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?”
He led her to the rosewood sofa and she sat down in silence.
“May I close the doors?”
She knew if Mammy saw the closed doors she would be scandalized and would lecture and grumble about it for days, but it would be still worse if Mammy should overhear this discussion of drinking, especially in light of the missing brandy bottle. She nodded and Rhett drew the sliding doors together. When he came back and sat down beside her, his dark eyes alertly searching her face, the pall of death receded before the vitality he radiated and the room seemed pleasant and home-like again, the lamps rosy and warm.
“What’s the matter, honey?”
No one in the world could say that foolish word of endearment as caressingly as Rhett, even when he was joking, but he did not look as if he were joking now. She raised tormented eyes to his face and somehow found comfort in the blank inscrutability she saw there. She did not know why this should be, for he was such an unpredictable, callous person. Perhaps it was because, as he often said, they were so much alike. Sometimes she thought that all the people she had ever known were strangers except Rhett.
“Can’t you tell me?” he took her hand, oddly gentle. “It’s more than old Frank leaving you? Do you need money?”
“Money? God, no! Oh, Rhett, I’m so afraid.”
“Don’t be a goose, Scarlett, you’ve never been afraid in your life.”
“Oh, Rhett, I am afraid!”
The words bubbled up faster than she could speak them. She could tell him. She could tell Rhett anything. He’d been so bad himself that he wouldn’t sit in judgment on her. How wonderful to know someone who was bad and dishonorable and a cheat and a liar, when all the world was filled with people who would not lie to save their souls and who would rather starve than do a dishonorable deed!
“I’m afraid I’ll die and go to hell.”
If he laughed at her she would die, right then. But he did not laugh.
“You are pretty healthy — and maybe there isn’t any hell after all.”
“Oh, but there is, Rhett! You know there is!”
“I know there is but it’s right here on earth. Not after we die. There’s nothing after we die, Scarlett. You are having your hell now.”
“Oh, Rhett, that’s blasphemous!”
“But singularly comforting. Tell me, why are you going to hell?”
He was teasing now, she could see the glint in his eyes but she did not mind. His hands felt so warm and strong, so comforting to cling to.
“Rhett, I oughtn’t to have married Frank. It was wrong. He was Suellen’s beau and he loved her, not me. But I lied to him and told him she was going to marry Tony Fontaine. Oh, how could I have done it?”
“Ah, so that was how it came about! I always wondered.”
“And then I made him so miserable. I made him do all sorts of things he didn’t want to do, like making people pay their bills when they really couldn’t afford to pay them. And it hurt him so when I ran the mills and built the saloon and leased convicts. He could hardly hold up his head for shame. And Rhett, I killed him. Yes, I did! I didn’t know he was in the Klan. I never dreamed he had that much gumption. But I ought to have known. And I killed him.”
“ ‘Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?’ ”
“What?”
“No matter. Go on.”
“Go on? That’s all. Isn’t it enough? I married him, I made him unhappy and I killed him. Oh, my God! I don’t see how I could have done it! I lied to him and I married him. It all seemed so right when I did it but now I see how wrong it was. Rhett, it doesn’t seem like it was me who did all these things. I was so mean to him but I’m not really mean. I wasn’t raised that way. Mother —” She stopped and swallowed. She had avoided thinking of Ellen all day but she could no longer blot out her image.
“I often wondered what she was like. You seemed to me so like your father.”
“Mother was — Oh, Rhett, for the first time I’m glad she’s dead, so she can’t see me. She didn’t raise me to be mean. She was so kind to everybody, so good. She’d rather I’d have starved than done this. And I so wanted to be just like her in every way and I’m not like her one bit I hadn’t thought of that — there’s been so much else to think about — but I wanted to be like her. I didn’t want to be like Pa. I loved him but he was — so — so thoughtless. Rhett, sometimes I did try so hard to be nice to people and kind to Frank, but then the nightmare would come back and scare me so bad I’d want to rush out and just grab money away from people, whether it was mine or not.”
Tears were streaming unheeded down her face and she clutched his hand so hard that her nails dug into his flesh.
“What nightmare?” His voice was calm and soothing.
“Oh — I forgot you didn’t know. Well, just when I would try to be nice to folks and tell myself that money wasn’t everything, I’d go to bed and dream that I was back at Tara right after Mother died, right after the Yankees went through. Rhett, you can’t imagine — I get cold when I think about it. I can see how everything is burned and so still and there’s nothing to eat. Oh, Rhett, in my dream I’m hungry again.”
“Go on.”
“I’m hungry and everybody, Pa and the girls and the darkies, are starving and they keep saying over and over: ‘We’re hungry’ and I’m so empty it hurts, and so frightened. My mind keeps saying: ‘If I ever get out of this, I’ll never, never be hungry again’ and then the dream goes off into a gray mist and I’m running, running in the mist, running so hard my heart’s about to burst and something is chasing me, and I can’t breathe but I keep thinking that if I can just get there, I’ll be safe. But I don’t know where I’m trying to get to. And then I’d wake up and I’d be cold with fright and so afraid that I’d be hungry again. When I wake up from that dream, it seems like there’s not enough money in the world to keep me from being afraid of being hungry again. And then Frank would be so mealy mouthed and slow poky that he would make me mad and I’d lose my temper. He didn’t understand, I guess, and I couldn’t make him understand. I kept thinking that I’d make it up to him some day when we had money and I wasn’t so afraid of being hungry. And now he’s dead and it’s too late. Oh, it seemed so right when I did it but it was all so wrong. If I had it to do over again, I’d do it so differently.”
“Hush,” he said, disentangling her frantic grip and pulling a clean handkerchief from his pocket. “Wipe your face. There is no sense in your tearing yourself to pieces this way.”
She took the handkerchief and wiped her damp cheeks, a little relief stealing over her as if she had shifted some of her burden to his broad shoulders. He looked so capable and calm and even the slight twist of his mouth was comforting as though it proved her agony and confusion unwarranted.
“Feel better now? Then let’s get to the bottom of this. You say if you had it to do over again, you’d do it differently. But would you? Think, now. Would you?”
“Well —”
“No, you’d do the same things again. Did you have any other choice?”
“No.”
“Then what are you sorry about?”
“I was so mean and now he’s dead.”
“And if he wasn’t dead, you’d still be mean. As I understand it, you are not really sorry for marrying Frank and bullying him and inadvertently causing his death. You are only sorry because you are afraid of going to hell. Is that right?”
“Well — that sounds so mixed up.”