Gone with the Wind / Унесённые ветром
Scarlett felt herself go cold with fear and humiliation. Honey was a fool, a silly, but she had a feminine instinct about other women that Scarlett had underestimated.
Melanie’s voice, peaceful and a little reproving, rose above the others.
“Honey, you know that isn’t so. And it’s so unkind.”
“It is true, Melly, and if you weren’t always looking for the good in people that haven’t got any good in them, you’d see it. And I’m glad it’s so. It serves her right[24]. All Scarlett O’Hara has ever done has been to make trouble and try to get other girls’ beaux.”
“I must get home!” thought Scarlett. “I must get home!”
If she could only be transferred by magic to Tara and to safety. If she could only be with Ellen, just to see her, to hold onto her skirt, to cry and pour out the whole story.
Home, she thought, as she sped down the hall, I must go home.
She was already on the front porch when a new thought came – she couldn’t go home! To run away would only give them more evidence.
She pounded her clenched fist against the tall white pillar beside her. She’d make them sorry. She’d show them. She didn’t quite see how she’d show them, but she’d do it all the same. She’d hurt them worse than they hurt her.
For the moment, Ashley was forgotten. Vanity was stronger than love at sixteen and there was no room in her hot heart now for anything but hate.
“I won’t go home,” she thought. “I’ll stay here and I’ll make them sorry. And I’ll never tell Mother. No, I’ll never tell anybody.”
As she turned, she saw Charles coming into the house from the other end of the long hall. When he saw her, he hurried toward her. His face was red with excitement.
“Do you know what’s happened?” he cried, even before he reached her. “Have you heard?”
He paused, breathless, as he came up to her. She said nothing and only stared at him.
“Mr. Lincoln has called for men, soldiers – I mean volunteers – seventy-five thousand of them!”
Mr. Lincoln again! Didn’t men ever think about anything that really mattered? Here was this fool expecting her to be excited about Mr. Lincoln’s didoes when her heart was broken and her reputation almost ruined.
Charles stared at her. Her face was paper white and her narrow eyes blazing like emeralds.
“I’m so clumsy,” he said. “I should have told you more gently. I’m sorry I’ve upset you so. You don’t feel faint, do you? Can I get you a glass of water?”
“No,” she said, and managed a crooked smile.
“Shall we go sit on the bench?” he asked, taking her arm.
She nodded and he carefully led her across the grass to the iron bench beneath the largest oak in the front yard. How fragile and tender women are, he thought, the mere mention of war makes them faint. The idea made him feel very masculine.
“He has a lot of money,” she was thinking fast. “And he hasn’t any parents to bother me and he lives in Atlanta. And if I married him right away, it would show Ashley that I didn’t care – that I was only flirting with him. And it would just kill Honey. She’d never, never catch another beau. And it would hurt Melanie, because she loves Charles so much. “And they’d all be sorry when I came back here to visit in a fine carriage and with lots of pretty clothes and a house of my own. And they would never, never laugh at me.”
“Of course, it will mean fighting,” said Charles. “But don’t you worry, Miss Scarlett, it’ll be over in a month. I wouldn’t miss it for anything. I’m afraid there won’t be much of a ball tonight, because the Troop is going to meet at Jonesboro. The Tarleton boys have gone to spread the news. I know the ladies will be sorry.”
Coolness was beginning to come back to her. Why not take this pretty boy? He was as good as anyone else and she didn’t care.
“Will you wait for me, Miss Scarlett? It – it would be Heaven just knowing that you were waiting for me until after we licked them!” He hung breathless on her words. Her hand slid into his.
“I wouldn’t want to wait,” she said.
He sat clutching her hand, his mouth wide open. Watching him from under her lashes, Scarlett thought that he looked like a frog. He stuttered several times, closed his mouth and opened it again, and again became red in the face.
“Can you possibly love me?”
She said nothing but looked down into her lap, and Charles was embarrassed. Perhaps a man should not ask a girl such a question. Perhaps it would be hard for her to answer it. Charles was at a loss as to how to act. He wanted to shout and to sing and to kiss her and then run tell everyone, black and white, that she loved him. But he only squeezed her hand until he drove her rings into the flesh.
“You will marry me soon, Miss Scarlett?”
