THAT NIGHT when Frank deposited her and Aunt Pitty and the children at Melanie’s and rode off down the street with Ashley, Scarlett could have burst with rage and hurt. How could he go off to a political meeting on this of all nights in the world? A political meeting! And on the same night when she had been attacked, when anything might have happened to her! It was unfeeling and selfish of him. But then, he had taken the whole affair with maddening calm, ever since Sam had carried her sobbing into the house, her basque gaping to the waist. He hadn’t clawed his beard even once when she cried out her story. He had just questioned gently: “Sugar, are you hurt—or just scared?”
Wrath mingling with her tears she had been unable to answer and Sam had volunteered that she was just scared.
“Ah got dar fo’ dey done mo’n t’ar her dress.”
“You’re a good boy, Sam, and I won’t forget what you’ve done. If there’s anything I can do for you —”
“Yassah, you kin sen’ me ter Tara, quick as you kin. De Yankees is affer me.”
Frank had listened to this statement calmly too, and had asked no questions. He had looked very much as he did the night Tony came beating on their door, as though this was an exclusively masculine affair and one to be handled with a minimum of words and emotions.
“You go get in the buggy. I’ll have Peter drive you as far as Rough and Ready tonight and you can hide in the woods till morning and then catch the train to Jonesboro. It’ll be safer. … Now, Sugar, stop crying. It’s all over now and you aren’t really hurt. Miss Pitty, could I have your smelling salts? And Mammy, fetch Miss Scarlett a glass of wine.”
Scarlett had burst into renewed tears, this time tears of rage. She wanted comforting, indignation, threats of vengeance. She would even have preferred him storming at her, saying that this was just what he had warned her would happen — anything rather than have him take it all so casually and treat her danger as a matter of small moment. He was nice and gentle, of course, but in an absent way as if he had something far more important on his mind.
And that important thing had turned out to be a small political meeting!
She could hardly believe her ears when he told her to change her dress and get ready for him to escort her over to Melanie’s for the evening. He must know how harrowing her experience had been, must know she did not want to spend an evening at Melanie’s when her tired body and jangled nerves cried out for the warm relaxation of bed and blankets — with a hot brick to make her toes tingle and a hot toddy to soothe her fears. If he really loved her, nothing could have forced him from her side on this of all nights. He would have stayed home and held her hand and told her over and over that he would have died if anything had happened to her. And when he came home tonight and she had him alone, she would certainly tell him so.
Melanie’s small parlor looked as serene as it usually did on nights when Frank and Ashley were away and the women gathered together to sew. The room was warm and cheerful in the firelight. The lamp on the table shed a quiet yellow glow on the four smooth heads bent to their needlework. Four skirts billowed modestly, eight small feet were daintily placed on low hassocks. The quiet breathing of Wade, Ella and Beau came through the open door of the nursery. Archie sat on a stool by the hearth, his back against the fireplace, his cheek distended with tobacco, whittling industriously on a bit of wood. The contrast between the dirty, hairy old man and the four neat, fastidious ladies was as great as though he were a grizzled, vicious old watchdog and they four small kittens.
Melanie’s soft voice, tinged with indignation, went on and on as she told of the recent outburst of temperament on the part of the Lady Harpists. Unable to agree with the Gentlemen’s Glee Club as to the program for their next recital, the ladies had waited on Melanie that afternoon and announced their intention of withdrawing completely from the Musical Circle. It had taken all of Melanie’s diplomacy to persuade them to defer their decision.
Scarlett, overwrought, could have screamed: “Oh, damn the Lady Harpists!” She wanted to talk about her dreadful experience. She was bursting to relate it in detail, so she could ease her own fright by frightening the others. She wanted to tell how brave she had been, just to assure herself by the sound of her own words that she had, indeed, been brave. But every time she brought up the subject, Melanie deftly steered the conversation into other and innocuous channels. This irritated Scarlett almost beyond endurance. They were as mean as Frank.
How could they be so calm and placid when she had just escaped so terrible a fate? They weren’t even displaying common courtesy in denying her the relief of talking about it.
The events of the afternoon had shaken her more than she cared to admit, even to herself. Every time she thought of that malignant black face peering at her from the shadows of the twilight forest road, she fell to trembling. When she thought of the black hand at her bosom and what would have happened if Big Sam had not appeared, she bent her head lower and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. The longer she sat silent in the peaceful room, trying to sew, listening to Melanie’s voice, the tighter her nerves stretched. She felt that at any moment she would actually hear them break with the same pinging sound a banjo string makes when it snaps.
Archie’s whittling annoyed her and she frowned at him. Suddenly it seemed odd that he should be sitting there occupying himself with a piece of wood. Usually he lay flat on the sofa, during the evenings when he was on guard, and slept and snored so violently that his long beard leaped into the air with each rumbling breath. It was odder still that neither Melanie nor India hinted to him that he should spread a paper on the floor to catch his litter of shavings. He had already made a perfect mess on the hearth rug but they did not seem to have noticed it.
