-three
A COLD WIND WAS BLOWING STIFFLY and the scudding clouds overhead were
the deep gray of slate when Scarlett and Mammy stepped from the train in
Atlanta the next afternoon. The depot had not been rebuilt since the
burning of the city and they alighted amid cinders and mud a few yards
above the blackened ruins which marked the site. Habit strong upon her,
Scarlett looked about for Uncle Peter and Pitty’s carriage, for she had
always been met by them when returning from Tara to Atlanta during the
war years. Then she caught herself with a sniff at her own absent-
mindedness. Naturally, Peter wasn’t there for she had given Aunt Pitty no
warning of her coming and, moreover, she remembered that one of the old
lady’s letters had dealt tearfully with the death of the old nag Peter had
“’quired” in Macon to bring her back to Atlanta after the surrender.
She looked about the rutted and cut-up space around the depot for the
equipage of some old friend or acquaintance who might drive them to
Aunt Pitty’s house but she recognized no one, black or white. Probably
none of her old friends owned carriages now, if what Pitty had written them
was true. Times were so hard it was difficult to feed and lodge humans,
much less animals. Most of Pitty’s friends, like herself, were afoot these
days.
There were a few wagons loading at the freight cars and several mud-
splashed buggies with rough-looking strangers at the reins but only two
carriages. One was a closed carriage, the other open and occupied by a
well-dressed woman and a Yankee officer. Scarlett drew in her breath
sharply at the sight of the uniform. Although Pitty had written that
Atlanta was garrisoned and the streets full of soldiers, the first sight of the
bluecoat startled and frightened her. It was hard to remember that the war
was over and that this man would not pursue her, rob her and insult her.
The comparative emptiness around the train took her mind back to that
morning in 1862 when she had come to Atlanta as a young widow, swathed
in crêpe and wild with boredom. She recalled how crowded this space had
been with wagons and carriages and ambulances and how noisy with
drivers swearing and yelling and people calling greetings to friends. She
sighed for the light-hearted excitement of the war days and sighed again at
the thought of walking all the way to Aunt Pitty’s house. But she was
hopeful that once on Peachtree Street, she might meet someone she knew
who would give them a ride.
As she stood looking about her a saddle-colored negro of middle age
drove the closed carriage toward her and, leaning from the box, questioned:
“Cah’ige, lady? Two bits fer any whar in ’Lanta.”
Mammy threw him an annihilating glance.
“A hired hack!” she rumbled. “Nigger, does you know who we is?”
Mammy was a country negro but she had not always been a country
negro and she knew that no chaste woman ever rode in a hired conveyance
—especially a closed carriage—without the escort of some male member of
her family. Even the presence of a negro maid would not satisfy the
conventions. She gave Scarlett a glare as she saw her look longingly at the
hack.
“Come ’way frum dar, Miss Scarlett! A hired hack an’ a free issue nigger!
Well, dat’s a good combination.”
“Ah ain’ no free issue nigger,” declared the driver with heat. “Ah b’longs
ter Ole Miss Talbot an’ disyere her cah’ige an’ Ah drives it ter mek money
fer us.”
“Whut Miss Talbot is dat?”
“Miss Suzannah Talbot of Milledgeville. Us done move up hyah affer
Ole Marse wuz kilt.”
“Does you know her, Miss Scarlett?”
“No,” said Scarlett, regretfully. “I know so few Milledgeville folks.”
“Den us’ll walk,” said Mammy sternly. “Drive on, nigger.”
She picked up the carpetbag which held Scarlett’s new velvet frock and
bonnet and nightgown and tucked the neat bandana bundle that contained
her own belongings under her arm and shepherded Scarlett across the wet
expanse of cinders. Scarlett did not argue the matter, much as she preferred
to ride, for she wished no disagreement with Mammy. Ever since yesterday
afternoon when Mammy had caught her with the velvet curtains, there
had been an alert suspicious look in her eyes which Scarlett did not like. It
was going to be difficult to escape from her chaperonage and she did not
intend to rouse Mammy’s fighting blood before it was absolutely necessary.