“Um,” she said, fingering a fold of her dress.
“Shall we make it a double wedding with Mel —”
“No,” she said quickly. Charles knew again that he had made an error. Of course, a girl wanted her own wedding – not shared glory.
“When may I speak to your father?”
“The sooner the better,” she said.
He leaped up and for a moment she thought he was going to cut a caper[25]. He looked down at her radiantly, his clean simple heart in his eyes. She had never had anyone look at her thus before and would never have it from any other man, but she only thought that he looked like a calf.
“I’ll go now and find your father,” he said, smiling all over his face. “I can’t wait. Will you excuse me – dear?” The word came hard but having said it once, he repeated it again with pleasure.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll wait here. It’s so cool and nice here.”
He went off across the lawn and disappeared around the house, and she was alone under the rustling oak. From the stables, men were streaming out on horseback, negro servants riding hard behind their masters.
The white house with its tall columns stood before her. It would never be her house now. Ashley would never carry her over the threshold as his bride. Oh, Ashley, Ashley! What have I done? Deep in her, under hurt pride and cold practicality, something stirred hurtingly. An adult emotion was being born. She loved Ashley and she had never cared for him so much as in that instant when she saw Charles disappearing around the graveled walk.
Chapter VII
Within two weeks Scarlett had become a wife, and within two months more she was a widow.
In after years when she thought of those last days of April, 1861, Scarlett could never quite remember details. Time and events were jumbled together like a nightmare. Especially vague were her memories of the time before the wedding. Two weeks! So short an engagement would have been impossible in times of peace. But the South was at war.
Learning that Ashley’s wedding had been moved up to the first of May, so he could leave with the Troop, Scarlett set the date of her wedding for the day before his. Ellen protested but Charles was impatient to be off to South Carolina to join the Legion, and Gerald sided with the two young people.
The South was intoxicated with enthusiasm and excitement. Everyone knew that one battle would end the war and every young man hastened to enlist before the war should end – hastened to marry his sweetheart before he went to Virginia to strike a blow at the Yankees. The ladies were making uniforms, knitting socks and rolling bandages, and the men were drilling and shooting. Train loads of troops passed through Jonesboro daily on their way north to Atlanta and Virginia. All were half-drilled, half-armed, wild with excitement and shouting as though on the way to a picnic.
Almost before she knew it, Scarlett was wearing Ellen’s wedding dress and veil, coming down the wide stairs of Tara on her father’s arm, to face a house packed full with guests. Afterward she remembered, as from a dream, the hundreds of candles flaring on the walls, her mother’s face, her lips moving in a silent prayer for her daughter’s happiness, Gerald flushed with brandy and pride that his daughter was marrying both money and a fine name – and Ashley, standing at the bottom of the steps with Melanie’s arm through his.
When she saw the look on his face, she thought: “This can’t be real. It can’t be. It’s a nightmare. I’ll wake up and find it’s all been a nightmare. I mustn’t think of it now, or I’ll begin screaming in front of all these people. I can’t think now. I’ll think later, when I can stand it – when I can’t see his eyes.”
It was all very dreamlike. Even the feel of Ashley’s kiss upon her cheek, even Melanie’s soft whisper, “Now, we’re really and truly sisters,” were unreal.
But when the dancing and toasting were finally ended and the dawn was coming, there came reality. The reality was the blushing Charles, emerging from her dressing room in his nightshirt, avoiding the look she gave him over the high-pulled sheet.
Of course, she knew that married people occupied the same bed but she had never given the matter a thought before. It seemed very natural in the case of her mother and father, but she had never applied it to herself. Now for the first time she realized just what she had brought on herself. The thought of this strange boy getting into bed with her, when her heart was breaking for losing Ashley forever, was too much for her. As he approached the bed she spoke in a hoarse whisper.
“I’ll scream out loud if you come near me. I will! I will – at the top of my voice! Get away from me! Don’t you dare touch me!”
So Charles Hamilton spent his wedding night in an armchair in the corner, not too unhappily, for he understood, or thought he understood, the modesty and delicacy of his bride.
Ashley’s wedding was even worse. She saw the plain little face of Melanie Hamilton glow into beauty as she became Melanie Wilkes. Now, Ashley was gone forever. Her Ashley. No, not her Ashley now. Had he ever been hers? Now he was gone and she was married to a man she did not love.
