Gone with the Wind (137 page)

M
RS
. E
LSING COCKED HER EAR
toward the hall. Hearing Melanie's steps die away into the kitchen where rattling dishes and clinking silverware gave promise of refreshments, she turned and spoke softly to the ladies who sat in a circle in the parlor, their sewing baskets in their laps.

“Personally, I do not intend to call on Scarlett now or ever,” she said, the chill elegance of her face colder than usual.

The other members of the Ladies' Sewing Circle for the Widows and Orphans of the Confederacy eagerly laid down their needles and edged their rocking chairs closer. All the ladies had been bursting to discuss Scarlett and Rhett but Melanie's presence prevented it. Just the day before, the couple had returned from New Orleans and they were occupying the bridal suite at the National Hotel.

“Hugh says that I must call out of courtesy for the way Captain Butler saved his life,” Mrs. Elsing continued. “And poor Fanny sides with him and says she will call too. I said to her ‘Fanny,' I said, ‘if it wasn't for Scarlett, Tommy would be alive this minute. It is an insult to his memory to call.' And Fanny had no better sense than to say ‘Mother, I'm not calling on Scarlett. I'm calling on Captain Butler. He tried his best to save Tommy and it wasn't his fault if he failed.'”

“How silly young people are!” said Mrs. Merriwether. “Call, indeed!” Her stout bosom swelled indignantly as she remembered Scarlett's rude reception of her advice
on marrying Rhett. “My Maybelle is just as silly as your Fanny. She says she and René will call, because Captain Butler kept René from getting hanged. And I said if it hadn't been for Scarlett exposing herself, René would never have been in any danger. And Father Merriwether intends to call and he talks like he was in his dotage and says he's grateful to that scoundrel, even if I'm not. I vow, since Father Merriwether was in that Watling creature's house he has acted in a disgraceful way. Call, indeed! I certainly shan't call. Scarlett has outlawed herself by marrying such a man. He was bad enough when he was a speculator during the war and making money out of our hunger but now that he is hand in glove with the Carpetbaggers and Scallawags and a friend—actually a friend of that odious wretch, Governor Bullock— Call, indeed!”

Mrs. Bonnell sighed. She was a plump brown wren of a woman with a cheerful face.

“They'll only call once, for courtesy, Dolly. I don't know that I blame them. I've heard that all the men who were out that night intend to call, and I think they should. Somehow, it's hard for me to think that Scarlett is her mother's child. I went to school with Ellen Robillard in Savannah and there was never a lovelier girl than she was and she was very dear to me. If only her father had not opposed her match with her cousin, Philippe Robillard! There was nothing really wrong with the boy—boys must sow their wild oats. But Ellen must run off and marry old man O'Hara and have a daughter like Scarlett. But really, I feel that I must call once out of memory to Ellen.”

“Sentimental nonsense!” snorted Mrs. Merriwether with vigor. “Kitty Bonnell, are you going to call on a
woman who married a bare year after her husband's death? A woman—”

“And she really killed Mr. Kennedy,” interrupted India. Her voice was cool but acid. Whenever she thought of Scarlett it was hard for her even to be polite, remembering, always remembering Stuart Tarleton. “And I have always thought there was more between her and that Butler man before Mr. Kennedy was killed than most people suspected.”

Before the ladies could recover from their shocked astonishment at her statement and at a spinster mentioning such a matter, Melanie was standing in the doorway. So engrossed had they been in their gossip that they had not heard her light tread and now, confronted by their hostess, they looked like whispering schoolgirls caught by a teacher. Alarm was added to consternation at the change in Melanie's face. She was pink with righteous anger, her gentle eyes snapping fire, her nostrils quivering. No one had ever seen Melanie angry before. Not a lady present thought her capable of wrath. They all loved her but they thought her the sweetest, most pliable of young women, deferential to her elders and without any opinions of her own.

“How dare you, India?” she questioned in a low voice that shook. “Where will your jealousy lead you? For shame!”

India's face went white but her head was high.

“I retract nothing,” she said briefly. But her mind was seething.

