Gone With the Wind (6 page)

“No,” she said shortly.

“Nor will he,” said Gerald.

Fury flamed in her, but Gerald waved her quiet with a hand.

“Hold your tongue, Miss! I had it from John Wilkes this afternoon in the strictest confidence that Ashley’s to marry Miss Melanie. It’s to be announced tomorrow.”

Scarlett’s hand fell from his arm. So it was true!

A pain slashed at her heart as savagely as a wild animal’s fangs. Through it all, she felt her father’s eyes on her, a little pitying, a little annoyed at being faced with a problem for which he knew no answer. He loved Scarlett, but it made him uncomfortable to have her forcing her childish problems on him for a solution. Ellen knew all the answers. Scarlett should have taken her troubles to her.

“Is it a spectacle you’ve been making of yourself — of all of us?” he bawled, his voice rising as always in moments of excitement. “Have you been running after a man who’s not in love with you, when you could have any of the bucks in the County?”

Anger and hurt pride drove out some of the pain.

“I haven’t been running after him. It — it just surprised me.”

“It’s lying you are!” said Gerald, and then, peering at her stricken face, he added in a burst of kindliness: “I’m sorry, daughter. But after all, you are nothing but a child and there’s lots of other beaux.”

“Mother was only fifteen when she married you, and I’m sixteen,” said Scarlett, her voice muffled.

“Your mother was different,” said Gerald. “She was never flighty like you. Now come, daughter, cheer up, and I’ll take you to Charleston next week to visit your Aunt Eulalie and, what with all the hullabaloo they are having over there about Fort Sumter, you’ll be forgetting about Ashley in a week.”

“He thinks I’m a child,” thought Scarlett, grief and anger choking utterance, “and he’s only got to dangle a new toy and I’ll forget my bumps.”

“Now, don’t be jerking your chin at me,” warned Gerald. “If you had any sense you’d have married Stuart or Brent Tarleton long ago. Think it over, daughter. Marry one of the twins and then the plantations will run together and Jim Tarleton and I will build you a fine house, right where they join, in that big pine grove and —”

“Will you stop treating me like a child!” cried Scarlett. “I don’t want to go to Charleston or have a house or marry the twins. I only want —” She caught herself but not in time.

Gerald’s voice was strangely quiet and he spoke slowly as if drawing his words from a store of thought seldom used.

“It’s only Ashley you’re wanting, and you’ll not be having him. And if he wanted to marry you, ‘twould be with misgivings that I’d say Yes, for an the fine friendship that’s between me and John Wilkes.” And, seeing her startled look, he continued: “I want my girl to be happy and you wouldn’t be happy with him.”

“Oh, I would! I would!”

“That you would not, daughter. Only when like marries like can there be any happiness.”

Scarlett had a sudden treacherous desire to cry out, “But you’ve been happy, and you and Mother aren’t alike,” but she repressed it, fearing that he would box her ears for her impertinence.

“Our people and the Wilkes are different,” he went on slowly, fumbling for words. “The Wilkes are different from any of our neighbors — different from any family I ever knew. They are queer folk, and it’s best that they marry their cousins and keep their queerness to themselves.”

“Why, Pa, Ashley is not —”

“Hold your whist, Puss! I said nothing against the lad, for I like him. And when I say queer, it’s not crazy I’m meaning. He’s not queer like the Calverts who’d gamble everything they have on a horse, or the Tarletons who turn out a drunkard or two in every litter, or the Fontaines who are hot-headed little brutes and after murdering a man for a fancied slight. That kind of queerness is easy to understand, for sure, and but for the grace of God Gerald O’Hara would be having all those faults! And I don’t mean that Ashley would run off with another woman, if you were his wife, or beat you. You’d be happier if he did, for at least you’d be understanding that. But he’s queer in other ways, and there’s no understanding him at all. I like him, but it’s neither heads nor tails I can make of most he says. Now, Puss, tell me true, do you understand his folderol about books and poetry and music and oil paintings and such foolishness?”

“Oh, Pa,” cried Scarlett impatiently, “if I married him, I’d change all that!”

“Oh, you would, would you now?” Said Gerald testily, shooting a sharp look at her. “Then it’s little enough you are knowing of any man living, let alone Ashley. No wife has ever changed a husband one whit, and don’t you be forgetting that. And as for changing a Wilkes — God’s nightgown, daughter! The whole family is that way, and they’ve always been that way. And probably always will. I tell you they’re born queer. Look at the way they go tearing up to New York and Boston to hear operas and see oil paintings. And ordering French and German books by the crate from the Yankees! And there they sit reading and dreaming the dear God knows what, when they’d be better spending their time hunting and playing poker as proper men should.”