As they walked along the narrow sidewalk toward Peachtree, Scarlett
was dismayed and sorrowful, for Atlanta looked so devastated and different
from what she remembered. They passed beside what had been the Atlanta
Hotel where Rhett and Uncle Henry had lived and of that elegant hostelry
there remained only a shell, a part of the blackened walls. The warehouses
which had bordered the train tracks for a quarter of a mile and held tons of
military supplies had not been rebuilt and their rectangular foundations
looked dreary under the dark sky. Without the wall of buildings on either
side and with the car shed gone, the railroad tracks seemed bare and
exposed. Somewhere amid these ruins, undistinguishable from the others,
lay what remained of her own warehouse on the property Charles had left
her. Uncle Henry had paid last year’s taxes on it for her. She’d have to
repay that money some time. That was something else to worry about.
As they turned the corner into Peachtree Street and she looked toward
Five Points, she cried out with shock. Despite all Frank had told her about
the town burning to the ground, she had never really visualized complete
destruction. In her mind the town she loved so well still stood full of close-
packed buildings and fine houses. But this Peachtree Street she was looking
upon was so denuded of landmarks it was as unfamiliar as if she had never
seen it before. This muddy street down which she had driven a thousand
times during the war, along which she had fled with ducked head and fear-
quickened legs when shells burst over her during the siege, this street she
had seen in the heat and hurry and anguish of the day of the retreat, was so
strange looking she felt like crying.
Though many new buildings had sprung up in the year since Sherman
marched out of the burning town and the Confederates returned, there
were still wide vacant lots around Five Points where heaps of smudged
broken bricks lay amid a jumble of rubbish, dead weeds and broomsedge.
There were the remains of a few buildings she remembered, roofless brick
walls through which the dull daylight shone, glassless windows gaping,
chimneys towering lonesomely. Here and there her eyes gladly picked out a
familiar store which had partly survived shell and fire and had been
repaired, the fresh red of new brick glaring bright against the smut of the
old walls. On new store fronts and new office windows she saw the
welcome names of men she knew but more often the names were
unfamiliar, especially the dozens of shingles of strange doctors and lawyers
and cotton merchants. Once she had known practically everyone in
Atlanta and the sight of so many strange names depressed her. But she was
cheered by the sight of new buildings going up all along the street.
There were dozens of them and several were three stories high!
Everywhere building was going on, for as she looked down the street, trying
to adjust her mind to the new Atlanta, she heard the blithe sound of
hammers and saws, noticed scaffoldings rising and saw men climbing
ladders with hods of bricks on their shoulders. She looked down the street
she loved so well and her eyes misted a little.
“They burned you,” she thought, “and they laid you flat. But they didn’t
lick you. They couldn’t lick you. You’ll grow back just as big and sassy as
you used to be!”
As she walked along Peachtree, followed by the waddling Mammy, she
found the sidewalks just as crowded as they were at the height of the war
and there was the same air of rush and bustle about the resurrecting town
which had made her blood sing when she came here, so long ago, on her
first visit to Aunt Pitty. There seemed to be just as many vehicles
wallowing in the mud holes as there had been then, except that there were
no Confederate ambulances, and just as many horses and mules tethered to
hitching racks in front of the wooden awnings of the stores. Though the
sidewalks were jammed, the faces she saw were as unfamiliar as the signs
overhead, new people, many rough-looking men and tawdrily dressed
women. The streets were black with loafing negroes who leaned against
walls or sat on the curbing watching vehicles go past with the naive
curiosity of children at a circus parade.
“Free issue country niggers,” snorted Mammy. “Ain’ never seed a proper
cah’ige in dere lives. An’ impident lookin’, too.”
They were impudent looking, Scarlett agreed, for they stared at her in
an insolent manner, but she forgot them in the renewed shock of seeing
blue uniforms. The town was full of Yankee soldiers, on horses, afoot, in
army wagons, loafing on the street, reeling out of barrooms.
I’ll never get used to them, she thought, clenching her fists. Never! and
over her shoulder: “Hurry, Mammy, let’s get out of this crowd.”
“Soon’s Ah kick dis black trash outer mah way,” answered Mammy
loudly, swinging the carpetbag at a black buck who loitered tantalizingly in
front of her and making him leap aside. “Ah doan lak disyere town, Miss
Scarlett. It’s too full of Yankees an’ cheap free issue.”
