Atlanta. I do need your help so badly now, because I can’t look after the mills. It may be months before I can because—you see—well, because…”

“Please!” he said roughly. “Good God, Scarlett!”

He rose and went abruptly to the window and stood with his back to her, watching the solemn single file of ducks parade across the barnyard.

“Is that—is that why you won’t look at me?” she questioned forlornly. “I know I look—”

He swung around in a flash and his gray eyes met hers with an intensity that made her hands go to her throat.

“Damn your looks!” he said with a swift violence. “You know you always look beautiful to me.”

Happiness flooded her until her eyes were liquid with tears.

“How sweet of you to say that! For I was so ashamed to let you see me—”

“You ashamed? Why should you be ashamed? I’m the one to feel shame and I do. If it hadn’t been for my stupidity you wouldn’t be in this fix. You’d never have married Frank. I should never have let you leave Tara last winter. Oh, fool that I was! I should have known you—known you were desperate, so desperate that you’d—I should have—I should have—” His face went haggard.

Scarlett’s heart beat wildly. He was regretting that he had not run away with her!

“The least I could have done was go out and commit highway robbery or murder to get the tax money for you when you had taken us in as beggars. Oh, I messed it up all the way around!”

Her heart contracted with disappointment and some of the happiness went from her, for these were not the words she hoped to hear.

“I would have gone anyway,” she said tiredly. “I couldn’t have let you do anything like that. And anyway, it’s done now.”

“Yes, it’s done now,” he said with slow bitterness. “You wouldn’t have let me do anything dishonorable but you would sell yourself to a man you didn’t love—and bear his child, so that my family and I wouldn’t starve. It was kind of you to shelter my helplessness.”

The edge in his voice spoke of a raw, unhealed wound that ached within him and his words brought shame to her eyes. He was swift to see it and his face changed to gentleness.

“You didn’t think I was blaming you? Dear God, Scarlett! No. You are the bravest woman I’ve ever known. It’s myself I’m blaming.”

He turned and looked out of the window again and the shoulders presented to her gaze did not look quite so square. Scarlett waited a long moment in silence, hoping that Ashley would return to the mood in which he spoke of her beauty, hoping he would say more words that she could treasure. It had been so long since she had seen him and she had lived on memories until they were worn thin. She knew he still loved her. That fact was evident, in every line of him, in every bitter, self-condemnatory word, in his resentment at her bearing Frank’s child. She so longed to hear him say it in words, longed to speak words herself that would provoke a confession, but she dared not. She remembered her promise given last winter in the orchard, that she would never again throw herself at his head. Sadly she knew that promise must be kept if Ashley were to remain near her. One cry from her of love and longing, one look that pleaded for his arms, and the matter would be settled forever. Ashley would surely go to New York. And he must not go away.

“Oh, Ashley, don’t blame yourself! How could it be your fault? You will come to Atlanta and help me, won’t you?”

“No.”

“But, Ashley,” her voice was beginning to break with anguish and disappointment, “But I’d counted on you. I do need you so. Frank can’t help me. He’s so busy with the store and if you don’t come I don’t know where I can get a man! Everybody in Atlanta who is smart is busy with his own affairs and the others are so incompetent and—”

“It’s no use, Scarlett.”

“You mean you’d rather go to New York and live among Yankees than come to Atlanta?”

“Who told you that?” He turned and faced her, faint annoyance wrinkling his forehead.

“Will.”

“Yes, I’ve decided to go North. An old friend who made the Grand Tour with me before the war has offered me a position in his father’s bank. It’s better so, Scarlett. I’d be no good to you. I know nothing of the lumber business.”

“But you know less about banking and it’s much harder! And I know I’d make far more allowances for your inexperience than Yankees would!”

He winced and she knew she had said the wrong thing. He turned and looked out of the window again.

“I don’t want allowances made for me. I want to stand on my own feet for what I’m worth. What have I done with my life, up till now? It’s time I made something of myself—or went down through my own fault. I’ve been your pensioner too long already.”

“But I’m offering you a half-interest in the mill, Ashley! You would be standing on your own feet because—you see, it would be your own business.”

“It would amount to the same thing. I’d not be buying the halfinterest. I’d be taking it as a gift. And I’ve taken too many gifts from you already, Scarlett—food and shelter and even clothes for myself and Melanie and the baby. And I’ve given you nothing in return.”

“Oh, but you have! Will couldn’t have—”

“I can split kindling very nicely now.”

“Oh, Ashley!” she cried despairingly, tears in her eyes at the jeering note in his voice. “What has happened to you since I’ve been gone? You sound so hard and bitter! You didn’t used to be this way.”

“What’s happened? A very remarkable thing, Scarlett. I’ve been thinking. I don’t believe I really thought from the time of the surrender until you went away from here. I was in a state of suspended animation and it was enough that I had something to eat and a bed to lie on. But when you went to Atlanta, shouldering a man’s burden, I saw myself as much less than a man—much less, indeed, than a woman. Such thoughts aren’t pleasant to live with and I do not intend to live with them any longer. Other men came out of the war with less than I had, and look at them now. So I’m going to New York.”

“But—I don’t understand! If it’s work you want, why won’t Atlanta do as well as New York? And my mill—”

“No, Scarlett. This is my last chance. I’ll go North. If I go to Atlanta and work for you, I’m lost forever.”

The word “lost—lost—lost” dinged frighteningly in her heart like a death bell sounding. Her eyes went quickly to his but they were wide and crystal gray and they were looking through her and beyond her at some fate she could not see, could not understand.

“Lost? Do you mean—have you done something the Atlanta Yankees can get you for? I mean, about helping Tony get away or—or—Oh, Ashley, you aren’t in the Ku Klux, are you?”

His remote eyes came back to her swiftly and he smiled a brief smile that never reached his eyes.

“I had forgotten you were so literal. No, it’s not the Yankees I’m afraid of. I mean if I go to Atlanta and take help from you again, I bury forever any hope of ever standing alone.”

“Oh,” she sighed in quick relief, “if it’s only that!”

“Yes,” and he smiled again, the smile more wintry than before. “Only that. Only my masculine pride, my self-respect and, if you choose to so call it, my immortal soul.”

“But,” she swung around on another tack, “you could gradually buy the mill from me and it would be your own and then—”

“Scarlett,” he interrupted fiercely, “I tell you, no! There are other reasons.”

“What reasons?”

“You know my reasons better than anyone in the world.”

“Oh—that? But—that’ll be all right,” she assured swiftly. “I promised, you know, out in the orchard, last winter and I’ll keep my promise and—”

“Then you are surer of yourself than I am. I could not count on myself to keep such a promise. I should not have said that but I had to make you understand. Scarlett, I will not talk of this any more. It’s finished. When Will and Suellen marry, I am going to New York.”

His eyes, wide and stormy, met hers for an instant and then he went swiftly across the room. His hand was on the door knob. Scarlett stared at him in agony. The interview was ended and she had lost. Suddenly weak from the strain and sorrow of the last day and the present disappointment, her nerves broke abruptly and she screamed: “Oh, Ashley!” And, flinging herself down on the sagging sofa, she burst into wild crying.

She heard his uncertain footsteps leaving the door and his helpless voice saying her name over and over above her head. There was a swift pattering of feet racing up the hall from the kitchen and Melanie burst into the room, her eyes wide with alarm.

“Scarlett… the baby isn’t…?”

Scarlett burrowed her head in the dusty upholstery and screamed again.

“Ashley—he’s so mean! So doggoned mean—so hateful!”

“Oh, Ashley, what have you done to her?” Melanie threw herself on the floor beside the sofa and gathered Scarlett into her arms. “What have you said? How could you! You might bring on the baby! There, my darling, put your head on Melanie’s shoulder! What is wrong?”

“Ashley—he’s so—so bullheaded and hateful!”

“Ashley, I’m surprised at you! Upsetting her so much and in her condition and Mr. O’Hara hardly in his grave!”

“Don’t you fuss at him!” cried Scarlett illogically, raising her head abruptly from Melanie’s shoulder, her coarse black hair tumbling out from its net and her face streaked with tears. “He’s got a right to do as he pleases!”

“Melanie,” said Ashley, his face white, “let me explain. Scarlett was kind enough to offer me a position in Atlanta as manager of one of her mills—”

“Manager!” cried Scarlett indignantly. “I offered him a halfinterest and he—”

“And I told her I had already made arrangements for us to go North and she—”

“Oh,” cried Scarlett, beginning to sob again, “I told him and told him how much I needed him—how I couldn’t get anybody to manage the mill—how I was going to have this baby—and he refused to come! And now—now, I’ll have to sell the mill and I know I can’t get anything like a good price for it and I’ll lose money and I guess maybe we’ll starve, but he won’t care. He’s so mean!”

She burrowed her head back into Melanie’s thin shoulder and some of the real anguish went from her as a flicker of hope woke in her. She could sense that in Melanie’s devoted heart she had an ally, feel Melanie’s indignation that anyone, even her beloved husband, should make Scarlett cry. Melanie flew at Ashley like a small determined dove and pecked him for the first time in her life.

“Ashley, how could you refuse her? And after all she’s done for us! How ungrateful you make us appear! And she so helpless now with the bab—How unchivalrous of you! She helped us when we needed help and now you deny her when she needs you!”

Scarlett peeped slyly at Ashley and saw surprise and uncertainty plain in his face as he looked into Melanie’s dark indignant eyes. Scarlett was surprised, too, at the vigor of Melanie’s attack, for she knew Melanie considered her husband beyond wifely reproaches and thought his decisions second only to God’s.

“Melanie…” he began and then threw out his hands helplessly.

“Ashley, how can you hesitate? Think what she’s done for us—for me! I’d have died in Atlanta when Beau came if it hadn’t been for her! And she—yes, she killed a Yankee, defending us. Did you know that? She killed a man for us. And she worked and slaved before you and Will came home, just to keep food in our mouths. And when I think of her plowing and picking cotton, I could just—Oh, my darling!” And she swooped her head and kissed Scarlett’s tumbled hair in fierce loyalty. “And now the first time she asks us to do something for her—”

“You don’t need to tell me what she has done for us.”

“And Ashley, just think! Besides helping her, just think what it’ll mean for us to live in Atlanta among our own people and not have to live with Yankees! There’ll be Auntie and Uncle Henry and all our friends, and Beau can have lots of playmates and go to school. If we went North, we couldn’t let him go to school and associate with Yankee children and have pickaninnies in his class! We’d have to have a governess and I don’t see how we’d afford—”

“Melanie,” said Ashley and his voice was deadly quiet, “do you really want to go to Atlanta so badly? You never said so when we talked about going to New York. You never intimated—”

“Oh, but when we talked about going to New York, I thought there was nothing for you in Atlanta and, besides, it wasn’t my place to say anything. It’s a wife’s duty to go where her husband goes. But now that Scarlett needs us so and has a position that only you can fill we can go home! Home!” Her voice was rapturous as she squeezed Scarlett. “And I’ll see Five Points again and Peachtree road and—and—Oh, how I’ve missed them all! And maybe we could have a little home of our own! I wouldn’t care how little and tacky it was but—a home of our own!”

Her eyes blazed with enthusiasm and happiness and the two stared at her, Ashley with a queer stunned look, Scarlett with surprise mingled with shame. It had never occurred to her that Melanie missed Atlanta so much and longed to be back, longed for a home of her own. She had seemed so contented at Tara it came to Scarlett as a shock that she was homesick.

“Oh Scarlett, how good of you to plan all this for us! You knew how I longed for home!”

As usual when confronted by Melanie’s habit of attributing worthy motives where no worth existed, Scarlett was ashamed and irritated, and suddenly she could not meet either Ashley’s or Melanie’s eyes.

“We could get a little house of our own. Do you realize that we’ve been married five years and never had a home?”

“You can stay with us at Aunt Pitty’s. That’s your home,” mumbled Scarlett, toying with a pillow and keeping her eyes down to hide dawning triumph in them as she felt the tide turning her way.

“No, but thank you just the same, darling. That would crowd us so. We’ll get a house—Oh, Ashley, do say Yes!”

“Scarlett,” said Ashley and his voice was toneless, “look at me.”

Startled, she looked up and met gray eyes that were bitter and full of tired futility.

“Scarlett, I will come to Atlanta… I cannot fight you both.”

He turned and walked out of the room. Some of the triumph in her heart was dulled by a nagging fear. The look in his eyes when he spoke had been the same as when he said he would be lost forever if he came to Atlanta.

After Suellen and Will married and Carreen went off to Charleston to the convent, Ashley, Melanie and Beau came to Atlanta, bringing Dilcey with them to cook and nurse. Prissy and Pork were left at Tara until such a time as Will could get other darkies to help him in the fields and then they, too, would come to town.

The little brick house that Ashley took for his family was on Ivy Street directly behind Aunt Pitty’s house and the two back yards ran together, divided only by a ragged overgrown privet hedge. Melanie had chosen it especially for this reason. She said, on the first morning of her return to Atlanta as she laughed and cried and embraced Scarlett and Aunt Pitty, she had been separated from her loved ones for so long that she could never be close enough to them again.

The house had originally been two stories high but the upper floor had been destroyed by shells during the siege and the owner, returning after the surrender, had lacked the money to replace it. He had contented himself with putting a flat roof on the remaining first floor which gave the building the squat, disproportionate look of a child’s playhouse built of shoe boxes. The house was high from the ground, built over a large cellar, and the long sweeping flight of stairs which reached it made it look slightly ridiculous. But the flat, squashed look of the place was partly redeemed by the two fine old oaks which shaded it and a dustyleaved magnolia, splotched with white blossoms, standing beside the front steps. The lawn was wide and green with thick clover and bordering it was a straggling, unkempt privet hedge, interlaced with sweet-smelling honeysuckle vines. Here and there in the grass, roses threw out sprangles from crushed old stems and pink and white crepe myrtle bloomed as valiantly as if war had not passed over their heads and Yankee horses gnawed their boughs.

Scarlett thought it quite the ugliest dwelling she had ever seen but, to Melanie, Twelve Oaks in all its grandeur had not been more beautiful. It was home and she and Ashley and Beau were at last together under their own roof.

India Wilkes came back from Macon, where she and Honey had lived since 1864, and took up her residence with her brother, crowding the occupants of the little house. But Ashley and Melanie welcomed her. Times had changed, money was scarce, but nothing had altered the rule of Southern life that families always made room gladly for indigent or unmarried female relatives.

Honey had married and, so India said, married beneath her, a coarse Westerner from Mississippi who had settled in Macon. He had a red face and a loud voice and jolly ways. India had not approved of the match and, not approving, had not been happy in her brother-in-law’s home. She welcomed the news that Ashley now had a home of his own, so she could remove herself from uncongenial surroundings and also from the distressing sight of her sister so fatuously happy with a man unworthy of her.

The rest of the family privately thought that the giggling and simple-minded Honey had done far better than could be expected and they marveled that she had caught any man. Her husband was a gentleman and a man of some means; but to India, born in Georgia and reared in Virginia traditions, anyone not from the eastern seaboard was a boor and a barbarian. Probably Honey’s husband was as happy to be relieved of her company as she was to leave him, for India was not easy to live with these days.

The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely on her shoulders now. She was twenty-five and looked it, and so there was no longer any need for her to try to be attractive. Her pale lashless eyes looked directly and uncompromisingly upon the world and her thin lips were ever set in haughty tightness. There was an air of dignity and pride about her now that, oddly enough, became her better than the determined girlish sweetness of her days at Twelve Oaks. The position she held was almost that of a widow. Everyone knew that Stuart Tarleton would have married her had he not been killed at Gettysburg, and so she was accorded the respect due a woman who had been wanted if not wed.

The six rooms of the little house on Ivy Street were soon scantily furnished with the cheapest pine and oak furniture in Frank’s store for, as Ashley was penniless and forced to buy on credit, he refused anything except the least expensive and bought only the barest necessities. This embarrassed Frank who was fond of Ashley and it distressed Scarlett. Both she and Frank would willingly have given, without any charge, the finest mahogany and carved rosewood in the store, but the Wilkeses obstinately refused. Their house was painfully ugly and bare and Scarlett hated to see Ashley living in the uncarpeted, uncurtained rooms. But he did not seem to notice his surroundings and Melanie, having her own home for the first time since her marriage, was so happy she was actually proud of the place. Scarlett would have suffered agonies of humiliation at having friends find her without draperies and carpets and cushions and the proper number of chairs and teacups and spoons. But Melanie did the honors of her house as though plush curtains and brocade sofas were hers.

For all her obvious happiness, Melanie was not well. Little Beau had cost her her health, and the hard work she had done at Tara since his birth had taken further toll of her strength. She was so thin that her small bones seemed ready to come through her white skin. Seen from a distance, romping about the back yard with her child, she looked like a little girl, for her waist was unbelievably tiny and she had practically no figure. She had no bust and her hips were as flat as little Beau’s and as she had neither the pride nor the good sense (so Scarlett thought) to sew ruffles in the bosom of her basque or pads on the back of her corsets, her thinness was very obvious. Like her body, her face was too thin and too pale and her silky brows, arched and delicate as a butterfly’s feelers, stood out too blackly against her colorless skin. In her small face, her eyes were too large for beauty, the dark smudges under them making them appear enormous, but the expression in them had not altered since the days of her unworried girlhood. War and constant pain and hard work had been powerless against their sweet tranquillity. They were the eyes of a happy woman, a woman around whom storms might blow without ever ruffling the serene core of her being.

How did she keep her eyes that way, thought Scarlett, looking at her enviously. She knew her own eyes sometimes had the look of a hungry cat. What was it Rhett had said once about Melanie’s eyes—some foolishness about them being like candles? Oh, yes, like two good deeds in a naughty world. Yes, they were like candles, candles shielded from every wind, two soft lights glowing with happiness at being home again among her friends.

The little house was always full of company. Melanie had been a favorite even as a child and the town flocked to welcome her home again. Everyone brought presents for the house, bric-a-brac, pictures, a silver spoon or two, linen pillow cases, napkins, rag rugs, small articles which they had saved from Sherman and treasured but which they now swore were of no earthly use to them.

Old men who had campaigned in Mexico with her father came to see her, bringing visitors to meet “old Colonel Hamilton’s sweet daughter.” Her mother’s old friends clustered about her, for Melanie had a respectful deference to her elders that was very soothing to dowagers in these wild days when young people seemed to have forgotten all their manners. Her contemporaries, the young wives, mothers and widows, loved her because she had suffered what they had suffered, had not become embittered and always lent them a sympathetic ear. The young people came, as young people always come, simply because they had a good time at her home and met there the friends they wanted to meet.

Around Melanie’s tactful and self-effacing person, there rapidly grew up a clique of young and old who represented what was left of the best of Atlanta’s ante-bellum society, all poor in purse, all proud in family, die-hards of the stoutest variety. It was as if Atlanta society, scattered and wrecked by war, depleted by death, bewildered by change, had found in her an unyielding nucleus about which it could re-form.

Melanie was young but she had in her all the qualities this embattled remnant prized, poverty and pride in poverty, uncomplaining courage, gaiety, hospitality, kindness and, above all, loyalty to all the old traditions. Melanie refused to change, refused even to admit that there was any reason to change in a changing world. Under her roof the old days seemed to come back again and people took heart and felt even more contemptuous of the tide of wild life and high living that was sweeping the Carpetbaggers and newly rich Republicans along.

When they looked into her young face and saw there the inflexible loyalty to the old days, they could forget, for a moment, the traitors within their own class who were causing fury, fear and heartbreak. And there were many such. There were men of good family, driven to desperation by poverty, who had gone over to the enemy, become Republicans and accepted positions from the conquerors, so their families would not be on charity. There were young ex-soldiers who lacked the courage to face the long years necessary to build up fortunes. These youngsters, following the lead of Rhett Butler, went hand in hand with the Carpetbaggers in money-making schemes of unsavory kinds.

Worst of all the traitors were the daughters of some of Atlanta’s most prominent families. These girls who had come to maturity since the surrender had only childish memories of the war and lacked the bitterness that animated their elders. They had lost no husbands, no lovers. They had few recollections of past wealth and splendor—and the Yankee officers were so handsome and finely dressed and so carefree. And they gave such splendid balls and drove such fine horses and simply worshiped Southern girls! They treated them like queens and were so careful not to injure their touchy pride and, after all—why not associate with them?

They were so much more attractive than the town swains who dressed so shabbily and were so serious and worked so hard that they had little time to play. So there had been a number of elopements with Yankee officers which broke the hearts of Atlanta families. There were brothers who passed sisters on the streets and did not speak and mothers and fathers who never mentioned daughters’ names. Remembering these tragedies, a cold dread ran in the veins of those whose motto was “No surrender”—a dread which the very sight of Melanie’s soft but unyielding face dispelled. She was, as the dowagers said, such an excellent and wholesome example to the young girls of the town. And, because she made no parade of her virtues the young girls did not resent her.

It never occurred to Melanie that she was becoming the leader of a new society. She only thought the people were nice to come to see her and to want her in their little sewing circles, cotillion clubs and musical societies. Atlanta had always been musical and loved good music, despite the sneering comments of sister cities of the South concerning the town’s lack of culture, and there was now an enthusiastic resurrection of interest that grew stronger as the times grew harder and more tense. It was easier to forget the impudent black faces in the streets and the blue uniforms of the garrison while they were listening to music.

Melanie was a little embarrassed to find herself at the head of the newly formed Saturday Night Musical Circle. She could not account for her elevation to this position except by the fact that she could accompany anyone on the piano, even the Misses McLure who were tone deaf but who would sing duets.

The truth of the matter was that Melanie had diplomatically managed to amalgamate the Lady Harpists, the Gentlemen’s Glee Club and the Young Ladies Mandolin and Guitar Society with the Saturday Night Musical Circle, so that now Atlanta had music worth listening to. In fact, the Circle’s rendition of The Bohemian Girl was said by many to be far superior to professional performances heard in New York and New Orleans. It was after she had maneuvered the Lady Harpists into the fold that Mrs. Merriwether said to Mrs. Meade and Mrs. Whiting that they must have Melanie at the head of the Circle. If she could get on with the Harpists, she could get on with anyone, Mrs. Merriwether declared. That lady herself played the organ for the choir at the Methodist Church and, as an organist, had scant respect for harps or harpists.

Melanie had also been made secretary for both the Association for the Beautification of the Graves of Our Glorious Dead and the Sewing Circle for the Widows and Orphans of the Confederacy. This new honor came to her after an exciting joint meeting of those societies which threatened to end in violence and the severance of lifelong ties of friendship. The question had arisen at the meeting as to whether or not weeds should be removed from the graves of the Union soldiers near those of Confederate soldiers. The appearance of the scraggly Yankee mounds defeated all the efforts of the ladies to beautify those of their own dead. Immediately the fires which smoldered beneath tight basques flamed wildly and the two organizations split up and glared hostilely. The Sewing Circle was in favor of the removal of the weeds, the Ladies of the Beautification were violently opposed.

Mrs. Meade expressed the views of the latter group when she said: “Dig up the weeds off Yankee graves? For two cents, I’d dig up all the Yankees and throw them in the city dump!”

At these ringing words the two associations arose and every lady spoke her mind and no one listened. The meeting was being held in Mrs. Merriwether’s parlor and Grandpa Merriwether, who had been banished to the kitchen, reported afterwards that the noise sounded just like the opening guns of the battle of Franklin. And, he added, be guessed it was a dinged sight safer to be present at the battle of Franklin than at the ladies’ meeting.

Somehow Melanie made her way to the center of the excited throng and somehow made her usually soft voice heard above the tumult. Her heart was in her throat with fright at daring to address the indignant gathering and her voice shook but she kept crying: “Ladies! Please!” till the din died down.

“I want to say—I mean, I’ve thought for a long time that—that not only should we pull up the weeds but we should plant flowers on—I—I don’t care what you think but every time I go to take flowers to dear Charlie’s grave, I always put some on the grave of an unknown Yankee which is near by. It—it looks so forlorn!”

The excitement broke out again in louder words and this time the two organizations merged and spoke as one.

“On Yankee graves! Oh, Melly, how could you!”

“And they killed Charlie!”

“They almost killed you!”

“Why, the Yankees might have killed Beau when he was born!”

“They tried to burn you out of Tara!”

Melanie held onto the back of her chair for support, almost crumpling beneath the weight of a disapproval she had never known before.

“Oh, ladies!” she cried, pleading. “Please, let me finish! I know I haven’t the right to speak on this matter, for none of my loved ones were killed except Charlie, and I know where he lies, thank God! But there are so many among us today who do not know where their sons and husbands and brothers are buried and—”

She choked and there was a dead silence in the room.

Mrs. Meade’s flaming eyes went somber. She had made the long trip to Gettysburg after the battle to bring back Darcy’s body but no one had been able to tell her where he was buried. Somewhere in some hastily dug trench in the enemy’s country. And Mrs. Allan’s mouth quivered. Her husband and brother had been on that illstarred raid Morgan made into Ohio and the last information she had of them was that they fell on the banks of the river, just as the Yankee cavalry stormed up. She did not know where they lay. Mrs. Allison’s son had died in a Northern prison camp and she, the poorest of the poor, was unable to bring his body home. There were others who had read on casualty lists: “Missing—believed dead,” and in those words had learned the last news they were ever to learn of men they had seen march away.

They turned to Melanie with eyes that said: “Why do you open these wounds again? These are the wounds that never heal—the wounds of not knowing where they lie.”

Melanie’s voice gathered strength in the stillness of the room.

“Their graves are somewhere up in the Yankees’ country, just like the Yankee graves are here, and oh, how awful it would be to know that some Yankee woman said to dig them up and—”

Mrs. Meade made a small, dreadful sound.

“But how nice it would be to know that some good Yankee woman—And there must be some good Yankee women. I don’t care what people say, they can’t all be bad! How nice it would be to know that they pulled weeds off our men’s graves and brought flowers to them, even if they were enemies. If Charlie were dead in the North it would comfort me to know that someone—And I don’t care what you ladies think of me,” her voice broke again, “I will withdraw from both clubs and I’ll—I’ll pull up every weed off every Yankee’s grave I can find and I’ll plant flowers, too—and—I just dare anyone to stop me!”

With this final defiance Melanie burst into tears and tried to make her stumbling way to the door.

Grandpa Merriwether, safe in the masculine confines of the Girl of the Period Saloon an hour later, reported to Uncle Henry Hamilton that after these words, everybody cried and embraced Melanie and it all ended up in a love feast and Melanie was made secretary of both organizations.

“And they are going to pull up the weeds. The hell of it is Dolly said I’d be only too pleased to help do it, ’cause I didn’t have anything much else to do. I got nothing against the Yankees and I think Miss Melly was right and the rest of those lady wild cats wrong. But the idea of me pulling weeds at my time of life and with my lumbago!”

Melanie was on the board of lady managers of the Orphans’ Home and assisted in the collection of books for the newly formed Young Men’s Library Association. Even the Thespians who gave amateur plays once a month clamored for her. She was too timid to appear behind the kerosene-lamp footlights, but she could make costumes out of croker sacks if they were the only material available. It was she who cast the deciding vote at the Shakespeare Reading Circle that the bard’s works should be varied with those of Mr. Dickens and Mr. Bulwer-Lytton and not the poems of Lord Byron, as had been suggested by a young and, Melanie privately feared, very fast bachelor member of the Circle.

In the nights of the late summer her small, feebly lighted house was always full of guests. There were never enough chairs to go around and frequently ladies sat on the steps of the front porch with men grouped about them on the banisters, on packing boxes or on the lawn below. Sometimes when Scarlett saw guests sitting on the grass, sipping tea, the only refreshment the Wilkeses could afford, she wondered how Melanie could bring herself to expose her poverty so shamelessly. Until Scarlett was able to furnish Aunt Pitty’s house as it had been before the war and serve her guests good wine and juleps and baked ham and cold haunches of venison, she had no intention of having guests in her house—especially prominent guests, such as Melanie had.

General John B. Gordon, Georgia’s great hero, was frequently there with his family. Father Ryan, the poet-priest of the Confederacy, never failed to call when passing through Atlanta. He charmed gatherings there with his wit and seldom needed much urging to recite his “Sword of Lee” or his deathless “Conquered Banner,” which never failed to make the ladies cry. Alex Stephens, late Vice-President of the Confederacy, visited whenever in town and, when the word went about that he was at Melanie’s, the house was filled and people sat for hours under the spell of the frail invalid with the ringing voice. Usually there were a dozen children present, nodding sleepily in their parents’ arms, up hours after their normal bedtime. No family wanted its children to miss being able to say in after years that they had been kissed by the great Vice-President or had shaken the hand that helped to guide the Cause. Every person of importance who came to town found his way to the Wilkes home and often they spent the night there. It crowded the little flat-topped house, forced India to sleep on a pallet in the cubbyhole that was Beau’s nursery and sent Dilcey speeding through the back hedge to borrow breakfast eggs from Aunt Pitty’s Cookie, but Melanie entertained them as graciously as if hers was a mansion.

No, it did not occur to Melanie that people rallied round her as round a worn and loved standard. And so she was both astounded and embarrassed when Dr. Meade, after a pleasant evening at her house where he acquitted himself nobly in reading the part of Macbeth, kissed her hand and made observations in the voice he once used in speaking of Our Glorious Cause.

