Some of the feeling of bitter hatred the women bore Scarlett for her share in the tragedy was mitigated by the knowledge that her husband was dead and she knew it and could not admit it and have the poor comfort of claiming his body. Until morning light disclosed the bodies and the authorities notified her, she must know nothing. Frank and Tommy, pistols in cold hands, lay stiffening among the dead weeds in a vacant lot. And the Yankees would say they killed each other in a common drunken brawl over a girl in Belle’s house. Sympathy ran high for Fanny, Tommy’s wife, who had just had a baby, but no one could slip through the darkness to see her and comfort her because a squad of Yankees surrounded the house, waiting for Tommy to return. And there was another squad about Aunt Pitty’s house, waiting for Frank.
Before dawn the news had trickled about that the military inquiry would take place that day. The townspeople, heavy eyed from sleeplessness and anxious waiting, knew that the safety of some of their most prominent citizens rested on three things-the ability of Ashley Wilkes to stand on his feet and appear before the military board, as though he suffered nothing more serious than a morning-after headache, the word of Belle Watling that these men had been in her house all evening and the word of Rhett Butler that he had been with them.
The town writhed at these last two! Belle Watling! To owe their men’s lives to her! It was intolerable! Women who had ostentatiously crossed the street when they saw Belle coming, wondered if she remembered and trembled for fear she did. The men felt less humiliation at taking their lives from Belle than the women did, for many of them thought her a good sort. But they were stung that they must owe lives and freedom to Rhett Butler, a speculator and a Scallawag. Belle and Rhett, the town’s best-known fancy woman and the town’s most hated man. And they must be under obligation to them.
Another thought that stung them to impotent wrath was the knowledge that the Yankees and Carpetbaggers would laugh. Oh, how they would laugh! Twelve of the town’s most prominent citizens revealed as habitual frequenters of Belle Watling’s sporting house! Two of them killed in a fight over a cheap little girl, others ejected from the place as too drunk to be tolerated even by Belle and some under arrest, refusing to admit they were there when everyone knew they were there!
Atlanta was right in fearing that the Yankees would laugh. They had squirmed too long beneath Southern coldness and contempt and now they exploded with hilarity. Officers woke comrades and retailed the news. Husbands roused wives at dawn and told them as much as could be decently told to women. And the women, dressing hastily, knocked on their neighbors’ doors and spread the story. The Yankee ladies were charmed with it all and laughed until tears ran down their faces. This was Southern chivalry and gallantry for you! Maybe those women who carried their heads so high and snubbed all attempts at friendliness wouldn’t be so uppity, now that everyone knew where their husbands spent their time when they were supposed to be at political meetings. Political meetings! Well, that was funny!
But even as they laughed, they expressed regret for Scarlett and her tragedy. After all, Scarlett was a lady and one of the few ladies in Atlanta who were nice to Yankees. She had already won their sympathy by the fact that she had to work because her husband couldn’t or wouldn’t support her properly. Even though her husband was a sorry one, it was dreadful that the poor thing should discover he had been untrue to her. And it was doubly dreadful that his death should occur simultaneously with the discovery of his infidelity. After all, a poor husband was better than no husband at all, and the Yankee ladies decided they’d be extra nice to Scarlett. But the others, Mrs. Meade, Mrs. Merriwether, Mrs. Elsing, Tommy Wellburn’s widow and most of all, Mrs. Ashley Wilkes, they’d laugh in their faces every time they saw them. That would teach them a little courtesy.
Much of the whispering that went on in the dark rooms on the north side of town that night was on this same subject. Atlanta ladies vehemently told their husbands that they did not care a rap what the Yankees thought. But inwardly they felt that running an Indian gantlet would be infinitely preferable to suffering the ordeal of Yankee grins and not being able to tell the truth about their husbands.
Dr. Meade, beside himself with outraged dignity at the position into which Rhett had jockeyed him and the others, told Mrs. Meade that, but for the fact that it would implicate the others, he would rather confess and be hanged than say he had been at Belle’s house.
“It is an insult to you, Mrs. Meade,” he fumed.
