Whatever his reason might be, she found his company most welcome. He listened to her moans about lost customers and bad debts, the swindling ways of Mr. Johnson and the incompetency of Hugh. He applauded her triumphs, where Frank merely smiled indulgently and Pitty said “Dear me!” in a dazed manner. She was sure that he frequently threw business her way, for he knew all the rich Yankees and Carpetbaggers intimately, but he always denied being helpful. She knew him for what he was and she never trusted him, but her spirits always rose with pleasure at the sight of him riding around the curve of a shady road on his big black horse. When he climbed into the buggy and took the reins from her and threw her some impertinent remark, she felt young and gay and attractive again, for all her worries and her increasing bulk. She could talk to him about almost everything, with no care for concealing her motives or her real opinions and she never ran out of things to say as she did with Frank-or even with Ashley, if she must be honest with herself. But of course, in all her conversations with Ashley there were so many things which could not be said, for honor’s sake, that the sheer force of them inhibited other remarks. It was comforting to have a friend like Rhett, now that for some unaccountable reason he had decided to be on good behavior with her. Very comforting, for she had so few friends these days.
“Rhett,” she asked stormily, shortly after Uncle Peter’s ultimatum, “why do folks in this town treat me so scurvily and talk about me so? It’s a toss-up who they talk worst about, me or the Carpetbaggers! I’ve minded my own business and haven’t done anything wrong and-”
“If you haven’t done anything wrong, it’s because you haven’t had the opportunity, and perhaps they dimly realize it.”
“Oh, do be serious! They make me so mad. All I’ve done is try to make a little money and-”
“All you’ve done is to be different from other women and you’ve made a little success at it. As I’ve told you before, that is the one unforgivable sin in any society. Be different and be damned! Scarlett, the mere fact that you’ve made a success of your mill is an insult to every man who hasn’t succeeded. Remember, a well-bred female’s place is in the home and she should know nothing about this busy, brutal world.”
“But if I had stayed in my home, I wouldn’t have had any home left to stay in.”
“The inference is that you should have starved genteelly and with pride.”
“Oh, fiddle-dee-dee! But look at Mrs. Merriwether. She’s selling pies to Yankees and that’s worse than running a sawmill, and Mrs. Elsing takes in sewing and keeps boarders, and Fanny paints awfullooking china things that nobody wants and everybody buys to help her and-”
“But you miss the point, my pet. They aren’t successful and so they aren’t affronting the hot Southern pride of their men folks. The men can still say, ‘Poor sweet sillies, how hard they try! Well, I’ll let them think they’re helping.’ And besides, the ladies you mentioned don’t enjoy having to work. They let it be known that they are only doing it until some man comes along to relieve them of their unwomanly burdens. And so everybody feels sorry for them. But obviously you do like to work and obviously you aren’t going to let any man tend to your business for you, and so no one can feel sorry for you. And Atlanta is never going to forgive you for that. It’s so pleasant to feel sorry for people.”
“I wish you’d be serious, sometimes.”
“Did you ever hear the Oriental proverb: ‘The dogs bark but the caravan passes on?’ Let them bark, Scarlett. I fear nothing will stop your caravan.”
“But why should they mind my making a little money?”
“You can’t have everything, Scarlett. You can either make money in your present unladylike manner and meet cold shoulders everywhere you go, or you can be poor and genteel and have lots of friends. You’ve made your choice.”
“I won’t be poor,” she said swiftly. “But-it is the right choice, isn’t it?”
“If it’s money you want most.”
“Yes, I want money more than anything else in the world.”
“Then you’ve made the only choice. But there’s a penalty attached, as there is to most things you want. It’s loneliness.”
That silenced her for a moment. It was true. When she stopped to think about it, she was a little lonely-lonely for feminine companionship. During the war years she had had Ellen to visit when she felt blue. And since Ellen’s death, there had always been Melanie, though she and Melanie had nothing in common except the hard work at Tara. Now there was no one, for Aunt Pitty had no conception of life beyond her small round of gossip.
