Gone with the Wind (54 page)

The hot nights brought a measure of quiet but it was a sinister quiet. When the night was still, it was too still—as though the tree frogs, katydids and sleepy mockingbirds were too frightened to raise their voices in the usual summer-night chorus. Now and again, the quiet was broken sharply by the crack-cracking of musket fire in the last line of defenses.

Often in the late night hours, when the lamps were out and Melanie asleep and deathly silence pressed over the town, Scarlett, lying awake, heard the latch of the front gate click and the soft urgent tappings on the front door.

Always, faceless soldiers stood on the dark porch and from the darkness many different voices spoke to her. Sometimes a cultured voice came from the shadows: “Madam, my abject apologies for disturbing you, but could I have water for myself and my horse?” Sometimes it was the hard burring of a mountain voice, sometimes the odd nasals of the flat Wiregrass country to the far south, occasionally the lulling drawl of the Coast that caught at her heart, reminding her of Ellen's voice.

“Missy, I got a pardner here who I wuz aimin' ter git ter the horsepittle but looks like he ain't goin' ter last that fer. Kin you take him in?”

“Lady, I shore could do with some vittles. I'd shore relish a corn pone if it didn't deprive you none.”

“Madam, forgive my intrusion but—could I spend the night on your porch? I saw the roses and smelled the honeysuckle and it was so much like home that I was emboldened—”

No, these nights were not real! They were a nightmare and the men were part of that nightmare, men without bodies or faces, only tired voices speaking to her from the warm dark. Draw water, serve food, lay pillows on the front porch, bind wounds, hold the dirty heads of the dying. No, this could not be happening to her!

Once, late in July, it was Uncle Henry Hamilton who came tapping in the night. Uncle Henry was minus his umbrella and carpetbag now, and his fat stomach as well. The skin of his pink fat face hung down in loose folds like the dewlaps of a bulldog and his long white hair was indescribably dirty. He was almost barefoot, crawling with lice, and he was hungry, but his irascible spirit was unimpaired.

Despite his remark: “It's a foolish war when old fools
like me are out toting guns,” the girls received the impression that Uncle Henry was enjoying himself. He was needed, like the young men, and he was doing a young man's work. Moreover, he could keep up with the young men, which was more than Grandpa Merriwether could do, he told them gleefully. Grandpa's lumbago was troubling him greatly and the Captain wanted to discharge him. But Grandpa wouldn't go home. He said frankly that he preferred the Captain's swearing and bullying to his daughter-in-law's coddling, and her incessant demands that he give up chewing tobacco and launder his beard every day.

Uncle Henry's visit was brief, for he had only a four-hour furlough and he needed half of it for the long walk in from the breastworks and back.

“Girls, I'm not going to see you all for a while,” he announced as he sat in Melanie's bedroom, luxuriously wriggling his blistered feet in the tub of cold water Scarlett had set before him. “Our company is going out in the morning.”

“Where?” questioned Melanie frightened, clutching his arm.

“Don't put your hand on me,” said Uncle Henry irritably. “I'm crawling with lice. War would be a picnic if it wasn't for lice and dysentery. Where'm I going? Well, I haven't been told but I've got a good idea. We're marching south, toward Jonesboro, in the morning, unless I'm greatly in error.”

“Oh, why toward Jonesboro?”

“Because there's going to be big fighting there, Missy. The Yankees are going to take that railroad if they possibly can. And if they do take it, it's good-by, Atlanta!”

“Oh, Uncle Henry, do you think they will?”

“Shucks, girls! No! How can they when I'm there?” Uncle Henry grinned at their frightened faces and then, becoming serious again: “It's going to be a hard fight, girls. We've got to win it. You know, of course, that the Yankees have got all the railroads except the one to Macon, but that isn't all they've got. Maybe you girls didn't know it, but they've got every road, too, every wagon lane and bridle path, except the McDonough road. Atlanta's in a bag and the strings of the bag are at Jonesboro. And if the Yankees can take the railroad there, they can pull up the strings and have us, just like a possum in a poke. So, we don't aim to let them get that railroad…. I may be gone a while, girls. I just came in to tell you all good-by and to make sure Scarlett was still with you, Melly.”