“But everyone will know you weren’t there for-for-”
“The Yankees won’t know. They’ll have to believe it if we save our necks. And they’ll laugh. The very thought that anyone will believe it and laugh infuriates me. And it insults you because-my dear, I have always been faithful to you.”
“I know that,” and in the darkness Mrs. Meade smiled and slipped a thin hand into the doctor’s. “But I’d rather it were really true than have one hair of your head in danger.”
“Mrs. Meade, do you know what you are saying?” cried the doctor, aghast at the unsuspected realism of his wife.
“Yes, I know. I’ve lost Darcy and I’ve lost Phil and you are all I have and, rather than lose you, I’d have you take up your permanent abode at that place.”
“You are distrait! You cannot know what you are saying.”
“You old fool,” said Mrs. Meade tenderly and laid her head against his sleeve.
Dr. Meade fumed into silence and stroked her cheek and then exploded again. “And to be under obligation to that Butler man! Hanging would be easy compared to that. No, not even if I owe him my life, can I be polite to him. His insolence is monumental and his shamelessness about his profiteering makes me boil. To owe my life to a man who never went in the army-”
“Melly said he enlisted after Atlanta fell.”
“It’s a lie. Miss Melly will believe any plausible scoundrel. And what I can’t understand is why he is doing all this-going to all this trouble. I hate to say it but-well, there’s always been talk about him and Mrs. Kennedy. I’ve seen them coming in from rides together too often this last year. He must have done it because of her.”
“If it was because of Scarlett, he wouldn’t have lifted his hand. He’d have been glad to see Frank Kennedy hanged. I think it’s because of Melly-”
“Mrs. Meade, you can’t be insinuating that there’s ever been anything between those two!”
“Oh, don’t be silly! But she’s always been unaccountably fond of him ever since he tried to get Ashley exchanged during the war. And I must say this for him, he never smiles in that nasty-nice way when he’s with her. He’s just as pleasant and thoughtful as can be-really a different man. You can tell by the way he acts with Melly that he could be decent if he wanted to. Now, my idea of why he’s doing all this is-” She paused. “Doctor, you won’t like my idea.”
“I don’t like anything about this whole affair!”
“Well, I think he did it partly for Melly’s sake but mostly because he thought it would be a huge joke on us all. We’ve hated him so much and showed it so plainly and now he’s got us in a fix where all of you have your choice of saying you were at that Watling woman’s house and shaming yourself and wives before the Yankees-or telling the truth and getting hanged. And he knows we’ll all be under obligation to him and his-mistress and that we’d almost rather be hanged than be obliged to them. Oh, I’ll wager he’s enjoying it.”
The doctor groaned. “He did look amused when he took us upstairs in that place.”
“Doctor,” Mrs. Meade hesitated, “what did it look like?”
“What are you saying, Mrs. Meade?”
“Her house. What did it look like? Are there cut-glass chandeliers? And red plush curtains and dozens of full-length gilt mirrors? And were the girls-were they unclothed?”
“Good God!” cried the doctor, thunderstruck, for it had never occurred to him that the curiosity of a chaste woman concerning her unchaste sisters was so devouring. “How can you ask such immodest questions? You are not yourself. I will mix you a sedative.”
“I don’t want a sedative. I want to know. Oh, dear, this is my only chance to know what a bad house looks like and now you are mean enough not to tell me!”
“I noticed nothing. I assure you I was too embarrassed at finding myself in such a place to take note of my surroundings,” said the doctor formally, more upset at this unsuspected revelation of his wife’s character than he had been by all the previous events of the evening. “If you will excuse me now, I will try to get some sleep.”
“Well, go to sleep then,” she answered, disappointment in her tones. Then as the doctor leaned over to remove his boots, her voice spoke from the darkness with renewed cheerfulness. “I imagine Dolly has gotten it all out of old man Merriwether and she can tell me about it.”
“Good Heavens, Mrs. Meade! Do you mean to tell me that nice women talk about such things among them-”
“Oh, go to bed,” said Mrs. Meade.