“I think-I think,” she began hesitantly, “that I’ve always been lonely where women were concerned. It isn’t just my working that makes Atlanta ladies dislike me. They just don’t like me anyway. No woman ever really liked me, except Mother. Even my sisters. I don’t know why, but even before the war, even before I married Charlie, ladies didn’t seem to approve of anything I did-”
“You forget Mrs. Wilkes,” said Rhett and his eyes gleamed maliciously. “She has always approved of you up to the hilt. I daresay she’d approve of anything you did, short of murder.”
Scarlett thought grimly: “She’s even approved of murder,” and she laughed contemptuously.
“Oh, Melly!” she said, and then, ruefully: “It’s certainly not to my credit that Melly is the only woman who approves of me, for she hasn’t the sense of a guinea hen. If she had any sense-” She stopped in some confusion.
“If she had any sense, she’d realize a few things and she couldn’t approve,” Rhett finished. “Well, you know more about that than I do, of course.”
“Oh, damn your memory and your bad manners!”
“I’ll pass over your unjustified rudeness with the silence it deserves and return to our former subject. Make up your mind to this. If you are different, you are isolated, not only from people of your own age but from those of your parents’ generation and from your children’s generation too. They’ll never understand you and they’ll be shocked no matter what you do. But your grandparents would probably be proud of you and say: ‘There’s a chip off the old block,’ and your grandchildren will sigh enviously and say: ‘What an old rip Grandma must have been!’ and they’ll try to be like you.”
Scarlett laughed with amusement.
“Sometimes you do hit on the truth! Now there was my Grandma Robillard. Mammy used to hold her over my head whenever I was naughty. Grandma was as cold as an icicle and strict about her manners and everybody else’s manners, but she married three times and had any number of duels fought over her and she wore rouge and the most shockingly low-cut dresses and no-well, er-not much under her dresses.”
“And you admired her tremendously, for all that you tried to be like your mother! I had a grandfather on the Butler side who was a pirate.”
“Not really! A walk-the-plank kind?”
“I daresay he made people walk the plank if there was any money to be made that way. At any rate, he made enough money to leave my father quite wealthy. But the family always referred to him carefully as a ’sea captain.’ He was killed in a saloon brawl long before I was born. His death was, needless to say, a great relief to his children, for the old gentleman was drunk most of the time and when in his cups was apt to forget that he was a retired sea captain and give reminiscences that curled his children’s hair. However, I admired him and tried to copy him far more than I ever did my father, for Father is an amiable gentleman full of honorable habits and pious saws-so you see how it goes. I’m sure your children won’t approve of you, Scarlett, any more than Mrs. Merriwether and Mrs. Elsing and their broods approve of you now. Your children will probably be soft, prissy creatures, as the children of hard-bitten characters usually are. And to make them worse, you, like every other mother, are probably determined that they shall never know the hardships you’ve known. And that’s all wrong. Hardships make or break people. So you’ll have to wait for approval from your grandchildren.”
“I wonder what our grandchildren will be like!”
“Are you suggesting by that ‘our’ that you and I will have mutual grandchildren? Fie, Mrs. Kennedy!”
Scarlett, suddenly conscious of her error of speech, went red. It was more than his joking words that shamed her, for she was suddenly aware again of her thickening body. In no way had either of them ever hinted at her condition and she had always kept the lap robe high under her armpits when with him, even on warm days, comforting herself in the usual feminine manner with the belief that she did not show at all when thus covered, and she was suddenly sick with quick rage at her own condition and shame that he should know.
“You get out of this buggy, you dirty-minded varmit,” she said, her voice shaking.
“I’ll do nothing of the kind,” he returned calmly. “It’ll be dark before you get home and there’s a new colony of darkies living in tents and shanties near the next spring, mean niggers I’ve been told, and I see no reason why you should give the impulsive Ku Klux a cause for putting on their nightshirts and riding abroad this evening.”
“Get out!” she cried, tugging at the reins and suddenly nausea overwhelmed her. He stopped the horse quickly, passed her two clean handkerchiefs and held her head over the side of the buggy with some skill. The afternoon sun, slanting low through the newly leaved trees, spun sickeningly for a few moments in a swirl of gold and green. When the spell had passed, she put her head in her hands and cried from sheer mortification. Not only had she vomited before a man-in itself as horrible a contretemps as could overtake a woman-but by doing so, the humiliating fact of her pregnancy must now be evident. She felt that she could never look him in the face again. To have this happen with him, of all people, with Rhett who had no respect for women! She cried, expecting some coarse and jocular remark from him which she would never be able to forget.