“It’s nicer where it isn’t so crowded. When we get across Five Points, it
won’t be so bad.”
They picked their way across the slippery stepping stones that bridged
the mud of Decatur Street and continued up Peachtree, through a thinning
crowd. When they reached Wesley Chapel where Scarlett had paused to
catch her breath that day in 1864 when she had run for Dr. Meade, she
looked at it and laughed aloud, shortly and grimly. Mammy’s quick old eyes
sought hers with suspicion and question but her curiosity went unsatisfied.
Scarlett was recalling with contempt the terror which had ridden her that
day. She had been crawling with fear, rotten with fear, terrified by the
Yankees, terrified by the approaching birth of Beau. Now she wondered
how she could have been so frightened, frightened like a child at a loud
noise. And what a child she had been to think that Yankees and fire and
defeat were the worst things that could happen to her! What trivialities
they were beside Ellen’s death and Gerald’s vagueness, beside hunger and
cold and back-breaking work and the living nightmare of insecurity. How
easy she would find it now to be brave before an invading army, but how
hard to face the danger that threatened Tara! No, she would never again be
afraid of anything except poverty.
Up Peachtree came a closed carriage and Scarlett went to the curb
eagerly to see if she knew the occupant, for Aunt Pitty’s house was still
several blocks away. She and Mammy leaned forward as the carriage came
abreast and Scarlett, with a smile arranged, almost called out when a
woman’s head appeared for a moment at the window—a too bright red
head beneath a fine fur hat. Scarlett took a step back as mutual recognition
leaped into both faces. It was Belle Watling and Scarlett had a glimpse of
nostrils distended with dislike before she disappeared again. Strange that
Belle’s should be the first familiar face she saw.
“Who dat?” questioned Mammy suspiciously. “She knowed you but she
din’ bow. Ah ain’ never seed ha’r dat color in mah life. Not even in de
Tarleton fambly. It look—well, it look dyed ter me!”
“It is,” said Scarlett shortly, walking faster.
“Does you know a dyed-ha’rd woman? Ah ast you who she is.”
“She’s the town bad woman,” said Scarlett briefly, “and I give you my
word I don’t know her, so shut up.”
“Gawdlmighty!” breathed Mammy, her jaw dropping as she looked after
the carriage with passionate curiosity. She had not seen a professional bad
woman since she left Savannah with Ellen more than twenty years before
and she wished ardently that she had observed Belle more closely.
“She sho dressed up fine an’ got a fine cah’ige an’ coachman,” she
muttered. “Ah doan know whut de Lawd thinkin’ ’bout, lettin’ de bad
women flurrish lak dat w’en us good folks is hongry an’ mos’ barefoot.”
“The Lord stopped thinking about us years ago,” said Scarlett savagely.
“And don’t go telling me Mother is turning in her grave to hear me say it,
either.”
She wanted to feel superior and virtuous about Belle but she could not.
If her plans went well, she might be on the same footing with Belle and
supported by the same man. While she did not regret her decision one
whit, the matter in its true light discomfited her. “I won’t think of it now,”
she told herself and hurried her steps.
They passed the lot where the Meade house had stood and there
remained of it only a forlorn pair of stone steps and a walk, leading up to
nothing. Where the Whitings’ home had been was bare ground. Even the
foundation stones and the brick chimneys were gone and there were wagon
tracks where they had been carted away. The brick house of the Elsings still
stood, with a new roof and a new second floor. The Bonnell home,
awkwardly patched and roofed with rude boards instead of shingles,
managed to look livable for all its battered appearance. But in neither
house was there a face at the window or a figure on the porch, and Scarlett
was glad. She did not want to talk to anyone now.
Then the new slate roof of Aunt Pitty’s house came in view with its red-
brick walls, and Scarlett’s heart throbbed. How good of the Lord not to
level it beyond repair! Coming out of the front yard was Uncle Peter, a
market basket on his arm, and when he saw Scarlett and Mammy trudging
along, a wide, incredulous smile split his black face.
