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, high-spirited 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 in 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 kin