Scarlett (112 page)

Now, however, Rosaleen put aside her allegiance to Fenianism. Colum’s suffering meant more to her than Ireland’s, for she loved him in a way that no woman should permit herself to love a priest, and she could not let him destroy himself through doubt and anger.

“What kind of Irishman are you then, Colum O’Hara?” she said harshly. “Will you let Devoy and the others rule alone and wrongly? You hear what’s happening. The people are fighting on their own, and paying a fearful price for lack of a leader. They do not want Parnell, no more than you. You created the means for an army. Why don’t you go now and build the army to use the means instead of drinking yourself to blindness like any bravery-spouting layabout in a corner bar?”

Colum looked at her, then beyond her, and his eyes slowly filled with hope.

Rosaleen dropped her gaze to the ground. She couldn’t chance letting him see the emotion burning in her eyes.

“I don’t know how you can bear this heat,” said Harriet Kelly. Under her parasol, there was a sheen of perspiration on her delicate face.

“I love it,” Scarlett said. “It’s just like home. Have I ever told you about the South, Harriet?”

She had not, Harriet said.

“Summer was my favorite time,” said Scarlett. “The heat and the dry days were just what was wanted. It was so beautiful, the cotton plants green and fixing to bust open, all in row after row, stretching as far as your eye could see. The field hands would sing when they hoed, you could hear the music in the distance, kind of hanging there in the air.” She heard her own words and was horrified. What was she saying? “Home?” This was her home now. Ireland.

Harriet’s eyes were dreamy. “How lovely,” she sighed.

Scarlett looked at her with disgust, then turned it on herself. Romantic dreaminess had gotten Harriet Kelly into more trouble than she knew what to do with, and she still didn’t know any better.

But I do. I didn’t have to put the South behind me, General Sherman did it for me, and I’m too old to pretend it never happened.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I’m all at sixes and sevens. Maybe it’s the heat, maybe I’ve lost the knack of it.

“I’m going to go work on the accounts, Harriet,” said Scarlett. The neat rows of numbers were always calming for her, and she felt like she was about to jump out of her skin.

The account books were terribly depressing. The only money she had coming in was the profit from the little houses she was building on the edge of Atlanta. Well, at least that money was no longer going to that revolutionary movement Colum used to belong to. It would help some—a lot, really. But not nearly enough. She’d spent incredible sums on the house and the village. And Dublin. She couldn’t believe how extravagant she’d been in Dublin, although the orderly columns of numbers proved it beyond question.

If only Joe Colleton would shave a little in building those houses. They’d still sell like hotcakes, but the profit would be much bigger. She wouldn’t let him buy cheaper lumber—the whole reason for building them in the first place was to keep Ashley in business. There were plenty of other ways to cut expenses. Foundations… chimneys… brick didn’t have to be top quality.

Scarlett shook her head impatiently. Joe Colleton would never do it on his own. He was just like Ashley, bone honest and full of unbusinesslike ideals. She remembered them talking together at the site. If ever there were birds of a feather, it was those two. She wouldn’t be surprised if they stopped in the middle of talking lumber prices to start talking about some fool book they’d read.

Scarlett’s eyes grew thoughtful.

She ought to send Harriet Kelly to Atlanta.

She’d be a perfect wife for Ashley. They were another two of a kind, living out of books, hopeless in the real world. Harriet was a ninny in lots of ways, but she stuck by her obligations—she’d stayed with her no-good husband for nearly ten years—and she had her own kind of gumption. It took a lot of sand to walk in to the commanding officer in broken shoes and beg for Danny Kelly’s life. Ashley needed that kind of steel behind him. He needed somebody to take care of, too. It couldn’t be doing him any good having India and Aunt Pitty fussing over him all the time. What it was likely doing to Beau was too awful to think about. Billy Kelly would teach him a thing or three. Scarlett grinned. She’d better send a box of smelling salts for Aunt Pitty along with Billy Kelly.