I could kiss the old black fool, I’m so glad to see him, thought Scarlett,
joyfully and she called: “Run get Auntie’s swoon bottle, Peter! It’s really
me!”
* * *
That night the inevitable hominy and dried peas were on Aunt Pitty’s
supper table and, as Scarlett ate them, she made a vow that these two
dishes would never appear on her table when she had money again. And,
no matter what price she had to pay, she was going to have money again,
more than just enough to pay the taxes on Tara. Somehow, some day she
was going to have plenty of money if she had to commit murder to get it.
In the yellow lamplight of the dining room, she asked Pitty about her
finances, hoping against hope that Charles’ family might be able to lend
her the money she needed. The questions were none too subtle but Pitty, in
her pleasure at having a member of the family to talk to, did not even
notice the bald way the questions were put. She plunged with tears into the
details of her misfortunes. She just didn’t know where her farms and town
property and money had gone but everything had slipped away. At least,
that was what Brother Henry told her. He hadn’t been able to pay the taxes
on her estate. Everything except the house she was living in was gone and
Pitty did not stop to think that the house had never been hers but was the
joint property of Melanie and Scarlett. Brother Henry could just barely pay
taxes on this house. He gave her a little something every month to live on
and, though it was very humiliating to take money from him, she had to do
it.
“Brother Henry says he doesn’t know how he’ll make ends meet with
the load he’s carrying and the taxes so high but, of course, he’s probably
lying and has loads of money and just won’t give me much.”
Scarlett knew Uncle Henry wasn’t lying. The few letters she had had
from him in connection with Charles’ property showed that. The old
lawyer was battling valiantly to save the house and the one piece of
downtown property where the warehouse had been, so Wade and Scarlett
would have something left from the wreckage. Scarlett knew he was
carrying these taxes for her at a great sacrifice.
“Of course, he hasn’t any money,” thought Scarlett grimly. “Well, check
him and Aunt Pitty off my list. There’s nobody left but Rhett. I’ll have to
do it. But I mustn’t think about it now…. I must get her to talking about
Rhett so I can casually suggest to her to invite him to call tomorrow.”
She smiled and squeezed the plump palms of Aunt Pitty between her
own.
“Darling Auntie,” she said, “don’t let’s talk about distressing things like
money any more. Let’s forget about them and talk of pleasanter things. You
must tell me all the news about our old friends. How is Mrs. Merriwether,
and Maybelle? I heard that Maybelle’s little Creole came home safely. How
are the Elsings and Dr. and Mrs. Meade?”
Pittypat brightened at the change of subject and her baby face stopped
quivering with tears. She gave detailed reports about old neighbors, what
they were doing and wearing and eating and thinking. She told with
accents of horror how, before René Picard came home from the war, Mrs.
Merriwether and Maybelle had made ends meet by baking pies and selling
them to the Yankee soldiers. Imagine that! Sometimes there were two
dozen Yankees standing in the back yard of the Merriwether home, waiting
for the baking to be finished. Now that René was home, he drove an old
wagon to the Yankee camp every day and sold cakes and pies and beaten
biscuits to the soldiers. Mrs. Merriwether said that when she made a little
more money she was going to open a bake shop downtown. Pitty did not
wish to criticize but after all— As for herself, said Pitty, she would rather
starve than have such commerce with Yankees. She made a point of giving
a disdainful look to every soldier she met, and crossed to the other side of
the street in as insulting a manner as possible, though, she said, this was
quite inconvenient in wet weather. Scarlett gathered that no sacrifice, even
though it be muddy shoes, was too great to show loyalty to the
Confederacy, in so far as Miss Pittypat was concerned.
Mrs. Meade and the doctor had lost their home when the Yankees fired
the town and they had neither the money nor the heart to rebuild, now
that Phil and Darcy were dead. Mrs. Meade said she never wanted a home
again, for what was a home without children and grandchildren in it? They
were very lonely and had gone to live with the Elsings who had rebuilt the
damaged part of their home. Mr. and Mrs. Whiting had a room there, too,
and Mrs. Bonnell was talking of moving in, if she was fortunate enough to
rent her house to a Yankee officer and his family.