It sleeted the next day, but as the wintry twilight drew on the icy particles stopped falling and a cold wind blew. Wrapped in her cloak, Melanie went bewilderedly down her front walk behind a strange negro coachman who had summoned her mysteriously to a closed carriage waiting in front of the house. As she came up to the carriage the door was opened and she saw a woman in the dim interior.
Leaning closer, peering inside, Melanie questioned: “Who is it? Won’t you come in the house? It’s so cold-”
“Please come in here and set with me a minute, Miz Wilkes,” came a faintly familiar voice, an embarrassed voice from the depths of the carriage.
“Oh, you’re Miss-Mrs. -Watling!” cried Melanie. “I did so want to see you! You must come in the house.”
“I can’t do that, Miz Wilkes.” Belle Watling’s voice sounded scandalized. “You come in here and set a minute with me.”
Melanie entered the carriage and the coachman closed the door behind her. She sat down beside Belle and reached for her hand.
“How can I ever thank you enough for what you did today! How can any of us thank you enough!”
“Miz Wilkes, you hadn’t ought of sent me that note this mornin’. Not that I wasn’t proud to have a note from you but the Yankees might of got it. And as for sayin’ you was goin’ to call on me to thank me-why, Miz Wilkes, you must of lost your mind! The very idea! I come up here as soon as ‘twas dark to tell you you mustn’t think of any sech thing. Why, I-why, you-it wouldn’t be fittin’ at all.”
“It wouldn’t be fitting for me to call and thank a kind woman who saved my husband’s life?”
“Oh, shucks, Miz Wilkes! You know what I mean!”
Melanie was silent for a moment, embarrassed by the implication. Somehow this handsome, sedately dressed woman sitting in the darkness of the carriage didn’t look and talk as she imagined a bad woman, the Madam of a House, should look and talk. She sounded like-well, a little common and countrified but nice and warm hearted.
“You were wonderful before the provost marshal today, Mrs. Watling! You and the other-your-the young ladies certainly saved our men’s lives.”
“Mr. Wilkes was the wonderful one. I don’t know how he even stood up and told his story, much less look as cool as he done. He was sure bleedin’ like a pig when I seen him last night. Is he goin’ to be all right, Miz Wilkes?”
“Yes, thank you. The doctor says it’s just a flesh wound, though he did lose a tremendous lot of blood. This morning he was-well, he was pretty well laced with brandy or he’d never have had the strength to go through with it all so well. But it was you, Mrs. Watling, who saved them. When you got mad and talked about the broken mirrors you sounded so-so convincing.”
“Thank you, Ma’m. But I-I thought Captain Butler done mighty fine too,” said Belle, shy pride in her voice.
“Oh, he was wonderful!” cried Melanie warmly. “The Yankees couldn’t help but believe his testimony. He was so smart about the whole affair. I can never thank him enough-or you either! How good and kind you are!”
“Thank you kindly, Miz Wilkes. It was a pleasure to do it. I-I hope it ain’t goin’ to embarrass you none, me sayin’ Mr. Wilkes come regular to my place. He never, you know-”
“Yes, I know. No, it doesn’t embarrass me at all. I’m just so grateful to you.”
“I’ll bet the other ladies ain’t grateful to me,” said Belle with sudden venom. “And I’ll bet they ain’t grateful to Captain Butler neither. I’ll bet they’ll hate him just this much more. I’ll bet you’ll be the only lady who even says thanks to me. I’ll bet they won’t even look me in the eye when they see me on the street. But I don’t care. I wouldn’t of minded if all their husbands got hung. But I did mind about Mr. Wilkes. You see I ain’t forgot how nice you was to me durin’ the war, about the money for the hospital. There ain’t never been a lady in this town nice to me like you was and I don’t forget a kindness. And I thought about you bein’ left a widder with a little boy if Mr. Wilkes got hung and-he’s a nice little boy, your boy is, Miz Wilkes. I got a boy myself and so I-”
“Oh, you have? Does he live-er-”
“Oh, no’m! He ain’t here in Atlanta. He ain’t never been here. He’s off at school. I ain’t seen him since he was little. I-well, anyway, when Captain Butler wanted me to lie for those men I wanted to know who the men was and when I heard Mr. Wilkes was one I never hesitated. I said to my girls, I said, ‘I’ll whale the livin’ daylights out of you all if you don’t make a special point of sayin’ you was with Mr. Wilkes all evenin’.”