“My dear Miss Melly, it is always a privilege and a pleasure to be in your home, for you—and ladies like you—are the hearts of all of us, all that we have left. They have taken the flower of our manhood and the laughter of our young women. They have broken our health, uprooted our lives and unsettled our habits. They have ruined our prosperity, set us back fifty years and placed too heavy a burden on the shoulders of our boys who should be in school and our old men who should be sleeping in the sun. But we will build back, because we have hearts like yours to build upon. And as long as we have them, the Yankees can have the rest!”

Until Scarlett’s figure reached such proportions that even Aunt Pitty’s big black shawl did not conceal her condition, she and Frank frequently slipped through the back hedge to join the summernight gatherings on Melanie’s porch. Scarlett always sat well out of the light, hidden in the protecting shadows where she was not only inconspicuous but could, unobserved, watch Ashley’s face to her heart’s content.

It was only Ashley who drew her to the house, for the conversations bored and saddened her. They always followed a set pattern—first, hard times; next, the political situation; and then, inevitably, the war. The ladies bewailed the high prices of everything and asked the gentlemen if they thought good times would ever come back. And the omniscient gentlemen always said, indeed they would. Merely a matter of time. Hard times were just temporary. The ladies knew the gentlemen were lying and the gentlemen knew the ladies knew they were lying. But they lied cheerfully just the same and the ladies pretended to believe them. Everyone knew hard times were here to stay.

Once the hard times were disposed of, the ladies spoke of the increasing impudence of the negroes and the outrages of the Carpetbaggers and the humiliation of having the Yankee soldiers loafing on every corner. Did the gentlemen think the Yankees would ever get through with reconstructing Georgia? The reassuring gentlemen thought Reconstruction would be over in no time—that is, just as soon as the Democrats could vote again. The ladies were considerate enough not to ask when this would be. And having finished with politics, the talk about the war began.

Whenever two former Confederates met anywhere, there was never but one topic of conversation, and where a dozen or more gathered together, it was a foregone conclusion that the war would be spiritedly refought. And always the word “if” had the most prominent part in the talk.

“If England had recognized us—” “If Jeff Davis had commandeered all the cotton and gotten it to England before the blockade tightened—” “If Longstreet had obeyed orders at Gettysburg—” “If Jeb Stuart hadn’t been away on that raid when Marse Bob needed him—” “If we hadn’t lost Stonewall Jackson—” “If Vicksburg hadn’t fallen—” “If we could have held on another year—” And always: “If they hadn’t replaced Johnston with Hood—” or “If they’d put Hood in command at Dalton instead of Johnston—”

If! If! The soft drawling voices quickened with an old excitement as they talked in the quiet darkness—infantryman, cavalryman, cannoneer, evoking memories of the days when life was ever at high tide, recalling the fierce heat of their midsummer in this forlorn sunset of their winter.

“They don’t talk of anything else,” thought Scarlett. “Nothing but the war. Always the war. And they’ll never talk of anything but the war. No, not until they die.”

She looked about, seeing little boys lying in the crooks of their fathers’ arms, breath coming fast, eyes glowing, as they heard of midnight stories and wild cavalry dashes and flags planted on enemy breastworks. They were hearing drums and bugles and the Rebel yell, seeing footsore men going by in the rain with torn flags slanting.

“And these children will never talk of anything else either. They’ll think it was wonderful and glorious to fight the Yankees and come home blind and crippled—or not come home at all. They all like to remember the war, to talk about it. But I don’t. I don’t even like to think about it. I’d forget it all if I could—oh, if I only could!”

She listened with flesh crawling as Melanie told tales of Tara, making Scarlett a heroine as she faced the invaders and saved Charles’ sword, bragging how Scarlett had put out the fire. Scarlett took no pleasure or pride in the memory of these things. She did not want to think of them at all.

“Oh, why can’t they forget? Why can’t they look forward and not back? We were fools to fight that war. And the sooner we forget it, the better we’ll be.”

But no one wanted to forget, no one, it seemed, except herself, so Scarlett was glad when she could truthfully tell Melanie that she was embarrassed at appearing, even in the darkness. This explanation was readily understood by Melanie who was hypersensitive about all matters relating to childbirth. Melanie wanted another baby badly, but both Dr. Meade and Dr. Fontaine had said another child would cost her her life. So, only half resigned to her fate, she spent most of her time with Scarlett, vicariously enjoying a pregnancy not her own. To Scarlett, scarcely wanting her coming child and irritated at its untimeliness, this attitude seemed the height of sentimental stupidity. But she had a guilty sense of pleasure that the doctors’ edict had made impossible any real intimacy between Ashley and his wife.

Scarlett saw Ashley frequently now but she never saw him alone. He came by the house every night on his way home from the mill to report on the day’s work, but Frank and Pitty were usually present or, worse still, Melanie and India. She could only ask businesslike questions and make suggestions and then say: “It was nice of you to come by. Good night.”

If only she wasn’t having a baby! Here was a God-given opportunity to ride out to the mill with him every morning, through the lonely woods, far from prying eyes, where they could imagine themselves back in the County again in the unhurried days before the war.

No, she wouldn’t try to make him say one word of love! She wouldn’t refer to love in any way. She’d sworn an oath to herself that she would never do that again. But, perhaps if she were alone with him once more, he might drop that mask of impersonal courtesy he had worn since coming to Atlanta. Perhaps he might be his old self again, be the Ashley she had known before the barbecue, before any word of love had been spoken between them. If they could not be lovers, they could be friends again and she could warm her cold and lonely heart in the glow of his friendship.

“If only I could get this baby over and done with,” she thought impatiently, “then I could ride with him every day and we could talk—”

It was not only the desire to be with him that made her writhe with helpless impatience at her confinement. The mills needed her. The mills had been losing money ever since she retired from active supervision, leaving Hugh and Ashley in charge.

Hugh was so incompetent, for all that he tried so hard. He was a poor trader and a poorer boss of labor. Anyone could Jew him down on prices. If any slick contractor chose to say that the lumber was of an inferior grade and not worth the price asked, Hugh felt that all a gentleman could do was to apologize and take a lower price. When she heard of the price he received for a thousand feet of flooring, she burst into angry tears. The best grade of flooring the mill had ever turned out and he had practically given it away! And he couldn’t manage his labor crews. The negroes insisted on being paid every day and they frequently got drunk on their wages and did not turn up for work the next morning. On these occasions Hugh was forced to hunt up new workmen and the mill was late in starting. With these difficulties Hugh didn’t get into town to sell the lumber for days on end.

Seeing the profits slip from Hugh’s fingers, Scarlett became frenzied at her impotence and his stupidity. Just as soon as the baby was born and she could go back to work, she would get rid of Hugh and hire some one else. Anyone would do better. And she would never fool with free niggers again. How could anyone get any work done with free niggers quitting all the time?

“Frank,” she said, after a stormy interview with Hugh over his missing workmen, “I’ve about made up my mind that I’ll lease convicts to work the mills. A while back I was talking to Johnnie Gallegher, Tommy Wellburn’s foreman, about the trouble we were having getting any work out of the darkies and he asked me why I didn’t get convicts. It sounds like a good idea to me. He said I could sublease them for next to nothing and feed them dirt cheap. And he said I could get work out of them in any way I liked, without having the Freedman’s Bureau swarming down on me like hornets, sticking their bills into things that aren’t any of their business. And just as soon as Johnnie Gallegher’s contract with Tommy is up, I’m going to hire him to run Hugh’s mill. Any man who can get work out of that bunch of wild Irish he bosses can certainly get plenty of work out of convicts.”

Convicts! Frank was speechless. Leasing convicts was the very worst of all the wild schemes Scarlett had ever suggested, worse even than her notion of building a saloon.

At least, it seemed worse to Frank and the conservative circles in which he moved. This new system of leasing convicts had come into being because of the poverty of the state after the war. Unable to support the convicts, the State was hiring them out to those needing large labor crews in the building of railroads, in turpentine forests and lumber camps. While Frank and his quiet churchgoing friends realized the necessity of the system, they deplored it just the same. Many of them had not even believed in slavery and they thought this was far worse than slavery had ever been.

And Scarlett wanted to lease convicts! Frank knew that if she did he could never hold up his head again. This was far worse than owning and operating the mills herself, or anything else she had done. His past objections had always been coupled with the question: “What will people say?” But this—this went deeper than fear of public opinion. He felt that it was a traffic in human bodies on a par with prostitution, a sin that would be on his soul if he permitted her to do it.

From this conviction of wrongness, Frank gathered courage to forbid Scarlett to do such a thing, and so strong were his remarks that she, startled, relapsed into silence. Finally to quiet him, she said meekly she hadn’t really meant it. She was just so outdone with Hugh and the free niggers she had lost her temper. Secretly, she still thought about it and with some longing. Convict labor would settle one of her hardest problems, but if Frank was going to take on so about it—

She sighed. If even one of the mills were making money, she could stand it. But Ashley was faring little better with his mill than Hugh.

At first Scarlett was shocked and disappointed that Ashley did not immediately take hold and make the mill pay double what it had paid under her management. He was so smart and he had read so many books and there was no reason at all why he should not make a brilliant success and lots of money. But he was no more successful than Hugh. His inexperience, his errors, his utter lack of business judgment and his scruples about close dealing were the same as Hugh’s.

Scarlett’s love hastily found excuses for him and she did not consider the two men in the same light. Hugh was just hopelessly stupid, while Ashley was merely new at the business. Still, unbidden, came the thought that Ashley could never make a quick estimate in his head and give a price that was correct, as she could. And she sometimes wondered if he’d ever learn to distinguish between planking and sills. And because he was a gentleman and himself trustworthy, he trusted every scoundrel who came along and several times would have lost money for her if she had not tactfully intervened. And if he liked a person—and he seemed to like so many people!—he sold them lumber on credit without ever thinking to find out if they had money in the bank or property. He was as bad as Frank in that respect.

But surely he would learn! And while he was learning she had a fond and maternal indulgence and patience for his errors. Every evening when he called at her house, weary and discouraged, she was tireless in her tactful, helpful suggestions. But for all her encouragement and cheer, there was a queer dead look in his eyes. She could not understand it and it frightened her. He was different, so different from the man he used to be. If only she could see him alone, perhaps she could discover the reason.

The situation gave her many sleepless nights. She worried about Ashley, both because she knew he was unhappy and because she knew his unhappiness wasn’t helping him to become a good lumber dealer. It was a torture to have her mills in the hands of two men with no more business sense than Hugh and Ashley, heartbreaking to see her competitors taking her best customers away when she had worked so hard and planned so carefully for these helpless months. Oh, if she could only get back to work again! She would take Ashley in hand and then he would certainly learn. And Johnnie Gallegher could run the other mill, and she could handle the selling, and then everything would be fine. As for Hugh, he could drive a delivery wagon if he still wanted to work for her. That was all he was good for.

Of course, Gallegher looked like an unscrupulous man, for all of his smartness, but—who else could she get? Why had the other men who were both smart and honest been so perverse about working for her? If she only had one of them working for her now in place of Hugh, she wouldn’t have to worry so much, but—

Tommy Wellburn, in spite of his crippled back, was the busiest contractor in town and coining money, so people said. Mrs. Merriwether and Rene were prospering and now had opened a bakery downtown. Rene was managing it with true French thrift and Grandpa Merriwether, glad to escape from his chimney corner, was driving Rene’s pie wagon. The Simmons boys were so busy they were operating their brick kiln with three shifts of labor a day. And Kells Whiting was cleaning up money with his hair straightener, because he told the negroes they wouldn’t ever be permitted to vote the Republican ticket if they had kinky hair.

It was the same with all the smart young men she knew, the doctors, the lawyers, the storekeepers. The apathy which had clutched them immediately after the war had completely disappeared and they were too busy building their own fortunes to help her build hers. The ones who were not busy were the men of Hugh’s type—or Ashley’s.

What a mess it was to try to run a business and have a baby too!

“I’ll never have another one,” she decided firmly. “I’m not going to be like other women and have a baby every year. Good Lord, that would mean six months out of the year when I’d have to be away from the mills! And I see now I can’t afford to be away from them even one day. I shall simply tell Frank that I won’t have any more children.”

Frank wanted a big family, but she could manage Frank somehow. Her mind was made up. This was her last child. The mills were far more important.

Chapter XLII

Scarlett’s child was a girl, a small bald-headed mite, ugly as a hairless monkey and absurdly like Frank. No one except the doting father could see anything beautiful about her, but the neighbors were charitable enough to say that all ugly babies turned out pretty, eventually. She was named Ella Lorena, Ella for her grandmother Ellen, and Lorena because it was the most fashionable name of the day for girls, even as Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were popular for boys and Abraham Lincoln and Emancipation for negro children.

She was born in the middle of a week when frenzied excitement gripped Atlanta and the air was tense with expectation of disaster. A negro who had boasted of rape had actually been arrested, but before he could be brought to trial the jail had been raided by the Ku Klux Klan and he had been quietly hanged. The Klan had acted to save the as yet unnamed victim from having to testify in open court. Rather than have her appear and advertise her shame, her father and brother would have shot her, so lynching the negro seemed a sensible solution to the townspeople, in fact, the only decent solution possible. But the military authorities were in a fury. They saw no reason why the girl should mind testifying publicly.

The soldiers made arrests right and left, swearing to wipe out the Klan if they had to put every white man in Atlanta in jail. The negroes, frightened and sullen, muttered of retaliatory house burnings. The air was thick with rumors of wholesale hangings by the Yankees should the guilty parties be found and of a concerted uprising against the whites by the negroes. The people of the town stayed at home behind locked doors and shuttered windows, the men fearing to go to their businesses and leave their women and children unprotected.

Scarlett, lying exhausted in bed, feebly and silently thanked God that Ashley had too much sense to belong to the Klan and Frank was too old and poor spirited. How dreadful it would be to know that the Yankees might swoop down and arrest them at any minute! Why didn’t the crack-brained young fools in the Klan leave bad enough alone and not stir up the Yankees like this? Probably the girl hadn’t been raped after all. Probably she’d just been frightened silly and, because of her, a lot of men might lose their lives.

In this atmosphere, as nerve straining as watching a slow fuse burn toward a barrel of gunpowder, Scarlett came rapidly back to strength. The healthy vigor which had carried her through the hard days at Tara stood her in good stead now, and within two weeks of Ella Lorena’s birth she was strong enough to sit up and chafe at her inactivity. In three weeks she was up, declaring she had to see to the mills. They were standing idle because both Hugh and Ashley feared to leave their families alone all day.

Then the blow fell.

Frank, full of the pride of new fatherhood, summoned up courage enough to forbid Scarlett leaving the house while conditions were so dangerous. His commands would not have worried her at all and she would have gone about her business in spite of them, if he had not put her horse and buggy in the livery stable and ordered that they should not be surrendered to anyone except himself. To make matters worse, he and Mammy had patiently searched the house while she was ill and unearthed her hidden store of money. And Frank had deposited it in the bank in his own name, so now she could not even hire a rig.

Scarlett raged at both Frank and Mammy, then was reduced to begging and finally cried all one morning like a furious thwarted child. But for all her pains she heard only: “There, Sugar! You’re just a sick little girl.” And: “Miss Scarlett, ef you doan quit cahyin’ on so, you gwine sour yo’ milk an’ de baby have colic, sho as gun’s iron.”

In a furious temper, Scarlett charged through her back yard to Melanie’s house and there unburdened herself at the top of her voice, declaring she would walk to the mills, she would go about Atlanta telling everyone what a varmint she had married, she would not be treated like a naughty simple-minded child. She would carry a pistol and shoot anyone who threatened her. She had shot one man and she would love, yes, love to shoot another. She would—

Melanie who feared to venture onto her own front porch was appalled by such threats.

“Oh, you must not risk yourself! I should die if anything happened to you! Oh, please—”

“I will! I will! I will walk—”

Melanie looked at her and saw that this was not the hysteria of a woman still weak from childbirth. There was the same breakneck, headlong determination in Scarlett’s face that Melanie had often seen in Gerald O’Hara’s face when his mind was made up. She put her arms around Scarlett’s waist and held her tightly.

“It’s all my fault for not being brave like you and for keeping Ashley at home with me all this time when he should have been at the mill. Oh, dear! I’m such a ninny! Darling, I’ll tell Ashley I’m not a bit frightened and I’ll come over and stay with you and Aunt Pitty and he can go back to work and—”

Not even to herself would Scarlett admit that she did not think Ashley could cope with the situation alone and she shouted: “You’ll do nothing of the kind! What earthly good would Ashley do at work if he was worried about you every minute? Everybody is just so hateful! Even Uncle Peter refuses to go out with me! But I don’t care! I’ll go alone. I’ll walk every step of the way and pick up a crew of darkies somewhere—”

“Oh, no! You mustn’t do that! Something dreadful might happen to you. They say that Shantytown settlement on the Decatur road is just full of mean darkies and you’d have to pass right by it. Let me think—Darling, promise me you won’t do anything today and I’ll think of something. Promise me you’ll go home and lie down. You look right peaked. Promise me.”

Because she was too exhausted by her anger to do otherwise, Scarlett sulkily promised and went home, haughtily refusing any overtures of peace from her household.

That afternoon a strange figure stumped through Melanie’s hedge and across Pitty’s back yard. Obviously, he was one of those men whom Mammy and Dilcey referred to as “de riff-raff whut Miss Melly pick up off de streets an’ let sleep in her cellar.”

There were three rooms in the basement of Melanie’s house which formerly had been servants’ quarters and a wine room. Now Dilcey occupied one, and the other two were in constant use by a stream of miserable and ragged transients. No one but Melanie knew whence they came or where they were going and no one but she knew where she collected them. Perhaps the negroes were right and she did pick them up from the streets. But even as the great and the near great gravitated to her small parlor, so unfortunates found their way to her cellar where they were fed, bedded and sent on their way with packages of food. Usually the occupants of the rooms were former Confederate soldiers of the rougher, illiterate type, homeless men, men without families, beating their way about the country in hope of finding work.

Frequently, brown and withered country women with broods of towhaired silent children spent the night there, women widowed by the war, dispossessed of their farms, seeking relatives who were scattered and lost. Sometimes the neighborhood was scandalized by the presence of foreigners, speaking little or no English, who had been drawn South by glowing tales of fortunes easily made. Once a Republican had slept there. At least, Mammy insisted he was a Republican, saying she could smell a Republican, same as a horse could smell a rattlesnake; but no one believed Mammy’s story, for there must be some limit even to Melanie’s charity. At least everyone hoped so.

Yes, thought Scarlett, sitting on the side porch in the pale November sunshine with the baby on her lap, he is one of Melanie’s lame dogs. And he’s really lame, at that!

The man who was making his way across the back yard stumped, like Will Benteen, on a wooden leg. He was a tall, thin old man with a bald head, which shone pinkishly dirty, and a grizzled beard so long he could tuck it in his belt. He was over sixty, to judge by his hard, seamed face, but there was no sag of age to his body. He was lank and ungainly but, even with his wooden peg, he moved as swiftly as a snake.

He mounted the steps and came toward her and, even before he spoke, revealing in his tones a twang and a burring of “r’s” unusual in the lowlands, Scarlett knew that he was mountain born. For all his dirty, ragged clothes there was about him, as about most mountaineers, an air of fierce silent pride that permitted no liberties and tolerated no foolishness. His beard was stained with tobacco juice and a large wad in his jaw made his face look deformed. His nose was thin and craggy, his eyebrows bushy and twisted into witches’ locks and a lush growth of hair sprang from his ears, giving them the tufted look of a lynx’s ears. Beneath his brow was one hollow socket from which a scar ran down his cheek, carving a diagonal line through his beard. The other eye was small, pale and cold, an unwinking and remorseless eye. There was a heavy pistol openly in his trouser band and from the top of his tattered boot protruded the hilt of a bowie knife.

He returned Scarlett’s stare coldly and spat across the rail of the banister before he spoke. There was contempt in his one eye, not a personal contempt for her, but for her whole sex.

“Miz Wilkes sont me to work for you,” he said shortly. He spoke rustily, as one unaccustomed to speaking, the words coming slowly and almost with difficulty. “M’ name’s Archie.”

“I’m sorry but I have no work for you, Mr. Archie.”

“Archie’s m’fuss name.”

“I beg your pardon. What is your last name?”

He spat again. “I reckon that’s my bizness,” he said. “Archie’ll do.”

“I don’t care what your last name is! I have nothing for you to do.”

“I reckon you have. Miz Wilkes was upsot about yore wantin’ to run aroun’ like a fool by yoreself and she sont me over here to drive aroun’ with you.”

“Indeed?” cried Scarlett, indignant both at the man’s rudeness and Melly’s meddling.

His one eye met hers with an impersonal animosity. “Yes. A woman’s got no bizness botherin’ her men folks when they’re tryin’ to take keer of her. If you’re bound to gad about, I’ll drive you. I hates niggers—Yankees too.”

He shifted his wad of tobacco to the other cheek and, without waiting for an invitation, sat down on the top step. “I ain’t sayin’ I like drivin’ women aroun’, but Miz Wilkes been good to me, lettin’ me sleep in her cellar, and she sont me to drive you.”

“But—” began Scarlett helplessly and then she stopped and looked at him. After a moment she began to smile. She didn’t like the looks of this elderly desperado but his presence would simplify matters. With him beside her, she could go to town, drive to the mills, call on customers. No one could doubt her safety with him and his very appearance was enough to keep from giving rise to scandal.

“It’s a bargain,” she said. “That is, if my husband agrees.”

After a private conversation with Archie, Frank gave his reluctant approval and sent word to the livery stable to release the horse and buggy. He was hurt and disappointed that motherhood had not changed Scarlett as he had hoped it would but, if she was determined to go back to her damnable mills, then Archie was a godsend.

So began the relationship that at first startled Atlanta. Archie and Scarlett were a queerly assorted pair, the truculent dirty old man with his wooden peg sticking stiffly out over the dashboard and the pretty, neatly dressed young woman with forehead puckered in an abstracted frown. They could be seen at all hours and at all places in and near Atlanta, seldom speaking to each other, obviously disliking each other, but bound together by mutual need, he of money, she of protection. At least, said the ladies of the town, it’s better than riding around so brazenly with that Butler man. They wondered curiously where Rhett was these days, for he had abruptly left town three months before and no one, not even Scarlett, knew where he was.

Archie was a silent man, never speaking unless spoken to and usually answering with grunts. Every morning he came from Melanie’s cellar and sat on the front steps of Pitty’s house, chewing and spitting until Scarlett came out and Peter brought the buggy from the stable. Uncle Peter feared him only a little less than the devil or the Ku Klux and even Mammy walked silently and timorously around him. He hated negroes and they knew it and feared him. He reinforced his pistol and knife with another pistol, and his fame spread far among the black population. He never once had to draw a pistol or even lay his hand on his belt. The moral effect was sufficient. No negro dared even laugh while Archie was in hearing.

Once Scarlett asked him curiously why he hated negroes and was surprised when he answered, for generally all questions were answered by “I reckon that’s my bizness.”

“I hates them, like all mountain folks hates them. We never liked them and we never owned none. It was them niggers that started the war. I hates them for that, too.”

“But you fought in the war.”

“I reckon that’s a man’s privilege. I hates Yankees too, more’n I hates niggers. Most as much as I hates talkative women.”

It was such outspoken rudeness as this that threw Scarlett into silent furies and made her long to be rid of him. But how could she do without him? In what other way could she obtain such freedom? He was rude and dirty and, occasionally, very odorous but he served his purpose. He drove her to and from the mills and on her round of customers, spitting and staring off into space while she talked and gave orders. If she climbed down from the buggy, he climbed after her and dogged her footsteps. When she was among rough laborers, negroes or Yankee soldiers, he was seldom more than a pace from her elbow.

Soon Atlanta became accustomed to seeing Scarlett and her bodyguard and, from being accustomed, the ladies grew to envy her her freedom of movement. Since the Ku Klux lynching, the ladies had been practically immured, not even going to town to shop unless there were half a dozen in their group. Naturally social minded, they became restless and, putting their pride in their pockets, they began to beg the loan of Archie from Scarlett. And whenever she did not need him, she was gracious enough to spare him for the use of other ladies.

Soon Archie became an Atlanta institution and the ladies competed for his free time. There was seldom a morning when a child or a negro servant did not arrive at breakfast time with a note saying: “If you aren’t using Archie this afternoon, do let me have him. I want to drive to the cemetery with flowers.” “I must go to the milliners.” “I should like Archie to drive Aunt Nelly for an airing.” “I must go calling on Peters Street and Grandpa is not feeling well enough to take me. Could Archie—”

He drove them all, maids, matrons and widows, and toward all he evidenced the same uncompromising contempt. It was obvious that he did not like women, Melanie excepted, any better than he liked negroes and Yankees. Shocked at first by his rudeness, the ladies finally became accustomed to him and, as he was so silent, except for intermittent explosions of tobacco juice, they took him as much for granted as the horses he drove and forgot his very existence. In fact, Mrs. Merriwether related to Mrs. Meade the complete details of her niece’s confinement before she even remembered Archie’s presence on the front seat of the carriage.

At no other time than this could such a situation have been possible. Before the war, he would not have been permitted even in the ladies’ kitchens. They would have handed him food through the back door and sent him about his business. But now they welcomed his reassuring presence. Rude, illiterate, dirty, he was a bulwark between the ladies and the terrors of Reconstruction. He was neither friend nor servant. He was a hired bodyguard, protecting the women while their men worked by day or were absent from home at night.

It seemed to Scarlett that after Archie came to work for her Frank was away at night very frequently. He said the books at the store had to be balanced and business was brisk enough now to give him little time to attend to this in working hours. And there were sick friends with whom he had to sit. Then there was the organization of Democrats who forgathered every Wednesday night to devise ways of regaining the ballot and Frank never missed a meeting. Scarlett thought this organization did little else except argue the merits of General John B. Gordon over every other general, except General Lee, and refight the war. Certainly she could observe no progress in the direction of the recovery of the ballot. But Frank evidently enjoyed the meetings for he stayed out until all hours on those nights.

Ashley also sat up with the sick and he, too, attended the Democratic meetings and he was usually away on the same nights as Frank. On these nights, Archie escorted Pitty, Scarlett, Wade and little Ella though the back yard to Melanie’s house and the two families spent the evenings together. The ladies sewed while Archie lay full length on the parlor sofa snoring, his gray whiskers fluttering at each rumble. No one had invited him to dispose himself on the sofa and as it was the finest piece of furniture in the house, the ladies secretly moaned every time he lay down on it, planting his boot on the pretty upholstery. But none of them had the courage to remonstrate with him. Especially after he remarked that it was lucky he went to sleep easy, for otherwise the sound of women clattering like a flock of guinea hens would certainly drive him crazy.

Scarlett sometimes wondered where Archie had come from and what his life had been before he came to live in Melly’s cellar but she asked no questions. There was that about his grim one-eyed face which discouraged curiosity. All she knew was that his voice bespoke the mountains to the north and that he had been in the army and had lost both leg and eye shortly before the surrender. It was words spoken in a fit of anger against Hugh Elsing which brought out the truth of Archie’s past.

One morning, the old man had driven her to Hugh’s mill and she had found it idle, the negroes gone and Hugh sitting despondently under a tree. His crew had not made their appearance that morning and he was at a loss as to what to do. Scarlett was in a furious temper and did not scruple to expend it on Hugh, for she had just received an order for a large amount of lumber—a rush order at that. She had used energy and charm and bargaining to get that order and now the mill was quiet.

“Drive me out to the other mill,” she directed Archie. “Yes, I know it’ll take a long time and we won’t get any dinner but what am I paying you for? I’ll have to make Mr. Wilkes stop what he’s doing and run me off this lumber. Like as not, his crew won’t be working either. Great balls of fire! I never saw such a nincompoop as Hugh Elsing! I’m going to get rid of him just as soon as that Johnnie Gallegher finishes the stores he’s building. What do I care if Gallegher was in the Yankee Army? He’ll work. I never saw a lazy Irishman yet. And I’m through with free issue darkies. You just can’t depend on them. I’m going to get Johnnie Gallegher and lease me some convicts. He’ll get work out of them. He’ll—”

Archie turned to her, his eye malevolent, and when he spoke there was cold anger in his rusty voice.

“The day you gits convicts is the day I quits you,” he said.

Scarlett was startled. “Good heavens! Why?”

“I knows about convict leasin’. I calls it convict murderin’. Buyin’ men like they was mules. Treatin’ them worse than mules ever was treated. Beatin’ them, starvin’ them, killin’ them. And who cares? The State don’t care. It’s got the lease money. The folks that gits the convicts, they don’t care. All they want is to feed them cheap and git all the work they can out of them. Hell, Ma’m. I never thought much of women and I think less of them now.”

“Is it any of your business?”

“I reckon,” said Archie laconically and, after a pause, “I was a convict for nigh on to forty years.”

Scarlett gasped, and, for a moment, shrank back against the cushions. This then was the answer to the riddle of Archie, his unwillingness to tell his last name or the place of his birth or any scrap of his past life, the answer to the difficulty with which he spoke and his cold hatred of the world. Forty years! He must have gone into prison a young man. Forty years! Why—he must have been a life prisoner and lifers were—

“Was it—murder?”

