Gone With the Wind (40 page)

The hours dragged by and the black shadow of calamity brooded over the town, obscuring the hot sun until people looked up startled into the sky as if incredulous that it was clear and blue instead of murky and heavy with scudding clouds. Everywhere, women gathered in knots, huddled in groups on front porches, on sidewalks, even in the middle of the streets, telling each other that no news is good news, trying to comfort each other, trying to present a brave appearance. But hideous rumors that Lee was killed, the battle lost, and enormous casualty lists coming in, fled up and down the quiet streets like darting bats. Though they tried not to believe, whole neighborhoods, swayed by panic, rushed to town, to the newspapers, to headquarters, pleading for news, any news, even bad news.

Crowds formed at the depot, hoping for news from incoming trains, at the telegraph office, in front of the harried headquarters, before the locked doors of the newspapers. They were oddly still crowds, crowds that quietly grew larger and larger. There was no talking. Occasionally an old man’s treble voice begged for news, and instead of inciting the crowd to babbling it only intensified the hush as they heard the oft-repeated: “Nothing on the wires yet from the North except that there’s been fighting.” The fringe of women on foot and in carriages grew greater and greater, and the heat of the close-packed bodies and dust rising from restless feet were suffocating. The women did not speak, but their pale set faces pleaded with a mute eloquence that was louder than wailing.

There was hardly a house in town that had not sent away a son, a brother, a father, a lover, a husband, to this battle. They all waited to hear the news that death had come to their homes. They expected death. They did not expect defeat. That thought they dismissed. Their men might be dying, even now, on the sun-parched grass of the Pennsylvania hills. Even now the Southern ranks might be falling like grain before a hailstorm, but the Cause for which they fought could never fall. They might be dying in thousands but, like the fruit of the dragon’s teeth, thousands of fresh men in gray and butternut with the Rebel yell on their lips would spring up from the earth to take their places. Where these men would come from, no one knew. They only knew, as surely as they knew there was a just and jealous God in Heaven, that Lee was miraculous and the Army of Virginia invincible.

Scarlett, Melanie and Miss Pittypat sat in front of the
Daily Examiner
office in the carriage with the top back, sheltered beneath their parasols. Scarlett’s hands shook so that her parasol wobbled above her head, Pitty was so excited her nose quivered in her round face like a rabbit’s, but Melanie sat as though carved of stone, her dark eyes growing larger and larger as time went by. She made only one remark in two hours, as she took a vial of smelling salts from her reticule and handed it to her aunt, the only time she had ever spoken to her, in her whole life, with anything but tenderest affection.

“Take this, Auntie, and use it if you feel faint. I warn you if you do faint you’ll just have to faint and let Uncle Peter take you home, for I’m not going to leave this place till I hear about—till I hear. And I’m not going to let Scarlett leave me, either.”

Scarlett had no intention of leaving, no intention of placing herself where she could not have the first news of Ashley. No, even if Miss Pitty died, she wouldn’t leave this spot. Somewhere, Ashley was fighting, perhaps dying, and the newspaper office was the only place where she could learn the truth.

She looked about the crowd, picking out friends and neighbors, Mrs. Meade with her bonnet askew and her arm though that of fifteen-year-old Phil; the Misses McLure trying to make their trembling upper lips cover their buck teeth; Mrs. Elsing, erect as a Spartan mother, betraying her inner turmoil only by the straggling gray locks that hung from her chignon; and Fanny Elsing white as a ghost (Surely Fanny wouldn’t be so worried about her brother Hugh. Had she a real beau at the front that no one suspected?) Mrs. Merriwether sat in her carriage patting Maybelle’s hand. Maybelle looked so very pregnant it was a disgrace for her to be out in public, even if she did have her shawl carefully draped over her. Why should she be so worried? Nobody had heard that the Louisiana troops were in Pennsylvania. Probably her hairy little Zouave was safe in Richmond this very minute.

There was a movement on the outskirts of the crowd and those on foot gave way as Rhett Butler carefully edged his horse toward Aunt Pitty’s carriage. Scarlett thought: He’s got courage, coming here at this time when it wouldn’t take anything to make this mob tear him to pieces because he isn’t in uniform. As he came nearer, she thought she might be the first to rend him. How dared he sit there on that fine horse, in shining boots and handsome white linen suit so sleek and well fed, smoking an expensive cigar, when Ashley and all the other boys were fighting the Yankees, barefooted, sweltering in the heat, hungry, their bellies rotten with disease?