“Jealous, am I?” she thought. With the memory of Stuart Tarleton and of Honey and Charles, didn't she have good reason to be jealous of Scarlett? Didn't she have good reason to hate her, especially now that she had a suspicion
that Scarlett had somehow entangled Ashley in her web? She thought: “There's plenty I could tell you about Ashley and your precious Scarlett.” India was torn between the desire to shield Ashley by her silence and to extricate him by telling all her suspicions to Melanie and the whole world. That would force Scarlett to release whatever hold she had on Ashley. But this was not the time. She had nothing definite, only suspicions.

“I retract nothing,” she repeated.

“Then it is fortunate that you are no longer living under my roof,” said Melanie and her words were cold.

India leaped to her feet, red flooding her sallow face.

“Melanie, you—my sister-in-law—you aren't going to quarrel with me over that fast piece—”

“Scarlett is my sister-in-law, too,” said Melanie, meeting India's eyes squarely as though they were strangers. “And dearer to me than any blood sister could ever be. If you are so forgetful of my favors at her hands, I am not. She stayed with me through the whole siege when she could have gone home, when even Aunt Pitty had run away to Macon. She brought my baby for me when the Yankees were almost in Atlanta and she burdened herself with me and Beau all that dreadful trip to Tara when she could have left me here in a hospital for the Yankees to get me. And she nursed and fed me, even if she was tired and even if she went hungry. Because I was sick and weak, I had the best mattress at Tara. When I could walk, I had the only whole pair of shoes. You can forget those things she did for me, India, but I cannot. And when Ashley came home, sick, discouraged, without a home, without a cent in his pockets, she took him in like a sister. And when we thought we would have to go North and it was breaking our hearts to leave Georgia,
Scarlett stepped in and gave him the mill to run. And Captain Butler saved Ashley's life out of the kindness of his heart. Certainly Ashley had no claim on him! And I am grateful, grateful to Scarlett and to Captain Butler. But you, India! How can you forget the favors Scarlett has done me and Ashley? How can you hold your brother's life so cheap as to cast slurs on the man who saved him? If you went down on your knees to Captain Butler and Scarlett, it would not be enough.”

“Now, Melly,” began Mrs. Merriwether briskly, for she had recovered her composure, “that's no way to talk to India.”

“I heard what you said about Scarlett too,” cried Melanie, swinging on the stout old lady with the air of a duelist who, having withdrawn a blade from one prostrate opponent, turns hungrily toward another. “And you too, Mrs. Elsing. What you think of her in your own petty minds, I do not care, for that is your business. But what you say about her in my own house or in my own hearing, ever, is my business. But how can you even think such dreadful things, much less say them? Are your men so cheap to you that you would rather see them dead than alive? Have you no gratitude to the man who saved them and saved them at risk of his own life? The Yankees might easily have thought him a member of the Klan if the whole truth had come out! They might have hanged him. But he risked himself for your men. For your father-in-law, Mrs. Merriwether, and your son-in-law and your two nephews, too. And your brother, Mrs. Bonnell, and your son and son-in-law, Mrs. Elsing. Ingrates, that's what you are! I ask an apology from all of you.”

Mrs. Elsing was on her feet, cramming her sewing into her box, her mouth set.

“If anyone had ever told me that you could be so ill bred, Melly— No, I will not apologize. India is right. Scarlett is a flighty, fast bit of baggage. I can't forget how she acted during the war. And I can't forget how poor white trashy she's acted since she got a little money—”

“What you can't forget,” cut in Melanie, clenching her small fists against her sides, “is that she demoted Hugh because he wasn't smart enough to run her mill.”

“Melly!” moaned a chorus of voices.

Mrs. Elsing's head jerked up and she started toward the door. With her hand on the knob of the front door, she stopped and turned.

“Melly,” she said and her voice softened, “honey, this breaks my heart. I was your mother's best friend and I helped Dr. Meade bring you into this world and I've loved you like you were mine. If it were something that mattered it wouldn't be so hard to hear you talk like this. But about a woman like Scarlett O'Hara who'd just as soon do you a dirty turn as the next of us—”

Tears had started in Melanie's eyes at the first words Mrs. Elsing spoke, but her face hardened when the old lady had finished.