“Yes,” answered Archie briefly, as he flapped the reins. “M’ wife.”

Scarlett’s eyelids batted rapidly with fright.

The mouth beneath the beard seemed to move, as if he were smiling grimly at her fear. “I ain’t goin’ to kill you, Ma’m, if that’s what’s frettin’ you. Thar ain’t but one reason for killin’ a woman.”

“You killed your wife!”

“She was layin’ with my brother. He got away. I ain’t sorry none that I kilt her. Loose women ought to be kilt. The law ain’t got no right to put a man in jail for that but I was sont.”

“But—how did you get out? Did you escape? Were you pardoned?”

“You might call it a pardon.” His thick gray brows writhed together as though the effort of stringing words together was difficult.

“’Long in ’sixty-four when Sherman come through, I was at Milledgeville jail, like I had been for forty years. And the warden he called all us prisoners together and he says the Yankees are a-comin’ a-burnin’ and a-killin’. Now if thar’s one thing I hates worse than a nigger or a woman, it’s a Yankee.”

“Why? Had you—Did you ever know any Yankees?”

“No’m. But I’d hearn tell of them. I’d hearn tell they couldn’t never mind their own bizness. I hates folks who can’t mind their own bizness. What was they doin’ in Georgia, freein’ our niggers and burnin’ our houses and killin’ our stock? Well, the warden he said the army needed more soldiers bad, and any of us who’d jine up would be free at the end of the war—if we come out alive. But us lifers—us murderers, the warden he said the army didn’t want us. We was to be sont somewheres else to another jail. But I said to the warden I ain’t like most lifers. I’m just in for killin’ my wife and she needed killin’. And I wants to fight the Yankees. And the warden he saw my side of it and he slipped me out with the other prisoners.”

He paused and grunted.

“Huh. That was right funny. They put me in jail for killin’ and they let me out with a gun in my hand and a free pardon to do more killin’. It shore was good to be a free man with a rifle in my hand again. Us men from Milledgeville did good fightin’ and killin’—and a lot of us was kilt. I never knowed one who deserted. And when the surrender come, we was free. I lost this here leg and this here eye. But I ain’t sorry.”

“Oh,” said Scarlett, weakly.

She tried to remember what she had heard about the releasing of the Milledgeville convicts in that last desperate effort to stem the tide of Sherman’s army. Frank had mentioned it that Christmas of 1864. What had he said? But her memories of that time were too chaotic. Again she felt the wild terror of those days, heard the siege guns, saw the line of wagons dripping blood into the red roads, saw the Home Guard marching off, the little cadets and the children like Phil Meade and the old men like Uncle Henry and Grandpa Merriwether. And the convicts had marched out too, to die in the twilight of the Confederacy, to freeze in the snow and sleet of that last campaign in Tennessee.

For a brief moment she thought what a fool this old man was, to fight for a state which had taken forty years from his life. Georgia had taken his youth and his middle years for a crime that was no crime to him, yet he had freely given a leg and an eye to Georgia. The bitter words Rhett had spoken in the early days of the war came back to her, and she remembered him saying he would never fight for a society that had made him an outcast. But when the emergency had arisen he had gone off to fight for that same society, even as Archie had done. It seemed to her that all Southern men, high or low, were sentimental fools and cared less for their hides than for words which had no meaning.

She looked at Archie’s gnarled old hands, his two pistols and his knife, and fear pricked her again. Were there other ex-convicts at large, like Archie, murderers, desperadoes, thieves, pardoned for their crimes, in the name of the Confederacy? Why, any stranger on the street might be a murderer! If Frank ever learned the truth about Archie, there would be the devil to pay. Or if Aunt Pitty—but the shock would kill Pitty. And as for Melanie—Scarlett almost wished she could tell Melanie the truth about Archie. It would serve her right for picking up trash and foisting it off on her friends and relatives.

“I’m—I’m glad you told me, Archie. I—I won’t tell anyone. It would be a great shock to Mrs. Wilkes and the other ladies if they knew.”

“Huh. Miz Wilkes knows. I told her the night she fuss let me sleep in her cellar. You don’t think I’d let a nice lady like her take me into her house not knowin’?”

“Saints preserve us!” cried Scarlet, aghast.

Melanie knew this man was a murderer and a woman murderer at that and she hadn’t ejected him from her house. She had trusted her son with him and her aunt and sister-in-law and all her friends. And she, the most timid of females, had not been frightened to be alone with him in her house.

“Miz Wilkes is right sensible, for a woman. She ’lowed that I was all right. She ’lowed that a liar allus kept on lyin’ and a thief kept on stealin’ but folks don’t do more’n one murder in a lifetime. And she reckoned as how anybody who’d fought for the Confederacy had wiped out anything bad they’d done. Though I don’t hold that I done nothin’ bad, killin’ my wife… Yes, Miz Wilkes is right sensible, for a woman… And I’m tellin’ you, the day you leases convicts is the day I quits you.”

Scarlett made no reply but she thought, “The sooner you quit me the better it will suit me. A murderer!”

How could Melly have been so—so—Well, there was no word for Melanie’s action in taking in this old ruffian and not telling her friends he was a jailbird. So service in the army wiped out past sins! Melanie had that mixed up with baptism! But then Melly was utterly silly about the Confederacy, its veterans, and anything pertaining to them. Scarlett silently damned the Yankees and added another mark on her score against them. They were responsible for a situation that forced a woman to keep a murderer at her side to protect her.

Driving home with Archie in the chill twilight, Scarlett saw a clutter of saddle horses, buggies and wagons outside the Girl of the Period Saloon. Ashley was sitting on his horse, a strained alert look on his face; the Simmons boys were leaning from their buggy, making emphatic gestures; Hugh Elsing, his lock of brown hair falling in his eyes, was waving his hands. Grandpa Merriwether’s pie wagon was in the center of the tangle and, as she came closer, Scarlett saw that Tommy Wellburn and Uncle Henry Hamilton were crowded on the seat with him.

“I wish,” thought Scarlett irritably, “that Uncle Henry wouldn’t ride home in that contraption. He ought to be ashamed to be seen in it. It isn’t as though he didn’t have a horse of his own. He just does it so he and Grandpa can go to the saloon together every night.”

As she came abreast the crowd something of their tenseness reached her, insensitive though she was, and made fear clutch at her heart.

“Oh!” she thought. “I hope no one else has been raped! If the Ku Klux lynch just one more darky the Yankees will wipe us out!” And she spoke to Archie. “Pull up. Something’s wrong.”

“You ain’t goin’ to stop outside a saloon,” said Archie.

“You heard me. Pull up. Good evening, everybody. Ashley—Uncle Henry—is something wrong? You all look so—”

The crowd turned to her, tipping their hats and smiling, but there was a driving excitement in their eyes.

“Something’s right and something’s wrong,” barked Uncle Henry. “Depends on how you look at it. The way I figure is the legislature couldn’t have done different.”

The legislature? thought Scarlett in relief. She had little interest in the legislature, feeling that its doings could hardly affect her. It was the prospect of the Yankee soldiers on a rampage again that frightened her.

“What’s the legislature been up to now?”

“They’ve flatly refused to ratify the amendment,” said Grandpa Merriwether and there was pride in his voice. “That’ll show the Yankees.”

“And there’ll be hell to pay for it—I beg your pardon, Scarlett,” said Ashley.

“Oh, the amendment?” questioned Scarlett, trying to look intelligent.

Politics were beyond her and she seldom wasted time thinking about them. There had been a Thirteenth Amendment ratified sometime before or maybe it had been the Sixteenth Amendment but what ratification meant she had no idea. Men were always getting excited about such things. Something of her lack of comprehension showed in her face and Ashley smiled.

“It’s the amendment letting the darkies vote, you know,” he explained. “It was submitted to the legislature and they refused to ratify it.”

“How silly of them! You know the Yankees are going to force it down our throats!”

“That’s what I meant by saying there’d be hell to pay,” said Ashley.

“I’m proud of the legislature, proud of their gumption!” shouted Uncle Henry. “The Yankees can’t force it down our throats if we won’t have it.”

“They can and they will.” Ashley’s voice was calm but there was worry in his eyes. “And it’ll make things just that much harder for us.”

“Oh, Ashley, surely not! Things couldn’t be any harder than they are now!”

“Yes, things can get worse, even worse than they are now. Suppose we have a darky legislature? A darky governor? Suppose we have a worse military rule than we now have?”

Scarlett’s eyes grew large with fear as some understanding entered her mind.

“I’ve been trying to think what would be best for Georgia, best for all of us.” Ashley’s face was drawn. “Whether it’s wisest to fight this thing like the legislature has done, rouse the North against us and bring the whole Yankee Army on us to cram the darky vote down us, whether we want it or not. Or—swallow our pride as best we can, submit gracefully and get the whole matter over with as easily as possible. It will amount to the same thing in the end. We’re helpless. We’ve got to take the dose they’re determined to give us. Maybe it would be better for us to take it without kicking.”

Scarlett hardly heard his words, certainly their full import went over her head. She knew that Ashley, as usual, was seeing both sides of a question. She was seeing only one side—how this slap in the Yankees’ faces might affect her.

“Going to turn Radical and vote the Republican ticket, Ashley?” jeered Grandpa Merriwether harshly.

There was a tense silence. Scarlett saw Archie’s hand make a swift move toward his pistol and then stop. Archie thought, and frequently said, that Grandpa was an old bag of wind and Archie had no intention of letting him insult Miss Melanie’s husband, even if Miss Melanie’s husband was talking like a fool.

The perplexity vanished suddenly from Ashley’s eyes and hot anger flared. But before he could speak, Uncle Henry charged Grandpa.

“You God—you blast—I beg your pardon, Scarlett—Grandpa, you jackass, don’t you say that to Ashley!”

“Ashley can take care of himself without you defending him,” said Grandpa coldly. “And he is talking like a Scallawag. Submit, hell! I beg your pardon, Scarlett.”

“I didn’t believe in secession,” said Ashley and his voice shook with anger. “But when Georgia seceded, I went with her. And I didn’t believe in war but I fought in the war. And I don’t believe in making the Yankees madder than they already are. But if the legislature has decided to do it, I’ll stand by the legislature. I—”

“Archie,” said Uncle Henry abruptly, “drive Miss Scarlett on home. This isn’t any place for her. Politics aren’t for women folks anyway, and there’s going to be cussing in a minute. Go on, Archie. Good night, Scarlett.”

As they drove off down Peachtree Street, Scarlett’s heart was beating fast with fear. Would this foolish action of the legislature have any effect on her safety? Would it so enrage the Yankees that she might lose her mills?

“Well, sir,” rumbled Archie, “I’ve hearn tell of rabbits spittin’ in bulldogs’ faces but I ain’t never seen it till now. Them legislatures might just as well have hollered ‘Hurray for Jeff Davis and the Southern Confederacy’ for all the good it’ll do them—and us. Them nigger-lovin’ Yankees have made up their mind to make the niggers our bosses. But you got to admire them legislatures’ sperrit!”

“Admire them? Great balls of fire! Admire them? They ought to be shot! It’ll bring the Yankees down on us like a duck on a June bug. Why couldn’t they have rati—radi—whatever they were supposed to do to it and smoothed the Yankees down instead of stirring them up again? They’re going to make us knuckle under and we may as well knuckle now as later.”

Archie fixed her with a cold eye.

“Knuckle under without a fight? Women ain’t got no more pride than goats.”

When Scarlett leased ten convicts, five for each of her mills, Archie made good his threat and refused to have anything further to do with her. Not all Melanie’s pleading or Frank’s promises of higher pay would induce him to take up the reins again. He willingly escorted Melanie and Pitty and India and their friends about the town but not Scarlett. He would not even drive for the other ladies if Scarlett was in the carriage. It was an embarrassing situation, having the old desperado sitting in judgment upon her, and it was still more embarrassing to know that her family and friends agreed with the old man.

Frank pleaded with her against taking the step. Ashley at first refused to work convicts and was persuaded, against his will, only after tears and supplications and promises that when times were better she would hire free darkies. Neighbors were so outspoken in their disapproval that Frank, Pitty and Melanie found it hard to hold up their heads. Even Peter and Mammy declared that it was bad luck to work convicts and no good would come of it. Everyone said it was wrong to take advantage of the miseries and misfortunes of others.

“You didn’t have any objections to working slaves!” Scarlett cried indignantly.

Ah, but that was different. Slaves were neither miserable nor unfortunate. The negroes were far better off under slavery than they were now under freedom, and if she didn’t believe it, just look about her! But, as usual, opposition had the effect of making Scarlett more determined on her course. She removed Hugh from the management of the mill, put him to driving a lumber wagon and closed the final details of hiring Johnnie Gallegher.

He seemed to be the only person she knew who approved of the convicts. He nodded his bullet head briefly and said it was a smart move. Scarlett, looking at the little ex-jockey, planted firmly on his short bowed legs, his gnomish face hard and businesslike, thought: “Whoever let him ride their horses didn’t care much for horse flesh. I wouldn’t let him get within ten feet of any horse of mine.”

But she had no qualms in trusting him with a convict gang.

“And I’m to have a free hand with the gang?” he questioned, his eyes as cold as gray agates.

“A free hand. All I ask is that you keep that mill running and deliver my lumber when I want it and as much as I want.”

“I’m your man,” said Johnnie shortly. “I’ll tell Mr. Wellburn I’m leaving him.”

As he rolled off through the crowd of masons and carpenters and hod carriers Scarlett felt relieved and her spirits rose. Johnnie was indeed her man. He was tough and hard and there was no nonsense about him. “Shanty Irish on the make,” Frank had contemptuously called him, but for that very reason Scarlett valued him. She knew that an Irishman with a determination to get somewhere was a valuable man to have, regardless of what his personal characteristics might be. And she felt a closer kinship with him than with many men of her own class, for Johnnie knew the value of money.

The first week he took over the mill he justified all her hopes, for he accomplished more with five convicts than Hugh had ever done with his crew of ten free negroes. More than that, he gave Scarlett greater leisure than she had had since she came to Atlanta the year before, because he had no liking for her presence at the mill and said so frankly.

“You tend to your end of selling and let me tend to my end of lumbering,” he said shortly. “A convict camp ain’t any place for a lady and if nobody else’ll tell you so, Johnnie Gallegher’s telling you now. I’m delivering your lumber, ain’t I? Well, I’ve got no notion to be pestered every day like Mr. Wilkes. He needs pestering. I don’t.”

So Scarlett reluctantly stayed away from Johnnie’s mill, fearing that if she came too often he might quit and that would be ruinous. His remark that Ashley needed pestering stung her, for there was more truth in it than she liked to admit. Ashley was doing little better with convicts than he had done with free labor, although why, he was unable to tell. Moreover, he looked as if he were ashamed to be working convicts and he had little to say to her these days.

Scarlett was worried by the change that was coming over him. There were gray hairs in his bright head now and a tired slump in his shoulders. And he seldom smiled. He no longer looked the debonaire Ashley who had caught her fancy so many years before. He looked like a man secretly gnawed by a scarcely endurable pain and there was a grim tight look about his mouth that baffled and hurt her. She wanted to drag his head fiercely down on her shoulder, stroke the graying hair and cry: “Tell me what’s worrying you! I’ll fix it! I’ll make it right for you!”

But his formal, remote air kept her at arm’s length.

Chapter XLIII

It was one of those rare December days when the sun was almost as warm as Indian summer. Dry red leaves still clung to the oak in Aunt Pitty’s yard and a faint yellow green still persisted in the dying grass. Scarlett, with the baby in her arms, stepped out onto the side porch and sat down in a rocking chair in a patch of sunshine. She was wearing a new green challis dress trimmed with yards and yards of black rickrack braid and a new lace house cap which Aunt Pitty had made for her. Both were very becoming to her and she knew it and took great pleasure in them. How good it was to look pretty again after the long months of looking so dreadful!

As she sat rocking the baby and humming to herself, she heard the sound of hooves coming up the side street and, peering curiously through the tangle of dead vines on the porch, she saw Rhett Butler riding toward the house.

He had been away from Atlanta for months, since just after Gerald died, since long before Ella Lorena was born. She had missed him but she now wished ardently that there was some way to avoid seeing him. In fact, the sight of his dark face brought a feeling of guilty panic to her breast. A matter in which Ashley was concerned lay on her conscience and she did not wish to discuss it with Rhett, but she knew he would force the discussion, no matter how disinclined she might be.

He drew up at the gate and swung lightly to the ground and she thought, staring nervously at him, that he looked just like an illustration in a book Wade was always pestering her to read aloud.

“All he needs is earrings and a cutlass between his teeth,” she thought. “Well, pirate or no, he’s not going to cut my throat today if I can help it.”

As he came up the walk she called a greeting to him, summoning her sweetest smile. How lucky that she had on her new dress and the becoming cap and looked so pretty! As his eyes went swiftly over her, she knew he thought her pretty, too.

“A new baby! Why, Scarlett, this is a surprise!” he laughed, leaning down to push the blanket away from Ella Lorena’s small ugly face.

“Don’t be silly,” she said, blushing. “How are you, Rhett? You’ve been away a long time.”

“So I have. Let me hold the baby, Scarlett. Oh, I know how to hold babies. I have many strange accomplishments. Well, he certainly looks like Frank. All except the whiskers, but give him time.”

“I hope not. It’s a girl.”

“A girl? That’s better still. Boys are such nuisances. Don’t ever have any more boys, Scarlett.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to reply tartly that she never intended to have any more babies, boys or girls, but she caught herself in time and smiled, casting about quickly in her mind for some topic of conversation that would put off the bad moment when the subject she feared would come up for discussion.

“Did you have a nice trip, Rhett? Where did you go this time?”

“Oh—Cuba—New Orleans—other places. Here, Scarlett, take the baby. She’s beginning to slobber and I can’t get to my handkerchief. She’s a fine baby, I’m sure, but she’s wetting my shirt bosom.”

She took the child back into her lap and Rhett settled himself lazily on the banister and took a cigar from a silver case.

“You are always going to New Orleans,” she said and pouted a little. “And you never will tell me what you do there.”

“I am a hard-working man, Scarlett, and perhaps my business takes me there.”

“Hard-working! You!” she laughed impertinently. “You never worked in your life. You’re too lazy. All you ever do is finance Carpetbaggers in their thieving and take half the profits and bribe Yankee officials to let you in on schemes to rob us taxpayers.”

He threw back his head and laughed.

“And how you would love to have money enough to bribe officials, so you could do likewise!”

“The very idea—” She began to ruffle.

“But perhaps you will make enough money to get into bribery on a large scale some day. Maybe you’ll get rich off those convicts you leased.”

“Oh,” she said, a little disconcerted, “how did you find out about my gang so soon?”

“I arrived last night and spent the evening in the Girl of the Period Saloon, where one hears all the news of the town. It’s a clearing house for gossip. Better than a ladies’ sewing circle. Everyone told me that you’d leased a gang and put that little plugugly, Gallegher, in charge to work them to death.”

“That’s a lie,” she said angrily. “He won’t work them to death. I’ll see to that.”

“Will you?”

“Of course I will! How can you even insinuate such things?”

“Oh, I do beg your pardon, Mrs. Kennedy! I know your motives are always above reproach. However, Johnnie Gallegher is a cold little bully if I ever saw one. Better watch him or you’ll be having trouble when the inspector comes around.”

“You tend to your business and I’ll tend to mine,” she said indignantly. “And I don’t want to talk about convicts any more. Everybody’s been hateful about them. My gang is my own business—And you haven’t told me yet what you do in New Orleans. You go there so often that everybody says—” She paused. She had not intended to say so much.

“What do they say?”

“Well—that you have a sweetheart there. That you are going to get married. Are you, Rhett?”

She had been curious about this for so long that she could not refrain from asking the point-blank question. A queer little pang of jealousy jabbed at her at the thought of Rhett getting married, although why that should be she did not know.

His bland eyes grew suddenly alert and he caught her gaze and held it until a little blush crept up into her cheeks.

“Would it matter much to you?”

“Well, I should hate to lose your friendship,” she said primly and, with an attempt at disinterestedness, bent down to pull the blanket closer about Ella Lorena’s head.

He laughed suddenly, shortly, and said: “Look at me, Scarlett.”

She looked up unwillingly, her blush deepening.

“You can tell your curious friends that when I marry it will be because I couldn’t get the woman I wanted in any other way. And I’ve never yet wanted a woman bad enough to marry her.”

Now she was indeed confused and embarrassed, for she remembered the night on this very porch during the siege when he had said: “I am not a marrying man” and casually suggested that she become his mistress—remembered, too, the terrible day when he was in jail and was shamed by the memory. A slow malicious smile went over his face as he read her eyes.

“But I will satisfy your vulgar curiosity since you ask such pointed questions. It isn’t a sweetheart that takes me to New Orleans. It’s a child, a little boy.”

“A little boy!” The shock of this unexpected information wiped out her confusion.

“Yes, he is my legal ward and I am responsible for him. He’s in school in New Orleans. I go there frequently to see him.”

“And take him presents?” So, she thought, that’s how he always knows what kind of presents Wade likes!

“Yes,” he said shortly, unwillingly.

“Well, I never! Is he handsome?”

“Too handsome for his own good.”

“Is he a nice little boy?”

“No. He’s a perfect hellion. I wish he had never been born. Boys are troublesome creatures. Is there anything else you’d like to know?”

He looked suddenly angry and his brow was dark, as though he already regretted speaking of the matter at all.

“Well, not if you don’t want to tell me any more,” she said loftily, though she was burning for further information. “But I just can’t see you in the role of a guardian,” and she laughed, hoping to disconcert him.

“No, I don’t suppose you can. Your vision is pretty limited.”

He said no more and smoked his cigar in silence for a while. She cast about for some remark as rude as his but could think of none.

“I would appreciate it if you’d say nothing of this to anyone,” he said finally. “Though I suppose that asking a woman to keep her mouth shut is asking the impossible.”

“I can keep a secret,” she said with injured dignity.

“Can you? It’s nice to learn unsuspected things about friends. Now, stop pouting, Scarlett. I’m sorry I was rude but you deserved it for prying. Give me a smile and let’s be pleasant for a minute or two before I take up an unpleasant subject.”

Oh, dear! she thought. Now, he’s going to talk about Ashley and the mill! and she hastened to smile and show her dimple to divert him. “Where else did you go, Rhett? You haven’t been in New Orleans all this time, have you?”

“No, for the last month I’ve been in Charleston. My father died.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m sure he wasn’t sorry to die, and I’m sure I’m not sorry he’s dead.”

“Rhett, what a dreadful thing to say!”

“It would be much more dreadful if I pretended to be sorry, when I wasn’t, wouldn’t it? There was never any love lost between us. I cannot remember when the old gentleman did not disapprove of me. I was too much like his own father and he disapproved heartily of his father. And as I grew older his disapproval of me became downright dislike, which, I admit, I did little to change. All the things Father wanted me to do and be were such boring things. And finally he threw me out into the world without a cent and no training whatsoever to be anything but a Charleston gentleman, a good pistol shot and an excellent poker player. And he seemed to take it as a personal affront that I did not starve but put my poker playing to excellent advantage and supported myself royally by gambling. He was so affronted at a Butler becoming a gambler that when I came home for the first time, he forbade my mother to see me. And all during the war when I was blockading out of Charleston, Mother had to lie and slip off to see me. Naturally that didn’t increase my love for him.”

“Oh, I didn’t know all that!”

“He was what is pointed out as a fine old gentleman of the old school which means that he was ignorant, thick headed, intolerant and incapable of thinking along any lines except what other gentlemen of the old school thought. Everyone admired him tremendously for having cut me off and counted me as dead. ‘If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out.’ I was his right eye, his oldest son, and he plucked me out with a vengeance.”

He smiled a little, his eyes hard with amused memory.

“Well, I could forgive all that but I can’t forgive what he’s done to Mother and my sister since the war ended. They’ve been practically destitute. The plantation house was burned and the rice fields have gone back to marsh lands. And the town house went for taxes and they’ve been living in two rooms that aren’t fit for darkies. I’ve sent money to Mother, but Father has sent it back—tainted money, you see!—and several times I’ve gone to Charleston and given money, on the sly, to my sister. But Father always found out and raised merry hell with her, till her life wasn’t worth living, poor girl. And back the money came to me. I don’t know how they’ve lived… Yes, I do know. My brother’s given what he could, though he hasn’t much to give and he won’t take anything from me either-speculator’s money is unlucky money, you see! And the charity of their friends. Your Aunt Eulalie, she’s been very kind. She’s one of Mother’s best friends, you know. She’s given them clothes and—Good God! My mother on charity!”

It was one of the few times she had ever seen him with his mask off, his face hard with honest hatred for his father and distress for his mother.

“Aunt ’Lalie! But, good Heavens, Rhett, she hasn’t got anything much above what I send her!”

“Ah, so that’s where it comes from! How ill bred of you, my dear, to brag of such a thing in the face of my humiliation. You must let me reimburse you!”

“With pleasure,” said Scarlett, her mouth suddenly twisting into a grin, and he smiled back.

“Ah, Scarlett, how the thought of a dollar does make your eyes sparkle! Are you sure you haven’t some Scotch or perhaps Jewish blood as well as Irish?”

“Don’t be hateful! I didn’t mean to throw it in your face about Aunt ’Lalie. But honestly, she thinks I’m made of money. She’s always writing me for more and, God knows, I’ve got enough on my hands without supporting all of Charleston. What did your father die of?”

“Genteel starvation, I think—and hope. It served him right. He was willing to let Mother and Rosemary starve with him. Now that he’s dead, I can help them. I’ve bought them a house on the Battery and they’ve servants to look after them. But of course, they couldn’t let it be known that the money came from me.”

“Why not?”

“My dear, surely you know Charleston! You’ve visited there. My family may be poor but they have a position to uphold. And they couldn’t uphold it if it were known that gambling money and speculator’s money and Carpetbag money was behind it. No, they gave it out that Father left an enormous life insurance—that he’d beggared himself and starved himself to death to keep up the payments, so that after he died, they’d be provided for. So he is looked upon as an even greater gentleman of the old school than before… In fact, a martyr to his family. I hope he’s turning in his grave at the knowledge that Mother and Rosemary are comfortable now, in spite of his efforts… In a way, I’m sorry he’s dead because he wanted to die—was so glad to die.”

“Why?”

“Oh, he really died when Lee surrendered. You know the type. He never could adjust himself to the new times and spent his time talking about the good old days.”

“Rhett, are all old folks like that?” She was thinking of Gerald and what Will had said about him.

“Heavens, no! Just look at your Uncle Henry and that old wild cat, Mr. Merriwether, just to name two. They took a new lease on life when they marched out with the Home Guard and it seems to me that they’ve gotten younger and more peppery ever since. I met old man Merriwether this morning driving Rene’s pie wagon and cursing the horse like an army mule skinner. He told me he felt ten years younger since he escaped from the house and his daughter-in-law’s coddling and took to driving the wagon. And your Uncle Henry enjoys fighting the Yankees in court and out and defending the widow and the orphan-free of charge, I fear—against the Carpetbaggers. If there hadn’t been a war, he’d have retired long ago and nursed his rheumatism. They’re young again because they are of use again and feel that they are needed. And they like this new day that gives old men another chance. But there are plenty of people, young people, who feel like my father and your father. They can’t and won’t adjust and that brings me to the unpleasant subject I want to discuss with you, Scarlett.”

His sudden shift so disconcerted her that she stammered: “What—what—” and inwardly groaned: “Oh, Lord! Now, it’s coming. I wonder if I can butter him down?”

“I shouldn’t have expected either truth or honor or fair dealing from you, knowing you as I do. But foolishly, I trusted you.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you do. At any rate, you look very guilty. As I was riding along Ivy Street a while ago, on my way to call on you, who should hail me from behind a hedge but Mrs. Ashley Wilkes! Of course, I stopped and chatted with her.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes, we had an enjoyable talk. She told me she had always wanted to let me know how brave she thought I was to have struck a blow for the Confederacy, even at the eleventh hour.”

“Oh, fiddle-dee-dee! Melly’s a fool. She might have died that night because you acted so heroic.”

“I imagine she would have thought her life given in a good cause. And when I asked her what she was doing in Atlanta she looked quite surprised at my ignorance and told me that they were living here now and that you had been kind enough to make Mr. Wilkes a partner in your mill.”

“Well, what of it?” questioned Scarlett, shortly.

“When I lent you the money to buy that mill I made one stipulation, to which you agreed, and that was that it should not go to the support of Ashley Wilkes.”

“You are being very offensive. I’ve paid you back your money and I own the mill and what I do with it is my own business.”

“Would you mind telling me how you made the money to pay back my loan?”

“I made it selling lumber, of course.”

“You made it with the money I lent you to give you your start. That’s what you mean. My money is being used to support Ashley. You are a woman quite without honor and if you hadn’t repaid my loan, I’d take great pleasure in calling it in now and selling you out at public auction if you couldn’t pay.”

He spoke lightly but there was anger flickering in his eyes.

Scarlett hastily carried the warfare into the enemy’s territory.

“Why do you hate Ashley so much? I believe you’re jealous of him.”

After she had spoken she could have bitten her tongue, for he threw back his head and laughed until she went red with mortification.

