Scarlett: The Sequel to Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind Page 4

  She stared ahead, facing all her demons. Melanie’s death… Mammy’s death… Rhett’s leaving her, saying that their marriage was dead.

  That was the worst. Rhett going away. That was what she had to meet head-on. She heard his voice: “Nothing’s changed.”

  It couldn’t be true! But it was.

  She had to find a way to get him back. She’d always been able to get any man she wanted, and Rhett was a man like any other man, wasn’t he?

  No, he wasn’t like any other man, and that’s why she wanted him. She shivered, suddenly afraid. Suppose that this time she didn’t win? She had always won, one way or another. She’d always gotten what she wanted, somehow. Until now.

  Above her head a bluejay cried raucously. Scarlett looked up, heard a second jeering cry. “Leave me alone,” she shouted. The bird flew away, a whirr of gaudy blue.

  She had to think, to remember what Rhett had said. Not this morning or last night or whenever it was that Mammy died. What did he say at our house, the night he left Atlanta? He talked on and on, explaining things. He was so calm, so horribly patient, the way you can be with people you don’t care enough about to get mad at them.

  Her mind seized on an almost-forgotten sentence, and she forgot her exhaustion. She had found what she needed. Yes, yes, she remembered it clearly. Rhett had offered her a divorce. Then, after her furious rejection of the offer, he had said it. Scarlett closed her eyes, hearing his voice in her head. “I’ll come back often enough to keep gossip down.” She smiled. She hadn’t won yet, but there was a chance. A chance was enough to go on with. She stood up and picked the pine needles off her frock, out of her hair. She must look a mess.

  The muddy yellow Flint River ran slowly and deeply below the ledge that held the pine woods. Scarlett looked down and threw in the handful of pine needles. They swirled away in the current. “Moving on,” she murmured. “Just like me. Don’t look back, what’s done is done. Move on.” She squinted up at the bright sky. A line of brilliant white clouds was rushing across it. They looked full of wind. It’s going to get colder, she thought automatically. I’d better find something warm to wear this afternoon at the burial. She turned toward home. The sloping pasture looked steeper than she remembered. No matter. She had to get back to the house and tidy herself. She owed it to Mammy to look neat. Mammy had always fussed when she looked messy.

  3

  Scarlett swayed on her feet. She must have been as tired as this sometime before in her life, but she couldn’t remember. She was too tired to remember.

  I’m tired of funerals, I’m tired of death, I’m tired of my life falling away, a piece at a time, and leaving me all alone.

  The graveyard at Tara was not very large. Mammy’s grave looked big, ever so much bigger than Melly’s, Scarlett thought disjointedly, but Mammy had shrivelled up so that she probably wasn’t any bigger at all. She didn’t need such a big grave.

  The wind had a bite in it, for all that the sky was so blue and the sun so bright. Yellowed leaves skittered across the burial ground, blown by the wind. Autumn’s coming, if it’s not here already, she thought. I used to love the fall in the country, riding through the woods. The ground looked like it had gold on it, and the air tasted like cider. So long ago. There hasn’t been a proper riding horse at Tara since Pa died.

  She looked at the gravestones. Gerald O’Hara, born County Meath, Ireland. Ellen Robillard O’Hara, born Savannah, Georgia. Gerald O’Hara, Jr.—three tiny stones, all alike. The brothers she’d never known. At least Mammy was being buried here, next to “Miss Ellen,” her first love, and not in the slaves’ burial plot. Suellen screamed to high heaven, but I won that fight, soon as Will came in on my side. When Will puts his foot down, it stays put. Too bad he’s so stiff-necked about letting me give him some money. The house looks terrible.

  So does the graveyard, for that matter. Weeds all over the place, it’s downright shabby. This whole funeral is downright shabby, Mammy would have hated it. That black preacher is going on and on, and he didn’t even know her, I’ll bet. Mammy wouldn’t give the time of day to the likes of him, she was a Roman Catholic, everybody in the Robillard house was, except Grandfather, and he didn’t have much say about anything, to hear Mammy tell it. We should have gotten a priest, but the closest one is in Atlanta, it would have taken days. Poor Mammy. Poor Mother, too. She died and was buried without a priest. Pa, too, but likely it didn’t matter so much to him. He used to doze through the Devotions Mother led every night.