“I want it understood,” she said, “that any of you who do not call on Scarlett need never, never call on me.”

There was a loud murmur of voices, confusion as the ladies got to their feet. Mrs. Elsing dropped her sewing box on the floor and came back into the room, her false fringe jerking awry.

“I won't have it!” she cried. “I won't have it! You are beside yourself, Melly, and I don't hold you responsible. You shall be my friend and I shall be yours. I refuse to let this come between us.”

She was crying and somehow, Melanie was in her
arms, crying, too, but declaring between sobs that she meant every word she said. Several of the other ladies burst into tears and Mrs. Merriwether, trumpeting loudly into her handkerchief, embraced both Mrs. Elsing and Melanie. Aunt Pitty, who had been a petrified witness to the whole scene, suddenly slid to the floor in what was one of the few real fainting spells she had ever had. Amid the tears and confusion and kissing and scurrying for smelling salts and brandy, there was only one calm face, one dry pair of eyes. India Wilkes took her departure unnoticed by anyone.

Grandpa Merriwether, meeting Uncle Henry Hamilton in the Girl of the Period Saloon several hours later, related the happenings of the morning which he had heard from Mrs. Merriwether. He told it with relish for he was delighted that someone had the courage to face down his redoubtable daughter-in-law. Certainly, he had never had such courage.

“Well, what did the pack of silly fools finally decide to do?” asked Uncle Henry irritably.

“I dunno for sure,” said Grandpa, “but it looks to me like Melly won hands down on this go-round. I'll bet they'll all call, at least once. Folks set a store by that niece of yours, Henry.”

“Melly's a fool and the ladies are right. Scarlett is a slick piece of baggage and I don't see why Charlie ever married her,” said Uncle Henry gloomily. “But Melly was right too, in a way. It's only decent that the families of the men Captain Butler saved should call. When you come right down to it, I haven't got so much against Butler. He showed himself a fine man that night he saved our hides. It's Scarlett who sticks under my tail like a cocklebur. She's a sight too smart for her own good.
Well, I've got to call. Scallawag or not, Scarlett is my niece by marriage, after all. I was aiming to call this afternoon.”

“I'll go with you, Henry. Dolly will be fit to be tied when she hears I've gone. Wait till I get one more drink.”

“No, we'll get a drink off Captain Butler. I'll say this for him, he always has good licker.”

*     *     *

Rhett had said that the Old Guard would never surrender and he was right. He knew how little significance there was to the few calls made upon them, and he knew why the calls were made. The families of the men who had been in the ill-starred Klan foray did call at first, but called with obvious infrequency thereafter. And they did not invite the Rhett Butlers to their homes.

Rhett said they would not have come at all, except for fear of violence at the hands of Melanie. Where he got this idea, Scarlett did not know but she dismissed it with the contempt it deserved. For what possible influence could Melanie have on people like Mrs. Elsing and Mrs. Merriwether? That they did not call again worried her very little; in fact, their absence was hardly noticed, for her suite was crowded with guests of another type. “New people,” established Atlantians called them, when they were not calling them something less polite.

There were many “new people” staying at the National Hotel who, like Rhett and Scarlett, were waiting for their houses to be completed. They were gay, wealthy people, very much like Rhett's New Orleans friends, elegant of dress, free with their money, vague as to their antecedents. All the men were Republicans and were “in Atlanta on business connected with the state government.”
Just what the business was, Scarlett did not know and did not trouble to learn.

Rhett could have told her exactly what it was—the same business that buzzards have with dying animals. They smelled death from afar and were drawn unerringly to it, to gorge themselves. Government of Georgia by its own citizens was dead, the state was helpless and the adventurers were swarming in.

The wives of Rhett's Scallawag and Carpetbagger friends called in droves and so did the “new people” she had met when she sold lumber for their homes. Rhett said that, having done business with them, she should receive them and, having received them, she found them pleasant company. They wore lovely clothes and never talked about the war or hard times, but confined their conversation to fashions, scandals and whist. Scarlett had never played cards before and she took to whist with joy, becoming a good player in a short time.