“Add conceit to dishonor,” he said. “You’ll never get over being the belle of the County, will you? You’ll always think you’re the cutest little trick in shoe leather and that every man you meet is expiring for love of you.”

“I don’t either!” she cried hotly. “But I just can’t see why you hate Ashley so much and that’s the only explanation I can think of.”

“Well, think something else, pretty charmer, for that’s the wrong explanation. And as for hating Ashley—I don’t hate him any more than I like him. In fact, my only emotion toward him and his kind is pity.”

“Pity?”

“Yes, and a little contempt. Now, swell up like a gobbler and tell me that he is worth a thousand blackguards like me and that I shouldn’t dare to be so presumptuous as to feel either pity or contempt for him. And when you have finished swelling, I’ll tell you what I mean, if you’re interested.”

“Well, I’m not.”

“I shall tell you, just the same, for I can’t bear for you to go on nursing your pleasant delusion of my jealousy. I pity him because he ought to be dead and he isn’t. And I have a contempt for him because he doesn’t know what to do with himself now that his world is gone.”

There was something familiar in the idea he expressed. She had a confused memory of having heard similar words but she could not remember when and where. She did not think very hard about it for her anger was hot.

“If you had your way all the decent men in the South would be dead!”

“And if they had their way, I think Ashley’s kind would prefer to be dead. Dead with neat stones above them, saying: ‘Here lies a soldier of the Confederacy, dead for the Southland’ or ‘dulce et decorum est—’ or any of the other popular epitaphs.”

“I don’t see why!”

“You never see anything that isn’t written in letters a foot high and then shoved under your nose, do you? If they were dead, their troubles would be over, there’d be no problems to face, problems that have no solutions. Moreover, their families would be proud of them through countless generations. And I’ve heard the dead are happy. Do you suppose Ashley Wilkes is happy?”

“Why, of course—” she began and then she remembered the look in Ashley’s eyes recently and stopped.

“Is he happy or Hugh Elsing or Dr. Meade? Any more than my father and your father were happy?”

“Well, perhaps not as happy as they might be, because they’ve all lost their money.”

He laughed.

“It isn’t losing their money, my pet. I tell you it’s losing their world—the world they were raised in. They’re like fish out of water or cats with wings. They were raised to be certain persons, to do certain things, to occupy certain niches. And those persons and things and niches disappeared forever when General Lee arrived at Appomattox. Oh, Scarlett, don’t look so stupid! What is there for Ashley Wilkes to do, now that his home is gone and his plantation taken up for taxes and fine gentlemen are going twenty for a penny? Can he work with his head or his hands? I’ll bet you’ve lost money hand over fist since he took over that mill.”

“I have not!”

“How nice. May I look over your books some Sunday evening when you are at leisure?”

“You can go to the devil and not at your leisure. You can go now, for all I care.”

“My pet, I’ve been to the devil and he’s a very dull fellow. I won’t go there again, even for you… You took my money when you needed it desperately and you used it. We had an agreement as to how it should be used and you have broken that agreement. Just remember, my precious little cheat, the time will come when you will want to borrow more money from me. You’ll want me to bank you, at some incredibly low interest, so you can buy more mills and more mules and build more saloons. And you can whistle for the money.”

“When I need money I’ll borrow it from the bank, thank you,” she said coldly, but her breast was heaving with rage.

“Will you? Try to do it. I own plenty of stock in the bank.”

“You do?”

“Yes, I am interested in some honest enterprises.”

“There are other banks—”

“Plenty of them. And if I can manage it, you’ll play hell getting a cent from any of them. You can go to the Carpetbag usurers if you want money.”

“I’ll go to them with pleasure.”

“You’ll go but with little pleasure when you learn their rates of interest. My pretty, there are penalties in the business world for crooked dealing. You should have played straight with me.”

“You’re a fine man, aren’t you? So rich and powerful yet picking on people who are down, like Ashley and me!”

“Don’t put yourself in his class. You aren’t down. Nothing will down you. But he is down and he’ll stay there unless there’s some energetic person behind him, guiding and protecting him as long as he lives. I’m of no mind to have my money used for the benefit of such a person.”

“You didn’t mind helping me and I was down and—”

“You were a good risk, my dear, an interesting risk. Why? Because you didn’t plump yourself down on your male relatives and sob for the old days. You got out and hustled and now your fortunes are firmly planted on money stolen from a dead man’s wallet and money stolen from the Confederacy. You’ve got murder to your credit, and husband stealing, attempted fornication, lying and sharp dealing and any amount of chicanery that won’t bear close inspection. Admirable things, all of them. They show you to be a person of energy and determination and a good money risk. It’s entertaining, helping people who help themselves. I’d lend ten thousand dollars without even a note to that old Roman matron, Mrs. Merriwether. She started with a basket of pies and look at her now! A bakery employing half a dozen people, old Grandpa happy with his delivery wagon and that lazy little Creole, Rene, working hard and liking it… Or that poor devil, Tommy Wellburn, who does two men’s work with half a man’s body and does it well or—well, I won’t go on and bore you.”

“You do bore me. You bore me to distraction,” said Scarlett coldly, hoping to annoy him and divert him from the everunfortunate subject of Ashley. But he only laughed shortly and refused to take up the gauntlet.

“People like them are worth helping. But Ashley Wilkes—bah! His breed is of no use or value in an upside-down world like ours. Whenever the world up-ends, his kind is the first to perish. And why not? They don’t deserve to survive because they won’t fight—don’t know how to fight. This isn’t the first time the world’s been upside down and it won’t be the last. It’s happened before and it’ll happen again. And when it does happen, everyone loses everything and everyone is equal. And then they all start again at taw, with nothing at all. That is, nothing except the cunning of their brains and strength of their hands. But some people, like Ashley, have neither cunning nor strength or, having them, scruple to use them. And so they go under and they should go under. It’s a natural law and the world is better off without them. But there are always a hardy few who come through and given time, they are right back where they were before the world turned over.”

“You’ve been poor! You just said that your father turned you out without a penny!” said Scarlett, furious. “I should think you’d understand and sympathize with Ashley!”

“I do understand,” said Rhett, “but I’m damned if I sympathize. After the surrender Ashley had much more than I had when I was thrown out. At least, he had friends who took him in, whereas I was Ishmael. But what has Ashley done with himself?”

“If you are comparing him with yourself, you conceited thing, why—He’s not like you, thank God! He wouldn’t soil his hands as you do, making money with Carpetbaggers and Scallawags and Yankees. He’s scrupulous and honorable!”

“But not too scrupulous and honorable to take aid and money from a woman.”

“What else could he have done?”

“Who am I to say? I only know what I did, both when I was thrown out and nowadays. I only know what other men have done. We saw opportunity in the ruin of a civilization and we made the most of our opportunity, some honestly, some shadily, and we are still making the most of it. But the Ashleys of this world have the same chances and don’t take them. They just aren’t smart, Scarlett, and only the smart deserve to survive.”

She hardly heard what he was saying, for now there was coming back to her the exact memory which had teased her a few minutes before when he first began speaking. She remembered the cold wind that swept the orchard of Tara and Ashley standing by a pile of rails, his eyes looking beyond her. And he had said—what? Some funny foreign name that sounded like profanity and had talked of the end of the world. She had not known what he meant then but now bewildered comprehension was coming to her and with it a sick, weary feeling.

“Why, Ashley said—”

“Yes?”

“Once at Tara he said something about the—a—dusk of the gods and about the end of the world and some such foolishness.”

“Ah, the Gotterdammerung!” Rhett’s eyes were sharp with interest. “And what else?”

“Oh, I don’t remember exactly. I wasn’t paying much mind. But—yes—something about the strong coming through and the weak being winnowed out.”

“Ah, so he knows. Then that makes it harder for him. Most of them don’t know and will never know. They’ll wonder all their lives where the lost enchantment has vanished. They’ll simply suffer in proud and incompetent silence. But he understands. He knows he’s winnowed out.”

“Oh, he isn’t! Not while I’ve got breath in my body.”

He looked at her quietly and his brown face was smooth.

“Scarlett, how did you manage to get his consent to come to Atlanta and take over the mill? Did he struggle very hard against you?”

She had a quick memory of the scene with Ashley after Gerald’s funeral and put it from her.

“Why, of course not,” she replied indignantly. “When I explained to him that I needed his help because I didn’t trust that scamp who was running the mill and Frank was too busy to help me and I was going to—well, there was Ella Lorena, you see. He was very glad to help me out.”

“Sweet are the uses of motherhood! So that’s how you got around him. Well, you’ve got him where you want him now, poor devil, as shackled to you by obligations as any of your convicts are by their chains. And I wish you both joy. But, as I said at the beginning of this discussion, you’ll never get another cent out of me for any of your little unladylike schemes, my double-dealing lady.”

She was smarting with anger and with disappointment as well. For some time she had been planning to borrow more money from Rhett to buy a lot downtown and start a lumber yard there.

“I can do without your money,” she cried. “I’m making money out of Johnnie Gallegher’s mill, plenty of it, now that I don’t use free darkies and I have some money out on mortgages and we are coining cash at the store from the darky trade.”

“Yes, so I heard. How clever of you to rook the helpless and the widow and the orphan and the ignorant! But if you must steal, Scarlett, why not steal from the rich and strong instead of the poor and weak? From Robin Hood on down to now, that’s been considered highly moral.”

“Because,” said Scarlett shortly, “it’s a sight easier and safer to steal—as you call it—from the poor.”

He laughed silently, his shoulders shaking.

“You’re a fine honest rogue, Scarlett!”

A rogue! Queer that that term should hurt. She wasn’t a rogue, she told herself vehemently. At least, that wasn’t what she wanted to be. She wanted to be a great lady. For a moment her mind went swiftly down the years and she saw her mother, moving with a sweet swish of skirts and a faint fragrance of sachet, her small busy hands tireless in the service of others, loved, respected, cherished. And suddenly her heart was sick.

“If you are trying to devil me,” she said tiredly, “it’s no use. I know I’m not as—scrupulous as I should be these days. Not as kind and as pleasant as I was brought up to be. But I can’t help it, Rhett. Truly, I can’t. What else could I have done? What would have happened to me, to Wade, to Tara and all of us if I’d been—gentle when that Yankee came to Tara? I should have been—but I don’t even want to think of that. And when Jonas Wilkerson was going to take the home place, suppose I’d been—kind and scrupulous? Where would we all be now? And if I’d been sweet and simple minded and not nagged Frank about bad debts we’d—oh, well. Maybe I am a rogue, but I won’t be a rogue forever, Rhett. But during these past years—and even now—what else could I have done? How else could I have acted? I’ve felt that I was trying to row a heavily loaded boat in a storm. I’ve had so much trouble just trying to keep afloat that I couldn’t be bothered about things that didn’t matter, things I could part with easily and not miss, like good manners and—well, things like that. I’ve been too afraid my boat would be swamped and so I’ve dumped overboard the things that seemed least important.”

“Pride and honor and truth and virtue and kindliness,” he enumerated silkily. “You are right, Scarlett. They aren’t important when a boat is sinking. But look around you at your friends. Either they are bringing their boats ashore safely with cargoes intact or they are content to go down with all flags flying.”

“They are a passel of fools,” she said shortly. “There’s a time for all things. When I’ve got plenty of money, I’ll be nice as you please, too. Butter won’t melt in my mouth. I can afford to be then.”

“You can afford to be—but you won’t. It’s hard to salvage jettisoned cargo and, if it is retrieved, it’s usually irreparably damaged. And I fear that when you can afford to fish up the honor and virtue and kindness you’ve thrown overboard, you’ll find they have suffered a sea change and not, I fear, into something rich and strange… ”

He rose suddenly and picked up his hat.

“You are going?”

“Yes. Aren’t you relieved? I leave you to what remains of your conscience.”

He paused and looked down at the baby, putting out a finger for the child to grip.

“I suppose Frank is bursting with pride?”

“Oh, of course.”

“Has a lot of plans for this baby, I suppose?”

“Oh, well, you know how silly men are about their babies.”

“Then, tell him,” said Rhett and stopped short, an odd look on his face, “tell him if he wants to see his plans for his child work out, he’d better stay home at night more often than he’s doing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I say. Tell him to stay home.”

“Oh, you vile creature! To insinuate that poor Frank would—”

“Oh, good Lord!” Rhett broke into a roar of laughter. “I didn’t mean he was running around with women! Frank! Oh, good Lord!”

He went down the steps still laughing.

Chapter XLIV

The march afternoon was windy and cold, and Scarlett pulled the lap robe high under her arms as she drove out the Decatur road toward Johnnie Gallegher’s mill. Driving alone was hazardous these days and she knew it, more hazardous than ever before, for now the negroes were completely out of hand. As Ashley had prophesied, there had been hell to pay since the legislature refused to ratify the amendment. The stout refusal had been like a slap in the face of the furious North and retaliation had come swiftly. The North was determined to force the negro vote on the state and, to this end, Georgia had been declared in rebellion and put under the strictest martial law. Georgia’s very existence as a state had been wiped out and it had become, with Florida and Alabama, “Military District Number Three,” under the command of a Federal general.

If life had been insecure and frightening before this, it was doubly so now. The military regulations which had seemed so stringent the year before were now mild by comparison with the ones issued by General Pope. Confronted with the prospect of negro rule, the future seemed dark and hopeless, and the embittered state smarted and writhed helplessly. As for the negroes, their new importance went to their heads, and, realizing that they had the Yankee Army behind them, their outrages increased. No one was safe from them.

In this wild and fearful time, Scarlett was frightened—frightened but determined, and she still made her rounds alone, with Frank’s pistol tucked in the upholstery of the buggy. She silently cursed the legislature for bringing this worse disaster upon them all. What good had it done, this fine brave stand, this gesture which everyone called gallant? It had just made matters so much worse.

As she drew near the path that led down through the bare trees into the creek bottom where the Shantytown settlement was, she clucked to the horse to quicken his speed. She always felt uneasy driving past this dirty, sordid cluster of discarded army tents and slave cabins. It had the worst reputation of any spot in or near Atlanta, for here lived in filth outcast negroes, black prostitutes and a scattering of poor whites of the lowest order. It was rumored to be the refuge of negro and white criminals and was the first place the Yankee soldiers searched when they wanted a man. Shootings and cuttings went on here with such regularity that the authorities seldom troubled to investigate and generally left the Shantytowners to settle their own dark affairs. Back in the woods there was a still that manufactured a cheap quality of corn whisky and, by night, the cabins in the creek bottoms resounded with drunken yells and curses.

Even the Yankees admitted that it was a plague spot and should be wiped out, but they took no steps in this direction. Indignation was loud among the inhabitants of Atlanta and Decatur who were forced to use the road for travel between the two towns. Men went by Shantytown with their pistols loosened in their holsters and nice women never willingly passed it, even under the protection of their men, for usually there were drunken negro slatterns sitting along the road, hurling insults and shouting coarse words.

As long as she had Archie beside her, Scarlett had not given Shantytown a thought, because not even the most impudent negro woman dared laugh in her presence. But since she had been forced to drive alone, there had been any number of annoying, maddening incidents. The negro sluts seemed to try themselves whenever she drove by. There was nothing she could do except ignore them and boil with rage. She could not even take comfort in airing her troubles to her neighbors or family because the neighbors would say triumphantly: “Well, what else did you expect?” And her family would take on dreadfully again and try to stop her. And she had no intention of stopping her trips.

Thank Heaven, there were no ragged women along the roadside today! As she passed the trail leading down to the settlement she looked with distaste at the group of shacks squatting in the hollow in the dreary slant of the afternoon sun. There was a chill wind blowing, and as she passed there came to her nose the mingled smells of wood smoke, frying pork and untended privies. Averting her nose, she flapped the reins smartly across the horse’s back and hurried him past and around the bend of the road.

Just as she was beginning to draw a breath of relief, her heart rose in her throat with sudden fright, for a huge negro slipped silently from behind a large oak tree. She was frightened but not enough to lose her wits and, in an instant, the horse was pulled up and she had Frank’s pistol in her hand.

“What do you want?” she cried with all the sternness she could muster. The big negro ducked back behind the oak, and the voice that answered was frightened.

“Lawd, Miss Scarlett, doan shoot Big Sam!”

Big Sam! For a moment she could not take in his words. Big Sam, the foreman of Tara whom she had seen last in the days of the siege. What on earth…

“Come out of there and let me see if you are really Sam!”

Reluctantly he slid out of his hiding place, a giant ragged figure, bare-footed, clad in denim breeches and a blue Union uniform jacket that was far too short and tight for his big frame. When she saw it was really Big Sam, she shoved the pistol down into the upholstery and smiled with pleasure.

“Oh, Sam! How nice to see you!”

Sam galloped over to the buggy, his eyes rolling with joy and his white teeth flashing, and clutched her outstretched hand with two black hands as big as hams. His watermelon-pink tongue lapped out, his whole body wiggled and his joyful contortions were as ludicrous as the gambolings of a mastiff.

“Mah Lawd, it sho is good ter see some of de fambly agin!” he cried, scrunching her hand until she felt that the bones would crack. “Hucoome you got so mean lak, totin’ a gun, Miss Scarlett?”

“So many mean folks these days, Sam, that I have to tote it. What on earth are you doing in a nasty place like Shantytown, you, a respectable darky? And why haven’t you been into town to see me?”

“Law’m, Miss Scarlett, ah doan lib in Shantytown. Ah jes’ bidin’ hyah fer a spell. Ah wouldn’ lib in dat place for nuthin’. Ah nebber in mah life seed sech trashy niggers. An’ Ah din’ know you wuz in ’Lanta. Ah thought you wuz at Tara. Ah wuz aimin’ ter come home ter Tara soon as Ah got de chance.”

“Have you been living in Atlanta ever since the siege?”

“No, Ma’m! Ah been trabelin’!” He released her hand and she painfully flexed it to see if the bones were intact. “’Member w’en you seed me las’?”

Scarlett remembered the hot day before the siege began when she and Rhett had sat in the carriage and the gang of negroes with Big Sam at their head had marched down the dusty street toward the entrenchments singing “Go Down, Moses.” She nodded.

“Wel, Ah wuked lak a dawg diggin’ bresswuks an’ fillin’ San’ bags, tell de Confedruts lef’ ’Lanta. De cap’n gempmum whut had me in charge, he wuz kilt an’ dar warn’t nobody ter tell Big Sam whut ter do, so Ah jes’ lay low in de bushes. Ah thought Ah’d try ter git home ter Tara, but den Ah hear dat all de country roun’ Tara done buhnt up. ’Sides, Ah din’ hab no way ter git back an’ Ah wuz sceered de patterollers pick me up, kase Ah din’ hab no pass. Den de Yankees come in an’ a Yankee gempmum, he wuz a cunnel, he tek a shine ter me an’ he keep me te ten’ ter his hawse an’ his boots.

“Yas, Ma’m! Ah sho did feel bigitty, bein’ a body serbant lak Poke, w’en Ah ain’ nuthin’ but a fe’el han’. Ah ain’ tell de Cunnel Ah wuz a fe’el han’ an’ he—Well, Miss Scarlett, Yankees is iggerunt folks! He din’ know de diffunce! So Ah stayed wid him an’ Ah went ter Sabannah wid him w’en Gin’ul Sherman went dar, an’ fo’ Gawd, Miss Scarlett, Ah nebber seed sech awful goin’-ons as Ah seed on de way ter Sabannah! A-stealin’ an’ a-buhnin’—did dey buhn Tara, Miss Scarlett?”

“They set fire to it, but we put it out.”

“Well’m, Ah sho glad ter hear dat. Tara mah home an’ Ah is aimin’ ter go back dar. An’ w’en de wah ober, de Cunnel he say ter me: ‘You Sam! You come on back Nawth wid me. Ah pay you good wages.’ Well’m, lak all de niggers, Ah wuz honin’ ter try disyere freedom fo’ Ah went home, so Ah goes Nawth wid de Cunnel. Yas’m, us went ter Washington an’ Noo Yawk an’ den ter Bawston whar de Cunnel lib. Yas, Ma’am, Ah’s a trabeled nigger! Miss Scarlett, dar’s mo’ hawses and cah’iges on dem Yankee streets dan you kin shake a stick at! Ah wuz sceered all de time Ah wuz gwine git runned ober!”

“Did you like it up North, Sam?”

Sam scratched his woolly head.

“Ah did—an’ Ah din’t. De Cunnel, he a mighty fine man an’ he unnerstan’ niggers. But his wife, she sumpin’ else. His wife, she call me ‘Mister’ fust time she seed me. Yas’m, she do dat an’ Ah lak ter drap in mah tracks w’en she do it. De Cunnel, he tell her ter call me ‘Sam’ an’ den she do it. But all dem Yankee folks, fust time dey meet me, dey call me ‘Mist’ O’Hara.’ An’ dey ast me ter set down wid dem, lak Ah wuz jes’ as good as dey wuz. Well, Ah ain’ nebber set down wid w’ite folks an’ Ah is too ole ter learn. Dey treat me lak Ah jes’ as good as dey wuz, Miss Scarlett, but in dere hearts, dey din’ lak me—dey din’ lak no niggers. An’ dey wuz sceered of me, kase Ah’s so big. An’ dey wuz allus astin’ me ’bout de blood houn’s dat chase me an’ de beatin’s Ah got. An’, Lawd, Miss Scarlett, Ah ain’ nebber got no beatin’s! You know Mist’ Gerald ain’ gwine let nobody beat a ’spensive nigger lak me!

“W’en Ah tell dem dat an’ tell dem how good Miss Ellen ter de niggers, an’ how she set up a whole week wid me w’en Ah had de pneumony, dey doan b’lieve me. An’, Miss Scarlett, Ah got ter honin’ fer Miss Ellen an’ Tara, tell it look lak Ah kain stan’ it no longer, an’ one night Ah lit out fer home, an’ Ah rid de freight cabs all de way down ter ’Lanta. Ef you buy me a ticket ter Tara, Ah sho be glad ter git home. Ah sho be glad ter see Miss Ellen and Mist’ Gerald agin. An done had nuff freedom. Ah wants somebody ter feed me good vittles reg’lar, and tell me whut ter do an’ whut not ter do, an’ look affer me w’en Ah gits sick. S’pose Ah gits de pneumony agin? Is dat Yankee lady gwine tek keer of me? No, Ma’m! She gwine call me ‘Mist’ O’Hara’ but she ain’ gwine nuss me. But Miss Ellen, she gwine nuss me, do Ah git sick an’—whut’s de mattuh, Miss Scarlett?”

“Pa and Mother are both dead, Sam.”

“Daid? Is you funnin’ wid me, Miss Scarlett? Dat ain’ no way ter treat me!”

“I’m not funning. It’s true. Mother died when Sherman men came through Tara and Pa—he went last June. Oh, Sam, don’t cry. Please don’t! If you do, I’ll cry too. Sam, don’t! I just can’t stand it. Let’s don’t talk about it now. I’ll tell you all about it some other time… Miss Suellen is at Tara and she’s married to a mighty fine man, Mr. Will Benteen. And Miss Carreen, she’s in a—” Scarlett paused. She could never make plain to the weeping giant what a convent was. “She’s living in Charleston now. But Pork and Prissy are at Tara… There, Sam, wipe your nose. Do you really want to go home?”

“Yas’m but it ain’ gwine be lak Ah thought wid Miss Ellen an’—”

“Sam, how’d you like to stay here in Atlanta and work for me? I need a driver and I need one bad with so many mean folks around these days.”

“Yas’m. You sho do. Ah been aimin’ ter say you ain’ got no bizness drivin’ ’round by yo’seff, Miss Scarlett. You ain’ got no notion how mean some niggers is dese days, specially dem whut live hyah in Shantytown. It ain’ safe fer you. Ah ain’ been in Shantytown but two days, but Ah hear dem talk ’bout you. An’ yesterday w’en you druv by an’ dem trashy black wenches holler at you, Ah recernize you but you went by so fas’ Ah couldn’ ketch you. But Ah sho tan de hides of dem niggers! Ah sho did. Ain’ you notice dar ain’ none of dem roun’ hyah terday?”

“I did notice and I certainly thank you, Sam. Well, how would you like to be my carriage man?”

“Miss Scarlett, thankee, Ma’m, but Ah specs Ah better go ter Tara.”

Big Sam looked down and his bare toe traced aimless marks in the road. There was a furtive uneasiness about him.

“Now, why? I’ll pay you good wages. You must stay with me.”

The big black face, stupid and as easily read as a child’s, looked up at her and there was fear in it. He came closer and, leaning over the side of the buggy, whispered:

“Miss Scarlett, Ah got ter git outer ’Lanta. Ah got ter git ter Tara whar dey woan fine me. Ah—Ah done kilt a man.”

“A darky?”

“No’m. A w’ite man. A Yankee sojer and dey’s lookin’ fer me. Dat de reason Ah’m hyah at Shantytown.”

“How did it happen?”

“He wuz drunk an’ he said sumpin’ Ah couldn’ tek noways an’ Ah got mah han’s on his neck—an’ Ah din’ mean ter kill him, Miss Scarlett, but mah han’s is pow’ful strong, an’ fo’ Ah knowed it, he wuz kilt. An’ Ah wuz so sceered Ah din’ know whut ter do! So Ah come out hyah ter hide an’ w’en Ah seed you go by yestiddy, Ah says ‘Bress Gawd! Dar Miss Scarlett! She tek keer of me. She ain’ gwine let de Yankees git me. She sen’ me back ter Tara.”

“You say they’re after you? They know you did it?”

“Yas’m, Ah’s so big dar ain’ no mistakin’ me. Ah spec Ah’s de bigges’ nigger in ’Lanta. Dey done been out hyah already affer me las’ night but a nigger gal, she hid me in a cabe ober in de woods, tell dey wuz gone.”

Scarlett sat frowning for a moment. She was not in the least alarmed or distressed that Sam had committed murder, but she was disappointed that she could not have him as a driver. A big negro like Sam would be as good a bodyguard as Archie. Well, she must get him safe to Tara somehow, for of course the authorities must not get him. He was too valuable a darky to be hanged. Why, he was the best foreman Tara had ever had! It did not enter Scarlett’s mind that he was free. He still belonged to her, like Pork and Mammy and Peter and Cookie and Prissy. He was still “one of our family” and, as such, must be protected.

“I’ll send you to Tara tonight,” she said finally. “Now Sam, I’ve got to drive out the road a piece, but I ought to be back here before sundown. You be waiting here for me when I come back. Don’t tell anyone where you are going and if you’ve got a hat, bring it along to hide your face.”

“Ah ain’ got no hat.”

“Well, here’s a quarter. You buy a hat from one of those shanty darkies and meet me here.”

“Yas’m.” His face glowed with relief at once more having someone to tell him what to do.

Scarlett drove on thoughtfully. Will would certainly welcome a good field hand at Tara. Pork had never been any good in the fields and never would be any good. With Sam on the place, Pork could come to Atlanta and join Dilcey as she had promised him when Gerald died.

When she reached the mill the sun was setting and it was later than she cared to be out. Johnnie Gallegher was standing in the doorway of the miserable shack that served as cook room for the little lumber camp. Sitting on a log in front of the slab-sided shack that was their sleeping quarters were four of the five convicts Scarlett had apportioned to Johnnie’s mill. Their convict uniforms were dirty and foul with sweat, shackles clanked between their ankles when they moved tiredly, and there was an air of apathy and despair about them. They were a thin, unwholesome lot, Scarlett thought, peering sharply at them, and when she had leased them, so short a time before, they were an upstanding crew. They did not even raise their eyes as she dismounted from the buggy but Johnnie turned toward her, carelessly dragging off his hat. His little brown face was as hard as a nut as he greeted her.

“I don’t like the look of the men,” she said abruptly. “They don’t look well. Where’s the other one?”

“Says he’s sick,” said Johnnie laconically. “He’s in the bunk house.”

“What ails him?”

“Laziness, mostly.”

“I’ll go see him.”

“Don’t do that. He’s probably nekkid. I’ll tend to him. He’ll be back at work tomorrow.”

Scarlett hesitated and saw one of the convicts raise a weary head and give Johnnie a stare of intense hatred before he looked at the ground again.

“Have you been whipping these men?”

“Now, Mrs. Kennedy, begging your pardon, who’s running this mill? You put me in charge and told me to run it. You said I’d have a free hand. You ain’t got no complaints to make of me, have you? Ain’t I making twice as much for you as Mr. Elsing did?”

“Yes, you are,” said Scarlett, but a shiver went over her, like a goose walking across her grave.

There was something sinister about this camp with its ugly shacks, something which had not been here when Hugh Elsing had it. There was a loneliness, an isolation, about it that chilled her. These convicts were so far away from everything, so completely at the mercy of Johnnie Gallegher, and if he chose to whip them or otherwise mistreat them, she would probably never know about it. The convicts would be afraid to complain to her for fear of worse punishment after she was gone.

“The men look thin. Are you giving them enough to eat? God knows, I spend enough money on their food to make them fat as hogs. The flour and pork alone cost thirty dollars last month. What are you giving them for supper?”

She stepped over to the cook shack and looked in. A fat mulatto woman, who was leaning over a rusty old stove, dropped a half curtsy as she saw Scarlett and went on stirring a pot in which black-eyed peas were cooking. Scarlett knew Johnnie Gallegher lived with her but thought it best to ignore the fact. She saw that except for the peas and a pan of corn pone there was no other food being prepared.