So she danced through the night of Ashley’s wedding in a daze and said things mechanically and smiled at the people who thought her a happy bride and could not see that her heart was broken. Well, thank God, they couldn’t see!
That night after Mammy had helped her undress and had departed and Charles had emerged shyly from the dressing room, wondering if he was to spend a second night in the chair, she burst into tears. She cried until Charles climbed into bed beside her and tried to comfort her till at last she lay sobbing quietly on his shoulder.
A week after the wedding Charles left to join the Legion, and two weeks later Ashley and the Troop departed.
In those two weeks, Scarlett never saw Ashley alone, never had a private word with him. Not even at the terrible moment of parting, when he stopped by Tara on his way to the train. Melanie, hanging on his arm, said: “You must kiss Scarlett, Ashley. She’s my sister now,” and Ashley bent and touched her cheek with cold lips, his face drawn. “You will come to Atlanta and visit me and Aunt Pittypat, won’t you? We want to know Charlie’s wife better.”
Five weeks passed during which letters came from Charles telling of his love, his plans for the future when the war was over, his desire to become a hero for her sake. In the seventh week, there came a telegram that Charles was dead. He had died of pneumonia, following measles, without getting any closer to the Yankees than the camp in South Carolina.
Scarlett’s boredom was acute. There had been no entertainment or social life in the County ever since the Troop had gone away to war. All of the interesting young men were gone. Only the older men, the cripples and the women were left, and they spent their time knitting and sewing, growing more cotton and corn, raising more hogs and sheep and cows for the army. There was never a sight of a real man except when the commissary troop under Frank Kennedy rode by every month to collect supplies. But it didn’t help her situation. She was a widow and her heart was in the grave. At least, everyone thought it was in the grave and expected her to act accordingly. This irritated her for she could recall nothing about Charles except the look on his face when she told him she would marry him. And even that picture was fading. But she was a widow and she had to watch her behavior. Not for her the pleasures of unmarried girls.
A widow had to wear black dresses, no flower or ribbon or lace or even jewelry. And the black veil on her bonnet had to reach to her knees, and only after three years of widowhood could it be shortened to shoulder length. Widows could never chatter vivaciously or laugh aloud. Even when they smiled, it must be a sad, tragic smile. And, most dreadful of all, they could in no way indicate an interest in the company of gentlemen. Oh, yes, thought Scarlett, some widows do remarry eventually, when they are old. And then it’s to some old widower with a large plantation and a dozen children.
Marriage was bad enough, but to be widowed – oh, then life was over forever!
Every morning she woke up and for a moment she was Scarlett O’Hara again and the sun was bright in the magnolia outside her window and the birds were singing and the sweet smell of frying bacon was coming to her nostrils. She was carefree and young again. But that moment passed very fast.
And Ashley! Oh, most of all Ashley! For the first time in her life, she hated Tara. Every foot of ground, every tree, every path reminded her of him. He belonged to another woman and he had gone to the war, but his ghost still haunted the roads, still smiled at her in the shadows of the porch. And every time she heard the sound of hooves coming up the river road from Twelve Oaks she did think – Ashley!
She hated Twelve Oaks now and once she had loved it. She hated it but she was drawn there, so she could hear John Wilkes and the girls talk about him – hear them read his letters from Virginia. They hurt her but she had to hear them. She disliked his sisters, but she could not stay away from them. And every time she came home from Twelve Oaks, she lay down on her bed and refused to get up for supper.
It was this refusal of food that worried Ellen, but Scarlett had no appetite. When Dr. Fontaine told Ellen that heartbreak frequently led to a decline and death, Ellen went white.
“Isn’t there anything to be done, Doctor?”
“A change of scene will be the best thing in the world for her,” said the doctor.
So Scarlett, unenthusiastic, went off first to visit her O’Hara and Robillard relatives in Savannah and then to Ellen’s sisters, Pauline and Eulalie, in Charleston. But she was back at Tara a month before Ellen expected her, with no explanation of her return.