  Scarlett looked at the unkempt graveyard, then over at the shabby front of the house. I’m glad Mother isn’t here to see this, she though with sudden fierce anger and pain. It would break her heart. Scarlett could—for a moment—see the tall, graceful form of her mother as clearly as if Ellen O’Hara were there among the mourners at the burial. Always impeccably groomed, her white hands busy with needlework or gloved to go out on one of her errands of mercy, always soft-voiced, always occupied with the perpetual work required to produce the orderly perfection that was life at Tara under her guidance. How did she do it? Scarlett cried silently. How did she make the world so wonderful as long as she was there? We were all so happy then. No matter what happened, Mother could make it all right. How I wish she was still here! She’d hold me close to her, and all the troubles would go away.

  No, no, I don’t want her to be here. It would make her so sad to see what’s happened to Tara, what’s happened to me. She’d be disappointed in me, and I couldn’t bear that. Anything but that. I won’t think about it, I mustn’t. I’ll think about something else—I wonder if Delilah had sense enough to fix something to feed people after the burial. Suellen wouldn’t think of it, and she’s too mean to spend money on a collation anyhow.

  Not that it would set her back all that much—there’s hardly anybody here. That black preacher looks like he could eat enough for twenty, though. If he doesn’t stop going on about resting in Abraham’s bosom and crossing the River Jordan, I’m going to scream. Those three scrawny women he calls a choir are the only people here who don’t look twitchy from embarrassment. Some choir! Tambourines and spirituals! Mammy should have something solemn in Latin, not “Climbing Jacob’s Ladder.” Oh, it’s all so tacky. A good thing there’s almost nobody here, just Suellen and Will and me and the children and the servants. At least we all really loved Mammy and care that she’s gone. Big Sam’s eyes are red from crying. Look at poor old Pork, crying his eyes out, too. Why, his hair’s almost white; I never think of him as old. Dilcey sure doesn’t look her age, whatever that might be, she hasn’t changed a bit since she first came to Tara…

  Scarlett’s exhausted, rambling mind suddenly sharpened. What were Pork and Dilcey doing here at all? They hadn’t worked at Tara for years. Not since Pork became Rhett’s valet and Dilcey, Pork’s wife, went to Melanie’s house, as Beau’s mammy. How did they come to be here, at Tara? There was no way they could have learned about Mammy’s death. Unless Rhett told them.

  Scarlett looked over her shoulder. Had Rhett come back? There was no sign of him.

  As soon as the service was over, she made a beeline for Pork. Let Will and Suellen deal with the long-winded preacher.

  “It’s a sad day, Miss Scarlett,” Pork’s eyes were still welling with tears.

  “Yes, it is, Pork,” she said. Mustn’t rush him, she knew, or she’d never find out what she wanted to know.

  Scarlett walked slowly beside the old black servant, listening to his reminiscences of “Mist’ Gerald” and Mammy and the early days at Tara. She’d forgotten Pork had been with her father all that long. He’d come to Tara with Gerald when there was nothing there except a burned-out old building and fields gone to brush. Why, Pork must be seventy or more.

  Little by little, she extracted the information she wanted. Rhett had gone back to Charleston, to stay. Pork had packed all of Rhett’s clothes and sent them to the depot for shipping. It was his final duty as Rhett’s valet, he was retired now, with a parting bonus that was big eno
ugh for him to have a place of his own anywhere he liked. “I can do for my family, too,” Pork said proudly. Dilcey would never need to work again, and Prissy would have something to offer any man who wanted to marry her. “Prissy ain’t no beauty, Miss Scarlett, and she’s going on twenty-five years old, but with a ’heritance behind her, she can catch herself a husband easy as a young pretty girl what got no money.”