“Haven’t you got anything else for these men?”

“No’m.”

“Haven’t you got any side meat in these peas?”

“No’m.”

“No boiling bacon in the peas? But black-eyed peas are no good without bacon. There’s no strength to them. Why isn’t there any bacon?”

“Mist’ Johnnie, he say dar ain’ no use puttin’ in no side meat.”

“You’ll put bacon in. Where do you keep your supplies?”

The negro woman rolled frightened eyes toward the small closet that served as a pantry and Scarlett threw the door open. There was an open barrel of cornmeal on the floor, a small sack of flour, a pound of coffee, a little sugar, a gallon jug of sorghum and two hams. One of the hams sitting on the shelf had been recently cooked and only one or two slices had been cut from it. Scarlett turned in a fury on Johnnie Gallegher and met his coldly angry gaze.

“Where are the five sacks of white flour I sent out last week? And the sugar sack and the coffee? And I had five hams sent and ten pounds of side meat and God knows how many bushels of yams and Irish potatoes. Well, where are they? You can’t have used them all in a week if you fed the men five meals a day. You’ve sold them! That’s what you’ve done, you thief! Sold my good supplies and put the money in your pocket and fed these men on dried peas and corn pone. No wonder they look so thin. Get out of the way.”

She stormed past him to the doorway.

“You, man, there on the end—yes, you! Come here!”

The man rose and walked awkwardly toward her, his shackles clanking, and she saw that his bare ankles were red and raw from the chafing of the iron.

“When did you last have ham?”

The man looked down at the ground.

“Speak up.”

Still the man stood silent and abject. Finally he raised his eyes, looked Scarlett in the face imploringly and dropped his gaze again.

“Scared to talk, eh? Well, go in the pantry and get that ham off the shelf. Rebecca, give him your knife. Take it out to those men and divide it up. Rebecca, make some biscuits and coffee for the men. And serve plenty of sorghum. Start now, so I can see you do it.”

“Dat’s Mist’ Johnnie’s privut flour an’ coffee,” Rebecca muttered frightenedly.

“Mr. Johnnie’s, my foot! I suppose it’s his private ham too. You do what I say. Get busy. Johnnie Gallegher, come out to the buggy with me.”

She stalked across the littered yard and climbed into the buggy, noticing with grim satisfaction that the men were tearing at the ham and cramming bits into their mouths voraciously. They looked as if they feared it would be taken from them at any minute.

“You are a rare scoundrel!” she cried furiously to Johnnie as he stood at the wheel, his hat pushed back from his lowering brow. “And you can just hand over to me the price of my supplies. In the future, I’ll bring you provisions every day instead of ordering them by the month. Then you can’t cheat me.”

“In the future I won’t be here,” said Johnnie Gallegher.

“You mean you are quitting!”

For a moment it was on Scarlett’s hot tongue to cry: “Go and good riddance!” but the cool hand of caution stopped her. If Johnnie should quit, what would she do? He had been doubling the amount of lumber Hugh turned out. And just now she had a big order, the biggest she had ever had and a rush order at that. She had to get that lumber into Atlanta. If Johnnie quit, whom would she get to take over the mill?

“Yes, I’m quitting. You put me in complete charge here and you told me that all you expected of me was as much lumber as I could possibly get out. You didn’t tell me how to run my business then and I’m not aiming to have you start now. How I get the lumber out is no affair of yours. You can’t complain that I’ve fallen down on my bargain. I’ve made money for you and I’ve earned my salary—and what I could pick up on the side, too. And here you come out here, interfering, asking questions and breaking my authority in front of the men. How can you expect me to keep discipline after this? What if the men do get an occasional lick? The lazy scum deserve worse. What if they ain’t fed up and pampered? They don’t deserve nothing better. Either you tend to your business and let me tend to mine or I quit tonight.”

His hard little face looked flintier than ever and Scarlett was in a quandary. If he quit tonight, what would she do? She couldn’t stay here all night guarding the convicts!

Something of her dilemma showed in her eyes for Johnnie’s expression changed subtly and some of the hardness went out of his face. There was an easy agreeable note in his voice when he spoke.

“It’s getting late, Mrs. Kennedy, and you’d better be getting on home. We ain’t going to fall out over a little thing like this, are we? S’pose you take ten dollars out of my next month’s wages and let’s call it square.”

Scarlett’s eyes went unwillingly to the miserable group gnawing on the ham and she thought of the sick man lying in the windy shack. She ought to get rid of Johnnie Gallegher. He was a thief and a brutal man. There was no telling what he did to the convicts when she wasn’t there. But, on the other hand, he was smart and, God knows, she needed a smart man. Well, she couldn’t part with him now. He was making money for her. She’d just have to see to it that the convicts got their proper rations in the future.

“I’ll take twenty dollars out of your wages,” she said shortly, “and I’ll be back and discuss the matter further in the morning.”

She picked up the reins. But she knew there would be no further discussion. She knew that the matter had ended there and she knew Johnnie knew it.

As she drove off down the path to the Decatur road her conscience battled with her desire for money. She knew she had no business exposing human lives to the hard little man’s mercies. If he should cause the death of one of them she would be as guilty as he was, for she had kept him in charge after learning of his brutalities. But, on the other hand—well, on the other hand, men had no business getting to be convicts. If they broke laws and got caught, then they deserved what they got. This partly salved her conscience but as she drove down the road the dull thin faces of the convicts would keep coming back into her mind.

“Oh, I’ll think of them later,” she decided, and pushed the thought into the lumber room of her mind and shut the door upon it.

The sun had completely gone when she reached the bend in the road above Shantytown and the woods about her were dark. With the disappearance of the sun, a bitter chill had fallen on the twilight world and a cold wind blew through the dark woods, making the bare boughs crack and the dead leaves rustle. She had never been out this late by herself and she was uneasy and wished herself home.

Big Sam was nowhere to be seen and, as she drew rein to wait for him, she worried about his absence, fearing the Yankees might have already picked him up. Then she heard footsteps coming up the path from the settlement and a sigh of relief went through her lips. She’d certainly dress Sam down for keeping her waiting.

But it wasn’t Sam who came round the bend.

It was a big ragged white man and a squat black negro with shoulders and chest like a gorilla. Swiftly she flapped the reins on the horse’s back and clutched the pistol. The horse started to trot and suddenly shied as the white man threw up his hand.

“Lady,” he said, “can you give me a quarter? I’m sure hungry.”

“Get out of the way,” she answered, keeping her voice as steady as she could. “I haven’t got any money. Giddap.”

With a sudden swift movement the man’s hand was on the horse’s bridle.

“Grab her!” he shouted to the negro. “She’s probably got her money in her bosom!”

What happened next was like a nightmare to Scarlett, and it all happened so quickly. She brought up her pistol swiftly and some instinct told her not to fire at the white man for fear of shooting the horse. As the negro came running to the buggy, his black face twisted in a leering grin, she fired point-blank at him. Whether or not she hit him, she never knew, but the next minute the pistol was wrenched from her hand by a grasp that almost broke her wrist. The negro was beside her, so close that she could smell the rank odor of him as he tried to drag her over the buggy side. With her one free hand she fought madly, clawing at his face, and then she felt his big hand at her throat and, with a ripping noise, her basque was torn open from neck to waist. Then the black hand fumbled between her breasts, and terror and revulsion such as she had never known came over her and she screamed like an insane woman.

“Shut her up! Drag her out!” cried the white man, and the black hand fumbled across Scarlett’s face to her mouth. She bit as savagely as she could and then screamed again, and through her screaming she heard the white man swear and realized that there was a third man in the dark road. The black hand dropped from her mouth and the negro leaped away as Big Sam charged at him.

“Run, Miss Scarlett!” yelled Sam, grappling with the negro; and Scarlett, shaking and screaming, clutched up the reins and whip and laid them both over the horse. It went off at a jump and she felt the wheels pass over something soft, something resistant. It was the white man who lay in the road where Sam had knocked him down.

Maddened by terror, she lashed the horse again and again and it struck a gait that made the buggy rock and sway. Through her terror she was conscious of the sound of feet running behind her and she screamed at the horse to go faster. If that black ape got her again, she would die before he even got his hands upon her.

A voice yelled behind her: “Miss Scarlett! Stop!”

Without slacking, she looked trembling over her shoulder and saw Big Sam racing down the road behind her, his long legs working like hard-driven pistons. She drew rein as he came up and he flung himself into the buggy, his big body crowding her to one side. Sweat and blood were streaming down his face as he panted:

“Is you hu’t? Did dey hu’t you?”

She could not speak, but seeing the direction of his eyes and their quick averting, she realized that her basque was open to the waist and her bare bosom and corset cover were showing. With a shaking hand she clutched the two edges together and bowing her head began to cry in terrified sobs.

“Gimme dem lines,” said Sam, snatching the reins from her. “Hawse, mek tracks!”

The whip cracked and the startled horse went off at a wild gallop that threatened to throw the buggy into the ditch.

“Ah hope Ah done kill dat black baboon. But Ah din’ wait ter fine out,” he panted. “But ef he hahmed you, Miss Scarlett, Ah’ll go back an’ mek sho of it.”

“No—no—drive on quickly,” she sobbed.

Chapter XLV

That night when Frank deposited her and Aunt Pitty and the children at Melanie’s and rode off down the street with Ashley, Scarlett could have burst with rage and hurt. How could he go off to a political meeting on this of all nights in the world? A political meeting! And on the same night when she had been attacked, when anything might have happened to her! It was unfeeling and selfish of him. But then, he had taken the whole affair with maddening calm, ever since Sam had carried her sobbing into the house, her basque gaping to the waist. He hadn’t clawed his beard even once when she cried out her story. He had just questioned gently: “Sugar, are you hurt—or just scared?”

Wrath mingling with her tears she had been unable to answer and Sam had volunteered that she was just scared.

“Ah got dar fo’ dey done mo’n t’ar her dress.”

“You’re a good boy, Sam, and I won’t forget what you’ve done. If there’s anything I can do for you—”

“Yassah, you kin sen’ me ter Tara, quick as you kin. De Yankees is affer me.”

Frank had listened to this statement calmly too, and had asked no questions. He had looked very much as he did the night Tony came beating on their door, as though this was an exclusively masculine affair and one to be handled with a minimum of words and emotions.

“You go get in the buggy. I’ll have Peter drive you as far as Rough and Ready tonight and you can hide in the woods till morning and then catch the train to Jonesboro. It’ll be safer… Now, Sugar, stop crying. It’s all over now and you aren’t really hurt. Miss Pitty, could I have your smelling salts? And Mammy, fetch Miss Scarlett a glass of wine.”

Scarlett had burst into renewed tears, this time tears of rage. She wanted comforting, indignation, threats of vengeance. She would even have preferred him storming at her, saying that this was just what he had warned her would happen—anything rather than have him take it all so casually and treat her danger as a matter of small moment. He was nice and gentle, of course, but in an absent way as if he had something far more important on his mind.

And that important thing had turned out to be a small political meeting!

She could hardly believe her ears when he told her to change her dress and get ready for him to escort her over to Melanie’s for the evening. He must know how harrowing her experience had been, must know she did not want to spend an evening at Melanie’s when her tired body and jangled nerves cried out for the warm relaxation of bed and blankets—with a hot brick to make her toes tingle and a hot toddy to soothe her fears. If he really loved her, nothing could have forced him from her side on this of all nights. He would have stayed home and held her hand and told her over and over that he would have died if anything had happened to her. And when he came home tonight and she had him alone, she would certainly tell him so.

Melanie’s small parlor looked as serene as it usually did on nights when Frank and Ashley were away and the women gathered together to sew. The room was warm and cheerful in the firelight. The lamp on the table shed a quiet yellow glow on the four smooth heads bent to their needlework. Four skirts billowed modestly, eight small feet were daintily placed on low hassocks. The quiet breathing of Wade, Ella and Beau came through the open door of the nursery. Archie sat on a stool by the hearth, his back against the fireplace, his cheek distended with tobacco, whittling industriously on a bit of wood. The contrast between the dirty, hairy old man and the four neat, fastidious ladies was as great as though he were a grizzled, vicious old watchdog and they four small kittens.

Melanie’s soft voice, tinged with indignation, went on and on as she told of the recent outburst of temperament on the part of the Lady Harpists. Unable to agree with the Gentlemen’s Glee Club as to the program for their next recital, the ladies had waited on Melanie that afternoon and announced their intention of withdrawing completely from the Musical Circle. It had taken all of Melanie’s diplomacy to persuade them to defer their decision.

Scarlett, overwrought, could have screamed: “Oh, damn the Lady Harpists!” She wanted to talk about her dreadful experience. She was bursting to relate it in detail, so she could ease her own fright by frightening the others. She wanted to tell how brave she had been, just to assure herself by the sound of her own words that she had, indeed, been brave. But every time she brought up the subject, Melanie deftly steered the conversation into other and innocuous channels. This irritated Scarlett almost beyond endurance. They were as mean as Frank.

How could they be so calm and placid when she had just escaped so terrible a fate? They weren’t even displaying common courtesy in denying her the relief of talking about it.

The events of the afternoon had shaken her more than she cared to admit, even to herself. Every time she thought of that malignant black face peering at her from the shadows of the twilight forest road, she fell to trembling. When she thought of the black hand at her bosom and what would have happened if Big Sam had not appeared, she bent her head lower and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. The longer she sat silent in the peaceful room, trying to sew, listening to Melanie’s voice, the tighter her nerves stretched. She felt that at any moment she would actually hear them break with the same pinging sound a banjo string makes when it snaps.

Archie’s whittling annoyed her and she frowned at him. Suddenly it seemed odd that he should be sitting there occupying himself with a piece of wood. Usually he lay flat on the sofa, during the evenings when he was on guard, and slept and snored so violently that his long beard leaped into the air with each rumbling breath. It was odder still that neither Melanie nor India hinted to him that he should spread a paper on the floor to catch his litter of shavings. He had already made a perfect mess on the hearth rug but they did not seem to have noticed it.

While she watched him, Archie turned suddenly toward the fire and spat a stream of tobacco juice on it with such vehemence that India, Melanie and Pitty leaped as though a bomb had exploded.

“Need you expectorate so loudly?” cried India in a voice that cracked with nervous annoyance. Scarlett looked at her in surprise for India was always so self-contained.

Archie gave her look for look.

“I reckon I do,” he answered coldly and spat again. Melanie gave a little frowning glance at India.

“I was always so glad dear Papa didn’t chew,” began Pitty, and Melanie, her frown creasing deeper, swung on her and spoke sharper words than Scarlett had ever heard her speak.

“Oh, do hush, Auntie! You’re so tactless.”

“Oh, dear!” Pitty dropped her sewing in her lap and her mouth pressed up in hurt. “I declare, I don’t know what ails you all tonight. You and India are just as jumpy and cross as two old sticks.”

No one answered her. Melanie did not even apologize for her crossness but went back to her sewing with small violence.

“You’re taking stitches an inch long,” declared Pitty with some satisfaction. “You’ll have to take every one of them out. What’s the matter with you?”

But Melanie still did not answer.

Was there anything the matter with them, Scarlett wondered? Had she been too absorbed with her own fears to notice? Yes, despite Melanie’s attempts to make the evening appear like any one of fifty they had all spent together, there was a difference due to their alarm and shock at what had happened that afternoon. Scarlett stole glances at her companions and intercepted a look from India.

It discomforted her because it was a long, measuring glance that carried in its cold depths something stronger than hate, something more insulting than contempt.

“As though she thought I was to blame for what happened,” Scarlett thought indignantly.

India turned from her to Archie and, all annoyance at him gone from her face, gave him a look of veiled anxious inquiry. But he did not meet her eyes. He did however look at Scarlett, staring at her in the same cold hard way India had done.

Silence fell dully in the room as Melanie did not take up the conversation again and, in the silence, Scarlett heard the rising wind outside. It suddenly began to be a most unpleasant evening. Now she began to feel the tension in the air and she wondered if it had been present all during the evening—and she too upset to notice it. About Archie’s face there was an alert waiting look and his tufted, hairy old ears seemed pricked up like a lynx’s. There was a severely repressed uneasiness about Melanie and India that made them raise their heads from their sewing at each sound of hooves in the road, at each groan of bare branches under the wailing wind, at each scuffing sound of dry leaves tumbling across the lawn. They started at each soft snap of burning logs on the hearth as if they were stealthy footsteps.

Something was wrong and Scarlett wondered what it was. Something was afoot and she did not know about it. A glance at Aunt Pitty’s plump guileless face, screwed up in a pout, told her that the old lady was as ignorant as she. But Archie and Melanie and India knew. In the silence she could almost feel the thoughts of India and Melanie whirling as madly as squirrels in a cage. They knew something, were waiting for something, despite their efforts to make things appear as usual. And their inner unease communicated itself to Scarlett, making her more nervous than before. Handling her needle awkwardly, she jabbed it into her thumb and with a little scream of pain and annoyance that made them all jump, she squeezed it until a bright red drop appeared.

“I’m just too nervous to sew,” she declared, throwing her mending to the floor. “I’m nervous enough to scream. I want to go home and go to bed. And Frank knew it and he oughtn’t to have gone out. He talks, talks, talks about protecting women against darkies and Carpetbaggers and when the time comes for him to do some protecting, where is he? At home, taking care of me? No, indeed, he’s gallivanting around with a lot of other men who don’t do anything but talk and—”

Her snapping eyes came to rest on India’s face and she paused. India was breathing fast and her pale lashless eyes were fastened on Scarlett’s face with a deadly coldness.

“If it won’t pain you too much, India,” she broke off sarcastically, “I’d be much obliged if you’d tell me why you’ve been staring at me all evening. Has my face turned green or something?”

“It won’t pain me to tell you. I’ll do it with pleasure,” said India and her eyes glittered. “I hate to see you underrate a fine man like Mr. Kennedy when, if you knew—”

“India!” said Melanie warningly, her hands clenching on her sewing.

“I think I know my husband better than you do,” said Scarlett, the prospect of a quarrel, the first open quarrel she had ever had with India, making her spirits rise and her nervousness depart. Melanie’s eyes caught India’s and reluctantly India closed her lips. But almost instantly she spoke again and her voice was cold with hate.

“You make me sick, Scarlett O’Hara, talking about being protected! You don’t care about being protected! If you did you’d never have exposed yourself as you have done all these months, prissing yourself about this town, showing yourself off to strange men, hoping they’ll admire you! What happened to you this afternoon was just what you deserved and if there was any justice you’d have gotten worse.”

“Oh, India, hush!” cried Melanie.

“Let her talk,” cried Scarlett. “I’m enjoying it. I always knew she hated me and she was too much of a hypocrite to admit it. If she thought anyone would admire her, she’d be walking the streets naked from dawn till dark.”

India was on her feet, her lean body quivering with insult.

“I do hate you,” she said in a clear but trembling voice. “But it hasn’t been hypocrisy that’s kept me quiet. It’s something you can’t understand, not possessing any—any common courtesy, common good breeding. It’s the realization that if all of us don’t hang together and submerge our own small hates, we can’t expect to beat the Yankees. But you—you—you’ve done all you could to lower the prestige of decent people—working and bringing shame on a good husband, giving Yankees and riffraff the right to laugh at us and make insulting remarks about our lack of gentility. Yankees don’t know that you aren’t one of us and have never been. Yankees haven’t sense enough to know that you haven’t any gentility. And when you’ve ridden about the woods exposing yourself to attack, you’ve exposed every well-behaved woman in town to attack by putting temptation in the ways of darkies and mean white trash. And you’ve put our men folks’ lives in danger because they’ve got to—”

“My God, India!” cried Melanie and even in her wrath, Scarlett was stunned to hear Melanie take the Lord’s name in vain. “You must hush! She doesn’t know and she—you must hush! You promised—”

“Oh, girls!” pleaded Miss Pittypat, her lips trembling.

“What don’t I know?” Scarlett was on her feet, furious, facing the coldly blazing India and the imploring Melanie.

“Guinea hens,” said Archie suddenly and his voice was contemptuous. Before anyone could rebuke him, his grizzled head went up sharply and he rose swiftly. “Somebody comin’ up the walk. ’Tain’t Mr. Wilkes neither. Cease your cackle.”

There was male authority in his voice and the women stood suddenly silent, anger fading swiftly from their faces as he stumped across the room to the door.

“Who’s thar?” he questioned before the caller even knocked.

“Captain Butler. Let me in.”

Melanie was across the floor so swiftly that her hoops swayed up violently, revealing her pantalets to the knees, and before Archie could put his hand on the knob she flung the door open. Rhett Butler stood in the doorway, his black slouch hat low over his eyes, the wild wind whipping his cape about him in snapping folds. For once his good manners had deserted him. He neither took off his hat nor spoke to the others in the room. He had eyes for no one but Melanie and he spoke abruptly without greeting.

“Where have they gone? Tell me quickly. It’s life or death.”

Scarlett and Pitty, startled and bewildered, looked at each other in wonderment and, like a lean old cat, India streaked across the room to Melanie’s side.

“Don’t tell him anything,” she cried swiftly. “He’s a spy, a Scallawag!”

Rhett did not even favor her with a glance.

“Quickly, Mrs. Wilkes! There may still be time.”

Melanie seemed in a paralysis of terror and only stared into his face.

“What on earth—” began Scarlett.

“Shet yore mouth,” directed Archie briefly. “You too, Miss Melly. Git the hell out of here, you damned Scallawag.”

“No, Archie, no!” cried Melanie and she put a shaking hand on Rhett’s arm as though to protect him from Archie. “What has happened? How did—how did you know?”

On Rhett’s dark face impatience fought with courtesy.

“Good God, Mrs. Wilkes, they’ve all been under suspicion since the beginning—only they’ve been too clever—until tonight! How do I know? I was playing poker tonight with two drunken Yankee captains and they let it out. The Yankees knew there’d be trouble tonight and they’ve prepared for it. The fools have walked into a trap.”

For a moment it was as though Melanie swayed under the impact of a heavy blow and Rhett’s arm went around her waist to steady her.

“Don’t tell him! He’s trying to trap you!” cried India, glaring at Rhett. “Didn’t you hear him say he’d been with Yankee officers tonight?”

Still Rhett did not look at her. His eyes were bent insistently on Melanie’s white face.

“Tell me. Where did they go? Have they a meeting place?”

Despite her fear and incomprehension, Scarlett thought she had never seen a blanker, more expressionless face than Rhett’s but evidently Melanie saw something else, something that made her give her trust. She straightened her small body away from the steadying arm and said quietly but with a voice that shook:

“Out the Decatur road near Shantytown. They meet in the cellar of the old Sullivan plantation—the one that’s half-burned.”

“Thank you. I’ll ride fast. When the Yankees come here, none of you know anything.”

He was gone so swiftly, his black cape melting into the night, that they could hardly realize he had been there at all until they heard the spattering of gravel and the mad pounding of a horse going off at full gallop.

“The Yankees coming here?” cried Pitty and, her small feet turning under her, she collapsed on the sofa, too frightened for tears.

“What’s it all about? What did he mean? If you don’t tell me I’ll go crazy!” Scarlett laid hands on Melanie and shook her violently as if by force she could shake an answer from her.

“Mean? It means you’ve probably been the cause of Ashley’s and Mr. Kennedy’s death!” In spite of the agony of fear there was a note of triumph in India’s voice. “Stop shaking Melly. She’s going to faint.”

“No, I’m not,” whispered Melanie, clutching the back of a chair.

“My God, my God! I don’t understand! Kill Ashley? Please, somebody tell me—”

Archie’s voice, like a rusty hinge, cut through Scarlett’s words.

“Set down,” he ordered briefly. “Pick up yore sewin’. Sew like nothin’ had happened. For all we know, the Yankees might have been spyin’ on this house since sundown. Set down, I say, and sew.”

Trembling they obeyed, even Pitty picking up a sock and holding it in shaking fingers while her eyes, wide as a frightened child’s went around the circle for an explanation.

“Where is Ashley? What has happened to him, Melly?” cried Scarlett.

“Where’s your husband? Aren’t you interested in him?” India’s pale eyes blazed with insane malice as she crumpled and straightened the torn towel she had been mending.

“India, please!” Melanie had mastered her voice but her white, shaken face and tortured eyes showed the strain under which she was laboring. “Scarlett, perhaps we should have told you but—but—you had been through so much this afternoon that we—that Frank didn’t think—and you were always so outspoken against the Klan—”

“The Klan—”

At first, Scarlett spoke the word as if she had never heard it before and had no comprehension of its meaning and then:

“The Klan!” she almost screamed it. “Ashley isn’t in the Klan! Frank can’t be! Oh, he promised me!”

“Of course, Mr. Kennedy is in the Klan and Ashley, too, and all the men we know,” cried India. “They are men, aren’t they? And white men and Southerners. You should have been proud of him instead of making him sneak out as though it were something shameful and—”

“You all have known all along and I didn’t—”

“We were afraid it would upset you,” said Melanie sorrowfully.

“Then that’s where they go when they’re supposed to be at the political meetings? Oh, he promised me! Now, the Yankees will come and take my mills and the store and put him in jail—oh, what did Rhett Butler mean?”

India’s eyes met Melanie’s in wild fear. Scarlett rose, flinging her sewing down.

“If you don’t tell me, I’m going downtown and find out. I’ll ask everybody I see until I find—”

“Set,” said Archie, fixing her with his eye. “I’ll tell you. Because you went gallivantin’ this afternoon and got yoreself into trouble through yore own fault, Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Kennedy and the other men are out tonight to kill that thar nigger and that thar white man, if they can catch them, and wipe out that whole Shantytown settlement. And if what that Scallawag said is true, the Yankees suspected sumpin’ or got wind somehow and they’ve sont out troops to lay for them. And our men have walked into a trap. And if what Butler said warn’t true, then he’s a spy and he is goin’ to turn them up to the Yankees and they’ll git kilt just the same. And if he does turn them up, then I’ll kill him, if it’s the last deed of m’ life. And if they ain’t kilt, then they’ll all have to light out of here for Texas and lay low and maybe never come back. It’s all yore fault and thar’s blood on yore hands.”

Anger wiped out the fear from Melanie’s face as she saw comprehension come slowly across Scarlett’s face and then horror follow swiftly. She rose and put her hand on Scarlett’s shoulder.

“Another such word and you go out of this house, Archie,” she said sternly. “It’s not her fault. She only did—did what she felt she had to do. And our men did what they felt they had to do. People must do what they must do. We don’t all think alike or act alike and it’s wrong to—to judge others by ourselves. How can you and India say such cruel things when her husband as well as mine may be—may be—”

“Hark!” interrupted Archie softly. “Set, Ma’m. Thar’s horses.”

Melanie sank into a chair, picked up one of Ashley’s shirts and, bowing her head over it, unconsciously began to tear the frills into small ribbons.

The sound of hooves grew louder as horses trotted up to the house. There was the jangling of bits and the strain of leather and the sound of voices. As the hooves stopped in front of the house, one voice rose above the others in a command and the listeners heard feet going through the side yard toward the back porch. They felt that a thousand inimical eyes looked at them through the unshaded front window and the four women, with fear in their hearts, bent their heads and plied their needles. Scarlett’s heart screamed in her breast: “I’ve killed Ashley! I’ve killed him!” And in that wild moment she did not even think that she might have killed Frank too. She had no room in her mind for any picture save that of Ashley, lying at the feet of Yankee cavalrymen, his fair hair dappled with blood.

As the harsh rapid knocking sounded at the door, she looked at Melanie and saw come over the small, strained face a new expression, an expression as blank as she had just seen on Rhett Butler’s face, the bland blank look of a poker player bluffing a game with only two deuces.

“Archie, open the door,” she said quietly.

Slipping his knife into his boot top and loosening the pistol in his trouser band, Archie stumped over to the door and flung it open. Pitty gave a little squeak, like a mouse who feels the trap snap down, as she saw massed in the doorway, a Yankee captain and a squad of bluecoats. But the others said nothing. Scarlett saw with the faintest feeling of relief that she knew this officer. He was Captain Tom Jaffery, one of Rhett’s friends. She had sold him lumber to build his house. She knew him to be a gentleman. Perhaps, as he was a gentleman, he wouldn’t drag them away to prison. He recognized her instantly and, taking off his hat, bowed, somewhat embarrassed.

“Good evening, Mrs. Kennedy. And which of you ladies is Mrs. Wilkes?”

“I am Mrs. Wilkes,” answered Melanie, rising and for all her smallness, dignity flowed from her. “And to what do I owe this intrusion?”

The eyes of the captain flickered quickly about the room, resting for an instant on each face, passing quickly from their faces to the table and the hat rack as though looking for signs of male occupancy.

“I should like to speak to Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Kennedy, if you please.”

“They are not here,” said Melanie, a chill in her soft voice.

“Are you sure?”

“Don’t you question Miz Wilkes’ word,” said Archie, his beard bristling.

“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Wilkes. I meant no disrespect. If you give me your word, I will not search the house.”

“You have my word. But search if you like. They are at a meeting downtown at Mr. Kennedy’s store.”

“They are not at the store. There was no meeting tonight,” answered the captain grimly. “We will wait outside until they return.”