“Of course, she's with me,” said Melanie fondly. “Don't you worry about us, Uncle Henry, and do take care of yourself.”

Uncle Henry wiped his wet feet on the rag rug and groaned as he drew on his tattered shoes.

“I got to be going,” he said. “I've got five miles to walk. Scarlett, you fix me up some kind of lunch to take. Anything you've got.”

After he had kissed Melanie good-by, he went down to the kitchen where Scarlett was wrapping a corn pone and some apples in a napkin.

“Uncle Henry—is it—is it really so serious?”

“Serious? God'lmighty, yes! Don't be a goose. We're in the last ditch.”

“Do you think they'll get to Tara?”

“Why—” began Uncle Henry, irritated at the feminine mind which thought only of personal things when broad issues were involved. Then, seeing her frightened, woebegone face, he softened.

“Of course they won't. Tara's five miles from the railroad and it's the railroad the Yankees want. You've got no more sense than a June bug, Missy.” He broke off abruptly. “I didn't walk all this way here tonight just to tell you all good-by. I came to bring Melly some bad news, but when I got up to it I just couldn't tell her. So I'm going to leave it to you to do.”

“Ashley isn't—you haven't heard anything—that he's—dead?”

“Now, how would I be hearing about Ashley when I've been standing in rifle pits up to the seat of my pants in mud?” the old gentleman asked testily. “No. It's about his father. John Wilkes is dead.”

Scarlett sat down suddenly, the half-wrapped lunch in her hand.

“I came to tell Melly—but I couldn't. You must do it. And give her these.”

He hauled from his pockets a heavy gold watch with dangling seals, a small miniature of the long dead Mrs. Wilkes and a pair of massive cuff buttons. At the sight of the watch which she had seen in John Wilkes' hands a thousand times, the full realization came over Scarlett that Ashley's father was really dead. And she was too stunned to cry or to speak. Uncle Henry fidgeted, coughed and did not look at her, lest he catch sight of a tear that would upset him.

“He was a brave man, Scarlett. Tell Melly that. Tell her to write it to his girls. And a good soldier for all his years. A shell got him. Came right down on him and his horse. Tore the horse's—I shot the horse myself, poor creature. A fine little mare she was. You'd better write Mrs. Tarleton about that, too. She set a store on that mare. Wrap up my lunch, child. I must be going. There,
dear, don't take it so hard. What better way can an old man die than doing a young man's work?”

“Oh, he shouldn't have died! He shouldn't ever have gone to the war. He should have lived and seen his grandchild grow up and died peacefully in bed. Oh, why did he go? He didn't believe in secession and he hated the war and—”

“Plenty of us think that way, but what of it?” Uncle Henry blew his nose grumpily. “Do you think I enjoy letting Yankee riflemen use me for a target at my age? But there's no other choice for a gentleman these days. Kiss me good-by, child, and don't worry about me. I'll come through this war safely.”

Scarlett kissed him and heard him go down the steps into the dark, heard the latch click on the front gate. She stood for a minute looking at the keepsakes in her hand. And then she went up the stairs to tell Melanie.

*     *     *

At the end of July came the unwelcome news, predicted by Uncle Henry, that the Yankees had swung around again toward Jonesboro. They had cut the railroad four miles below the town, but they had been beaten off by the Confederate cavalry; and the engineering corps, sweating in the broiling sun, had repaired the line.

Scarlett was frantic with anxiety. For three days she waited, fear growing in her heart. Then a reassuring letter came from Gerald. The enemy had not reached Tara. They had heard the sound of the fight but they had seen no Yankees.

Gerald's letter was so full of brag and bluster as to how the Yankees had been driven from the railroad that one would have thought he personally had accomplished the feat, single handed. He wrote for three pages about the
gallantry of the troops and then, at the end of his letter, mentioned briefly that Carreen was ill. The typhoid, Mrs. O'Hara said it was. She was not very ill and Scarlett was not to worry about her, but on no condition must she come home now, even if the railroad should become safe. Mrs. O'Hara was very glad now that Scarlett and Wade had not come home when the siege began. Mrs. O'Hara said Scarlett must go to church and say some Rosaries for Carreen's recovery.