“Don’t be a fool,” he said quietly. “And you are a fool, if you are crying for shame. Come, Scarlett, don’t be a child. Surely you must know that, not being blind, I knew you were pregnant.”
She said “Oh” in a stunned voice and tightened her fingers over her crimson face. The word itself horrified her. Frank always referred to her pregnancy embarrassedly as “your condition,” Gerald had been wont to say delicately “in the family way,” when he had to mention such matters, and ladies genteelly referred to pregnancy as being “in a fix.”
“You are a child if you thought I didn’t know, for all your smothering yourself under that hot lap robe. Of course, I knew. Why else do you think I’ve been-”
He stopped suddenly and a silence fell between them. He picked up the reins and clucked to the horse. He went on talking quietly and as his drawl fell pleasantly on her ears, some of the color faded from her down-tucked face.
“I didn’t think you could be so shocked, Scarlett. I thought you were a sensible person and I’m disappointed. Can it be possible that modesty still lingers in your breast? I’m afraid I’m not a gentleman to have mentioned the matter. And I know I’m not a gentleman, in view of the fact that pregnant women do not embarrass me as they should. I find it possible to treat them as normal creatures and not look at the ground or the sky or anywhere else in the universe except their waist lines-and then cast at them those furtive glances I’ve always thought the height of indecency. Why should I? It’s a perfectly normal state. The Europeans are far more sensible than we are. They compliment expectant mothers upon their expectations. While I wouldn’t advise going that far, still it’s more sensible than our way of trying to ignore it. It’s a normal state and women should be proud of it, instead of hiding behind closed doors as if they’d committed a crime.”
“Proud!” she cried in a strangled voice. “Proud-ugh!”
“Aren’t you proud to be having a child?”
“Oh dear God, no! I-I hate babies!”
“You mean-Frank’s baby.”
“No-anybody’s baby.”
For a moment she went sick again at this new error of speech, but his voice went on as easily as though he had not marked it.
“Then we’re different. I like babies.”
“You like them?” she cried, looking up, so startled at the statement that she forgot her embarrassment. “What a liar you are!”
“I like babies and I like little children, till they begin to grow up and acquire adult habits of thought and adult abilities to lie and cheat and be dirty. That can’t be news to you. You know I like Wade Hampton a lot, for all that he isn’t the boy he ought to be.”
That was true, thought Scarlett, suddenly marveling. He did seem to enjoy playing with Wade and often brought him presents.
“Now that we’ve brought this dreadful subject into the light and you admit that you expect a baby some time in the not too distant future, I’ll say something I’ve been wanting to say for weeks-two things. The first is that it’s dangerous for you to drive alone. You know it. You’ve been told it often enough. If you don’t care personally whether or not you are raped, you might consider the consequences. Because of your obstinacy, you may get yourself into a situation where your gallant fellow townsmen will be forced to avenge you by stringing up a few darkies. And that will bring the Yankees down on them and someone will probably get hanged. Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps one of the reasons the ladies do not like you is that your conduct may cause the neck-stretching of their sons and husbands? And furthermore, if the Ku Klux handles many more negroes, the Yankees are going to tighten up on Atlanta in a way that will make Sherman’s conduct look angelic. I know what I’m talking about, for I’m hand in glove with the Yankees. Shameful to state, they treat me as one of them and I hear them talk openly. They mean to stamp out the Ku Klux if it means burning the whole town again and hanging every male over ten. That would hurt you, Scarlett. You might lose money. And there’s no telling where a prairie fire will stop, once it gets started. Confiscation of property, higher taxes, fines for suspected women-I’ve heard them all suggested. The Ku Klux-”
“Do you know any Ku Klux? Is Tommy Wellburn or Hugh or-”
He shrugged impatiently.