Her grin faded. No, it wouldn’t do. Cat would be heartbroken without Billy. She’d drooped for a week when Ocras ran away, and the tabby hadn’t been one-tenth of what Billy was in her life.

Besides, Harriet couldn’t stand the heat.

No, it wouldn’t do at all. Not at all.

Scarlett bent her head to the account books again.

W
e’ve got to stop spending so much money,” Scarlett said angrily. She shook the account book at Mrs. Fitzpatrick. “There’s no reason on earth for feeding this army of servants when flour for bread costs a fortune. At least half of them will have to be let go. What good do they do, anyhow? And don’t sing me that old song about having to churn the cream to make the butter, because if there’s one thing that there’s too much of these days, it’s butter. You can’t sell it for hapenny a pound.”

Mrs. Fitzpatrick waited for Scarlett’s tirade to end. Then she calmly took the book from her and put it on a table. “You’d turn them out onto the road, then?” she said. “They’ll find plenty of company, for many of the Big Houses in Ireland are doing just what you’re proposing. Not a day goes by we don’t have a dozen or more poor souls begging a bowl of soup at the kitchen door. Will you add to their number?”

Scarlett strode impatiently to the window. “No, of course not, don’t be ridiculous. But there must be some way we can cut expenses.”

“It’s more costly to feed your fine horses than your servants.” Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s voice was cold.

Scarlett turned on her. “That will be all,” she said furiously. “Leave me alone.” She picked up the book and went to her desk. But she was too upset to concentrate on the accounts. How could Mrs. Fitz be so mean? She must know that I enjoy hunting more than anything else in my life. The only thing that’s getting me through this horrible summer is knowing that come fall, the hunting will begin again.

Scarlett closed her eyes and tried to remember the crisp cold mornings, with the night’s light frost turned to trailing mist, and the sound of the horn signalling the beginning of the chase. A tiny muscle jumped involuntarily in the soft flesh over her clenched jaw. She wasn’t good at imagining, she was good at doing.

She opened her eyes and worked doggedly on the accounts. With no grain to sell and no rents to collect, she was going to lose money this year. The knowledge bothered her, because she had always made money in business and losing it was a highly disagreeable change.

But Scarlett had grown up in a world where it was accepted that sometimes a crop failed or a storm wrought havoc. She knew that next year would be different, and certainly better. She was not a failure because of the disaster of the drought and the hail. It wasn’t like the lumber business or the store where she would have been responsible if there had been no profit.

Besides, the losses would barely make a dent in her fortune. She could be extravagant for the rest of her life, and the crops at Ballyhara could fail every year, and she would still have plenty of money.

Scarlett sighed unconsciously. For so many years she had worked and scrimped and saved, thinking that if only she could have enough money, she would be happy. Now she had it, thanks to Rhett, and somehow it didn’t mean anything at all. Except that there was no longer anything to work for, to scheme and strive for.

She wasn’t foolish enough to want to be poor and desperate again, but she needed to be challenged, to use her quick intelligence, to conquer obstacles. And so she thought with longing about jumping fences and ditches and taking chances on a powerful horse that she controlled by force of will.

When the accounts were done, Scarlett turned to the pile of personal mail with a silent groan. She hated writing letters. She already knew what was in the mail. Many were invitations. She put them in a stack. Harriet could pen the polite refusals for her, no one would know she hadn’t written them herself, and Harriet loved being useful.

There were two more proposals. Scarlett received at least one a week. They pretended to be love letters, but she knew very well that they wouldn’t be there if she wasn’t a rich widow. Most of them, anyhow.

She replied to the first one with the convenient phrases about “honored by your regard” and “unable to return your affection to the degree you merit” and “place incalculable value on your friendship” that protocol demanded and supplied.

The second was not so easy. It was from Charles Ragland. Of all the men she had met in Ireland, Charles was the most truly eligible to her. His adoration was convincing, not at all like the elaborate fawning over her that so many men did. He wasn’t after her money, she was sure of that. He came from money himself, his people were big landowners in England. He was a younger son, and he’d chosen the army instead of the Church. But he must have some money of his own. His dress uniform cost more than all her ball gowns put together, she was sure.