  Scarlett smiled and smiled and agreed with Pork that “Mist’ Rhett” was a fine gentleman. Inside she was raging. That fine gentleman’s generosity was making a real hash of things for her. Who was going to take care of Wade and Ella, with Prissy gone? And how the devil was she going to manage to find a good nursemaid for Beau? He’d just lost his mother, and his father was half crazy with grief, and now the only one in that house with any sense was leaving, too. She wished she could pick up and leave, too, just leave everything and everybody behind. Mother of God! I came to Tara to get some rest, to straighten out my life, and all I found was more problems to take care of. Can’t I ever get any peace?

  Will quietly and firmly provided Scarlett with that respite. He sent her to bed and gave orders that she wasn’t to be disturbed. She slept for almost eighteen hours, and she woke with a clear plan of where to begin.

  “I hope you slept well,” said Suellen when Scarlett came down for breakfast. Her voice was sickeningly honeyed. “You must have been awfully tired, after all you’ve been through.” The truce was over, now that Mammy was dead.

  Scarlett’s eyes glittered dangerously. She knew Suellen was thinking of the disgraceful scene she’d made, begging Rhett not to leave her. But when she answered, her words were equally sweet. “I hardly felt my head touch the pillow, and I was gone. The country air is so soothing and refreshing.” You nasty thing, she added in her head. The bedroom that she still thought of as hers now belonged to Susie, Suellen’s oldest child, and Scarlett had felt like a stranger. Suellen knew it, too, Scarlett was sure. But it didn’t matter. She needed to stay on good terms with Suellen if she was going to carry out her plan. She smiled at her sister.

  “What’s so funny, Scarlett? Do I have a spot on my nose or something?”

  Suellen’s voice set Scarlett’s teeth on edge, but she held on to her smile. “I’m sorry, Sue. I was just remembering a silly dream I had last night. I dreamt we were all children again, and that Mammy was switching my legs with a switch from the peach tree. Do you remember how much those switches stung?”

  Suellen laughed. “I sure do. Lutie uses them on the girls. I can almost feel the sting on my own legs when she does.”

  Scarlett watched her sister’s face. “I’m surprised I don’t have a million scars to this day,” she said. “I was such a horrid little girl. I don’t know how you and Carreen could put up with me.” She buttered a biscuit as if it were her only concern.

  Suellen looked suspicious. “You did torment us, Scarlett. And somehow you managed to make the fights come out looking like our fault.”

  “I know. I was horrid. Even when we got older. I drove you and Carreen like mules when we had to pick the cotton after the Yankees stole everything.”

  “You nearly killed us. There we were, half dead from the typhoid, and you dragged us out of bed and sent us out in the hot sun…” Suellen became more animated and more vehement as she repeated grievances that she had nursed for years.

  Scarlett nodded encouragement, making little noises of contrition. How Suellen does love to complain, she thought. It’s meat and drink to her. She waited until Suellen began to run down before she spoke:

  “I feel so mean, and there’s just nothing I can do to make up for all the bad times I put you through. I do think Will is wicked not to let me give youall any money. After all, it is for Tara.”

  “I’ve told him the same thing a hundred times,” Suellen said.

  I’ll just bet you have, thought Scarlett. “Men are so bullheaded,” she said. Then, “Oh, Suellen, I just thought of something. Do say yes, it would be such a blessing to me if you did. And Will couldn’t possibly fuss about it. What if I left Ella and Wade here and sent money to you for their keep? They’re so peaked from living in the city, and the country air would do them a world of good.”

  “I don’t know, Scarlett. We’re going to be awfully crowded when the baby comes.” Suellen’s expression was greedy, but still wary.

  “I know,” Scarlett crooned sympathetically. “Wade Hampton eats like a horse, too. But it would be so good for them, poor city creatures. I guess it would run about a hundred dollars a month just to feed them and buy them shoes.”

  She doubted that Will had a hundred dollars a year in cash money from his hard work at Tara. Suellen was speechless, she noted with satisfaction. She was sure her sister’s voice would return in time to accept. I’ll write a nice fat bank draft after breakfast, she thought. “These are the best biscuits I ever tasted,” Scarlett said. “Could I have another?”