“How should I know? I’m a renegade, a turncoat, a Scallawag. Would I be likely to know? But I do know men who are suspected by the Yankees and one false move from them and they are as good as hanged. While I know you would have no regrets at getting your neighbors on the gallows, I do believe you’d regret losing your mills. I see by the stubborn look on your face that you do not believe me and my words are falling on stony ground. So all I can say is, keep that pistol of yours handy-and when I’m in town, I’ll try to be on hand to drive you.”
“Rhett, do you really-is it to protect me that you-”
“Yes, my dear, it is my much advertised chivalry that makes me protect you.” The mocking light began to dance in his black eyes and all signs of earnestness fled from his face. “And why? Because of my deep love for you, Mrs. Kennedy. Yes, I have silently hungered and thirsted for you and worshipped you from afar; but being an honorable man, like Mr. Ashley Wilkes, I have concealed it from you. You are, alas, Frank’s wife and honor has forbidden my telling this to you. But even as Mr. Wilkes’ honor cracks occasionally, so mine is cracking now and I reveal my secret passion and my-”
“Oh, for God’s sake, hush!” interrupted Scarlett, annoyed as usual when he made her look like a conceited fool, and not caring to have Ashley and his honor become the subject of further conversation. “What was the other thing you wanted to tell me?”
“What! You change the subject when I am baring a loving but lacerated heart? Well, the other thing is this.” The mocking light died out of his eyes again and his face was dark and quiet.
“I want you to do something about this horse. He’s stubborn and he’s got a mouth as tough as iron. Tires you to drive him, doesn’t it? Well, if he chose to bolt, you couldn’t possibly stop him. And if you turned over in a ditch, it might kill your baby and you too. You ought to get the heaviest curb bit you can, or else let me swap him for a gentle horse with a more sensitive mouth.”
She looked up into his blank, smooth face and suddenly her irritation fell away, even as her embarrassment had disappeared after the conversation about her pregnancy. He had been kind, a few moments before, to put her at her ease when she was wishing that she were dead. And he was being kinder now and very thoughtful about the horse. She felt a rush of gratitude to him and she wondered why he could not always be this way.
“The horse is hard to drive,” she agreed meekly. “Sometimes my arms ache all night from tugging at him. You do what you think best about him, Rhett.”
His eyes sparkled wickedly.
“That sounds very sweet and feminine, Mrs. Kennedy. Not in your usual masterful vein at all. Well, it only takes proper handling to make a clinging vine out of you.”
She scowled and her temper came back.
“You will get out of this buggy this time, or I will hit you with the whip. I don’t know why I put up with you-why I try to be nice to you. You have no manners. You have no morals. You are nothing but a-Well, get out. I mean it.”
But when he had climbed down and untied his horse from the back of the buggy and stood in the twilight road, grinning tantalizingly at her, she could not smother her own grin as she drove off.
Yes, he was coarse, he was tricky, he was unsafe to have dealings with, and you never could tell when the dull weapon you put into his hands in an unguarded moment might turn into the keenest of blades. But, after all, he was as stimulating as-well, as a surreptitious glass of brandy!
During these months Scarlett had learned the use of brandy. When she came home in the late afternoons, damp from the rain, cramped and aching from long hours in the buggy, nothing sustained her except the thought of the bottle hidden in her top bureau drawer, locked against Mammy’s prying eyes. Dr. Meade had not thought to warn her that a woman in her condition should not drink, for it never occurred to him that a decent woman would drink anything stronger than scuppernong wine. Except, of course, a glass of champagne at a wedding or a hot toddy when confined to bed with a hard cold. Of course, there were unfortunate women who drank, to the eternal disgrace of their families, just as there were women who were insane or divorced or who believed, with Miss Susan B. Anthony, that women should have the vote. But as much as the doctor disapproved of Scarlett, he never suspected her of drinking.
Scarlett had found that a drink of neat brandy before supper helped immeasurably and she would always chew coffee or gargle cologne to disguise the smell. Why were people so silly about women drinking, when men could and did get reeling drunk whenever they wanted to? Sometimes when Frank lay snoring beside her and sleep would not come, when she lay tossing, torn with fears of poverty, dreading the Yankees, homesick for Tara and yearning for Ashley, she thought she would go crazy were it not for the brandy bottle. And when the pleasant familiar warmth stole through her veins, her troubles began to fade. After three drinks, she could always say to herself: “I’ll think of these things tomorrow when I can stand them better.”