Scarlett's conscience smote her at this last, for it had been months since she had been to church. Once she would have thought this omission a mortal sin but, somehow, staying away from church did not seem so sinful now as it formerly had. But she obeyed her mother and going to her room gabbled a hasty Rosary. When she rose from her knees she did not feel as comforted as she had formerly felt after prayer. For some time she had felt that God was not watching out for her, the Confederates or the South, in spite of the millions of prayers ascending to Him daily.

That night she sat on the front porch with Gerald's letter in her bosom where she could touch it occasionally and bring Tara and Ellen closer to her. The lamp in the parlor window threw odd golden shadows onto the dark vine-shrouded porch, and the matted tangle of yellow climbing roses and honeysuckle made a wall of mingled fragrance about her. The night was utterly still. Not even the crack of a rifle had sounded since sunset and the world seemed far away. Scarlett rocked back and forth, lonely, miserable since reading the news from Tara, wishing that someone, anyone, even Mrs. Merriwether, were with her. But Mrs. Merriwether was on night duty at the hospital, Mrs. Meade was at home making a feast for
Phil, who was in from the front lines, and Melanie was asleep. There was not even the hope of a chance caller. Visitors had fallen off to nothing this last week, for every man who could walk was in the rifle pits or chasing the Yankees about the countryside near Jonesboro.

It was not often that she was alone like this and she did not like it. When she was alone she had to think and, these days, thoughts were not so pleasant. Like everyone else, she had fallen into the habit of thinking of the past, the dead.

Tonight when Atlanta was so quiet, she could close her eyes and imagine she was back in the rural stillness of Tara and that life was unchanged, unchanging. But she knew that life in the County would never be the same again. She thought of the four Tarletons, the red-haired twins and Tom and Boyd, and a passionate sadness caught at her throat. Why, either Stu or Brent might have been her husband. But now, when the war was over and she went back to Tara to live, she would never again hear their wild halloos as they dashed up the avenue of cedars. And Raiford Calvert, who danced so divinely, would never again choose her to be his partner. And the Munroe boys and little Joe Fontaine and—

“Oh, Ashley!” she sobbed, dropping her head into her hands. “I'll never get used to you being gone!”

She heard the front gate click and she hastily raised her head and dashed her hand across her wet eyes. She rose and saw it was Rhett Butler coming up the walk, carrying his wide Panama hat in his hand. She had not seen him since the day when she had alighted from his carriage so precipitously at Five Points. On that occasion, she had expressed the desire never to lay eyes on him again. But she was so glad now to have someone to
talk to, someone to divert her thoughts from Ashley, that she hastily put the memory from her mind. Evidently he had forgotten the contretemps, or pretended to have forgotten it, for he settled himself on the top step at her feet without mention of their late difference.

“So you didn't refugee to Macon! I heard that Miss Pitty had retreated and, of course, I thought you had gone too. So, when I saw your light I came here to investigate. Why did you stay?”

“To keep Melanie company. You see, she—well, she can't refugee just now.”

“Thunderation,” he said, and in the lamplight she saw that he was frowning. “You don't mean to tell me Mrs. Wilkes is still here? I never heard of such idiocy. It's quite dangerous for her in her condition.”

Scarlett was silent, embarrassed, for Melanie's condition was not a subject she could discuss with a man. She was embarrassed, too, that Rhett should know it was dangerous for Melanie. Such knowledge sat ill upon a bachelor.

“It's quite ungallant of you not to think that I might get hurt, too,” she said tartly.

His eyes flickered with amusement.

“I'd back you against the Yankees any day.”

“I'm not sure that that's a compliment,” she said uncertainly.

“It isn't,” he answered. “When will you stop looking for compliments in men's lightest utterances?”

“When I'm on my deathbed,” she replied and smiled, thinking that there would always be men to compliment her, even if Rhett never did.

“Vanity, vanity,” he said. “At least, you are frank about it.”

He opened his cigar case, extracted a black cigar and
held it to his nose for a moment. A match flared, he leaned back against a post and, clasping his hands about his knees, smoked a while in silence. Scarlett resumed her rocking and the still darkness of the warm night closed about them. The mockingbird, which nested in the tangle of roses and honeysuckle, roused from slumber and gave one timid, liquid note. Then, as if thinking better of the matter, it was silent again.