“But how do they all squeeze in?” cried Scarlett. “There’s Mrs. Elsing
and Fanny and Hugh—”
“Mrs. Elsing and Fanny sleep in the parlor and Hugh in the attic,”
explained Pitty, who knew the domestic arrangements of all her friends.
“My dear, I do hate to tell you this but—Mrs. Elsing calls them ‘paying
guests’ but,” Pitty dropped her voice, “they are really nothing at all except
boarders. Mrs. Elsing is running a boarding house! Isn’t that dreadful?”
“I think it’s wonderful,” said Scarlett shortly. “I only wish we’d had
‘paying guests’ at Tara for the last year instead of free boarders. Maybe we
wouldn’t be so poor now.”
“Scarlett, how can you say such things? Your poor mother must be
turning in her grave at the very thought of charging money for the
hospitality of Tara! Of course, Mrs. Elsing was simply forced to it because,
while she took in fine sewing and Fanny painted china and Hugh made a
little money peddling firewood, they couldn’t make ends meet. Imagine
darling Hugh forced to peddle wood! And he all set to be a fine lawyer! I
could just cry at the things our boys are reduced to!”
Scarlett thought of the rows of cotton beneath the glaring coppery sky
at Tara and how her back had ached as she bent over them. She
remembered the feel of plow handles between her inexperienced, blistered
palms and she felt that Hugh Elsing was deserving of no special sympathy.
What an innocent old fool Pitty was and, despite the ruin all around her,
how sheltered!
“If he doesn’t like peddling, why doesn’t he practice law? Or isn’t there
any law practice left in Atlanta?”
“Oh dear, yes! There’s plenty of law practice. Practically everybody is
suing everybody else these days. With everything burned down and
boundary lines wiped out, no one knows just where their land begins or
ends. But you can’t get any pay for suing because nobody has any money.
So Hugh sticks to his peddling…. Oh, I almost forgot! Did I write you?
Fanny Elsing is getting married tomorrow night and, of course, you must
attend. Mrs. Elsing will be only too pleased to have you when she knows
you’re in town. I do hope you have some other frock besides that one. Not
that it isn’t a very sweet frock, darling, but—well, it does look a bit worn.
Oh, you have a pretty frock? I’m so glad because it’s going to be the first
real wedding we’ve had in Atlanta since before the town fell. Cake and
wine and dancing afterward, though I don’t know how the Elsings can
afford it, they are so poor.”
“Who is Fanny marrying? I thought after Dallas McLure was killed at
Gettysburg—”
“Darling, you mustn’t criticize Fanny. Everybody isn’t as loyal to the
dead as you are to poor Charlie. Let me see. What is his name? I can never
remember names—Tom somebody. I knew his mother well, we went to
LaGrange Female Institute together. She was a Tomlinson from LaGrange
and her mother was—let me see…. Perkins? Parkins? Parkinson! That’s it.
From Sparta. A very good family but just the same—well, I know I
shouldn’t say it but I don’t see how Fanny can bring herself to marry him!”
“Does he drink or—”
“Dear, no! His character is perfect but, you see, he was wounded low
down, by a bursting shell and it did something to his legs—makes them—
makes them, well, I hate to use the word but it makes him spraddle. It gives
him a very vulgar appearance when he walks—well, it doesn’t look very
pretty. I don’t see why she’s marrying him.”
“Girls have to marry someone.”
“Indeed, they do not,” said Pitty, ruffling. “I never had to.”
“Now, darling, I didn’t mean you! Everybody knows how popular you
were and still are! Why, old Judge Carlton used to throw sheep’s eyes at you
till I—”
“Oh, Scarlett, hush! That old fool!” giggled Pitty, good humor restored.
“But, after all, Fanny was so popular she could have made a better match
and I don’t believe she loves this Tom what’s-his-name. I don’t believe she’s
ever gotten over Dallas McLure getting killed, but she’s not like you,
darling. You’ve remained so faithful to dear Charlie, though you could have
married dozens of times. Melly and I have often said how loyal you were to
his memory when everyone else said you were just a heartless coquette.”
