Gone With the Wind (11 page)

“I am sorry I am so late,” said Ellen, slipping her plaid shawl from drooping shoulders and handing it to Scarlett, whose cheek she patted in passing.

Gerald’s face had brightened as if by magic at her entrance.

“Is the brat baptized?” he questioned.

“Yes, and dead, poor thing,” said Ellen. “I feared Emmie would die too, but I think she will live.”

The girls’ faces turned to her, startled and questioning, and Gerald wagged his head philosophically.

“Well, ‘tis better so that the brat is dead, no doubt, poor fatherle—”

“It is late. We had better have prayers now,” interrupted Ellen so smoothly that, if Scarlett had not known her mother well, the interruption would have passed unnoticed.

It would be interesting to know who was the father of Emmie Slattery’s baby, but Scarlett knew she would never learn the truth of the matter if she waited to hear it from her mother. Scarlett suspected Jonas Wilkerson, for she had frequently seen him walking down the road with Emmie at nightfall. Jonas was a Yankee and a bachelor, and the fact that he was an overseer forever barred him from any contact with the County social life. There was no family of any standing into which he could marry, no people with whom he could associate except the Slatterys and riffraff like them. As he was several cuts above the Slatterys in education, it was only natural that he should not want to marry Emmie, no matter how often he might walk with her in the twilight.

Scarlett sighed, for her curiosity was sharp. Things were always happening under her mother’s eyes which she noticed no more than if they had not happened at all. Ellen ignored all things contrary to her ideas of propriety and tried to teach Scarlett to do the same, but with poor success.

Ellen had stepped to the mantel to take her rosary beads from the small inlaid casket in which they always reposed when Mammy spoke up with firmness.

“Miss Ellen, you gwine eat some supper befo’ you does any prayin’.”

“Thank you. Mammy, but I am not hungry.”

“Ah gwine fix yo’ supper mahseff an’ you eats it,” said Mammy, her brow furrowed with indignation as she started down the hall for the kitchen. “Poke!” she called, “tell Cookie stir up de fiah. Miss Ellen home.”

As the boards shuddered under her weight, the soliloquy she had been muttering in the front hall grew louder and louder, coming clearly to the ears of the family in the dining room.

“Ah has said time an’ again, it doan do no good doin’ nuthin’ fer w’ite trash. Dey is de shiflesses, mos’ ungrateful passel of no-counts livin’. An’ Miss Ellen got no bizness weahin’ herseff out waitin’ on folks dat did dey be wuth shootin’ dey’d have niggers ter wait on dem. An’ Ah has said—”

Her voice trailed off as she went down the long open passageway, covered only by a roof, that led into the kitchen. Mammy had her own method of letting her owners know exactly where she stood on all matters. She knew it was beneath the dignity of quality white folks to pay the slightest attention to what a darky said when she was just grumbling to herself. She knew that to uphold this dignity, they must ignore what she said, even if she stood in the next room and almost shouted. It protected her from reproof, and it left no doubt in anyone’s mind as to her exact views on any subject.

Pork entered the room, bearing a plate, silver and a napkin. He was followed closely by Jack, a black little boy of ten, hastily buttoning a white linen jacket with one hand and bearing in the other a fly-swisher, made of thin strips of newspaper tied to a reed longer than he was. Ellen had a beautiful peacock-feather fly-brusher, but it was used only on very special occasions and then only after domestic struggle, due to the obstinate conviction of Pork, Cookie and Mammy that peacock feathers were bad luck.

Ellen sat down in the chair which Gerald pulled out for her and four voices attacked her.

“Mother, the lace is loose on my new ball dress and I want to wear it tomorrow night at Twelve Oaks. Won’t you please fix it?”

“Mother, Scarlett’s new dress is prettier than mine and I look like a fright in pink. Why can’t she wear my pink and let me wear her green? She looks all right in pink.”

“Mother, can I stay up for the ball tomorrow night? I’m thirteen now—”

“Mrs. O’Hara, would you believe it— Hush, you girls, before I take me crop to you! Cade Calvert was in Atlanta this morning and he says—will you be quiet and let me be hearing me own voice?—and he says it’s all upset they are there and talking nothing but war, militia drilling, troops forming. And he says the news from Charleston is that they will be putting up with no more Yankee insults.”

Ellen’s tired mouth smiled into the tumult as she addressed herself first to her husband, as a wife should.