Bitter looks were thrown at him as he came slowly through the press. Old men growled in their beards, and Mrs. Merriwether who feared nothing rose slightly in her carriage and said clearly: “Speculator!” in a tone that made the word the foulest and most venomous of epithets. He paid no heed to anyone but raised his hat to Melly and Aunt Pitty and, riding to Scarlett’s side, leaned down and whispered: “Don’t you think this would be the time for Dr. Meade to give us his familiar speech about victory perching like a screaming eagle on our banners?”

Her nerves taut with suspense, she turned on him as swiftly as an angry cat, hot words bubbling to her lips, but he stopped them with a gesture.

“I came to tell you ladies,” he said loudly, “that I have been to headquarters and the first casualty lists are coming in.”

At these words a hum rose among those near enough to hear his remark, and the crowd surged, ready to turn and run down Whitehall Street toward headquarters.

“Don’t go,” he called, rising in his saddle and holding up his hand. “The lists have been sent to both newspapers and are now being printed. Stay where you are!”

“Oh, Captain Butler,” cried Melly, turning to him with tears in her eyes. “How kind of you to come and tell us! When will they be posted?”

“They should be out any minute, Madam. The reports have been in the offices for half an hour now. The major in charge didn’t want to let that out until the printing was done, for fear the crowd would wreck the offices trying to get news. Ah! Look!”

The side window of the newspaper office opened and a hand was extended, bearing a sheaf of long narrow galley proofs, smeared with fresh ink and thick with names closely printed. The crowd fought for them, tearing the slips in half, those obtaining them trying to back out through the crowd to read, those behind pushing forward, crying: “Let me through!”

“Hold the reins,” said Rhett shortly, swinging to the ground and tossing the bridle to Uncle Peter. They saw his heavy shoulders towering above the crowd as he went through, brutally pushing and shoving. In a while he was back, with half a dozen in his hands. He tossed one to Melanie and distributed the others among the ladies in the nearest carriages, the Misses McLure, Mrs. Meade, Mrs. Merriwether, Mrs. Elsing.

“Quick, Melly,” cried Scarlett, her heart in her throat, exasperation sweeping her as she saw that Melly’s hands were shaking so that it was impossible for her to read.

“Take it,” whispered Melly, and Scarlett snatched it from her. The
W
s. Where were the
W
s? Oh, there they were at the bottom and all smeared up. “White,” she read and her voice shook, “Wilkens … Winn … Zebulon … Oh, Melly, he’s not on it! He’s not on it! Oh, for God’s sake, Auntie, Melly, pick up the salts! Hold her up, Melly.”

Melly, weeping openly with happiness, steadied Miss Pitty’s rolling head and held the smelling salts under her nose. Scarlett braced the fat old lady on the other side, her heart singing with joy. Ashley was alive. He wasn’t even wounded. How good God was to pass him by! How—

She heard a low moan and, turning, saw Fanny Elsing lay her head on her mother’s bosom, saw the casualty list flutter to the floor of the carriage, saw Mrs. Elsing’s thin lips quiver as she gathered her daughter in her arms and said quietly to the coachman: “Home. Quickly.” Scarlett took a quick glance at the lists. Hugh Elsing was not listed. Fanny must have had a beau and now he was dead. The crowd made way in sympathetic silence for the Elsings’ carriage, and after them followed the little wicker pony cart of the McLure girls. Miss Faith was driving, her face like a rock, and for once, her teeth were covered by her lips. Miss Hope, death in her face, sat erect beside her, holding her sister’s skirt in a tight grasp. They looked like very old women. Their young brother Dallas was their darling and the only relative the maiden ladies had in the world. Dallas was gone.

“Melly! Melly!” cried Maybelle, joy in her voice, “René is safe! And Ashley, too! Oh, thank God!” The shawl had slipped from her shoulders and her condition was most obvious but, for once, neither she nor Mrs. Merriwether cared. “Oh, Mrs. Meade! René—” Her voice changed, swiftly, “Melly, look!—Mrs. Meade, please! Darcy isn’t—?”

Mrs. Meade was looking down into her lap and she did not raise her head when her name was called, but the face of little Phil beside her was an open book that all might read.

“There, there, Mother,” he said, helplessly. Mrs. Meade, looked up, meeting Melanie’s eyes.

“He won’t need those boots now,” she said.

“Oh, darling!” cried Melly, beginning to sob, as she shoved Aunt Pitty onto Scarlett’s shoulder and scrambled out of the carriage and toward that of the doctor’s wife.