Scarlett passed over this tactless confidence and skillfully led Pitty from
one friend to another but all the while she was in a fever of impatience to
bring the conversation around to Rhett. It would never do for her to ask
outright about him, so soon after arriving. It might start the old lady’s mind
to working on channels better left untouched. There would be time enough
for Pitty’s suspicions to be aroused if Rhett refused to marry her.
Aunt Pitty prattled on happily, pleased as a child at having an audience.
Things in Atlanta were in a dreadful pass, she said, due to the vile doings of
the Republicans. There was no end to their goings on and the worst thing
was the way they were putting ideas in the poor darkies’ heads.
“My dear, they want to let the darkies vote! Did you ever hear of
anything more silly? Though—I don’t know—now that I think about it,
Uncle Peter has much more sense than any Republican I ever saw and
much better manners but, of course, Uncle Peter is far too well bred to
want to vote. But the very notion has upset the darkies till they’re right
addled. And some of them are so insolent. Your life isn’t safe on the streets
after dark and even in the broad daylight they push ladies off the sidewalks
into the mud. And if any gentleman dares to protest, they arrest him and—
My dear, did I tell you that Captain Butler was in jail?”
“Rhett Butler?”
Even with this startling news, Scarlett was grateful that Aunt Pitty had
saved her the necessity of bringing his name into the conversation herself.
“Yes, indeed!” Excitement colored Pitty’s cheeks and she sat upright.
“He’s in jail this very minute for killing a negro and they may hang him!
Imagine Captain Butler hanging!”
For a moment, the breath went out of Scarlett’s lungs in a sickening gasp
and she could only stare at the fat old lady who was so obviously pleased at
the effect of her statement.
“They haven’t proved it yet but somebody killed this darky who had
insulted a white woman. And the Yankees are very upset because so many
uppity darkies have been killed recently. They can’t prove it on Captain
Butler but they want to make an example of someone, so Dr. Meade says.
The doctor says that if they do hang him it will be the first good honest job
the Yankees ever did, but then, I don’t know…. And to think that Captain
Butler was here just a week ago and brought me the loveliest quail you ever
saw for a present and he was asking about you and saying he feared he had
offended you during the siege and you would never forgive him.”
“How long will he be in jail?”
“Nobody knows. Perhaps till they hang him, but maybe they won’t be
able to prove the killing on him, after all. However, it doesn’t seem to
bother the Yankees whether folks are guilty or not, so long as they can
hang somebody. They are so upset”—Pitty dropped her voice mysteriously
—“about the Ku Klux Klan. Do you have the Klan down in the County?
My dear, I’m sure you must and Ashley just doesn’t tell you girls anything
about it. Klansmen aren’t supposed to tell. They ride around at night
dressed up like ghosts and call on Carpetbaggers who steal money and
negroes who are uppity. Sometimes they just scare them and warn them to
leave Atlanta, but when they don’t behave they whip them and,” Pitty
whispered, “sometimes they kill them and leave them where they’ll be
easily found with the Ku Klux card on them…. And the Yankees are very
angry about it and want to make an example of someone…. But Hugh
Elsing told me he didn’t think they’d hang Captain Butler because the
Yankees think he does know where the money is and just won’t tell. They
are trying to make him tell.”
“The money?”
“Didn’t you know? Didn’t I write you? My dear, you have been buried at
Tara, haven’t you? The town simply buzzed when Captain Butler came back
here with a fine horse and carriage and his pockets full of money, when all
the rest of us didn’t know where our next meal was coming from. It simply
made everybody furious that an old speculator who always said nasty things
about the Confederacy should have so much money when we were all so
poor. Everybody was bursting to know how he managed to save his money
but no one had the courage to ask him—except me and he just laughed
and said: ‘In no honest way, you may be sure.’ You know how hard it is to
get anything sensible out of him.”
“But, of course, he made his money out of the blockade—”
“Of course, he did, honey, some of it. But that’s not a drop in the bucket
to what the man has really got. Everybody, including the Yankees, believe
he’s got millions of dollars in gold belonging to the Confederate
government hid out somewhere.”
“Millions—in gold?”