“If the nice people of Charleston feel that way, I’m sure we will all feel the same way soon,” she said, for she had a deeply rooted belief that, excepting only Savannah, most of the gentle blood of the whole continent could be found in that small seaport city, a belief shared largely by Charlestonians.

“No, Carreen, next year, dear. Then you can stay up for balls and wear grown-up dresses, and what a good time my little pink cheeks will have! Don’t pout, dear. You can go to the barbecue, remember that, and stay up through supper, but no balls until you are fourteen.”

“Give me your gown, Scarlett, I will whip the lace for you after prayers.

“Suellen, I do not like your tone, dear. Your pink gown is lovely and suitable to your complexion, Scarlett’s is to hers. But you may wear my garnet necklace tomorrow night.”

Suellen, behind her mother’s back, wrinkled her nose triumphantly at Scarlett who had been planning to beg the necklace for herself. Scarlett put out her tongue at her. Suellen was an annoying sister with her whining and selfishness, and had it not been for Ellen’s restraining hand, Scarlett would frequently have boxed her ears.

“Now, Mr. O’Hara, tell me more about what Mr. Calvert said about Charleston,” said Ellen.

Scarlett knew her mother cared nothing at all about war and politics and thought them masculine matters about which no lady could intelligently concern herself. But it gave Gerald pleasure to air his views, and Ellen was unfailingly thoughtful of her husband’s pleasure.

While Gerald launched forth on his news. Mammy set the plates before her mistress, golden-topped biscuits, breast of fried chicken and a yellow yam open and steaming, with melted butter dripping from it. Mammy pinched small Jack, and he hastened to his business of slowly swishing the paper ribbons back and forth behind Ellen. Mammy stood beside the table, watching every forkful that traveled from plate to mouth, as though she intended to force the food down Ellen’s throat should she see signs of flagging. Ellen ate diligently, but Scarlett could see that she was too tired to know what she was eating. Only Mammy’s implacable face forced her to it.

When the dish was empty and Gerald only midway in his remarks on the thievishness of Yankees who wanted to free darkies and yet offered no penny to pay for their freedom, Ellen rose.

“We’ll be having prayers?” he questioned, reluctantly.

“Yes. It is so late—why, it is actually ten o’clock,” as the clock with coughing and tinny thumps marked the hour. “Carreen should have been asleep long ago. The lamp, please. Pork, and my prayer book, Mammy.”

Prompted by Mammy’s hoarse whisper. Jack set his fly-brush in the corner and removed the dishes, while Mammy fumbled in the sideboard drawer for Ellen’s worn prayer book. Pork, tiptoeing, reached the ring in the chain and drew the lamp slowly down until the table top was brightly bathed in light and the ceiling receded into shadows. Ellen arranged her skirts and sank to the floor on her knees, laying the open prayer book on the table before her and clasping her hands upon it Gerald knelt beside her, and Scarlett and Suellen took their accustomed places on the opposite side of the table, folding their voluminous petticoats in pads under their knees, so they would ache less from contact with the hard floor. Carreen, who was small for her age, could not kneel comfortably at the table and so knelt facing a chair, her elbows on the seat. She liked this position, for she seldom failed to go to sleep during prayers and, in this posture, it escaped her mother’s notice.

The house servants shuffled and rustled in the hall to kneel by the doorway, Mammy groaning aloud as she sank down, Pork straight as a ramrod, Rosa and Teena, the maids, graceful in their spreading bright calicoes, Cookie gaunt and yellow beneath her snowy head rag, and Jack, stupid with sleep, as far away from Mammy’s pinching fingers as possible. Their dark eyes gleamed expectantly, for praying with their white folks was one of the events of the day. The old and colorful phrases of the litany with its Oriental imagery meant little to them but it satisfied something in their hearts, and they always swayed when they chanted the responses: “Lord, have mercy on us,” “Christ, have mercy on us.”

Ellen closed her eyes and began praying, her voice rising and falling, lulling and soothing. Heads bowed in the circle of yellow light as Ellen thanked God for the health and happiness of her home, her family and her negroes.

When she had finished her prayers for those beneath the roof of Tara, her father, mother, sisters, three dead babies and “all the poor souls in Purgatory,” she clasped her white beads between long fingers and began the Rosary, like the rushing of a soft wind, the responses from black throats and white throats rolled back:

“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death.”