“Mother, you’ve still got me,” said Phil, in a forlorn effort at comforting the white-faced woman beside him. “And if you’ll just let me, I’ll go kill all the Yank—”

Mrs. Meade clutched his arm as if she would never let it go, said “No!” in a strangled voice and seemed to choke.

“Phil Meade, you hush your mouth!” hissed Melanie, climbing in beside Mrs. Meade and taking her in her arms. “Do you think it’ll help your mother to have you off getting shot too? I never heard anything so silly. Drive us home, quick!”

She turned to Scarlett as Phil picked up the reins.

“As soon as you take Auntie home, come over to Mrs. Meade’s. Captain Butler, can you get word to the doctor? He’s at the hospital.”

The carriage moved off through the dispersing crowd. Some of the women were weeping with joy, but most looked too stunned to realize the heavy blows that had fallen upon them. Scarlett bent her head over the blurred lists, reading rapidly, to find names of friends. Now that Ashley was safe she could think of other people. Oh, how long the list was! How heavy the toll from Atlanta, from all of Georgia.

Good Heavens! “Calvert—Raiford, Lieutenant.” Raif! Suddenly she remembered the day, so long ago, when they had run away together but decided to come home at nightfall because they were hungry and afraid of the dark.

“Fontaine—Joseph K., private,” Little bad-tempered Joe! And Sally hardly over having her baby!

“Munroe—LaFayette, Captain.” And Lafe had been engaged to Cathleen Calvert. Poor Cathleen! Hers had been a double loss, a brother and a sweetheart. But Sally’s loss was greater—a brother and a husband.

Oh, this was too terrible. She was almost afraid to read further. Aunt Pitty was heaving and sighing on her shoulder and, with small ceremony, Scarlett pushed her over into a comer of the carriage and continued her reading.

Surely, surely—there couldn’t be three “Tarleton” names on that list. Perhaps—perhaps the hurried printer had repeated the name by error. But no. There they were. “Tarleton—Brenton, Lieutenant.” “Tarleton—Stuart, Corporal.” “Tarleton—Thomas, private.” And Boyd, dead the first year of the war, was buried God knew where in Virginia. All the Tarleton boys gone. Tom and the lazy long-legged twins with their love of gossip and their absurd practical jokes and Boyd who had the grace of a dancing master and the tongue of a wasp.

She could not read any more. She could not know if any other of those boys with whom she had grown up, danced, flirted, kissed were on that list. She wished that she could cry, do something to ease the iron fingers that were digging into her throat.

“I’m sorry, Scarlett,” said Rhett. She looked up at him. She had forgotten he was still there. “Many of your friends?”

She nodded and struggled to speak: “About every family in the County—and all—all three of the Tarleton boys.”

His face was quiet, almost somber, and there was no mocking in his eyes.

“And the end is not yet,” he said. “These are just the first lists and they’re incomplete. There’ll be a longer list tomorrow.” He lowered his voice so that those in the near-by carriages could not hear. “Scarlett, General Lee must have lost the battle. I heard at headquarters that he had retreated back into Maryland.”

She raised frightened eyes to his, but her fear did not spring from Lee’s defeat. Longer casualty lists tomorrow! Tomorrow. She had not thought of tomorrow, so happy was she at first that Ashley’s name was not on that list. Tomorrow. Why, right this minute he might be dead and she would not know it until tomorrow, or perhaps a week from tomorrow.

“Oh, Rhett, why do there have to be wars? It would have been so much better for the Yankees to pay for the darkies—or even for us to give them the darkies free of charge than to have this happen.”

“It isn’t the darkies, Scarlett. They’re just the excuse. There’ll always be wars because men love wars. Women don’t, but men do—yea, passing the love of women.”

His mouth twisted in his old smile and the seriousness was gone from his face. He lifted his wide Panama hat.

“Good-by. I’m going to find Dr. Meade. I imagine the irony of me being the one to tell him of his son’s death will be lost on him, just now. But later, he’ll probably hate to think that a speculator brought the news of a hero’s death.”

Scarlett put Miss Pitty to bed with a toddy, left Prissy and Cookie in attendance and went down the street to the Meade house. Mrs. Meade was upstairs with Phil, waiting her husband’s return, and Melanie sat in the parlor, talking in a low voice to a group of sympathetic neighbors. She was busy with needle and scissors, altering a mourning dress that Mrs. Elsing had lent to Mrs. Meade. Already the house was full of the acrid smell of clothes boiling in homemade black dye for, in the kitchen, the sobbing cook was stirring all of Mrs. Meade’s dresses in the huge wash pot.