While she watched him, Archie turned suddenly toward the fire and spat a stream of tobacco juice on it with such vehemence that India, Melanie and Pitty leaped as though a bomb had exploded.
“Need you expectorate so loudly?” cried India in a voice that cracked with nervous annoyance. Scarlett looked at her in surprise for India was always so self-contained.
Archie gave her look for look.
“I reckon I do,” he answered coldly and spat again. Melanie gave a little frowning glance at India.
“I was always so glad dear Papa didn’t chew,” began Pitty, and Melanie, her frown creasing deeper, swung on her and spoke sharper words than Scarlett had ever heard her speak.
“Oh, do hush, Auntie! You’re so tactless.”
“Oh, dear!” Pitty dropped her sewing in her lap and her mouth pressed up in hurt. “I declare, I don’t know What ails you all tonight You and India are just as jumpy and cross as two old sticks.”
No one answered her. Melanie did not even apologize for her crossness but went back to her sewing with small violence.
“You’re taking stitches an inch long,” declared Pitty with some satisfaction. “You’ll have to take every one of them out. What’s the matter with you?”
But Melanie still did not answer.
Was there anything the matter with them, Scarlett wondered? Had she been too absorbed with her own fears to notice? Yes, despite Melanie’s attempts to make the evening appear like any one of fifty they had all spent together, there was a difference due to their alarm and shock at what had happened that afternoon. Scarlett stole glances at her companions and intercepted a look from India. It discomforted her because it was a long, measuring glance that carried in its cold depths something stronger than hate, something more insulting than contempt.
“As though she thought I was to blame for what happened,” Scarlett thought indignantly.
India turned from her to Archie and, all annoyance at him gone from her face, gave him a look of veiled anxious inquiry. But he did not meet her eyes. He did however look at Scarlett, staring at her in the same cold hard way India had done.
Silence fell dully in the room as Melanie did not take up the conversation again and, in the silence, Scarlett heard the rising wind outside. It suddenly began to be a most unpleasant evening. Now she began to feel the tension in the air and she wondered if it had been present all during the evening — and she too upset to notice it. About Archie’s face there was an alert waiting look and his tufted, hairy old ears seemed pricked up like a lynx’s. There was a severely repressed uneasiness about Melanie and India that made them raise their heads from their sewing at each sound of hooves in the road, at each groan of bare branches under the wailing wind, at each scuffing sound of dry leaves tumbling across the lawn. They started at each soft snap of burning logs on the hearth as if they were stealthy footsteps.
Something was wrong and Scarlett wondered what it was. Something was afoot and she did not know about it. A glance at Aunt Pitty’s plump guileless face, screwed up in a pout, told her that the old lady was as ignorant as she. But Archie and Melanie and India knew. In the silence she could almost feel the thoughts of India and Melanie whirling as madly as squirrels in a cage. They knew something, were waiting for something, despite their efforts to make things appear as usual. And their inner unease communicated itself to Scarlett, making her more nervous than before. Handling her needle awkwardly, she jabbed it into her thumb and with a little scream of pain and annoyance that made them all jump, she squeezed it until a bright red drop appeared.
“I’m just too nervous to sew,” she declared, throwing her mending to the floor. “I’m nervous enough to scream. I want to go home and go to bed. And Frank knew it and he oughtn’t to have gone out. He talks, talks, talks about protecting women against darkies and Carpetbaggers and when the time comes for him to do some protecting, where is he? At home, taking care of me? No, indeed, he’s gallivanting around with a lot of other men who don’t do anything but talk and —”
Her snapping eyes came to rest on India’s face and she paused. India was breathing fast and her pale lashless eyes were fastened on Scarlett’s face with a deadly coldness.
“If it won’t pain you too much, India,” she broke off sarcastically, “I’d be much obliged if you’d tell me why you’ve been staring at me all evening. Has my face turned green or something?”
“It won’t pain me to tell you. I’ll do it with pleasure,” said India and her eyes glittered. “I hate to see you underrate a fine man like Mr. Kennedy when, if you knew —”
“India!” said Melanie warningly, her hands clenching on her sewing.
“I think I know my husband better than you do,” said Scarlett, the prospect of a quarrel, the first open quarrel she had ever had with India, making her spirits rise and her nervousness depart. Melanie’s eyes caught India’s and reluctantly India closed her lips. But almost instantly she spoke again and her voice was cold with hate.
“You make me sick, Scarlett O’Hara, talking about being protected! You don’t care about being protected! If you did you’d never have exposed yourself as you have done all these months, prissing yourself about this town, showing yourself off to strange men, hoping they’ll admire you! What happened to you this afternoon was just what you deserved and if there was any justice you’d have gotten worse.”
“Oh, India, hush!” cried Melanie.
“Let her talk,” cried Scarlett “I’m enjoying it. I always knew she hated me and she was too much of a hypocrite to admit it. If she thought anyone would admire her, she’d be walking the streets naked from dawn till dark.”
India was on her feet her lean body quivering with insult.