But there were some nights when even brandy would not still the ache in her heart, the ache that was even stronger than fear of losing the mills, the ache to see Tara again. Atlanta, with its noises, its new buildings, its strange faces, its narrow streets crowded with horses and wagons and bustling crowds sometimes seemed to stifle her. She loved Atlanta but-oh, for the sweet peace and country quiet of Tara, the red fields and the dark pines about it! Oh, to be back at Tara, no matter how hard the life might be! And to be near Ashley, just to see him, to hear him speak, to be sustained by the knowledge of his love! Each letter from Melanie, saying that they were well, each brief note from Will reporting about the plowing, the planting, the growing of the cotton made her long anew to be home again.
I’ll go home in June. I can’t do anything here after that. I’ll go home for a couple of months, she thought, and her heart would rise. She did go home in June but not as she longed to go, for early in that month came a brief message from Will that Gerald was dead.
Chapter XXXIX
The train was very late and the long, deeply blue twilight of June was settling over the countryside when Scarlett alighted in Jonesboro. Yellow gleams of lamplight showed in the stores and houses which remained in the village, but they were few. Here and there were wide gaps between the buildings on the main street where dwellings had been shelled or burned. Ruined houses with shell holes in their roofs and half the walls torn away stared at her, silent and dark. A few saddle horses and mule teams were hitched outside the wooden awning of Bullard’s store. The dusty red road was empty and lifeless, and the only sounds in the village were a few whoops and drunken laughs that floated on the still twilight air from a saloon far down the street.
The depot had not been rebuilt since it was burned in the battle and in its place was only a wooden shelter, with no sides to keep out the weather. Scarlett walked under it and sat down on one of the empty kegs that were evidently put there for seats. She peered up and down the street for Will Benteen. Will should have been here to meet her. He should have known she would take the first train possible after receiving his laconic message that Gerald was dead.
She had come so hurriedly that she had in her small carpetbag only a nightgown and a tooth brush, not even a change of underwear. She was uncomfortable in the tight black dress she had borrowed from Mrs. Meade, for she had had no time to get mourning clothes for herself. Mrs. Meade was thin now, and Scarlett’s pregnancy being advanced, the dress was doubly uncomfortable. Even in her sorrow at Gerald’s death, she did not forget the appearance she was making and she looked down at her body with distaste. Her figure was completely gone and her face and ankles were puffy. Heretofore she had not cared very much how she looked but now that she would see Ashley within the hour she cared greatly. Even in her heartbreak, she shrank from the thought of facing him when she was carrying another man’s child. She loved him and he loved her, and this unwanted child now seemed to her a proof of infidelity to that love. But much as she disliked having him see her with the slenderness gone from her waist and the lightness from her step, it was something she could not escape now.
She patted her foot impatiently. Will should have met her. Of course, she could go over to Bullard’s and inquire after him or ask someone there to drive her over to Tara, should she find he had been unable to come. But she did not want to go to Bullard’s. It was Saturday night and probably half the men of the County would be there. She did not want to display her condition in this poorly fitting black dress which accentuated rather than hid her figure. And she did not want to hear the kindly sympathy that would be poured out about Gerald. She did not want sympathy. She was afraid she would cry if anyone even mentioned his name to her. And she wouldn’t cry. She knew if she once began it would be like the time she cried into the horse’s mane, that dreadful night when Atlanta fell and Rhett had left her on the dark road outside the town, terrible tears that tore her heart and could not be stopped.
No, she wouldn’t cry! She felt the lump in her throat rising again, as it had done so often since the news came, but crying wouldn’t do any good. It would only confuse and weaken her. Why, oh, why hadn’t Will or Melanie or the girls written her that Gerald was ailing? She would have taken the first train to Tara to care for him, brought a doctor from Atlanta if necessary. The fools-all of them! Couldn’t they manage anything without her? She couldn’t be in two places at once and the good Lord knew she was doing her best for them all in Atlanta.