“Oh!” said Melanie, still more embarrassed by Belle’s offhand reference to her “girls.” “Oh, that was-er-kind of you and-of them, too.”
“No more’n you deserve,” said Belle warmly. “But I wouldn’t of did it for just anybody. If it had been that Miz Kennedy’s husband by hisself, I wouldn’t of lifted a finger, no matter what Captain Butler said.”
“Why?”
“Well, Miz Wilkes, people in my business knows a heap of things. It’d surprise and shock a heap of fine ladies if they had any notion how much we knows about them. And she ain’t no good, Miz Wilkes. She kilt her husband and that nice Wellburn boy, same as if she shot them. She caused it all, prancin’ about Atlanta by herself, enticin’ niggers and trash. Why, not one of my girls-”
“You must not say unkind things about my sister-in-law.” Melanie stiffened coldly.
Belle put an eager placating hand on Melanie’s arm and then hastily withdrew it.
“Don’t freeze me, please, Miz Wilkes. I couldn’t stand it after you been so kind and sweet to me. I forgot how you liked her and I’m sorry for what I said. I’m sorry about poor Mr. Kennedy bein’ dead too. He was a nice man. I used to buy some of the stuff for my house from him and he always treated me pleasant. But Miz Kennedy-well, she just ain’t in the same class with you, Miz Wilkes. She’s a mighty cold woman and I can’t help it if I think so… When are they goin’ to bury Mr. Kennedy?”
“Tomorrow morning. And you are wrong about Mrs. Kennedy. Why, this very minute she’s prostrated with grief.”
“Maybe so,” said Belle with evident disbelief. “Well, I got to be goin’. I’m afraid somebody might recognize this carriage if I stayed here longer and that wouldn’t do you no good. And, Miz Wilkes, if you ever see me on the street, you-you don’t have to speak to me. I’ll understand.”
“I shall be proud to speak to you. Proud to be under obligation to you. I hope-I hope we meet again.”
“No,” said Belle. “That wouldn’t be fittin’. Good night.”
Chapter XLVII
Scarlett sat in her bedroom, picking at the supper tray Mammy had brought her, listening to the wind hurling itself out of the night. The house was frighteningly still, quieter even than when Frank had lain in the parlor just a few hours before. Then there had been tiptoeing feet and hushed voices, muffled knocks on the door, neighbors rustling in to whisper sympathy and occasional sobs from Frank’s sister who had come up from Jonesboro for the funeral.
But now the house was cloaked in silence. Although her door was open she could hear no sounds from below stairs. Wade and the baby had been at Melanie’s since Frank’s body was brought home and she missed the sound of the boy’s feet and Ella’s gurgling. There was a truce in the kitchen and no sound of quarreling from Peter, Mammy and Cookie floated up to her. Even Aunt Pitty, downstairs in the library, was not rocking her creaking chair in deference to Scarlett’s sorrow.
No one intruded upon her, believing that she wished to be left alone with her grief, but to be left alone was the last thing Scarlett desired. Had it only been grief that companioned her, she could have borne it as she had borne other griefs. But, added to her stunned sense of loss at Frank’s death, were fear and remorse and the torment of a suddenly awakened conscience. For the first time in her life she was regretting things she had done, regretting them with a sweeping superstitious fear that made her cast sidelong glances at the bed upon which she had lain with Frank.
She had killed Frank. She had killed him just as surely as if it had been her finger that pulled the trigger. He had begged her not to go about alone but she had not listened to him. And now he was dead because of her obstinacy. God would punish her for that. But there lay upon her conscience another matter that was heavier and more frightening even than causing his death-a matter which had never troubled her until she looked upon his coffined face. There had been something helpless and pathetic in that still face which had accused her. God would punish her for marrying him when he really loved Suellen. She would have to cower at the seat of judgment and answer for that lie she told him coming back from the Yankee camp in his buggy.