Ellen, busy night and day, was terrified when her eldest daughter came home from Charleston thin, white and sharp tongued. She had known heartbreak herself, and night after night she lay beside the snoring Gerald, trying to think of some way to lessen Scarlett’s distress. Charles’ aunt, Miss Pittypat Hamilton, had written her several times, asking her to permit Scarlett to come to Atlanta for a long visit, and now for the first time Ellen considered it seriously.
She and Melanie were alone in a big house “and without male protection,” wrote Miss Pittypat, “now that dear Charlie has gone. Of course, there is my brother Henry but he does not make his home with us. Melly and I would feel much easier and safer if Scarlett were with us. Three lonely women are better than two. And perhaps dear Scarlett could find some outlet for her sorrow, as Melly is doing, by nursing our brave boys in the hospitals here.”
So Scarlett’s trunk was packed again with her mourning clothes and off she went to Atlanta. She did not especially want to go to Atlanta. She thought Aunt Pitty the silliest of old ladies and the very idea of living under the same roof with Ashley’s wife was awful. But the County with its memories was impossible now, and any change was welcome.
Part two
Chapter VIII
As the train carried Scarlett northward that May morning in 1862, she remembered what Gerald had told her when she was a child. The fact was that she and Atlanta were christened in the same year. It had had different names before, and not until the year of Scarlett’s birth had it become Atlanta.
When Gerald first moved to north Georgia, there had been no Atlanta at all, not even a village. But the next year, in 1836, the State had authorized the building of a railroad through the territory which the Cherokees[26] had recently left.
The people who settled the town were a pushy people. Restless, energetic people from Georgia and more distant states were drawn to this town by the railroads. They came with enthusiasm. They built their stores around the muddy red roads. They built their fine homes where Indian feet had beaten a path[27]called the Peachtree Trail. They were proud of the place, proud of its growth, proud of themselves for making it grow.
Scarlett stood on the lower step of the train, a pale pretty figure in her black mourning dress. She hesitated, unwilling to soil her slippers, and looked about for Miss Pittypat. There was no sign of her, but soon Scarlett saw an old negro, who came toward her through the mud, his hat in his hand.
“Dis Miss Scarlett, ain’ it? Dis hyah Peter, Miss Pitty’s coachman. Doan step down in dat mud,” he ordered, as Scarlett gathered up her skirts. “Lemme cahy you.”
He picked Scarlett up with ease. As he was carrying her toward the carriage, she recalled what Charles had said about Uncle Peter: “He went through all the Mexican campaigns with Father, nursed him when he was wounded – in fact, he saved his life. Uncle Peter practically raised Melanie and me, for we were very young when Father and Mother died. He was the one who decided I should have a larger allowance when I was fifteen, and he insisted that I should go to Harvard. He’s the smartest old darky I’ve ever seen and about the most devoted.”
When Uncle Peter finally maneuvered the carriage out of the mudholes and onto Peachtree Street, she noticed how the town had grown in a year! It did not seem possible that the little Atlanta she knew could have changed so much.
For the past year, Atlanta had been transformed. It was humming like a beehive, proudly conscious of its importance to the Confederacy. There were factories turning out machinery to manufacture war materials. There were strange faces on the streets of Atlanta now. One could hear foreign tongues of Europeans who had run the blockade[28] to have made pistols, rifles, cannon and powder for the Confederacy. Trains roared in and out of the town at all hours.
Here along Peachtree Street and near-by streets were the headquarters of the various army departments, each office swarming with uniformed men. Scarlett felt that Atlanta must be a city of the wounded, for there were general hospitals without number. And every day the trains brought more sick and more wounded.
There was an exciting atmosphere about the place that uplifted her. It was as if she could actually feel the pulse of the town’s heart beating in time with her own.
The sidewalks were crowded with men in uniform; the narrow street was jammed with vehicles – carriages, buggies, ambulances; convalescents limped about on crutches; and Scarlett had her first sight of Yankee uniforms, as Uncle Peter pointed to a detachment of bluecoats going toward the depot to entrain for the prison camp.
“Oh,” thought Scarlett, with a feeling of real pleasure, “I’m going to like it here! It’s so alive and exciting!”
The town was even more alive than she realized, for there were new barrooms by the dozens; prostitutes, following the army, filled the town and bawdy houses were blossoming with women. There were parties and balls and bazaars every week and war weddings without number.