He bowed briefly and went out, closing the door behind him. Those in the house heard a sharp order, muffled by the wind: “Surround the house. A man at each window and door.” There was a tramping of feet. Scarlett checked a start of terror as she dimly saw bearded faces peering in the windows at them. Melanie sat down and with a hand that did not tremble reached for a book on the table. It was a ragged copy of Les Miserables, that book which caught the fancy of the Confederate soldiers. They had read it by camp-fire light and took some grim pleasure in calling it “Lee’s Miserables.” She opened it at the middle and began to read in a clear monotonous voice.

“Sew,” commanded Archie in a hoarse whisper and the three women, nerved by Melanie’s cool voice, picked up their sewing and bowed their heads.

How long Melanie read beneath that circle of watching eyes, Scarlett never knew but it seemed hours. She did not even hear a word that Melanie read. Now she was beginning to think of Frank as well as Ashley. So this was the explanation of his apparent calm this evening! He had promised her he would have nothing to do with the Klan. Oh, this was just the kind of trouble she had feared would come upon them! All the work of this last year would go for nothing. All her struggles and fears and labors in rain and cold had been wasted. And who would have thought that spiritless old Frank would get himself mixed up in the hot-headed doings of the Klan? Even at this minute, he might be dead. And if he wasn’t dead and the Yankees caught him, he’d be hanged. And Ashley, too!

Her nails dug into her palms until four bright-red crescents showed. How could Melanie read on and on so calmly when Ashley was in danger of being hanged? When he might be dead? But something in the cool soft voice reading the sorrows of Jean Valjean steadied her, kept her from leaping to her feet and screaming.

Her mind fled back to the night Tony Fontaine had come to them, hunted, exhausted, without money. If he had not reached their house and received money and a fresh horse, he would have been hanged long since. If Frank and Ashley were not dead at this very minute, they were in Tony’s position, only worse. With the house surrounded by soldiers they couldn’t come home and get money and clothes without being captured. And probably every house up and down the street had a similar guard of Yankees, so they could not apply to friends for aid. Even now they might be riding wildly through the night, bound for Texas.

But Rhett—perhaps Rhett had reached them in time. Rhett always had plenty of cash in his pocket. Perhaps he would lend them enough to see them through. But that was queer. Why should Rhett bother himself about Ashley’s safety? Certainly he disliked him, certainly he professed a contempt for him. Then why—But this riddle was swallowed up in a renewed fear for the safety of Ashley and Frank.

“Oh, it’s all my fault!” she wailed to herself. “India and Archie spoke the truth. It’s all my fault. But I never thought either of them was foolish enough to join the Klan! And I never thought anything would really happen to me! But I couldn’t have done otherwise. Melly spoke the truth. People have to do what they have to do. And I had to keep the mills going! I had to have money! And now I’ll probably lose it all and somehow it’s all my fault!”

After a long time Melanie’s voice faltered, trailed off and was silent. She turned her head toward the window and stared as though no Yankee soldier stared back from behind the glass. The others raised their heads, caught by her listening pose, and they too listened.

There was a sound of horses’ feet and of singing, deadened by the closed windows and doors, borne away by the wind but still recognizable. It was the most hated and hateful of all songs, the song about Sherman’s men “Marching through Georgia” and Rhett Butler was singing it.

Hardly had he finished the first lines when two other voices, drunken voices, assailed him, enraged foolish voices that stumbled over words and blurred them together. There was a quick command from Captain Jaffery on the front porch and the rapid tramp of feet. But even before these sounds arose, the ladies looked at one another stunned. For the drunken voices expostulating with Rhett were those of Ashley and Hugh Elsing.

Voices rose louder on the front walk, Captain Jaffery’s curt and questioning, Hugh’s shrill with foolish laughter, Rhett’s deep and reckless and Ashley’s queer, unreal, shouting: “What the hell! What the hell!”

“That can’t be Ashley!” thought Scarlett wildly. “He never gets drunk! And Rhett—why, when Rhett’s drunk he gets quieter and quieter—never loud like that!”

Melanie rose and, with her, Archie rose. They heard the captain’s sharp voice: “These two men are under arrest.” And Archie’s hand closed over his pistol butt.

“No,” whispered Melanie firmly. “No. Leave it to me.” There was in her face the same look Scarlett had seen that day at Tara when Melanie had stood at the top of the steps looking down at the dead Yankee, her weak wrist weighed down by the heavy saber—a gentle and timid soul nerved by circumstances to the caution and fury of a tigress. She threw the front door open.

“Bring him in, Captain Butler,” she called in a clear tone that bit with venom. “I suppose you’ve gotten him intoxicated again. Bring him in.”

From the dark windy walk, the Yankee captain spoke: “I’m sorry, Mrs. Wilkes, but your husband and Mr. Elsing are under arrest.”

“Arrest? For what? For drunkenness? If everyone in Atlanta was arrested for drunkenness, the whole Yankee garrison would be in jail continually. Well, bring him in, Captain Butler—that is, if you can walk yourself.”

Scarlett’s mind was not working quickly and for a brief moment nothing made sense. She knew neither Rhett nor Ashley was drunk and she knew Melanie knew they were not drunk. Yet here was Melanie, usually so gentle and refined, screaming like a shrew and in front of Yankees too, that both of them were too drunk to walk.

There was a short mumbled argument, punctuated with curses, and uncertain feet ascended the stairs. In the doorway appeared Ashley, white faced, his head lolling, his bright hair tousled, his long body wrapped from neck to knees in Rhett’s black cape. Hugh Elsing and Rhett, none too steady on their feet, supported him on either side and it was obvious he would have fallen to the floor but for their aid. Behind them came the Yankee captain, his face a study of mingled suspicion and amusement. He stood in the open doorway with his men peering curiously over his shoulders and the cold wind swept the house.

Scarlett, frightened, puzzled, glanced at Melanie and back to the sagging Ashley and then half-comprehension came to her. She started to cry out: “But he can’t be drunk!” and bit back the words. She realized she was witnessing a play, a desperate play on which lives hinged. She knew she was not part of it nor was Aunt Pitty but the others were and they were tossing cues to one another like actors in an oft-rehearsed drama. She understood only half but she understood enough to keep silent.

“Put him in the chair,” cried Melanie indignantly. “And you, Captain Butler, leave this house immediately! How dare you show your face here after getting him in this condition again!”

The two men eased Ashley into a rocker and Rhett, swaying, caught hold of the back of the chair to steady himself and addressed the captain with pain in his voice.

“That’s fine thanks I get, isn’t it? For keeping the police from getting him and bringing him home and him yelling and trying to claw me!”

“And you, Hugh Elsing, I’m ashamed of you! What will your poor mother say? Drunk and out with a—a Yankee-loving Scallawag like Captain Butler! And, oh, Mr. Wilkes, how could you do such a thing?”

“Melly, I ain’t so very drunk,” mumbled Ashley, and with the words fell forward and lay face down on the table, his head buried in his arms.

“Archie, take him to his room and put him to bed—as usual,” ordered Melanie. “Aunt Pitty, please run and fix the bed and oooh,” she suddenly burst into tears. “Oh, how could he? After he promised!”

Archie already had his arm under Ashley’s shoulder and Pitty, frightened and uncertain, was on her feet when the captain interposed.

“Don’t touch him. He’s under arrest. Sergeant!”

As the sergeant stepped into the room, his rifle at trail, Rhett, evidently trying to steady himself, put a hand on the captain’s arm and, with difficulty, focused his eyes.

“Tom, what you arresting him for? He ain’t so very drunk. I’ve seen him drunker.”

“Drunk be damned,” cried the captain. “He can lie in the gutter for all I care. I’m no policeman. He and Mr. Elsing are under arrest for complicity in a Klan raid at Shantytown tonight. A nigger and a white man were killed. Mr. Wilkes was the ringleader in it.”

“Tonight?” Rhett began to laugh. He laughed so hard that he sat down on the sofa and put his head in his hands. “Not tonight, Tom,” he said when he could speak. “These two have been with me tonight—ever since eight o’clock when they were supposed to be at the meeting.”

“With you, Rhett? But—” A frown came over the captain’s forehead and he looked uncertainly at the snoring Ashley and his weeping wife. “But—where were you?”

“I don’t like to say,” and Rhett shot a look of drunken cunning at Melanie.

“You’d better say!”

“Le’s go out on the porch and I’ll tell you where we were.”

“You’ll tell me now.”

“Hate to say it in front of ladies. If you ladies’ll step out of the room—”

“I won’t go,” cried Melanie, dabbing angrily at her eyes with her handkerchief. “I have a right to know. Where was my husband?”

“At Belle Watling’s sporting house,” said Rhett, looking abashed. “He was there and Hugh and Frank Kennedy and Dr. Meade and—and a whole lot of them. Had a party. Big party. Champagne. Girls—”

“At—at Belle Watling’s?”

Melanie’s voice rose until it cracked with such pain that all eyes turned frightenedly to her. Her hand went clutching at her bosom and, before Archie could catch her, she had fainted. Then a hubbub ensued, Archie picking her up, India running to the kitchen for water, Pitty and Scarlett fanning her and slapping her wrists, while Hugh Elsing shouted over and over: “Now you’ve done it! Now you’ve done it!”

“Now it’ll be all over town,” said Rhett savagely. “I hope you’re satisfied, Tom. There won’t be a wife in Atlanta who’ll speak to her husband tomorrow.”

“Rhett, I had no idea—” Though the chill wind was blowing through the open door on his back, the captain was perspiring. “Look here! You take an oath they were at—er—at Belle’s?”

“Hell, yes,” growled Rhett. “Go ask Belle herself if you don’t believe me. Now, let me carry Mrs. Wilkes to her room. Give her to me, Archie. Yes, I can carry her. Miss Pitty, go ahead with a lamp.”

He took Melanie’s limp body from Archie’s arms with ease.

“You get Mr. Wilkes to bed, Archie. I don’t want to ever lay eyes or hands on him again after this night.”

Pitty’s hand trembled so that the lamp was a menace to the safety of the house but she held it and trotted ahead toward the dark bedroom. Archie, with a grunt, got an arm under Ashley and raised him.

“But—I’ve got to arrest these men!”

Rhett turned in the dim hallway.

“Arrest them in the morning then. They can’t run away in this condition—and I never knew before that it was illegal to get drunk in a sporting house. Good God, Tom, there are fifty witnesses to prove they were at Belle’s.”

“There are always fifty witnesses to prove a Southerner was somewhere he wasn’t,” said the captain morosely. “You come with me, Mr. Elsing. I’ll parole Mr. Wilkes on the word of—”

“I am Mr. Wilkes’ sister. I will answer for his appearance,” said India coldly. “Now, will you please go? You’ve caused enough trouble for one night.”

“I regret it exceedingly.” The captain bowed awkwardly. “I only hope they can prove their presence at the—er—Miss—Mrs. Watling’s house. Will you tell your brother that he must appear before the provost marshal tomorrow morning for questioning?”

India bowed coldly and, putting her hand upon the door knob, intimated silently that his speedy retirement would be welcome. The captain and the sergeant backed out, Hugh Elsing with them, and she slammed the door behind them. Without even looking at Scarlett, she went swiftly to each window and drew down the shade. Scarlett, her knees shaking, caught hold of the chair in which Ashley had been sitting to steady herself. Looking down at it, she saw that there was a dark moist spot, larger than her hand, on the cushion in the back of the chair. Puzzled, her hand went over it and, to her horror, a sticky red wetness appeared on her palm.

“India,” she whispered, “India, Ashley’s—he’s hurt.”

“You fool! Did you think he was really drunk?”

India snapped down the last shade and started on flying feet for the bedroom, with Scarlett close behind her, her heart in her throat. Rhett’s big body barred the doorway but, past his shoulder, Scarlett saw Ashley lying white and still on the bed. Melanie, strangely quick for one so recently in a faint, was rapidly cutting off his blood-soaked shirt with embroidery scissors. Archie held the lamp low over the bed to give light and one of his gnarled fingers was on Ashley’s wrist.

“Is he dead?” cried both girls together.

“No, just fainted from loss of blood. It’s through his shoulder,” said Rhett.

“Why did you bring him here, you fool?” cried India. “Let me get to him! Let me pass! Why did you bring him here to be arrested?”

“He was too weak to travel. There was nowhere else to bring him, Miss Wilkes. Besides—do you want him to be an exile like Tony Fontaine? Do you want a dozen of your neighbors to live in Texas under assumed names for the rest of their lives? There’s a chance that we may get them all off if Belle—”

“Let me pass!”

“No, Miss Wilkes. There’s work for you. You must go for a doctor—Not Dr. Meade. He’s implicated in this and is probably explaining to the Yankees at this very minute. Get some other doctor. Are you afraid to go out alone at night?”

“No,” said India, her pale eyes glittering. “I’m not afraid.” She caught up Melanie’s hooded cape which was hanging on a hook in the hall. “I’ll go for old Dr. Dean.” The excitement went out of her voice as, with an effort, she forced calmness. “I’m sorry I called you a spy and a fool. I did not understand. I’m deeply grateful for what you’ve done for Ashley—but I despise you just the same.”

“I appreciate frankness—and I thank you for it.” Rhett bowed and his lip curled down in an amused smile. “Now, go quickly and by back ways and when you return do not come in this house if you see signs of soldiers about.”

India shot one more quick anguished look at Ashley, and, wrapping her cape about her, ran lightly down the hall to the back door and let herself out quietly into the night.

Scarlett, straining her eyes past Rhett, felt her heart beat again as she saw Ashley’s eyes open. Melanie snatched a folded towel from the washstand rack and pressed it against his streaming shoulder and he smiled up weakly, reassuringly into her face. Scarlett felt Rhett’s hard penetrating eyes upon her, knew that her heart was plain upon her face, but she did not care. Ashley was bleeding, perhaps dying and she who loved him had torn that hole through his shoulder. She wanted to run to the bed, sink down beside it and clasp him to her but her knees trembled so that she could not enter the room. Hand at her mouth, she stared while Melanie packed a fresh towel against his shoulder, pressing it hard as though she could force back the blood into his body. But the towel reddened as though by magic.

How could a man bleed so much and still live? But, thank God, there was no bubble of blood at his lips—oh, those frothy red bubbles, forerunners of death that she knew so well from the dreadful day of the battle at Peachtree Creek when the wounded had died on Aunt Pitty’s lawn with bloody mouths.

“Brace up,” said Rhett, and there was a hard, faintly jeering note in his voice. “He won’t die. Now, go take the lamp and hold it for Mrs. Wilkes. I need Archie to run errands.”

Archie looked across the lamp at Rhett.

“I ain’t takin’ no orders from you,” he said briefly, shifting his wad of tobacco to the other cheek.

“You do what he says,” said Melanie sternly, “and do it quickly. Do everything Captain Butler says. Scarlett, take the lamp.”

Scarlett went forward and took the lamp, holding it in both hands to keep from dropping it. Ashley’s eyes had closed again. His bare chest heaved up slowly and sank quickly and the red stream seeped from between Melanie’s small frantic fingers. Dimly she heard Archie stump across the room to Rhett and heard Rhett’s low rapid words. Her mind was so fixed upon Ashley that of the first half-whispered words of Rhett, she only heard: “Take my horse… tied outside… ride like hell.”

Archie mumbled some question and Scarlett heard Rhett reply: “The old Sullivan plantation. You’ll find the robes pushed up the biggest chimney. Burn them.”

“Um,” grunted Archie.

“And there’s two—men in the cellar. Pack them over the horse as best you can and take them to that vacant lot behind Belle’s—the one between her house and the railroad tracks. Be careful. If anyone sees you, you’ll hang as well as the rest of us. Put them in that lot and put pistols near them—in their hands. Here—take mine.”

Scarlett, looking across the room, saw Rhett reach under his coat tails and produce two revolvers which Archie took and shoved into his waist band.

“Fire one shot from each. It’s got to appear like a plain case of shooting. You understand?”

Archie nodded as if he understood perfectly and an unwilling gleam of respect shone in his cold eye. But understanding was far from Scarlett. The last half-hour had been so nightmarish that she felt nothing would ever be plain and clear again. However, Rhett seemed in perfect command of the bewildering situation and that was a small comfort.

Archie turned to go and then swung about and his one eye went questioningly to Rhett’s face.

“Him?”

“Yes.”

Archie grunted and spat on the floor.

“Hell to pay,” he said as he stumped down the hall to the back door.

Something in the last low interchange of words made a new fear and suspicion rise up in Scarlett’s breast like a chill ever-swelling bubble. When that bubble broke—

“Where’s Frank?” she cried.

Rhett came swiftly across the room to the bed, his big body swinging as lightly and noiselessly as a cat’s.

“All in good time,” he said and smiled briefly. “Steady that lamp, Scarlett. You don’t want to burn Mr. Wilkes up. Miss Melly—”

Melanie looked up like a good little soldier awaiting a command and so tense was the situation it did not occur to her that for the first time Rhett was calling her familiarly by the name which only family and old friends used.

“I beg your pardon, I mean, Mrs. Wilkes… ”

“Oh, Captain Butler, do not ask my pardon! I should feel honored if you called me ‘Melly’ without the Miss! I feel as though you were my—my brother or—or my cousin. How kind you are and how clever! How can I ever thank you enough?”

“Thank you,” said Rhett and for a moment he looked almost embarrassed. “I should never presume so far, but Miss Melly,” and his voice was apologetic, “I’m sorry I had to say that Mr. Wilkes was in Belle Watling’s house. I’m sorry to have involved him and the others in such a—a—But I had to think fast when I rode away from here and that was the only plan that occurred to me. I knew my word would be accepted because I have so many friends among the Yankee officers. They do me the dubious honor of thinking me almost one of them because they know my—shall we call it my ‘unpopularity’?—among my townsmen. And you see, I was playing poker in Belle’s bar earlier in the evening. There are a dozen Yankee soldiers who can testify to that. And Belle and her girls will gladly lie themselves black in the face and say Mr. Wilkes and the others were—upstairs all evening. And the Yankees will believe them. Yankees are queer that way. It won’t occur to them that women of—their profession are capable of intense loyalty or patriotism. The Yankees wouldn’t take the word of a single nice Atlanta lady as to the whereabouts of the men who were supposed to be at the meeting tonight but they will take the word of—fancy ladies. And I think that between the word of honor of a Scallawag and a dozen fancy ladies, we may have a chance of getting the men off.”

There was a sardonic grin on his face at the last words but it faded as Melanie turned up to him a face that blazed with gratitude.

“Captain Butler, you are so smart! I wouldn’t have cared if you’d said they were in hell itself tonight, if it saves them! For I know and every one else who matters knows that my husband was never in a dreadful place like that!”

“Well—” began Rhett awkwardly, “as a matter of fact, he was at Belle’s tonight.”

Melanie drew herself up coldly.

“You can never make me believe such a lie!”

“Please, Miss Melly! Let me explain! When I got out to the old Sullivan place tonight, I found Mr. Wilkes wounded and with him were Hugh Elsing and Dr. Meade and old man Merriwether—”

“Not the old gentleman!” cried Scarlett.

“Men are never too old to be fools. And your Uncle Henry—”

“Oh, mercy!” cried Aunt Pitty.

“The others had scattered after the brush with the troops and the crowd that stuck together had come to the Sullivan place to hide their robes in the chimney and to see how badly Mr. Wilkes was hurt. But for his wound, they’d be headed for Texas by now—all of them—but he couldn’t ride far and they wouldn’t leave him. It was necessary to prove that they had been somewhere instead of where they had been, and so I took them by back ways to Belle Watling’s.”

“Oh—I see. I do beg your pardon for my rudeness, Captain Butler. I see now it was necessary to take them there but—Oh, Captain Butler, people must have seen you going in!”

“No one saw us. We went in through a private back entrance that opens on the railroad tracks. It’s always dark and locked.”

“Then how—?”

“I have a key,” said Rhett laconically, and his eyes met Melanie’s evenly.

As the full impact of the meaning smote her, Melanie became so embarrassed that she fumbled with the bandage until it slid off the wound entirely.

“I did not mean to pry—” she said in a muffled voice, her white face reddening, as she hastily pressed the towel back into place.

“I regret having to tell a lady such a thing.”

“Then it’s true!” thought Scarlett with an odd pang. “Then he does live with that dreadful Watling creature! He does own her house!”

“I saw Belle and explained to her. We gave her a list of the men who were out tonight and she and her girls will testify that they were all in her house tonight. Then to make our exit more conspicuous, she called the two desperadoes who keep order at her place and had us dragged downstairs, fighting, and through the barroom and thrown out into the street as brawling drunks who were disturbing the place.”

He grinned reminiscently. “Dr. Meade did not make a very convincing drunk. It hurt his dignity to even be in such a place. But your Uncle Henry and old man Merriwether were excellent. The stage lost two great actors when they did not take up the drama. They seemed to enjoy the affair. I’m afraid your Uncle Henry has a black eye due to Mr. Merriwether’s zeal for his part. He—”

The back door swung open and India entered, followed by old Dr. Dean, his long white hair tumbled, his worn leather bag bulging under his cape. He nodded briefly but without words to those present and quickly lifted the bandage from Ashley’s shoulder.

“Too high for the lung,” he said. “If it hasn’t splintered his collar bone it’s not so serious. Get me plenty of towels, ladies, and cotton if you have it, and some brandy.”

Rhett took the lamp from Scarlett and set it on the table as Melanie and India sped about, obeying the doctor’s orders.

“You can’t do anything here. Come into the parlor by the fire.” He took her arm and propelled her from the room. There was a gentleness foreign to him in both hand and voice. “You’ve had a rotten day, haven’t you?”

She allowed herself to be led into the front room and though she stood on the hearth rug in front of the fire she began to shiver. The bubble of suspicion in her breast was swelling larger now. It was more than a suspicion. It was almost a certainty and a terrible certainty. She looked up into Rhett’s immobile face and for a moment she could not speak. Then:

“Was Frank at—Belle Watling’s?”

“No.”

Rhett’s voice was blunt.

“Archie’s carrying him to the vacant lot near Belle’s. He’s dead. Shot through the head.”

Chapter XLVI

Few families in the north end of town slept that night for the news of the disaster to the Klan, and Rhett’s stratagem spread swiftly on silent feet as the shadowy form of India Wilkes slipped through back yards, whispered urgently through kitchen doors and slipped away into the windy darkness. And in her path, she left fear and desperate hope.

From without, houses looked black and silent and wrapped in sleep but, within, voices whispered vehemently into the dawn. Not only those involved in the night’s raid but every member of the Klan was ready for flight and in almost every stable along Peachtree Street, horses stood saddled in the darkness, pistols in holsters and food in saddlebags. All that prevented a wholesale exodus was India’s whispered message: “Captain Butler says not to run. The roads will be watched. He has arranged with that Watling creature—” In dark rooms men whispered: “But why should I trust that damned Scallawag Butler? It may be a trap!” And women’s voices implored: “Don’t go! If he saved Ashley and Hugh, he may save everybody. If India and Melanie trust him—” And they half trusted and stayed because there was no other course open to them.

Earlier in the night, the soldiers had knocked at a dozen doors and those who could not or would not tell where they had been that night were marched off under arrest. Rene Picard and one of Mrs. Merriwether’s nephews and the Simmons boys and Andy Bonnell were among those who spent the night in jail. They had been in the illstarred foray but had separated from the others after the shooting. Riding hard for home they were arrested before they learned of Rhett’s plan. Fortunately they all replied, to questions, that where they had been that night was their own business and not that of any damned Yankees. They had been locked up for further questioning in the morning. Old man Merriwether and Uncle Henry Hamilton declared shamelessly that they had spent the evening at Belle Watling’s sporting house and when Captain Jaffery remarked irritably that they were too old for such goings on, they wanted to fight him.

Belle Watling herself answered Captain Jaffery’s summons, and before he could make known his mission she shouted that the house was closed for the night. A passel of quarrelsome drunks had called in the early part of the evening and had fought one another, torn the place up, broken her finest mirrors and so alarmed the young ladies that all business had been suspended for the night. But if Captain Jaffery wanted a drink; the bar was still open—

Captain Jaffery, acutely conscious of the grins of his men and feeling helplessly that he was fighting a mist, declared angrily that he wanted neither the young ladies nor a drink and demanded if Belle knew the names of her destructive customers. Oh, yes, Belle knew them. They were her regulars. They came every Wednesday night and called themselves the Wednesday Democrats, though what they meant by that she neither knew or cared. And if they didn’t pay for the damage to the mirrors in the upper hall, she was going to have the law on them. She kept a respectable house and—Oh, their names? Belle unhesitatingly reeled off the names of twelve under suspicion, Captain Jaffery smiled sourly.

“These damned Rebels are as efficiently organized as our Secret Service,” he said. “You and your girls will have to appear before the provost marshal tomorrow.”

“Will the provost make them pay for my mirrors?”

“To hell with your mirrors! Make Rhett Butler pay for them. He owns the place, doesn’t he?”

Before dawn, every ex-Confederate family in town knew everything. And their negroes, who had been told nothing, knew everything too, by that black grapevine telegraph system which defies white understanding. Everyone knew the details of the raid, the killing of Frank Kennedy and crippled Tommy Wellburn and how Ashley was wounded in carrying Frank’s body away.

Some of the feeling of bitter hatred the women bore Scarlett for her share in the tragedy was mitigated by the knowledge that her husband was dead and she knew it and could not admit it and have the poor comfort of claiming his body. Until morning light disclosed the bodies and the authorities notified her, she must know nothing. Frank and Tommy, pistols in cold hands, lay stiffening among the dead weeds in a vacant lot. And the Yankees would say they killed each other in a common drunken brawl over a girl in Belle’s house. Sympathy ran high for Fanny, Tommy’s wife, who had just had a baby, but no one could slip through the darkness to see her and comfort her because a squad of Yankees surrounded the house, waiting for Tommy to return. And there was another squad about Aunt Pitty’s house, waiting for Frank.

Before dawn the news had trickled about that the military inquiry would take place that day. The townspeople, heavy eyed from sleeplessness and anxious waiting, knew that the safety of some of their most prominent citizens rested on three things—the ability of Ashley Wilkes to stand on his feet and appear before the military board, as though he suffered nothing more serious than a morning-after headache, the word of Belle Watling that these men had been in her house all evening and the word of Rhett Butler that he had been with them.

The town writhed at these last two! Belle Watling! To owe their men’s lives to her! It was intolerable! Women who had ostentatiously crossed the street when they saw Belle coming, wondered if she remembered and trembled for fear she did. The men felt less humiliation at taking their lives from Belle than the women did, for many of them thought her a good sort. But they were stung that they must owe lives and freedom to Rhett Butler, a speculator and a Scallawag. Belle and Rhett, the town’s best-known fancy woman and the town’s most hated man. And they must be under obligation to them.

Another thought that stung them to impotent wrath was the knowledge that the Yankees and Carpetbaggers would laugh. Oh, how they would laugh! Twelve of the town’s most prominent citizens revealed as habitual frequenters of Belle Watling’s sporting house! Two of them killed in a fight over a cheap little girl, others ejected from the place as too drunk to be tolerated even by Belle and some under arrest, refusing to admit they were there when everyone knew they were there!

Atlanta was right in fearing that the Yankees would laugh. They had squirmed too long beneath Southern coldness and contempt and now they exploded with hilarity. Officers woke comrades and retailed the news. Husbands roused wives at dawn and told them as much as could be decently told to women. And the women, dressing hastily, knocked on their neighbors’ doors and spread the story. The Yankee ladies were charmed with it all and laughed until tears ran down their faces. This was Southern chivalry and gallantry for you! Maybe those women who carried their heads so high and snubbed all attempts at friendliness wouldn’t be so uppity, now that everyone knew where their husbands spent their time when they were supposed to be at political meetings. Political meetings! Well, that was funny!

But even as they laughed, they expressed regret for Scarlett and her tragedy. After all, Scarlett was a lady and one of the few ladies in Atlanta who were nice to Yankees. She had already won their sympathy by the fact that she had to work because her husband couldn’t or wouldn’t support her properly. Even though her husband was a sorry one, it was dreadful that the poor thing should discover he had been untrue to her. And it was doubly dreadful that his death should occur simultaneously with the discovery of his infidelity. After all, a poor husband was better than no husband at all, and the Yankee ladies decided they’d be extra nice to Scarlett. But the others, Mrs. Meade, Mrs. Merriwether, Mrs. Elsing, Tommy Wellburn’s widow and most of all, Mrs. Ashley Wilkes, they’d laugh in their faces every time they saw them. That would teach them a little courtesy.

Much of the whispering that went on in the dark rooms on the north side of town that night was on this same subject. Atlanta ladies vehemently told their husbands that they did not care a rap what the Yankees thought. But inwardly they felt that running an Indian gantlet would be infinitely preferable to suffering the ordeal of Yankee grins and not being able to tell the truth about their husbands.

Dr. Meade, beside himself with outraged dignity at the position into which Rhett had jockeyed him and the others, told Mrs. Meade that, but for the fact that it would implicate the others, he would rather confess and be hanged than say he had been at Belle’s house.

“It is an insult to you, Mrs. Meade,” he fumed.

“But everyone will know you weren’t there for—for—”

“The Yankees won’t know. They’ll have to believe it if we save our necks. And they’ll laugh. The very thought that anyone will believe it and laugh infuriates me. And it insults you because—my dear, I have always been faithful to you.”