What else? Charles was handsome. He was as big as Rhett, only blond instead of dark. Not washed-out blond, though, like so many fair people. His hair was gold, with just a touch of red in it, startling against his tanned skin. He was really very good looking. Women looked at him like they could eat him with a spoon.

So why didn’t she love him? She had thought about it, she’d thought often and long. But she couldn’t, she didn’t care enough.

I want to love somebody. I know how it feels to love, it’s the best feeling in the world. I can’t bear the unfairness, that I learned about loving too late. Charles loves me, and I want to be loved, I need it. I’m lonely by myself without it. Why can’t I love him?

Because I love Rhett, that’s why. That’s why for Charles and for every other man in the world. They’re none of them Rhett.

You will never have Rhett, her mind told her.

And her heart cried out in anguish: Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I can ever completely forget it? Do you think that it doesn’t haunt me every time I see him in Cat? Do you think it doesn’t spring on me from nowhere just when I believe that my life is my own?

Scarlett wrote carefully, looking for the kindest words she knew to say no to Charles Ragland. He would never understand if she told him that she truly liked him, that in a very small way perhaps she even loved him because he loved her, and that her affection for him made it impossible for her to marry him. She wished better for him than a wife who would forever belong to another man.

The year’s final house party was not far from Kilbride, which was not far from Trim. Scarlett could drive herself instead of all the complications of taking the train. She left very early in the morning when it was still cool. Her horses were suffering from the heat, despite being sponged down four times a day. Even she had started to feel it; she felt twitchy and sweaty almost all night when she was trying to sleep. Thank heaven it was August. The summer was almost done, if it would only admit it.

The sky was still tinged with pink, but there was already a haze of heat in the distance. Scarlett hoped she’d calculated the time right for the trip. She’d like to have her horse and herself in the shade when the sun was full up.

I wonder if Nan Sutcliffe will be up? She never looked like an early riser to me. No matter. I wouldn’t mind having a cool bath and changing my clothes before I see anybody. I do hope there’s a decent maid for me here, not like that ham-handed idiot at the Giffords’. She practically tore the sleeves off my frocks hanging them up. Maybe Mrs. Fitz is right, she usually is. But I don’t want a personal maid hanging around me every minute of my life. Peggy Quinn does all I need at home, and if people want me to come visit they’ll just have to put up with me not bringing my maid. I really should give a house party myself, to pay back all the hospitality I owe. Everyone has been so kind… But not yet. Next summer will do. I can say this year was just too hot, plus I was worried about the farms…

Two men stepped from shadows on each side of the road. One caught the horse’s bridle; the other was pointing a rifle. Scarlett’s mind raced, her heart did too. Why hadn’t she thought to bring the revolver with her? Maybe they’d just take her rig and her cases and let her walk back to Trim if she swore not to tell what they looked like. Idiots! Why couldn’t they at least be wearing those masks, like she’d read about in the newspaper?

For the love of God! They were in uniform, they weren’t Whiteboys at all.

“Damn your eyes, you scared me half to death!” She could still barely see the men. The green uniforms of the Royal Irish Constabulary blended into the shadowy hedgerows.

“I’ll have to ask you for some identification, madam,” said the man holding her horse. “Kevin, you look in the back there.”

“Don’t you dare touch my things. Who do you think you are? I am Mrs. O’Hara of Ballyhara, on my way to the Sutcliffes’ at Kilbride. Mr. Sutcliffe is a magistrate, and he’ll see to it that both of you end up in the dock!” She didn’t really know that Ernest Sutcliffe was a magistrate, but he looked like one with his bushy ginger mustache.

“Mrs. O’Hara is it?” The Kevin who’d been told to search her buggy came forward beside her. He took off his hat. “We heard tell of you in barracks, ma’am. I was asking Johnny here only a couple of weeks ago should we go over and make ourselves known to you?”