As they progressed down the street, Scarlett asked a lot of questions and Peter answered them, pointing here and there with his whip, proud to display his knowledge.
Now Uncle Peter pointed to three ladies and bowed. These ladies were Mrs. Merriwether, Mrs. Whiting, and Mrs. Elsing – the pillars of Atlanta. They ran the three churches to which they belonged. They organized bazaars and presided over sewing circles, they arranged balls and picnics, they knew who made good matches and who did not, who drank secretly, who were to have babies and when. But in fact, these three ladies heartily disliked and distrusted one another.
The carriage stopped for a moment to permit two ladies with baskets of bandages to cross the street on stepping stones. At the same moment, Scarlett’s eye was caught by a figure on the sidewalk in a brightly colored dress – too bright for street wear. Turning she saw a tall handsome woman with a bold face and a mass of red hair. She watched her, fascinated.
“Uncle Peter, who is that?” she whispered.
“Ah doan know.”
“You do, too. I can tell. Who is she?”
“Her name Belle Watling,” said Uncle Peter.
Scarlett was quick to catch the fact that he had not said “Miss” or “Mrs.”
“Who is she?”
“Miss Scarlett,” said Peter darkly, laying the whip on the horse, “Miss Pitty ain’ gwine ter lak it you astin’ questions dat ain’ none of yo’ bizness.”
“Good Heavens!” thought Scarlett. “That must be a bad woman!”
She had never seen a bad woman before and she twisted her head and stared after her until she was lost in the crowd.
Finally the business section was behind and the residences came into view. As they passed a green clapboard house, Dr. Meade and his wife came out, calling greetings. Scarlett recalled that they had been at her wedding. The doctor went through the mud to the side of the carriage. He was tall and gaunt, and his clothes hung on his figure. Atlanta considered him the root of all strength and all wisdom. But for all his pompous manner, he was a very kind man.
After shaking Scarlett’s hand, the doctor announced that Aunt Pittypat had promised that she should be on Mrs. Meade’s hospital and bandage-rolling committee.
“What are hospital committees anyway?”
Both the doctor and his wife looked shocked at her ignorance.
“But, of course, you’ve been buried in the country and couldn’t know,” Mrs. Meade apologized for her. “We have nursing committees for different hospitals and for different days. We nurse the men and help the doctors and make bandages and clothes and when the men are well enough to leave the hospitals we take them into our homes till they are able to go back in the army. Dr. Meade is at the Institute hospital where my committee works, and everyone says he’s marvelous and —”
“There, there, Mrs. Meade,” said the doctor fondly. “Don’t go bragging on me in front of folks.”
Uncle Peter cleared his throat.
“Miss Pitty were in a state when Ah lef’ home an’ ef Ah doan git dar soon, she’ll done fainted.”
“Good-by. I’ll be over this afternoon,” called Mrs. Meade. “And you tell Pitty for me that if you aren’t on my committee, she’s going to be in a worse state.”
The houses were farther apart now, and leaning out Scarlett saw the red brick and slate roof of Miss Pittypat’s house. It was almost the last house on the north side of town. On the front steps stood two women in black. They were Miss Pittypat and Melanie. And Scarlett realized that the fly in the ointment [29]of Atlanta would be this slight little person in black dress and a loving smile of welcome and happiness on her heart-shaped face.
When a Southerner packed a trunk and traveled twenty miles for a visit, the visit was seldom of shorter duration than a month, usually much longer. Southerners were as enthusiastic visitors as they were hosts, and there was nothing unusual in relatives coming to spend the Christmas holidays and remaining until July. Visitors added excitement and variety to the slow-moving Southern life and they were always welcome.
So Scarlett had come to Atlanta with no idea as to how long she would remain. If her stay was pleasant, she would remain indefinitely. But as soon as she had arrived, Aunt Pitty and Melanie began a campaign to make her home permanently with them. They brought up every possible argument. They were lonely and often frightened at night in the big house, and she was so brave she gave them courage. She was so charming that she cheered them in their sorrow. Now that Charles was dead, her place was with his relatives. Besides, half the house now belonged to her, through Charles’ will. Last, the Confederacy needed every pair of hands for sewing, knitting, bandage rolling and nursing the wounded.