“I know that,” and in the darkness Mrs. Meade smiled and slipped a thin hand into the doctor’s. “But I’d rather it were really true than have one hair of your head in danger.”

“Mrs. Meade, do you know what you are saying?” cried the doctor, aghast at the unsuspected realism of his wife.

“Yes, I know. I’ve lost Darcy and I’ve lost Phil and you are all I have and, rather than lose you, I’d have you take up your permanent abode at that place.”

“You are distrait! You cannot know what you are saying.”

“You old fool,” said Mrs. Meade tenderly and laid her head against his sleeve.

Dr. Meade fumed into silence and stroked her cheek and then exploded again. “And to be under obligation to that Butler man! Hanging would be easy compared to that. No, not even if I owe him my life, can I be polite to him. His insolence is monumental and his shamelessness about his profiteering makes me boil. To owe my life to a man who never went in the army—”

“Melly said he enlisted after Atlanta fell.”

“It’s a lie. Miss Melly will believe any plausible scoundrel. And what I can’t understand is why he is doing all this—going to all this trouble. I hate to say it but—well, there’s always been talk about him and Mrs. Kennedy. I’ve seen them coming in from rides together too often this last year. He must have done it because of her.”

“If it was because of Scarlett, he wouldn’t have lifted his hand. He’d have been glad to see Frank Kennedy hanged. I think it’s because of Melly—”

“Mrs. Meade, you can’t be insinuating that there’s ever been anything between those two!”

“Oh, don’t be silly! But she’s always been unaccountably fond of him ever since he tried to get Ashley exchanged during the war. And I must say this for him, he never smiles in that nasty-nice way when he’s with her. He’s just as pleasant and thoughtful as can be—really a different man. You can tell by the way he acts with Melly that he could be decent if he wanted to. Now, my idea of why he’s doing all this is—” She paused. “Doctor, you won’t like my idea.”

“I don’t like anything about this whole affair!”

“Well, I think he did it partly for Melly’s sake but mostly because he thought it would be a huge joke on us all. We’ve hated him so much and showed it so plainly and now he’s got us in a fix where all of you have your choice of saying you were at that Watling woman’s house and shaming yourself and wives before the Yankees—or telling the truth and getting hanged. And he knows we’ll all be under obligation to him and his—mistress and that we’d almost rather be hanged than be obliged to them. Oh, I’ll wager he’s enjoying it.”

The doctor groaned. “He did look amused when he took us upstairs in that place.”

“Doctor,” Mrs. Meade hesitated, “what did it look like?”

“What are you saying, Mrs. Meade?”

“Her house. What did it look like? Are there cut-glass chandeliers? And red plush curtains and dozens of full-length gilt mirrors? And were the girls—were they unclothed?”

“Good God!” cried the doctor, thunderstruck, for it had never occurred to him that the curiosity of a chaste woman concerning her unchaste sisters was so devouring. “How can you ask such immodest questions? You are not yourself. I will mix you a sedative.”

“I don’t want a sedative. I want to know. Oh, dear, this is my only chance to know what a bad house looks like and now you are mean enough not to tell me!”

“I noticed nothing. I assure you I was too embarrassed at finding myself in such a place to take note of my surroundings,” said the doctor formally, more upset at this unsuspected revelation of his wife’s character than he had been by all the previous events of the evening. “If you will excuse me now, I will try to get some sleep.”

“Well, go to sleep then,” she answered, disappointment in her tones. Then as the doctor leaned over to remove his boots, her voice spoke from the darkness with renewed cheerfulness. “I imagine Dolly has gotten it all out of old man Merriwether and she can tell me about it.”

“Good Heavens, Mrs. Meade! Do you mean to tell me that nice women talk about such things among them—”

“Oh, go to bed,” said Mrs. Meade.

It sleeted the next day, but as the wintry twilight drew on the icy particles stopped falling and a cold wind blew. Wrapped in her cloak, Melanie went bewilderedly down her front walk behind a strange negro coachman who had summoned her mysteriously to a closed carriage waiting in front of the house. As she came up to the carriage the door was opened and she saw a woman in the dim interior.

Leaning closer, peering inside, Melanie questioned: “Who is it? Won’t you come in the house? It’s so cold—”

“Please come in here and set with me a minute, Miz Wilkes,” came a faintly familiar voice, an embarrassed voice from the depths of the carriage.

“Oh, you’re Miss—Mrs.—Watling!” cried Melanie. “I did so want to see you! You must come in the house.”

“I can’t do that, Miz Wilkes.” Belle Watling’s voice sounded scandalized. “You come in here and set a minute with me.”

Melanie entered the carriage and the coachman closed the door behind her. She sat down beside Belle and reached for her hand.

“How can I ever thank you enough for what you did today! How can any of us thank you enough!”

“Miz Wilkes, you hadn’t ought of sent me that note this mornin’. Not that I wasn’t proud to have a note from you but the Yankees might of got it. And as for sayin’ you was goin’ to call on me to thank me—why, Miz Wilkes, you must of lost your mind! The very idea! I come up here as soon as ’twas dark to tell you you mustn’t think of any sech thing. Why, I—why, you—it wouldn’t be fittin’ at all.”

“It wouldn’t be fitting for me to call and thank a kind woman who saved my husband’s life?”

“Oh, shucks, Miz Wilkes! You know what I mean!”

Melanie was silent for a moment, embarrassed by the implication. Somehow this handsome, sedately dressed woman sitting in the darkness of the carriage didn’t look and talk as she imagined a bad woman, the Madam of a House, should look and talk. She sounded like—well, a little common and countrified but nice and warm hearted.

“You were wonderful before the provost marshal today, Mrs. Watling! You and the other—your—the young ladies certainly saved our men’s lives.”

“Mr. Wilkes was the wonderful one. I don’t know how he even stood up and told his story, much less look as cool as he done. He was sure bleedin’ like a pig when I seen him last night. Is he goin’ to be all right, Miz Wilkes?”

“Yes, thank you. The doctor says it’s just a flesh wound, though he did lose a tremendous lot of blood. This morning he was—well, he was pretty well laced with brandy or he’d never have had the strength to go through with it all so well. But it was you, Mrs. Watling, who saved them. When you got mad and talked about the broken mirrors you sounded so—so convincing.”

“Thank you, Ma’m. But I—I thought Captain Butler done mighty fine too,” said Belle, shy pride in her voice.

“Oh, he was wonderful!” cried Melanie warmly. “The Yankees couldn’t help but believe his testimony. He was so smart about the whole affair. I can never thank him enough—or you either! How good and kind you are!”

“Thank you kindly, Miz Wilkes. It was a pleasure to do it. I—I hope it ain’t goin’ to embarrass you none, me sayin’ Mr. Wilkes come regular to my place. He never, you know—”

“Yes, I know. No, it doesn’t embarrass me at all. I’m just so grateful to you.”

“I’ll bet the other ladies ain’t grateful to me,” said Belle with sudden venom. “And I’ll bet they ain’t grateful to Captain Butler neither. I’ll bet they’ll hate him just this much more. I’ll bet you’ll be the only lady who even says thanks to me. I’ll bet they won’t even look me in the eye when they see me on the street. But I don’t care. I wouldn’t of minded if all their husbands got hung. But I did mind about Mr. Wilkes. You see I ain’t forgot how nice you was to me durin’ the war, about the money for the hospital. There ain’t never been a lady in this town nice to me like you was and I don’t forget a kindness. And I thought about you bein’ left a widder with a little boy if Mr. Wilkes got hung and—he’s a nice little boy, your boy is, Miz Wilkes. I got a boy myself and so I—”

“Oh, you have? Does he live—er—”

“Oh, no’m! He ain’t here in Atlanta. He ain’t never been here. He’s off at school. I ain’t seen him since he was little. I—well, anyway, when Captain Butler wanted me to lie for those men I wanted to know who the men was and when I heard Mr. Wilkes was one I never hesitated. I said to my girls, I said, ‘I’ll whale the livin’ daylights out of you all if you don’t make a special point of sayin’ you was with Mr. Wilkes all evenin’.”

“Oh!” said Melanie, still more embarrassed by Belle’s offhand reference to her “girls.” “Oh, that was—er—kind of you and—of them, too.”

“No more’n you deserve,” said Belle warmly. “But I wouldn’t of did it for just anybody. If it had been that Miz Kennedy’s husband by hisself, I wouldn’t of lifted a finger, no matter what Captain Butler said.”

“Why?”

“Well, Miz Wilkes, people in my business knows a heap of things. It’d surprise and shock a heap of fine ladies if they had any notion how much we knows about them. And she ain’t no good, Miz Wilkes. She kilt her husband and that nice Wellburn boy, same as if she shot them. She caused it all, prancin’ about Atlanta by herself, enticin’ niggers and trash. Why, not one of my girls—”

“You must not say unkind things about my sister-in-law.” Melanie stiffened coldly.

Belle put an eager placating hand on Melanie’s arm and then hastily withdrew it.

“Don’t freeze me, please, Miz Wilkes. I couldn’t stand it after you been so kind and sweet to me. I forgot how you liked her and I’m sorry for what I said. I’m sorry about poor Mr. Kennedy bein’ dead too. He was a nice man. I used to buy some of the stuff for my house from him and he always treated me pleasant. But Miz Kennedy—well, she just ain’t in the same class with you, Miz Wilkes. She’s a mighty cold woman and I can’t help it if I think so… When are they goin’ to bury Mr. Kennedy?”

“Tomorrow morning. And you are wrong about Mrs. Kennedy. Why, this very minute she’s prostrated with grief.”

“Maybe so,” said Belle with evident disbelief. “Well, I got to be goin’. I’m afraid somebody might recognize this carriage if I stayed here longer and that wouldn’t do you no good. And, Miz Wilkes, if you ever see me on the street, you—you don’t have to speak to me. I’ll understand.”

“I shall be proud to speak to you. Proud to be under obligation to you. I hope—I hope we meet again.”

“No,” said Belle. “That wouldn’t be fittin’. Good night.”

Chapter XLVII

Scarlett sat in her bedroom, picking at the supper tray Mammy had brought her, listening to the wind hurling itself out of the night. The house was frighteningly still, quieter even than when Frank had lain in the parlor just a few hours before. Then there had been tiptoeing feet and hushed voices, muffled knocks on the door, neighbors rustling in to whisper sympathy and occasional sobs from Frank’s sister who had come up from Jonesboro for the funeral.

But now the house was cloaked in silence. Although her door was open she could hear no sounds from below stairs. Wade and the baby had been at Melanie’s since Frank’s body was brought home and she missed the sound of the boy’s feet and Ella’s gurgling. There was a truce in the kitchen and no sound of quarreling from Peter, Mammy and Cookie floated up to her. Even Aunt Pitty, downstairs in the library, was not rocking her creaking chair in deference to Scarlett’s sorrow.

No one intruded upon her, believing that she wished to be left alone with her grief, but to be left alone was the last thing Scarlett desired. Had it only been grief that companioned her, she could have borne it as she had borne other griefs. But, added to her stunned sense of loss at Frank’s death, were fear and remorse and the torment of a suddenly awakened conscience. For the first time in her life she was regretting things she had done, regretting them with a sweeping superstitious fear that made her cast sidelong glances at the bed upon which she had lain with Frank.

She had killed Frank. She had killed him just as surely as if it had been her finger that pulled the trigger. He had begged her not to go about alone but she had not listened to him. And now he was dead because of her obstinacy. God would punish her for that. But there lay upon her conscience another matter that was heavier and more frightening even than causing his death—a matter which had never troubled her until she looked upon his coffined face. There had been something helpless and pathetic in that still face which had accused her. God would punish her for marrying him when he really loved Suellen. She would have to cower at the seat of judgment and answer for that lie she told him coming back from the Yankee camp in his buggy.

Useless for her to argue now that the end justified the means, that she was driven into trapping him, that the fate of too many people hung on her for her to consider either his or Suellen’s rights and happiness. The truth stood out boldly and she cowered away from it. She had married him coldly and used him coldly. And she had made him unhappy during the last six months when she could have made him very happy. God would punish her for not being nicer to him—punish her for all her bullyings and proddings and storms of temper and cutting remarks, for alienating his friends and shaming him by operating the mills and building the saloon and leasing convicts.

She had made him very unhappy and she knew it, but he had borne it all like a gentleman. The only thing she had ever done that gave him any real happiness was to present him with Ella. And she knew if she could have kept from having Ella, Ella would never have been born.

She shivered, frightened, wishing Frank were alive, so she could be nice to him, so very nice to him to make up for it all. Oh, if only God did not seem so furious and vengeful! Oh, if only the minutes did not go by so slowly and the house were not so still! If only she were not so alone!

If only Melanie were with her, Melanie could calm her fears. But Melanie was at home, nursing Ashley. For a moment Scarlett thought of summoning Pittypat to stand between her and her conscience but she hesitated. Pitty would probably make matters worse, for she honestly mourned Frank. He had been more her contemporary than Scarlett’s and she had been devoted to him. He had filled to perfection Pitty’s need for “a man in the house,” for he brought her little presents and harmless gossip, jokes and stories, read the paper to her at night and explained topics of the day to her while she mended his socks. She had fussed over him and planned special dishes for him and coddled him during his innumerable colds. Now she missed him acutely and repeated over and over as she dabbed at her red swollen eyes: “If only he hadn’t gone out with the Klan!”

If there were only someone who could comfort her, quiet her fears, explain to her just what were these confused fears which made her heart sink with such cold sickness! If only Ashley—but she shrank from the thought. She had almost killed Ashley, just as she had killed Frank. And if Ashley ever knew the real truth about how she lied to Frank to get him, knew how mean she had been to Frank, he could never love her any more. Ashley was so honorable, so truthful, so kind and he saw so straightly, so clearly. If he knew the whole truth, he would understand. Oh, yes, he would understand only too well! But he would never love her any more. So he must never know the truth because he must keep on loving her. How could she live if that secret source of her strength, his love, were taken from her? But what a relief it would be to put her head on his shoulder and cry and unburden her guilty heart!

The still house with the sense of death heavy upon it pressed about her loneliness until she felt she could not bear it unaided any longer. She arose cautiously, pushed her door half-closed and then dug about in the bottom bureau drawer beneath her underwear. She produced Aunt Pitty’s “swoon bottle” of brandy which she had hidden there and held it up to the lamp. It was nearly half-empty. Surely she hadn’t drunk that much since last night! She poured a generous amount into her water glass and gulped it down. She would have to put the bottle back in the cellaret before morning, filled to the top with water. Mammy had hunted for it, just before the funeral when the pallbearers wanted a drink, and already the air in the kitchen was electric with suspicion between Mammy, Cookie and Peter.

The brandy burned with fiery pleasantness. There was nothing like it when you needed it. In fact, brandy was good almost any time, so much better than insipid wine. Why on earth should it be proper for a woman to drink wine and not spirits? Mrs. Merriwether and Mrs. Meade had sniffed her breath most obviously at the funeral and she had seen the triumphant look they had exchanged. The old cats!

She poured another drink. It wouldn’t matter if she did get a little tipsy tonight for she was going to bed soon and she could gargle cologne before Mammy came up to unlace her. She wished she could get as completely and thoughtlessly drunk as Gerald used to get on Court Day. Then perhaps she could forget Frank’s sunken face accusing her of ruining his life and then killing him.

She wondered if everyone in town thought she had killed him. Certainly the people at the funeral had been cold to her. The only people who had put any warmth into their expressions of sympathy were the wives of the Yankee officers with whom she did business. Well, she didn’t care what the town said about her. How unimportant that seemed beside what she would have to answer for to God!

She took another drink at the thought, shuddering as the hot brandy went down her throat. She felt very warm now but still she couldn’t get the thought of Frank out of her mind. What fools men were when they said liquor made people forget! Unless she drank herself into insensibility, she’d still see Frank’s face as it had looked the last time he begged her not to drive alone, timid, reproachful, apologetic.

The knocker on the front door hammered with a dull sound that made the still house echo and she heard Aunt Pitty’s waddling steps crossing the hall and the door opening. There was the sound of greeting and an indistinguishable murmur. Some neighbor calling to discuss the funeral or to bring a blanc mange. Pitty would like that. She had taken an important and melancholy pleasure in talking to the condolence callers.

She wondered incuriously who it was and, when a man’s voice, resonant and drawling, rose above Pitty’s funereal whispering, she knew. Gladness and relief flooded her. It was Rhett. She had not seen him since he broke the news of Frank’s death to her, and now she knew, deep in her heart, that he was the one person who could help her tonight.

“I think she’ll see me,” Rhett’s voice floated up to her.

“But she is lying down now, Captain Butler, and won’t see anyone. Poor child, she is quite prostrated. She—”

“I think she will see me. Please tell her I am going away tomorrow and may be gone some time. It’s very important.”

“But—” fluttered Aunt Pittypat.

Scarlett ran out into the hall, observing with some astonishment that her knees were a little unsteady, and leaned over the banisters.

“I’ll be down terrectly, Rhett,” she called.

She had a glimpse of Aunt Pittypat’s plump upturned face, her eyes owlish with surprise and disapproval. Now it’ll be all over town that I conducted myself most improperly on the day of my husband’s funeral, thought Scarlett, as she hurried back to her room and began smoothing her hair. She buttoned her black basque up to the chin and pinned down the collar with Pittypat’s mourning brooch. I don’t look very pretty, she thought, leaning toward the mirror, too white and scared. For a moment her hand went toward the lock box where she kept her rouge hidden but she decided against it. Poor Pittypat would be upset in earnest if she came downstairs pink and blooming. She picked up the cologne bottle and took a large mouthful, carefully rinsed her mouth and then spit into the slop jar.

She rustled down the stairs toward the two who still stood in the hall, for Pittypat had been too upset by Scarlett’s action to ask Rhett to sit down. He was decorously clad in black, his linen frilly and starched, and his manner was all that custom demanded from an old friend paying a call of sympathy on one bereaved. In fact, it was so perfect that it verged on the burlesque, though Pittypat did not see it. He was properly apologetic for disturbing Scarlett and regretted that in his rush of closing up business before leaving town he had been unable to be present at the funeral.

“Whatever possessed him to come?” wondered Scarlett. “He doesn’t mean a word he’s saying.”

“I hate to intrude on you at this time but I have a matter of business to discuss that will not wait. Something that Mr. Kennedy and I were planning—”

“I didn’t know you and Mr. Kennedy had business dealings,” said Aunt Pittypat, almost indignant that some of Frank’s activities were unknown to her.

“Mr. Kennedy was a man of wide interests,” said Rhett respectfully. “Shall we go into the parlor?”

“No!” cried Scarlett, glancing at the closed folding doors. She could still see the coffin in that room. She hoped she never had to enter it again. Pitty, for once, took a hint, although with none too good grace.

“Do use the library. I must—I must go upstairs and get out the mending. Dear me, I’ve neglected it so this last week. I declare—”

She went up the stairs with a backward look of reproach which was noticed by neither Scarlett nor Rhett. He stood aside to let her pass before him into the library.

“What business did you and Frank have?” she questioned abruptly.

He came closer and whispered. “None at all. I just wanted to get Miss Pitty out of the way.” He paused as he leaned over her. “It’s no good, Scarlett.”

“What?”

“The cologne.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“I’m sure you do. You’ve been drinking pretty heavily.”

“Well, what if I have? Is it any of your business?”

“The soul of courtesy, even in the depths of sorrow. Don’t drink alone, Scarlett. People always find it out and it ruins the reputation. And besides, it’s a bad business, this drinking alone. What’s the matter, honey?”

He led her to the rosewood sofa and she sat down in silence.

“May I close the doors?”

She knew if Mammy saw the closed doors she would be scandalized and would lecture and grumble about it for days, but it would be still worse if Mammy should overhear this discussion of drinking, especially in light of the missing brandy bottle. She nodded and Rhett drew the sliding doors together. When he came back and sat down beside her, his dark eyes alertly searching her face, the pall of death receded before the vitality he radiated and the room seemed pleasant and homelike again, the lamps rosy and warm.

“What’s the matter, honey?”

No one in the world could say that foolish word of endearment as caressingly as Rhett, even when he was joking, but he did not look as if he were joking now. She raised tormented eyes to his face and somehow found comfort in the blank inscrutability she saw there. She did not know why this should be, for he was such an unpredictable, callous person. Perhaps it was because, as he often said, they were so much alike. Sometimes she thought that all the people she had ever known were strangers except Rhett.

“Can’t you tell me?” he took her hand, oddly gentle. “It’s more than old Frank leaving you? Do you need money?”

“Money? God, no! Oh, Rhett, I’m so afraid.”

“Don’t be a goose, Scarlett, you’ve never been afraid in your life.”

“Oh, Rhett, I am afraid!”

The words bubbled up faster than she could speak them. She could tell him. She could tell Rhett anything. He’d been so bad himself that he wouldn’t sit in judgment on her. How wonderful to know someone who was bad and dishonorable and a cheat and a liar, when all the world was filled with people who would not lie to save their souls and who would rather starve than do a dishonorable deed!

“I’m afraid I’ll die and go to hell.”

If he laughed at her she would die, right then. But he did not laugh.

“You are pretty healthy—and maybe there isn’t any hell after all.”

“Oh, but there is, Rhett! You know there is!”

“I know there is but it’s right here on earth. Not after we die. There’s nothing after we die, Scarlett. You are having your hell now.”

“Oh, Rhett, that’s blasphemous!”

“But singularly comforting. Tell me, why are you going to hell?”

He was teasing now, she could see the glint in his eyes but she did not mind. His hands felt so warm and strong, so comforting to cling to.

“Rhett, I oughtn’t to have married Frank. It was wrong. He was Suellen’s beau and he loved her, not me. But I lied to him and told him she was going to marry Tony Fontaine. Oh, how could I have done it?”

“Ah, so that was how it came about! I always wondered.”

“And then I made him so miserable. I made him do all sorts of things he didn’t want to do, like making people pay their bills when they really couldn’t afford to pay them. And it hurt him so when I ran the mills and built the saloon and leased convicts. He could hardly hold up his head for shame. And Rhett, I killed him. Yes, I did! I didn’t know he was in the Klan. I never dreamed he had that much gumption. But I ought to have known. And I killed him.”

“‘Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?’”

“What?”

“No matter. Go on.”

“Go on? That’s all. Isn’t it enough? I married him, I made him unhappy and I killed him. Oh, my God! I don’t see how I could have done it! I lied to him and I married him. It all seemed so right when I did it but now I see how wrong it was. Rhett, it doesn’t seem like it was me who did all these things. I was so mean to him but I’m not really mean. I wasn’t raised that way. Mother—” She stopped and swallowed. She had avoided thinking of Ellen all day but she could no longer blot out her image.

“I often wondered what she was like. You seemed to me so like your father.”

“Mother was—Oh, Rhett, for the first time I’m glad she’s dead, so she can’t see me. She didn’t raise me to be mean. She was so kind to everybody, so good. She’d rather I’d have starved than done this. And I so wanted to be just like her in every way and I’m not like her one bit. I hadn’t thought of that—there’s been so much else to think about—but I wanted to be like her. I didn’t want to be like Pa. I loved him but he was—so—so thoughtless. Rhett, sometimes I did try so hard to be nice to people and kind to Frank, but then the nightmare would come back and scare me so bad I’d want to rush out and just grab money away from people, whether it was mine or not.”

Tears were streaming unheeded down her face and she clutched his hand so hard that her nails dug into his flesh.

“What nightmare?” His voice was calm and soothing.

“Oh—I forgot you didn’t know. Well, just when I would try to be nice to folks and tell myself that money wasn’t everything, I’d go to bed and dream that I was back at Tara right after Mother died, right after the Yankees went through. Rhett, you can’t imagine—I get cold when I think about it. I can see how everything is burned and so still and there’s nothing to eat. Oh, Rhett, in my dream I’m hungry again.”

“Go on.”

“I’m hungry and everybody, Pa and the girls and the darkies, are starving and they keep saying over and over: ‘We’re hungry’ and I’m so empty it hurts, and so frightened. My mind keeps saying: ‘If I ever get out of this, I’ll never, never be hungry again’ and then the dream goes off into a gray mist and I’m running, running in the mist, running so hard my heart’s about to burst and something is chasing me, and I can’t breathe but I keep thinking that if I can just get there, I’ll be safe. But I don’t know where I’m trying to get to. And then I’d wake up and I’d be cold with fright and so afraid that I’d be hungry again. When I wake up from that dream, it seems like there’s not enough money in the world to keep me from being afraid of being hungry again. And then Frank would be so mealy mouthed and slow poky that he would make me mad and I’d lose my temper. He didn’t understand, I guess, and I couldn’t make him understand. I kept thinking that I’d make it up to him some day when we had money and I wasn’t so afraid of being hungry. And now he’s dead and it’s too late. Oh, it seemed so right when I did it but it was all so wrong. If I had it to do over again, I’d do it so differently.”

“Hush,” he said, disentangling her frantic grip and pulling a clean handkerchief from his pocket. “Wipe your face. There is no sense in your tearing yourself to pieces this way.”

She took the handkerchief and wiped her damp cheeks, a little relief stealing over her as if she had shifted some of her burden to his broad shoulders. He looked so capable and calm and even the slight twist of his mouth was comforting as though it proved her agony and confusion unwarranted.

“Feel better now? Then let’s get to the bottom of this. You say if you had it to do over again, you’d do it differently. But would you? Think, now. Would you?”

“Well—”

“No, you’d do the same things again. Did you have any other choice?”

“No.”

“Then what are you sorry about?”

“I was so mean and now he’s dead.”

“And if he wasn’t dead, you’d still be mean. As I understand it, you are not really sorry for marrying Frank and bullying him and inadvertently causing his death. You are only sorry because you are afraid of going to hell. Is that right?”

“Well—that sounds so mixed up.”

“Your ethics are considerably mixed up too. You are in the exact position of a thief who’s been caught red handed and isn’t sorry he stole but is terribly, terribly sorry he’s going to jail.”

“A thief—”

“Oh, don’t be so literal! In other words if you didn’t have this silly idea that you were damned to hell fire eternal, you’d think you were well rid of Frank.”

“Oh, Rhett!”

“Oh, come! You are confessing and you might as well confess the truth as a decorous lie. Did your—er—conscience bother you much when you offered to—shall we say—part with that jewel which is dearer than life for three hundred dollars?”

The brandy was spinning in her head now and she felt giddy and a little reckless. What was the use in lying to him? He always seemed to read her mind.

“I really didn’t think about God much then—or hell. And when I did think—well, I just reckoned God would understand.”

“But you don’t credit God with understanding why you married Frank?”

“Rhett, how can you talk so about God when you know you don’t believe there is one?”

“But you believe in a God of Wrath and that’s what’s important at present. Why shouldn’t the Lord understand? Are you sorry you still own Tara and there aren’t Carpetbaggers living there? Are you sorry you aren’t hungry and ragged?”

“Oh, no!”

“Well, did you have any alternative except marrying Frank?”

“No.”

“He didn’t have to marry you, did he? Men are free agents. And he didn’t have to let you bully him into doing things he didn’t want to, did he?”

“Well—”

“Scarlett, why worry about it? If you had it to do over again you would be driven to the lie and he to marrying you. You would still have run yourself into danger and he would have had to avenge you. If he had married Sister Sue, she might not have caused his death but she’d probably have made him twice as unhappy as you did. It couldn’t have happened differently.”

“But I could have been nicer to him.”

“You could have been—if you’d been somebody else. But you were born to bully anyone who’ll let you do it. The strong were made to bully and the weak to knuckle under. It’s all Frank’s fault for not beating you with a buggy whip… I’m surprised at you, Scarlett, for sprouting a conscience this late in life. Opportunists like you shouldn’t have them.”

“What is an oppor—what did you call it?”

“A person who takes advantage of opportunities.”

“Is that wrong?”

“It has always been held in disrepute—especially by those who had the same opportunities and didn’t take them.”

“Oh, Rhett, you are joking and I thought you were going to be nice!”

“I am being nice—for me. Scarlett, darling, you are tipsy. That’s what’s the matter with you.”

“You dare—”

“Yes, I dare. You are on the verge of what is vulgarly called a ‘crying jag’ and so I shall change the subject and cheer you up by telling you some news that will amuse you. In fact, that’s why I came here this evening, to tell you my news before I went away.”

“Where are you going?”

“To England and I may be gone for months. Forget your conscience, Scarlett. I have no intention of discussing your soul’s welfare any further. Don’t you want to hear my news?”

“But—” she began feebly and paused. Between the brandy which was smoothing out the harsh contours of remorse and Rhett’s mocking but comforting words, the pale specter of Frank was receding into shadows. Perhaps Rhett was right. Perhaps God did understand. She recovered enough to push the idea from the top of her mind and decide: “I’ll think about it all tomorrow.”

“What’s your news?” she said with an effort, blowing her nose on his handkerchief and pushing back the hair that had begun to straggle.

“My news is this,” he answered, grinning down at her. “I still want you more than any woman I’ve ever seen and now that Frank’s gone, I thought you’d be interested to know it.”

Scarlett jerked her hands away from his grasp and sprang to her feet.