She twisted about on the keg, becoming nervous and fidgety as Will still did not come. Where was he? Then she heard the scrunching of cinders on the railroad tracks behind her and, twisting her body, she saw Alex Fontaine crossing the tracks toward a wagon, a sack of oats on his shoulder.
“Good Lord! Isn’t that you, Scarlett?” he cried, dropping the sack and running to take her hand, pleasure written all over his bitter, swarthy little face. “I’m so glad to see you. I saw Will over at the blacksmith’s shop, getting the horse shod. The train was late and he thought he’d have time. Shall I run fetch him?”
“Yes, please, Alex,” she said, smiling in spite of her sorrow. It was good to see a County face again.
“Oh-er-Scarlett,” he began awkwardly, still holding her hand, “I’m mighty sorry about your father.”
“Thank you,” she replied, wishing he had not said it. His words brought up Gerald’s florid face and bellowing voice so clearly.
“If it’s any comfort to you, Scarlett, we’re mighty proud of him around here,” Alex continued, dropping her hand. “He-well, we figure he died like a soldier and in a soldier’s cause.”
Now what did he mean by that, she thought confusedly. A soldier? Had someone shot him? Had he gotten into a fight with the Scallawags as Tony had? But she mustn’t hear more. She would cry if she talked about him and she mustn’t cry, not until she was safely in the wagon with Will and out in the country where no stranger could see her. Will wouldn’t matter. He was just like a brother.
“Alex, I don’t want to talk about it,” she said shortly.
“I don’t blame you one bit, Scarlett,” said Alex while the dark blood of anger flooded his face. “If it was my sister, I’d-well, Scarlett, I’ve never yet said a harsh word about any woman, but personally I think somebody ought to take a rawhide whip to Suellen.”
What foolishness was he talking about now, she wondered. What had Suellen to do with it all?
“Everybody around here feels the same way about her, I’m sorry to say. Will’s the only one who takes up for her-and, of course, Miss Melanie, but she’s a saint and won’t see bad in anyone and-”
“I said I didn’t want to talk about it,” she said coldly but Alex did not seem rebuffed. He looked as though he understood her rudeness and that was annoying. She didn’t want to hear bad tidings about her own family from an outsider, didn’t want him to know of her ignorance of what had happened. Why hadn’t Will sent her the full details?
She wished Alex wouldn’t look at her so hard. She felt that he realized her condition and it embarrassed her. But what Alex was thinking as he peered at her in the twilight was that her face had changed so completely he wondered how he had ever recognized her. Perhaps it was because she was going to have a baby. Women did look like the devil at such times. And, of course, she must be feeling badly about old man O’Hara. She had been his pet. But, no, the change was deeper than that. She really looked as if she had three square meals a day. And the hunted-animal look had partly gone from her eyes. Now, the eyes which had been fearful and desperate were hard. There was an air of command, assurance and determination about her, even when she smiled. Bet she led old Frank a merry life! Yes, she had changed. She was a handsome woman, to be sure, but all that pretty, sweet softness had gone from her face and that flattering way of looking up at a man, like he knew more than God Almighty, had utterly vanished.
Well, hadn’t they all changed? Alex looked down at his rough clothes and his face fell into its usual bitter lines. Sometimes at night when he lay awake, wondering how his mother was going to get that operation and how poor dead Joe’s little boy was going to get an education and how he was going to get money for another mule, he wished the war was still going on, wished it had gone on forever. They didn’t know their luck then. There was always something to eat in the army, even if it was just corn bread, always somebody to give orders and none of this torturing sense of facing problems that couldn’t be solved-nothing to bother about in the army except getting killed. And then there was Dimity Munroe. Alex wanted to marry her and he knew he couldn’t when so many were already looking to him for support. He had loved her for so long and now the roses were fading from her cheeks and the joy from her eyes. If only Tony hadn’t had to run away to Texas. Another man on the place would make all the difference in the world. His lovable bad-tempered little brother, penniless somewhere in the West. Yes, they had all changed. And why not? He sighed heavily.
Дата добавления: 2015-11-04; просмотров: 26 | Нарушение авторских прав
| <== предыдущая лекция | | | следующая лекция ==> |