  She was beginning to feel much better with a good sleep behind her, a good meal in her stomach, and the children taken care of. She knew she should go back to Atlanta—she still had to do something about Beau. Ashley, too; she’d promised Melanie. But she’d think about that later. She’d come to Tara for country peace and quiet, she was determined to have some before she left.

  After breakfast Suellen went out to the kitchen. Probably to complain about something, Scarlett thought uncharitably. No matter. It gave her a chance to be alone and peaceful…

  The house is so quiet. The children must be having their breakfast in the kitchen, and of course Will’s long gone to the fields with Wade dogging his footsteps, just the way he used to when Will first came to Tara. Wade’ll be much happier here than in Atlanta, especially with Rhett gone—No, I won’t think about that now, I’ll go crazy if I do. I’ll just enjoy the peace and quiet, it’s what I came for.

  She poured herself another cup of coffee, not caring that it was only lukewarm. Sunlight through the window behind her illuminated the painting on the wall opposite, above the scarred sideboard. Will had done a grand job repairing the furniture that the Yankee soldiers had broken up, but even he couldn’t remove the deep gouges they’d made with their swords. Or the bayonet wound in Grandma Robillard’s portrait.

  Whatever soldier had stabbed her must have been drunk, Scarlett figured, because he’d missed both the arrogant almost-sneer on Grandma’s thin-nosed face and the bosoms that rounded up over her low cut gown. All he’d done was jab through her left earring, and now she looked even more interesting wearing just one.

  Her mother’s mother was the only ancestor who really interested Scarlett, and it frustrated her that nobody would ever tell her enough about her grandmother. Married three times, she had learned that much from her mother, but no details. And Mammy always cut off tales of life in Savannah just when they started getting interesting. There had been duels fought over Grandma, and the fashions of her day had been scandalous, with ladies deliberately wetting their thin muslin gowns so that they’d cling to their legs. And the rest of them, too, from the look of things in the portrait…

  I should blush just from thinking the kind of things I’m thinking, Scarlett told herself. But she looked back over her shoulder at the portrait as she left the dining room. I wonder what she was really like?

  The sitting room showed the signs of poverty and constant use by a young family; Scarlett could hardly recognize the velvet-covered settee where she had posed herself prettily when beaux proposed. And everything had been rearranged, too. She had to admit that Suellen had the right to fix the house to suit herself, but it rankled all the same. It wasn’t really Tara this way.

  She grew more and more despondent as she went from room to room. Nothing was the same. Every time she came home there were more changes, and more shabbiness. Oh, why did Will have to be so stubborn! All the furniture needed recovering, the curtains were practically rags, and you could see the floor right through the carpets. She could get new things for Tara if Will would let her. Then s
he wouldn’t have the heartsickness of seeing the things she remembered looking so pitifully worn.

  It should be mine! I’d take better care of it. Pa always said he’d leave Tara to me. But he never made a will. That’s just like Pa, he never thought of tomorrow. Scarlett frowned, but she couldn’t really be angry at her father. No one had ever stayed angry at Gerald O’Hara; he was like a lovable naughty child even when he was in his sixties.

  The one I’m mad at—still—is Carreen. Baby sister or not, she was wrong to do what she did, and I’ll never forgive her, never. She was stubborn as a mule when she made up her mind to go into the convent, and I accepted it finally. But she never told me she was going to use her one-third share of Tara as her dowry for the convent.

  She should have told me! I would have found the money somehow. Then I’d have two-thirds ownership. Not the whole thing, like it should be, but at least clear control. Then I’d have some say so. Instead, I have to bite my tongue and watch while everything goes downhill and let Suellen queen it over me. It’s not fair. I’m the one who saved Tara from the Yankees and the carpetbaggers. It is mine, no matter what the law says, and it’ll be Wade’s some day, I’ll see to that, no matter what it takes.

  Scarlett rested her head against the split leather covering on the old sofa in the small room from which Ellen O’Hara had quietly ruled the plantation. There seemed to be a lingering trace of her mother’s lemon verbena toilet water, even after all these years. This was the peacefulness she had come to find. Never mind the changes, the shabbiness. Tara was still Tara, still home. And the heart of it was here, in Ellen’s room.