“I—you are the most ill-bred man in the world, coming here at this time of all times with your filthy—I should have known you’d never change. And Frank hardly cold! If you had any decency—Will you leave this—”

“Do be quiet or you’ll have Miss Pittypat down here in a minute,” he said, not rising but reaching up and taking both her fists. “I’m afraid you miss my point.”

“Miss your point? I don’t miss anything.” She pulled against his grip. “Turn me loose and get out of here. I never heard of such bad taste. I—”

“Hush,” he said. “I am asking you to marry me. Would you be convinced if I knelt down?”

She said “Oh” breathlessly and sat down hard on the sofa.

She stared at him, her mouth open, wondering if the brandy were playing tricks on her mind, remembering senselessly his jibing: “My dear, I’m not a marrying man.” She was drunk or he was crazy. But he did not look crazy. He looked as calm as though he were discussing the weather, and his smooth drawl fell on her ears with no particular emphasis.

“I always intended having you, Scarlett, since that first day I saw you at Twelve Oaks when you threw that vase and swore and proved that you weren’t a lady. I always intended having you, one way or another. But as you and Frank have made a little money, I know you’ll never be driven to me again with any interesting propositions of loans and collaterals. So I see I’ll have to marry you.”

“Rhett Butler, is this one of your vile jokes?”

“I bare my soul and you are suspicious! No, Scarlett, this is a bona fide honorable declaration. I admit that it’s not in the best of taste, coming at this time, but I have a very good excuse for my lack of breeding. I’m going away tomorrow for a long time and I fear that if I wait till I return you’ll have married some one else with a little money. So I thought, why not me and my money? Really, Scarlett, I can’t go all my life, waiting to catch you between husbands.”

He meant it. There was no doubt about it. Her mouth was dry as she assimilated this knowledge and she swallowed and looked into his eyes, trying to find some clue. They were full of laughter but there was something else, deep in them, which she had never seen before, a gleam that defied analysis. He sat easily, carelessly but she felt that he was watching her as alertly as a cat watches a mouse hole. There was a sense of leashed power straining beneath his calm that made her draw back, a little frightened.

He was actually asking her to marry him; he was committing the incredible. Once she had planned how she would torment him should he ever propose. Once she had thought that if he ever spoke those words she would humble him and make him feel her power and take a malicious pleasure in doing it. Now, he had spoken and the plans did not even occur to her, for he was no more in her power than he had ever been. In fact, he held the whip hand of the situation so completely that she was as flustered as a girl at her first proposal and she could only blush and stammer.

“I—I shall never marry again.”

“Oh, yes, you will. You were born to be married. Why not me?”

“But Rhett, I—I don’t love you.”

“That should be no drawback. I don’t recall that love was prominent in your other two ventures.”

“Oh, how can you? You know I was fond of Frank!”

He said nothing.

“I was! I was!”

“Well, we won’t argue that. Will you think over my proposition while I’m gone?”

“Rhett, I don’t like for things to drag on. I’d rather tell you now. I’m going home to Tara soon and India Wilkes will stay with Aunt Pittypat. I want to go home for a long spell and—I—I don’t ever want to get married again.”

“Nonsense. Why?”

“Oh, well—never mind why. I just don’t like being married.”

“But, my poor child, you’ve never really been married. How can you know? I’ll admit you’ve had bad luck—once for spite and once for money. Did you ever think of marrying—just for the fun of it?”

“Fun! Don’t talk like a fool. There’s no fun being married.”

“No? Why not?”

A measure of calm had returned and with it all the natural bluntness which brandy brought to the surface.

“It’s fun for men—though God knows why. I never could understand it. But all a woman gets out of it is something to eat and a lot of work and having to put up with a man’s foolishness—and a baby every year.”

He laughed so loudly that the sound echoed in the stillness and Scarlett heard the kitchen door open.

“Hush! Mammy has ears like a lynx and it isn’t decent to laugh so soon after-hush laughing. You know it’s true. Fun! Fiddle-dee-dee!”

“I said you’d had bad luck and what you’ve just said proves it. You’ve been married to a boy and to an old man. And into the bargain I’ll bet your mother told you that women must bear ‘these things’ because of the compensating joys of motherhood. Well, that’s all wrong. Why not try marrying a fine young man who has a bad reputation and a way with women? It’ll be fun.”

“You are coarse and conceited and I think this conversation has gone far enough. It’s—it’s quite vulgar.”

“And quite enjoyable, too, isn’t it? I’ll wager you never discussed the marital relation with a man before, even Charles or Frank.”

She scowled at him. Rhett knew too much. She wondered where he had learned all he knew about women. It wasn’t decent.

“Don’t frown. Name the day, Scarlett. I’m not urging instant matrimony because of your reputation. We’ll wait the decent interval. By the way, just how long is a ‘decent interval’?”

“I haven’t said I’d marry you. It isn’t decent to even talk of such things at such a time.”

“I’ve told you why I’m talking of them. I’m going away tomorrow and I’m too ardent a lover to restrain my passion any longer. But perhaps I’ve been too precipitate in my wooing.”

With a suddenness that startled her, he slid off the sofa onto his knees and with one hand placed delicately over his heart, he recited rapidly:

“Forgive me for startling you with the impetuosity of my sentiments, my dear Scarlett—I mean, my dear Mrs. Kennedy. It cannot have escaped your notice that for some time past the friendship I have had in my heart for you has ripened into a deeper feeling, a feeling more beautiful, more pure, more sacred. Dare I name it you? Ah! It is love which makes me so bold!”

“Do get up,” she entreated. “You look such a fool and suppose Mammy should come in and see you?”

“She would be stunned and incredulous at the first signs of my gentility,” said Rhett, arising lightly. “Come, Scarlett, you are no child, no schoolgirl to put me off with foolish excuses about decency and so forth. Say you’ll marry me when I come back or, before God, I won’t go. I’ll stay around here and play a guitar under your window every night and sing at the top of my voice and compromise you, so you’ll have to marry me to save your reputation.”

“Rhett, do be sensible. I don’t want to marry anybody.”

“No? You aren’t telling me the real reason. It can’t be girlish timidity. What is it?”

Suddenly she thought of Ashley, saw him as vividly as though he stood beside her, sunny haired, drowsy eyed, full of dignity, so utterly different from Rhett. He was the real reason she did not want to marry again, although she had no objections to Rhett and at times was genuinely fond of him. She belonged to Ashley, forever and ever. She had never belonged to Charles or Frank, could never really belong to Rhett. Every part of her, almost everything she had ever done, striven after, attained, belonged to Ashley, were done because she loved him. Ashley and Tara, she belonged to them. The smiles, the laughter, the kisses she had given Charles and Frank were Ashley’s, even though he had never claimed them, would never claim them. Somewhere deep in her was the desire to keep herself for him, although she knew he would never take her.

She did not know that her face had changed, that reverie had brought a softness to her face which Rhett had never seen before. He looked at the slanting green eyes, wide and misty, and the tender curve of her lips and for a moment his breath stopped. Then his mouth went down violently at one corner and he swore with passionate impatience.

“Scarlett O’Hara, you’re a fool!”

Before she could withdraw her mind from its far places, his arms were around her, as sure and hard as on the dark road to Tara, so long ago. She felt again the rush of helplessness, the sinking yielding, the surging tide of warmth that left her limp. And the quiet face of Ashley Wilkes was blurred and drowned to nothingness. He bent back her head across his arm and kissed her, softly at first, and then with a swift gradation of intensity that made her cling to him as the only solid thing in a dizzy swaying world. His insistent mouth was parting her shaking lips, sending wild tremors along her nerves, evoking from her sensations she had never known she was capable of feeling. And before a swimming giddiness spun her round and round, she knew that she was kissing him back.

“Stop—please, I’m faint!” she whispered, trying to turn her head weakly from him. He pressed her head back hard against his shoulder and she had a dizzy glimpse of his face. His eyes were wide and blazing queerly and the tremor in his arms frightened her.

“I want to make you faint. I will make you faint. You’ve had this coming to you for years. None of the fools you’ve known have kissed you like this—have they? Your precious Charles or Frank or your stupid Ashley—”

“Please—”

“I said your stupid Ashley. Gentlemen all—what do they know about women? What did they know about you? I know you.”

His mouth was on hers again and she surrendered without a struggle, too weak even to turn her head, without even the desire to turn it, her heart shaking her with its poundings, fear of his strength and her nerveless weakness sweeping her. What was he going to do? She would faint if he did not stop. If he would only stop—if he would never stop.

“Say Yes!” His mouth was poised above hers and his eyes were so close that they seemed enormous, filling the world. “Say Yes, damn you, or—”

She whispered “Yes” before she even thought. It was almost as if he had willed the word and she had spoken it without her own volition. But even as she spoke it, a sudden calm fell on her spirit, her head began to stop spinning and even the giddiness of the brandy was lessened. She had promised to marry him when she had had no intention of promising. She hardly knew how it had all come about but she was not sorry. It now seemed very natural that she had said Yes—almost as if by divine intervention, a hand stronger than hers was about her affairs, settling her problems for her.

He drew a quick breath as she spoke and bent as if to kiss her again and her eyes closed and her head fell back. But he drew back and she was faintly disappointed. It made her feel so strange to be kissed like this and yet there was something exciting about it.

He sat very still for a while holding her head against his shoulder and, as if by effort, the trembling of his arms ceased. He moved away from her a little and looked down at her. She opened her eyes and saw that the frightening glow had gone from his face. But somehow she could not meet his gaze and she dropped her eyes in a rush of tingling confusion.

When he spoke his voice was very calm.

“You meant it? You don’t want to take it back?”

“No.”

“It’s not just because I’ve—what is the phrase?—‘swept you off your feet’ by my—er—ardor?”

She could not answer for she did not know what to say, nor could she meet his eyes. He put a hand under her chin and lifted her face.

“I told you once that I could stand anything from you except a lie. And now I want the truth. Just why did you say Yes?”

Still the words would not come, but, a measure of poise returning, she kept her eyes demurely down and tucked the corners of her mouth into a little smile.

“Look at me. Is it my money?”

“Why, Rhett! What a question!”

“Look up and don’t try to sweet talk me. I’m not Charles or Frank or any of the County boys to be taken in by your fluttering lids. Is it my money?”

“Well—yes, a part.”

“A part?”

He did not seem annoyed. He drew a swift breath and with an effort wiped from his eyes the eagerness her words had brought, an eagerness which she was too confused to see.

“Well,” she floundered helplessly, “money does help, you know, Rhett, and God knows Frank didn’t leave any too much. But then—well, Rhett, we do get on, you know. And you are the only man I ever saw who could stand the truth from a woman, and it would be nice having a husband who didn’t think me a silly fool and expect me to tell lies—and—well, I am fond of you.”

“Fond of me?”

“Well,” she said fretfully, “if I said I was madly in love with you, I’d be lying and what’s more, you’d know it.”

“Sometimes I think you carry your truth telling too far, my pet. Don’t you think, even if it was a lie, that it would be appropriate for you to say ‘I love you, Rhett,’ even if you didn’t mean it?”

What was he driving at, she wondered, becoming more confused. He looked so queer, eager, hurt, mocking. He took his hands from her and shoved them deep in his trousers pockets and she saw him ball his fists.

“If it costs me a husband, I’ll tell the truth,” she thought grimly, her blood up as always when he baited her.

“Rhett, it would be a lie, and why should we go through all that foolishness? I’m fond of you, like I said. You know how it is. You told me once that you didn’t love me but that we had a lot in common. Both rascals, was the way you—”

“Oh, God!” he whispered rapidly, turning his head away. “To be taken in my own trap!”

“What did you say?”

“Nothing,” and he looked at her and laughed, but it was not a pleasant laugh. “Name the day, my dear,” and he laughed again and bent and kissed her hands. She was relieved to see his mood pass and good humor apparently return, so she smiled too.

He played with her hand for a moment and grinned up at her.

“Did you ever in your novel reading come across the old situation of the disinterested wife falling in love with her own husband?”

“You know I don’t read novels,” she said and, trying to equal his jesting mood, went on: “Besides, you once said it was the height of bad form for husbands and wives to love each other.”

“I once said too God damn many things,” he retorted abruptly and rose to his feet.

“Don’t swear.”

“You’ll have to get used to it and learn to swear too. You’ll have to get used to all my bad habits. That’ll be part of the price of being—fond of me and getting your pretty paws on my money.”

“Well, don’t fly off the handle so, because I didn’t lie and make you feel conceited. You aren’t in love with me, are you? Why should I be in love with you?”

“No, my dear, I’m not in love with you, no more than you are with me, and if I were, you would be the last person I’d ever tell. God help the man who ever really loves you. You’d break his heart, my darling, cruel, destructive little cat who is so careless and confident she doesn’t even trouble to sheathe her claws.”

He jerked her to her feet and kissed her again, but this time his lips were different for he seemed not to care if he hurt her—seemed to want to hurt her, to insult her. His lips slid down to her throat and finally he pressed them against the taffeta over her breast, so hard and so long that his breath burnt to her skin. Her hands struggled up, pushing him away in outraged modesty.

“You mustn’t! How dare you!”

“Your heart’s going like a rabbit’s,” he said mockingly. “All too fast for mere fondness I would think, if I were conceited. Smooth your ruffled feathers. You are just putting on these virginal airs. Tell me what I shall bring you from England. A ring? What kind would you like?”

She wavered momentarily between interest in his last words and a feminine desire to prolong the scene with anger and indignation.

“Oh—a diamond ring—and Rhett, do buy a great big one.”

“So you can flaunt it before your poverty-stricken friends and say ‘see what I caught!’ Very well, you shall have a big one, one so big that your less-fortunate friends can comfort themselves by whispering that it’s really vulgar to wear such large stones.”

He abruptly started off across the room and she followed him, bewildered, to the closed doors.

“What is the matter? Where are you going?”

“To my rooms to finish packing.”

“Oh, but—”

“But, what?”

“Nothing. I hope you have a nice trip.”

“Thank you.”

He opened the door and walked into the hall. Scarlett trailed after him, somewhat at a loss, a trifle disappointed as at an unexpected anticlimax. He slipped on his coat and picked up his gloves and hat.

“I’ll write you. Let me know if you change your mind.”

“Aren’t you—”

“Well?” He seemed impatient to be off.

“Aren’t you going to kiss me good-by?” she whispered, mindful of the ears of the house.

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough kissing for one evening?” he retorted and grinned down at her. “To think of a modest, wellbrought-up young woman—Well, I told you it would be fun, didn’t I?”

“Oh, you are impossible!” she cried in wrath, not caring if Mammy did hear. “And I don’t care if you never come back.”

She turned and flounced toward the stairs, expecting to feel his warm hand on her arm, stopping her. But he only pulled open the front door and a cold draft swept in.

“But I will come back,” he said and went out, leaving her on the bottom step looking at the closed door.

The ring Rhett brought back from England was large indeed, so large it embarrassed Scarlett to wear it. She loved gaudy and expensive jewelry but she had an uneasy feeling that everyone was saying, with perfect truth, that this ring was vulgar. The central stone was a four-carat diamond and, surrounding it, were a number of emeralds. It reached to the knuckle of her finger and gave her hand the appearance of being weighted down. Scarlett had a suspicion that Rhett had gone to great pains to have the ring made up and, for pure meanness, had ordered it made as ostentatious as possible.

Until Rhett was back in Atlanta and the ring on her finger she told no one, not even her family, of her intentions, and when she did announce her engagement a storm of bitter gossip broke out. Since the Klan affair Rhett and Scarlett had been, with the exception of the Yankees and Carpetbaggers, the town’s most unpopular citizens. Everyone had disapproved of Scarlett since the far-away day when she abandoned the weeds worn for Charlie Hamilton. Their disapproval had grown stronger because of her unwomanly conduct in the matter of the mills, her immodesty in showing herself when she was pregnant and so many other things. But when she brought about the death of Frank and Tommy and jeopardized the lives of a dozen other men, their dislike flamed into public condemnation.

As for Rhett, he had enjoyed the town’s hatred since his speculations during the war and he had not further endeared himself to his fellow citizens by his alliances with the Republicans since then. But, oddly enough, the fact that he had saved the lives of some of Atlanta’s most prominent men was what aroused the hottest hate of Atlanta’s ladies.

It was not that they regretted their men were still alive. It was that they bitterly resented owing the men’s lives to such a man as Rhett and to such an embarrassing trick. For months they had writhed under Yankee laughter and scorn, and the ladies felt and said that if Rhett really had the good of the Klan at heart he would have managed the affair in a more seemly fashion. They said he had deliberately dragged in Belle Watling to put the nice people of the town in a disgraceful position. And so he deserved neither thanks for rescuing the men nor forgiveness for his past sins.

These women, so swift to kindness, so tender to the sorrowing, so untiring in times of stress, could be as implacable as furies to any renegade who broke one small law of their unwritten code. This code was simple. Reverence for the Confederacy, honor to the veterans, loyalty to old forms, pride in poverty, open hands to friends and undying hatred to Yankees. Between them, Scarlett and Rhett had outraged every tenet of this code.

The men whose lives Rhett had saved attempted, out of decency and a sense of gratitude, to keep their women silent but they had little success. Before the announcement of their coming marriage, the two had been unpopular enough but people could still be polite to them in a formal way. Now even that cold courtesy was no longer possible. The news of their engagement came like an explosion, unexpected and shattering, rocking the town, and even the mildestmannered women spoke their minds heatedly. Marrying barely a year after Frank’s death and she had killed him! And marrying that Butler man who owned a brothel and who was in with the Yankees and Carpetbaggers in all kinds of thieving schemes! Separately the two of them could be endured, but the brazen combination of Scarlett and Rhett was too much to be borne. Common and vile, both of them! They ought to be run out of town!

Atlanta might perhaps have been more tolerant toward the two if the news of their engagement had not come at a time when Rhett’s Carpetbagger and Scallawag cronies were more odious in the sight of respectable citizens than they had ever been before. Public feeling against the Yankees and all their allies was at fever heat at the very time when the town learned of the engagement, for the last citadel of Georgia’s resistance to Yankee rule had just fallen. The long campaign which had begun when Sherman moved southward from above Dalton, four years before, had finally reached its climax, and the state’s humiliation was complete.

Three years of Reconstruction had passed and they had been three years of terrorism. Everyone had thought that conditions were already as bad as they could ever be. But now Georgia was discovering that Reconstruction at its worst had just begun.

For three years the Federal government had been trying to impose alien ideas and an alien rule upon Georgia and, with an army to enforce its commands, it had largely succeeded. But only the power of the military upheld the new regime. The state was under the Yankee rule but not by the state’s consent. Georgia’s leaders had kept on battling for the state’s right to govern itself according to its own ideas. They had continued resisting all efforts to force them to bow down and accept the dictates of Washington as their own state law.

Officially, Georgia’s government had never capitulated but it had been a futile fight, an ever-losing fight. It was a fight that could not win but it had, at least, postponed the inevitable. Already many other Southern states had illiterate negroes in high public office and legislatures dominated by negroes and Carpetbaggers. But Georgia, by its stubborn resistance, had so far escaped this final degradation. For the greater part of three years, the state’s capitol had remained in the control of white men and Democrats. With Yankee soldiers everywhere, the state officials could do little but protest and resist. Their power was nominal but they had at least been able to keep the state government in the hands of native Georgians. Now even that last stronghold had fallen.

Just as Johnston and his men had been driven back step by step from Dalton to Atlanta, four years before, so had the Georgia Democrats been driven back little by little, from 1865 on. The power of the Federal government over the state’s affairs and the lives of its citizens had been steadily made greater and greater. Force had been piled on top of force and military edicts in increasing numbers had rendered the civil authority more and more impotent. Finally, with Georgia in the status of a military province, the polls had been ordered thrown open to the negroes, whether the state’s laws permitted it or not.

A week before Scarlett and Rhett announced their engagement, an election for governor had been held. The Southern Democrats had General John B. Gordon, one of Georgia’s best loved and most honored citizens, as their candidate. Opposing him was a Republican named Bullock. The election had lasted three days instead of one. Trainloads of negroes had been rushed from town to town, voting at every precinct along the way. Of course, Bullock had won.

If the capture of Georgia by Sherman had caused bitterness, the final capture of the state’s capitol by the Carpetbaggers, Yankees and negroes caused an intensity of bitterness such as the state had never known before. Atlanta and Georgia seethed and raged.

And Rhett Butler was a friend of the hated Bullock!

Scarlett, with her usual disregard of all matters not directly under her nose, had scarcely known an election was being held. Rhett had taken no part in the election and his relations with the Yankees were no different from what they had always been. But the fact remained that Rhett was a Scallawag and a friend of Bullock. And, if the marriage went through, Scarlett also would be turning Scallawag. Atlanta was in no mood to be tolerant or charitable toward anyone in the enemy camp and, the news of the engagement coming when it did, the town remembered all of the evil things about the pair and none of the good.

Scarlett knew the town was rocking but she did not realize the extent of public feeling until Mrs. Merriwether, urged on by her church circle, took it upon herself to speak to her for her own good.

“Because your own dear mother is dead and Miss Pitty, not being a matron, is not qualified to—er, well, to talk to you upon such a subject, I feel that I must warn you, Scarlett, Captain Butler is not the kind of a man for any woman of good family to marry. He is a—”

“He managed to save Grandpa Merriwether’s neck and your nephew’s, too.”

Mrs. Merriwether swelled. Hardly an hour before she had had an irritating talk with Grandpa. The old man had remarked that she must not value his hide very much if she did not feel some gratitude to Rhett Butler, even if the man was a Scallawag and a scoundrel.

“He only did that as a dirty trick on us all, Scarlett, to embarrass us in front of the Yankees,” Mrs. Merriwether continued. “You know as well as I do that the man is a rogue. He always has been and now he’s unspeakable. He is simply not the kind of man decent people receive.”

“No? That’s strange, Mrs. Merriwether. He was in your parlor often enough during the war. And he gave Maybelle her white satin wedding dress, didn’t he? Or is my memory wrong?”

“Things are so different during the war and nice people associated with many men who were not quite—It was all for the Cause and very proper, too. Surely you can’t be thinking of marrying a man who wasn’t in the army, who jeered at men who did enlist?”

“He was, too, in the army. He was in the army eight months. He was in the last campaign and fought at Franklin and was with General Johnston when he surrendered.”

“I had not heard that,” said Mrs. Merriwether and she looked as if she did not believe it either. “But he wasn’t wounded,” she added, triumphantly.

“Lots of men weren’t.”

“Everybody who was anybody got wounded. I know no one who wasn’t wounded.”

Scarlett was goaded.

“Then I guess all the men you knew were such fools they didn’t know when to come in out of a shower of rain—or of minie balls. Now, let me tell you this, Mrs. Merriwether, and you can take it back to your busybody friends. I’m going to marry Captain Butler and I wouldn’t care if he’d fought on the Yankee side.”

When that worthy matron went out of the house with her bonnet jerking with rage, Scarlett knew she had an open enemy now instead of a disapproving friend. But she did not care. Nothing Mrs. Merriwether could say or do could hurt her. She did not care what anyone said—anyone except Mammy.

Scarlett had borne with Pitty’s swooning at the news and had steeled herself to see Ashley look suddenly old and avoid her eyes as he wished her happiness. She had been amused and irritated at the letters from Aunt Pauline and Aunt Eulalie in Charleston, horror struck at the news, forbidding the marriage, telling her it would not only ruin her social position but endanger theirs. She had even laughed when Melanie with a worried pucker in her brows said loyally: “Of course, Captain Butler is much nicer than most people realize and he was so kind and clever, the way he saved Ashley. And after all, he did fight for the Confederacy. But, Scarlett, don’t you think you’d better not decide so hastily?”

No, she didn’t mind what anybody said, except Mammy. Mammy’s words were the ones that made her most angry and brought the greatest hurt.

“Ah has seed you do a heap of things dat would hu’t Miss Ellen, did she know. An’ it has done sorrered me a plen’y. But disyere is de wust yit. Mahyin’ trash! Yas’m, Ah said trash! Doan go tellin’ me he come frum fine folkses. Dat doan mek no diffunce. Trash come outer de high places, same as de low, and he trash! Yas’m, Miss Scarlett, Ah’s seed you tek Mist’ Charles ’way frum Miss Honey w’en you din’ keer nuthin’ ’bout him. An’ Ah’s seed you rob yo own sister of Mist’ Frank. An’ Ah’s heshed mah mouf ’bout a heap of things you is done, lak sellin’ po’ lumber fer good, an’ lyin’ ’bout de other lumber gempmums, an’ ridin’ roun’ by yo’seff, exposin’ yo’seff ter free issue niggers an’ gettin’ Mist’ Frank shot, an’ not feedin’ dem po’ convicts nuff ter keep dey souls in dey bodies. Ah’s done heshed mah mouf, even ef Miss Ellen in de Promise Lan’ wuz sayin’ ‘Mammy, Mammy! You ain’ look affer mah chile right!’ Yas’m. Ah’s stood fer all dat but Ah ain’ gwine stand fer dis, Miss Scarlett. You kain mahy wid trash. Not w’ile Ah got breaf in mah body.”

“I shall marry whom I please,” said Scarlett coldly. “I think you are forgetting your place, Mammy.”

“An’ high time, too! Ef Ah doan say dese wuds ter you, who gwine ter do it?”

“I’ve been thinking the matter over, Mammy, and I’ve decided that the best thing for you to do is to go back to Tara. I’ll give you some money and—”

Mammy drew herself up with all her dignity.

“Ah is free, Miss Scarlett. You kain sen’ me nowhar Ah doan wanter go. An’ w’en Ah goes back ter Tara, it’s gwine be w’en you goes wid me. Ah ain’ gwine leave Miss Ellen’s chile, an’ dar ain’ no way in de worl’ ter mek me go. An’ Ah ain’ gwine leave Miss Ellen’s gran’chillun fer no trashy step-pa ter bring up, needer. Hyah Ah is and hyah Ah stays!”

“I will not have you staying in my house and being rude to Captain Butler. I am going to marry him and there’s no more to be said.”

“Dar is plen’y mo’ ter be said,” retorted Mammy slowly and into her blurred old eyes there came the light of battle.

“But Ah ain’ never thought ter say it ter none of Miss Ellen’s blood. But, Miss Scarlett, lissen ter me. You ain’ nuthin’ but a mule in hawse harness. You kin polish a mule’s feet an’ shine his hide an’ put brass all over his harness an’ hitch him ter a fine cah’ige. But he a mule jes’ de same. He doan fool nobody. An’ you is jes’ de same. You got silk dresses an’ de mills an’ de sto’ an’ de money, an’ you give yo’seff airs lak a fine hawse, but you a mule jes’ de same. An’ you ain’ foolin’ nobody, needer. An’ dat Butler man, he come of good stock and he all slicked up lak a race hawse, but he a mule in hawse harness, jes’ lak you.”

Mammy bent a piercing look on her mistress. Scarlett was speechless and quivering with insult.

“Ef you say you gwine mahy him, you gwine do it, ’cause you is bullhaided lak yo’ pa. But ’member dis, Miss Scarlett, Ah ain’ leavin’ you. Ah gwine stay right hyah an’ see dis ting thoo.”

Without waiting for a reply, Mammy turned and left Scarlett and if she had said: “Thou shalt see me at Philippi!” her tones would not have been more ominous.

While they were honeymooning in New Orleans Scarlett told Rhett of Mammy’s words. To her surprise and indignation he laughed at Mammy’s statement about mules in horse harness.

“I have never heard a profound truth expressed so succinctly,” he said. “Mammy’s a smart old soul and one of the few people I know whose respect and good will I’d like to have. But, being a mule, I suppose I’ll never get either from her. She even refused the tendollar gold piece which I, in my groomlike fervor, wished to present her after the wedding. I’ve seen so few people who did not melt at the sight of cash. But she looked me in the eye and thanked me and said she wasn’t a free issue nigger and didn’t need my money.”

“Why should she take on so? Why should everybody gabble about me like a bunch of guinea hens? It’s my own affair whom I marry and how often I marry. I’ve always minded my own business. Why don’t other people mind theirs?”

“My pet, the world can forgive practically anything except people who mind their own business. But why should you squall like a scalded cat? You’ve said often enough that you didn’t mind what people said about you. Why not prove it? You know you’ve laid yourself open to criticism so often in small matters, you can’t expect to escape gossip in this large matter. You knew there’d be talk if you married a villain like me. If I were a low-bred poverty-stricken villain, people wouldn’t be so mad. But a rich, flourishing villain—of course, that’s unforgivable.”

“I wish you’d be serious sometimes!”

“I am serious. It’s always annoying to the godly when the ungodly flourish like the green bay tree. Cheer up, Scarlett, didn’t you tell me once that the main reason you wanted a lot of money was so you could tell everybody to go to hell? Now’s your chance.”

“But you were the main one I wanted to tell to go to hell,” said Scarlett, and laughed.

“Do you still want to tell me to go to hell?”

“Well, not as often as I used to.”

“Do it whenever you like, if it makes you happy.”

“It doesn’t make me especially happy,” said Scarlett and, bending, she kissed him carelessly. His dark eyes flickered quickly over her face, hunting for something in her eyes which he did not find, and he laughed shortly.

“Forget about Atlanta. Forget about the old cats. I brought you to New Orleans to have fun and I intend that you shall have it.”