Despite her heartache and the pain of unshed tears, a deep sense of quiet and peace fell upon Scarlett as it always did at this hour. Some of the disappointment of the day and the dread of the morrow departed from her, leaving a feeling of hope. It was not the lifting up of her heart to God that brought this balm, for religion went no more than lip deep with her. It was the sight of her mother’s serene face upturned to the throne of God and His saints and angels, praying for blessings on those whom she loved. When Ellen intervened with Heaven, Scarlett felt certain that Heaven heard.

Ellen finished and Gerald, who could never find his beads at prayer time, began furtively counting his decade on his fingers. As his voice droned on Scarlett’s thoughts strayed, in spite of herself. She knew she should be examining her conscience. Ellen had taught her that at the end of each day it was her duty to examine her conscience thoroughly, to admit her numerous faults and pray to God for forgiveness and strength never to repeat them. But Scarlett was examining her heart.

She dropped her head upon her folded hands so that her mother could not see her face, and her thoughts went sadly back to Ashley. How could he be planning to marry Melanie when he really loved her, Scarlett? And when he knew how much she loved him? How could he deliberately break her heart?

Then, suddenly, an idea, shining and new, flashed like a comet through her brain.

“Why, Ashley hasn’t an idea that I’m in love with him!”

She almost gasped aloud in the shock of its unexpectedness. Her mind stood still as if paralyzed for a long, breathless instant, and then raced forward.

“How could he know? I’ve always acted so prissy and ladylike and touch-me-not around him he probably thinks I don’t care a thing about him except as a friend. Yes, that’s why he’s never spoken! He thinks his love is hopeless. And that’s why he’s looked so—”

Her mind went swiftly back to those times when she had caught him looking at her in that strange manner, when the gray eyes that were such perfect curtains for his thoughts had been wide and naked and had in them a look of torment and despair.

“He’s been broken hearted because he thinks I’m in love with Brent or Stuart or Cade. And probably he thinks that if he can’t have me, he might as well please his family and marry Melanie. But if he knew I did love him—”

Her volatile spirits shot up from deepest depression to excited happiness. This was the answer to Ashley’s reticence, to his strange conduct. He didn’t know! Her vanity leaped to the aid of her desire to believe, making belief a certainty. If he knew she loved him, he would hasten to her side. She had only to—

“Oh!” she thought rapturously, digging her fingers into her lowered brow. “What a fool I’ve been not to think of this till now! I must think of some way to let him know. He wouldn’t marry her if he knew I loved him! How could he?”

With a start, she realized that Gerald had finished and her mother’s eyes were on her. Hastily she began her decade, telling off the beads automatically but with a depth of emotion in her voice that caused Mammy to open her eyes and shoot a searching glance at her. As she finished her prayers and Suellen, then Carreen, began their decades, her mind was still speeding onward with her entrancing new thought.

Even now, it wasn’t too late! Too often the County had been scandalized by elopements when one or the other of the participating parties was practically at the altar with a third. And Ashley’s engagement had not even been announced yet! Yes, there was plenty of time!

If no love lay between Ashley and Melanie but only a promise given long ago, then why wasn’t it possible for him to break that promise and marry her? Surely he would do it, if he knew that she, Scarlett loved him. She must find some way to let him know. She would find some way! And then—

Scarlett came abruptly out of her dream of delight, for she had neglected to make the responses and her mother was looking at her reprovingly. As she resumed the ritual, she opened her eyes briefly and cast a quick glance around the room. The kneeling figures, the soft glow of the lamp, the dim shadows where the negroes swayed, even the familiar objects that had been so hateful to her sight an hour ago, in an instant took on the color of her own emotions, and the room seemed once more a lovely place. She would never forget this moment or this scene!

“Virgin most faithful,” her mother intoned. The Litany of the Virgin was beginning, and obediently Scarlett responded: “Pray for us,” as Ellen praised in soft contralto the attributes of the Mother of God.

As always since childhood, this was, for Scarlett, a moment for adoration of Ellen, rather than the Virgin. Sacrilegious though it might be, Scarlett always saw, through her closed eyes, the upturned face of Ellen and not the Blessed Virgin, as the ancient phrases were repeated. “Health of the Sick,” “Seat of Wisdom,” “Refuge of Sinners,” “Mystical Rose”—they were beautiful because they were the attributes of Ellen. But tonight became of the exaltation of her own spirit, Scarlett found in the whole ceremonial, the softly spoken words, the murmur of the responses, a surpassing beauty beyond any that she had ever experienced before. And her heart went up to God in sincere thankfulness that a pathway for her feet had been opened—out of her misery and straight to the arms of Ashley.