Useless for her to argue now that the end justified the means, that she was driven into trapping him, that the fate of too many people hung on her for her to consider either his or Suellen’s rights and happiness. The truth stood out boldly and she cowered away from it. She had married him coldly and used him coldly. And she had made him unhappy during the last six months when she could have made him very happy. God would punish her for not being nicer to him-punish her for all her bullyings and proddings and storms of temper and cutting remarks, for alienating his friends and shaming him by operating the mills and building the saloon and leasing convicts.
She had made him very unhappy and she knew it, but he had borne it all like a gentleman. The only thing she had ever done that gave him any real happiness was to present him with Ella. And she knew if she could have kept from having Ella, Ella would never have been born.
She shivered, frightened, wishing Frank were alive, so she could be nice to him, so very nice to him to make up for it all. Oh, if only God did not seem so furious and vengeful! Oh, if only the minutes did not go by so slowly and the house were not so still! If only she were not so alone!
If only Melanie were with her, Melanie could calm her fears. But Melanie was at home, nursing Ashley. For a moment Scarlett thought of summoning Pittypat to stand between her and her conscience but she hesitated. Pitty would probably make matters worse, for she honestly mourned Frank. He had been more her contemporary than Scarlett’s and she had been devoted to him. He had filled to perfection Pitty’s need for “a man in the house,” for he brought her little presents and harmless gossip, jokes and stories, read the paper to her at night and explained topics of the day to her while she mended his socks. She had fussed over him and planned special dishes for him and coddled him during his innumerable colds. Now she missed him acutely and repeated over and over as she dabbed at her red swollen eyes: “If only he hadn’t gone out with the Klan!”
If there were only someone who could comfort her, quiet her fears, explain to her just what were these confused fears which made her heart sink with such cold sickness! If only Ashley-but she shrank from the thought. She had almost killed Ashley, just as she had killed Frank. And if Ashley ever knew the real truth about how she lied to Frank to get him, knew how mean she had been to Frank, he could never love her any more. Ashley was so honorable, so truthful, so kind and he saw so straightly, so clearly. If he knew the whole truth, he would understand. Oh, yes, he would understand only too well! But he would never love her any more. So he must never know the truth because he must keep on loving her. How could she live if that secret source of her strength, his love, were taken from her? But what a relief it would be to put her head on his shoulder and cry and unburden her guilty heart!
The still house with the sense of death heavy upon it pressed about her loneliness until she felt she could not bear it unaided any longer. She arose cautiously, pushed her door half-closed and then dug about in the bottom bureau drawer beneath her underwear. She produced Aunt Pitty’s “swoon bottle” of brandy which she had hidden there and held it up to the lamp. It was nearly half-empty. Surely she hadn’t drunk that much since last night! She poured a generous amount into her water glass and gulped it down. She would have to put the bottle back in the cellaret before morning, filled to the top with water. Mammy had hunted for it, just before the funeral when the pallbearers wanted a drink, and already the air in the kitchen was electric with suspicion between Mammy, Cookie and Peter.
The brandy burned with fiery pleasantness. There was nothing like it when you needed it. In fact, brandy was good almost any time, so much better than insipid wine. Why on earth should it be proper for a woman to drink wine and not spirits? Mrs. Merriwether and Mrs. Meade had sniffed her breath most obviously at the funeral and she had seen the triumphant look they had exchanged. The old cats!
She poured another drink. It wouldn’t matter if she did get a little tipsy tonight for she was going to bed soon and she could gargle cologne before Mammy came up to unlace her. She wished she could get as completely and thoughtlessly drunk as Gerald used to get on Court Day. Then perhaps she could forget Frank’s sunken face accusing her of ruining his life and then killing him.
She wondered if everyone in town thought she had killed him. Certainly the people at the funeral had been cold to her. The only people who had put any warmth into their expressions of sympathy were the wives of the Yankee officers with whom she did business. Well, she didn’t care what the town said about her. How unimportant that seemed beside what she would have to answer for to God!