“There’s nobody in the County sits a horse better than Ashley,” said Scarlett, furious at the slur of effeminacy flung on Ashley, “nobody except maybe his father. And as for poker, didn’t Ashley take two hundred dollars away from you just last week in Jonesboro?”

“The Calvert boys have been blabbing again,” Gerald said resignedly, “else you’d not be knowing the amount. Ashley can ride with the best and play poker with the best — that’s me, Puss! And I’m not denying that when he sets out to drink he can put even the Tarletons under the table. He can do all those things, but his heart’s not in it. That’s why I say he’s queer.”

Scarlett was silent and her heart sank. She could think of no defense for this last, for she knew Gerald was right. Ashley’s heart was in none of the pleasant things he did so well. He was never more than politely interested in any of the things that vitally interested every one else.

Rightly interpreting her silence, Gerald patted her arm and said triumphantly: “There now, Scarlett! You admit ‘tis true. What would you be doing with a husband like Ashley? ‘Tis moonstruck they all are, all the Wilkes.” And then, in a wheedling tone: “When I was mentioning the Tarletons the while ago, I wasn’t pushing them. They’re fine lads, but if it’s Cade Calvert you’re setting your cap after, why, ‘tis the same with me. The Calverts are good folk, all of them, for all the old man marrying a Yankee. And when I’m gone — Whist, darlin’, listen to me! I’ll leave Tara to you and Cade —”

“I wouldn’t have Cade on a silver tray,” cried Scarlett in fury. “And I wish you’d quit pushing him at me! I don’t want Tara or any old plantation. Plantations don’t amount to anything when —”

She was going to say “when you haven’t the man you want,” but Gerald, incensed by the cavalier way in which she treated his proffered gift, the thing which, next to Ellen, he loved best in the whole world uttered a roar.

“Do you stand there, Scarlett O’Hara, and tell me that Tara — that land — doesn’t amount to anything?”

Scarlett nodded obstinately. Her heart was too sore to care whether or not she put her father in a temper.

“Land is the only thing in the world that amounts to anything,” he shouted, his thick, short arms making wide gestures of indignation, “for ‘tis the only thing in this world that lasts, and don’t you be forgetting it! ‘Tis the only thing worth working for, worth fighting for — worth dying for.”

“Oh, Pa,” she said disgustedly, “you talk like an Irishman!”

“Have I ever been ashamed of it? No, ‘tis proud I am. And don’t be forgetting that you are half Irish, Miss! And to anyone with a drop of Irish blood in them the land they live on is like their mother. ‘Tis ashamed of you I am this minute. I offer you the most beautiful land in the world — saving County Meath in the Old Country — and what do you do? You sniff!”

Gerald had begun to work himself up into a pleasurable shouting rage when something in Scarlett’s woebegone face stopped him.

“But there, you’re young. ‘Twill come to you, this love of land. There’s no getting away from it, if you’re Irish. You’re just a child and bothered about your beaux. When you’re older, you’ll be seeing how ‘tis. … Now, do you be making up your mind about Cade or the twins or one of Evan Munroe’s young bucks, and see how fine I turn you out!”

“Oh, Pa!”

By this time, Gerald was thoroughly tired of the conversation and thoroughly annoyed that the problem should be upon his shoulders. He felt aggrieved, moreover, that Scarlett should still look desolate after being offered the best of the County boys and Tara, too. Gerald liked his gifts to be received with clapping of hands and kisses.

“Now, none of your pouts, Miss. It doesn’t matter who you marry, as long as he thinks like you and is a gentleman and a Southerner and prideful. For a woman, love comes after marriage.”

“Oh, Pa, that’s such an Old Country notion!”

“And a good notion it is! All this American business of running around marrying for love, like servants, like Yankees! The best marriages are when the parents choose for the girl. For how can a silly piece like yourself tell a good man from a scoundrel? Now, look at the Wilkes. What’s kept them prideful and strong all these generations? Why, marrying the likes of themselves, marrying the cousins their family always expects them to marry.”

“Oh,” cried Scarlett, fresh pain striking her as Gerald’s words brought home the terrible inevitability of the truth. Gerald looked at her bowed head and shuffled his feet uneasily.

“It’s not crying you are?” he questioned, fumbling clumsily at her chin, trying to turn her face upward, his own face furrowed with pity.

“No,” she cried vehemently, jerking away.