“I do hate you,” she said in a clear but trembling voice. “But it hasn’t been hypocrisy that’s kept me quiet It’s something you can’t understand, not possessing any — any common courtesy, common good breeding. It’s the realization that if all of us don’t hang together and submerge our own small hates, we can’t expect to beat the Yankees. But you — you — you’ve done all you could to lower the prestige of decent people — working and bringing shame on a good husband, giving Yankees and riffraff the right to laugh at us and make insulting remarks about our lack of gentility. Yankees don’t know that you aren’t one of us and have never been. Yankees haven’t sense enough to know that you haven’t any gentility. And when you’ve ridden about the woods exposing yourself to attack, you’ve exposed every well-behaved woman in town to attack by putting temptation in the ways of darkies and mean white trash. And you’ve put our men folks’ lives in danger because they’ve got to —”
“My God, India!” cried Melanie and even in her wrath, Scarlett was stunned to hear Melanie take the Lord’s name in vain. “You must hush! She doesn’t know and she — you must hush! You promised —”
“Oh, girls!” pleaded Miss Pittypat, her lips trembling.
“What don’t I know?” Scarlett was on her feet, furious, facing the coldly blazing India and the imploring Melanie.
“Guinea hens,” said Archie suddenly and his voice was contemptuous. Before anyone could rebuke him, his grizzled head went up sharply and he rose swiftly. “Somebody comin’ up the walk. ‘Tain’t Mr. Wilkes neither. Cease your cackle.”
There was male authority in his voice and the women stood suddenly silent anger fading swiftly from their faces as he stumped across the room to the door.
“Who’s thar?” he questioned before the caller even knocked.
“Captain Butler. Let me in.”
Melanie was across the floor so swiftly that her hoops swayed up violently, revealing her pantalets to the knees, and before Archie could put his hand on the knob she flung the door open. Rhett Butler stood in the doorway, his black slouch hat low over his eyes, the wild wind whipping his cape about him in snapping folds. For once his good manners had deserted him. He neither took off his hat nor spoke to the others in the room. He had eyes for no one but Melanie and he spoke abruptly without greeting.
“Where have they gone? Tell me quickly. It’s life or death.”
Scarlett and Pitty, startled and bewildered, looked at each other in wonderment and, like a lean old cat, India streaked across the room to Melanie’s side.
“Don’t tell him anything,” she cried swiftly. “He’s a spy, a Scalawag!”
Rhett did not even favor her with a glance.
“Quickly, Mrs. Wilkes! There may still be time.”
Melanie seemed in a paralysis of terror and only stared into his face.
“What on earth —” began Scarlett.
“Shet yore mouth,” directed Archie briefly. “You too, Miss Melly. Git the hell out of here, you damned Scalawag.”
“No, Archie, no!” cried Melanie and she put a shaking hand on Rhett’s arm as though to protect him from Archie. “What has happened? How did — how did you know?”
On Rhett’s dark face impatience fought with courtesy.
“Good God, Mrs. Wilkes, they’ve all been under suspicion since the beginning — only they’ve been too clever — until tonight! How do I know? I was playing poker tonight with two drunken Yankee captains and they let it out. The Yankees knew there’d be trouble tonight and they’ve prepared for it. The fools have walked into a trap.”
For a moment it was as though Melanie swayed under the impact of a heavy blow and Rhett’s arm went around her waist to steady her.
“Don’t tell him! He’s trying to trap you!” cried India, glaring at Rhett. “Didn’t you hear him say he’d been with Yankee officers tonight?”
Still Rhett did not look at her. His eyes were bent insistently on Melanie’s white face.
“Tell me. Where did they go? Have they a meeting place?”
Despite her fear and incomprehension, Scarlett thought she had never seen a blanker, more expressionless face than Rhett’s but evidently Melanie saw something else, something that made her give her trust. She straightened her small body away from the steadying arm and said quietly but with a voice that shook:
“Out the Decatur road near Shantytown. They meet in the cellar of the old Sullivan plantation — the one that’s half-burned.”
“Thank you. I’ll ride fast. When the Yankees come here, none of you know anything.”
He was gone so swiftly, his black cape melting into the night, that they could hardly realize he had been there at all until they heard the spattering of gravel and the mad pounding of a horse going off at full gallop.
“The Yankees coming here?” cried Pitty and, her small feet turning under her, she collapsed on the sofa, too frightened for tears.
“What’s it all about? What did he mean? If you don’t tell me I’ll go crazy!” Scarlett laid hands on Melanie and shook her violently as if by force she could shake an answer from her.
“Mean? It means you’ve probably been the cause of Ashley’s and Mr. Kennedy’s death!” In spite of the agony of fear there was a note of triumph in India’s voice. “Stop shaking Melly. She’s going to faint.”
“No, I’m not,” whispered Melanie, clutching the back of a chair.
“My God, my God! I don’t understand! Kill Ashley? Please, somebody tell me —”
Archie’s voice, like a rusty hinge, cut through Scarlett’s words.
“Set down,” he ordered briefly. “Pick up yore sewin’. Sew like nothin’ had happened. For all we know, the Yankees might have been spyin’ on this house since sundown. Set down, I say, and sew.”