She took another drink at the thought, shuddering as the hot brandy went down her throat. She felt very warm now but still she couldn’t get the thought of Frank out of her mind. What fools men were when they said liquor made people forget! Unless she drank herself into insensibility, she’d still see Frank’s face as it had looked the last time he begged her not to drive alone, timid, reproachful, apologetic.
The knocker on the front door hammered with a dull sound that made the still house echo and she heard Aunt Pitty’s waddling steps crossing the hall and the door opening. There was the sound of greeting and an indistinguishable murmur. Some neighbor calling to discuss the funeral or to bring a blanc mange. Pitty would like that. She had taken an important and melancholy pleasure in talking to the condolence callers.
She wondered incuriously who it was and, when a man’s voice, resonant and drawling, rose above Pitty’s funereal whispering, she knew. Gladness and relief flooded her. It was Rhett. She had not seen him since he broke the news of Frank’s death to her, and now she knew, deep in her heart, that he was the one person who could help her tonight.
“I think she’ll see me,” Rhett’s voice floated up to her.
“But she is lying down now, Captain Butler, and won’t see anyone. Poor child, she is quite prostrated. She-”
“I think she will see me. Please tell her I am going away tomorrow and may be gone some time. It’s very important.”
“But-” fluttered Aunt Pittypat.
Scarlett ran out into the hall, observing with some astonishment that her knees were a little unsteady, and leaned over the banisters.
“I’ll be down terrectly, Rhett,” she called.
She had a glimpse of Aunt Pittypat’s plump upturned face, her eyes owlish with surprise and disapproval. Now it’ll be all over town that I conducted myself most improperly on the day of my husband’s funeral, thought Scarlett, as she hurried back to her room and began smoothing her hair. She buttoned her black basque up to the chin and pinned down the collar with Pittypat’s mourning brooch. I don’t look very pretty she thought, leaning toward the mirror, too white and scared. For a moment her hand went toward the lock box where she kept her rouge hidden but she decided against it. Poor Pittypat would be upset in earnest if she came downstairs pink and blooming. She picked up the cologne bottle and took a large mouthful, carefully rinsed her mouth and then spit into the slop jar.
She rustled down the stairs toward the two who still stood in the hall, for Pittypat had been too upset by Scarlett’s action to ask Rhett to sit down. He was decorously clad in black, his linen frilly and starched, and his manner was all that custom demanded from an old friend paying a call of sympathy on one bereaved. In fact, it was so perfect that it verged on the burlesque, though Pittypat did not see it. He was properly apologetic for disturbing Scarlett and regretted that in his rush of closing up business before leaving town he had been unable to be present at the funeral.
“Whatever possessed him to come?” wondered Scarlett. “He doesn’t mean a word he’s saying.”
“I hate to intrude on you at this time but I have a matter of business to discuss that will not wait. Something that Mr. Kennedy and I were planning-”
“I didn’t know you and Mr. Kennedy had business dealings,” said Aunt Pittypat, almost indignant that some of Frank’s activities were unknown to her.
“Mr. Kennedy was a man of wide interests,” said Rhett respectfully. “Shall we go into the parlor?”
“No!” cried Scarlett. glancing at the closed folding doors. She could still see the coffin in that room. She hoped she never had to enter it again. Pitty, for once, took a hint, although with none too good grace.
“Do use the library. I must-I must go upstairs and get out the mending. Dear me, I’ve neglected it so this last week. I declare-”
She went up the stairs with a backward look of reproach which was noticed by neither Scarlett nor Rhett. He stood aside to let her pass before him into the library.
“What business did you and Frank have?” she questioned abruptly.
He came closer and whispered. “None at all. I just wanted to get Miss Pitty out of the way.” He paused as he leaned over her. “It’s no good, Scarlett.”
“What?”
“The cologne.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“I’m sure you do. You’ve been drinking pretty heavily.”
“Well, what if I have? Is it any of your business?”
“The soul of courtesy, even in the depths of sorrow. Don’t drink alone, Scarlett. People always find it out and it ruins the reputation. And besides, it’s a bad business, this drinking alone. What’s the matter, honey?”
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