“It’s lying you are, and I’m proud of it. I’m glad there’s pride in you, Puss. And I want to see pride in you tomorrow at the barbecue. I’ll not be having the County gossiping and laughing at you for mooning your heart out about a man who never gave you a thought beyond friendship.”

“He did give me a thought,” thought Scarlett, sorrowfully in her heart. “Oh, a lot of thoughts! I know he did. I could tell. If I’d just had a little longer, I know I could have made him say — Oh, if it only wasn’t that the Wilkes always feel that they have to marry their cousins!”

Gerald took her arm and passed it through his.

“We’ll be going in to supper now, and all this is between us. I’ll not be worrying your mother with this — nor do you do it either. Blow your nose, daughter.”

Scarlett blew her nose on her torn handkerchief, and they started up the dark drive arm in arm, the horse following slowly. Near the house, Scarlett was at the point of speaking again when she saw her mother in the dim shadows of the porch. She had on her bonnet, shawl and mittens, and behind her was Mammy, her face like a thundercloud, holding in her hand the black leather bag in which Ellen O’Hara always carried the bandages and medicines she used in doctoring the slaves. Mammy’s lips were large and pendulous and, when indignant, she could push out her lower one to twice its normal length. It was pushed out now, and Scarlett knew that Mammy was seething over something of which she did not approve.

“Mr. O’Hara,” called Ellen as she saw the two coming up the driveway — Ellen belonged to a generation that was formal even after seventeen years of wedlock and the bearing of six children —” Mr. O’Hara, there is illness at the Slattery house. Emmie’s baby has been born and is dying and must be baptized. I am going there with Mammy to see what I can do.”

Her voice was raised questioningly, as though she hung on Gerald’s assent to her plan, a mere formality but one dear to the heart of Gerald.

“In the name of God!” blustered Gerald. “Why should those white trash take you away just at your supper hour and just when I’m wanting to tell you about the war talk that’s going on in Atlanta! Go, Mrs. O’Hara. You’d not rest easy on your pillow the night if there was trouble abroad and you not there to help.”

“She doan never git no res’ on her piller fer hoppin’ up at night time nursin’ niggers an po’ w’ite trash dat could ten’ to deyseff,” grumbled Mammy in a monotone as she went down the stairs toward the carriage which was waiting in the side drive.

“Take my place at the table, dear,” said Ellen, patting Scarlett’s cheek softly with a mittened hand.

In spite of her choked-back tears, Scarlett thrilled to the never-failing magic of her mother’s touch, to the faint fragrance of lemon verbena sachet that came from her rustling silk dress. To Scarlett, there was something breath-taking about Ellen O’Hara, a miracle that lived in the house with her and awed her and charmed and soothed her.

Gerald helped his wife into the carriage and gave orders to the coachman to drive carefully. Toby, who had handled Gerald’s horses for twenty years, pushed out his lips in mute indignation at being told how to conduct his own business. Driving off, with Mammy beside him, each was a perfect picture of pouting African disapproval.

“If I didn’t do so much for those trashy Slatterys that they’d have to pay money for elsewhere,” fumed Gerald, “they’d be willing to sell me their miserable few acres of swamp bottom, and the County would be well rid of them.” Then, brightening, in anticipation of one of his practical jokes: “Come daughter, let’s go tell Pork that instead of buying Dilcey, I’ve sold him to John Wilkes.”

He tossed the reins of his horse to a small pickaninny standing near and started up the steps. He had already forgotten Scarlett’s heartbreak and his mind was only on plaguing his valet. Scarlett slowly climbed the steps after him, her feet leaden. She thought that, after all, a mating between herself and Ashley could be no queerer than that of her father and Ellen Robillard O’Hara. As always, she wondered how her loud, insensitive father had managed to marry a woman like her mother, for never were two people further apart in birth, breeding and habits of mind.

CHAPTER III

ELLEN O’HARA was thirty-two years old, and, according to the standards of her day, she was a middle-aged woman, one who had borne six children and buried three. She was a tall woman, standing a head higher than her fiery little husband, but she moved with such quiet grace in her swaying hoops that the height attracted no attention to itself. Her neck, rising from the black taffeta sheath of her basque, was creamy-skinned, rounded and slender, and it seemed always tilted slightly backward by the weight of her luxuriant hair in its net at the back of her head. From her French mother, whose parents had fled Haiti in the Revolution of 1791, had come her slanting dark eyes, shadowed by inky lashes, and her black hair; and from her father, a soldier of Napoleon, she had her long straight nose and her square-cut jaw that was softened by the gentle curving of her cheeks. But only from life could Ellen’s face have acquired its look of pride that had no haughtiness, its graciousness, its melancholy and its utter lack of humor.