“Well, honey, where did all our Confederate gold go to? Somebody got it
and Captain Butler must be one of the somebodies. The Yankees thought
President Davis had it when he left Richmond but when they captured the
poor man he had hardly a cent. There just wasn’t any money in the
treasury when the war was over and everybody thinks some of the blockade
runners got it and are keeping quiet about it.”
“Millions—in gold! But how—”
“Didn’t Captain Butler take thousands of bales of cotton to England and
Nassau to sell for the Confederate government?” asked Pitty triumphantly.
“Not only his own cotton but government cotton too? And you know what
cotton brought in England during the war! Any price you wanted to ask!
He was a free agent acting for the government and he was supposed to sell
the cotton and buy guns with the money and run the guns in for us. Well,
when the blockade got too tight, he couldn’t bring in the guns and he
couldn’t have spent one one-hundredth of the cotton money on them
anyway, so there were simply millions of dollars in English banks put there
by Captain Butler and other blockaders, waiting till the blockade loosened.
And you can’t tell me they banked that money in the name of the
Confederacy. They put it in their own names and it’s still there….
Everybody has been talking about it ever since the surrender and criticizing
the blockaders severely, and when the Yankees arrested Captain Butler for
killing this darky they must have heard the rumor, because they’ve been at
him to tell them where the money is. You see, all of our Confederate funds
belong to the Yankees now—at least, the Yankees think so. But Captain
Butler says he doesn’t know anything…. Dr. Meade says they ought to hang
him anyhow, only hanging is too good for a thief and a profiteer— Dear,
you look so oddly! Do you feel faint? Have I upset you talking like this? I
knew he was once a beau of yours but I thought you’d fallen out long ago.
Personally, I never approved of him, for he’s such a scamp—”
“He’s no friend of mine,” said Scarlett with an effort. “I had a quarrel
with him during the siege, after you went to Macon. Where—where is he?”
“In the firehouse over near the public square!”
“In the firehouse?”
Aunt Pitty crowed with laughter.
“Yes, he’s in the firehouse. The Yankees use it for a military jail now.
The Yankees are camped in huts all round the city hall in the square and
the firehouse is just down the street, so that’s where Captain Butler is. And
Scarlett, I heard the funniest thing yesterday about Captain Butler. I forget
who told me. You know how well groomed he always was—really a dandy
—and they’ve been keeping him in the firehouse and not letting him bathe
and every day he’s been insisting that he wanted a bath and finally they led
him out of his cell onto the square and there was a long horse trough where
the whole regiment had bathed in the same water! And they told him he
could bathe there and he said No, that he preferred his own brand of
Southern dirt to Yankee dirt and—”
Scarlett heard the cheerful babbling voice going on and on but she did
not hear the words. In her mind there were only two ideas, Rhett had more
money than she had even hoped and he was in jail. The fact that he was in
jail and possibly might be hanged changed the face of matters somewhat, in
fact made them look a little brighter. She had very little feeling about
Rhett being hanged. Her need of money was too pressing, too desperate, for
her to bother about his ultimate fate. Besides, she half shared Dr. Meade’s
opinion that hanging was too good for him. Any man who’d leave a
woman stranded between two armies in the middle of the night, just to go
off and fight for a Cause already lost, deserved hanging…. If she could
somehow manage to marry him while he was in jail, all those millions
would be hers and hers alone should he be executed. And if marriage was
not possible, perhaps she could get a loan from him by promising to marry
him when he was released or by promising—oh, promising anything! And
if they hanged him, her day of settlement would never come.
For a moment her imagination flamed at the thought of being made a
widow by the kindly intervention of the Yankee government. Millions in
gold! She could repair Tara and hire hands and plant miles and miles of
cotton. And she could have pretty clothes and all she wanted to eat and so
could Suellen and Carreen. And Wade could have nourishing food to fill
out his thin cheeks and warm clothes and a governess and afterward go to
the university… and not grow up barefooted and ignorant like a Cracker.
And a good doctor could look after Pa and as for Ashley—what couldn’t
she do for Ashley!
Aunt Pittypat’s monologue broke off suddenly as she said inquiringly:
“Yes, Mammy?” and Scarlett, coming back from dreams, saw Mammy
standing in the doorway, her hands under her apron and in her eyes an
alert piercing look. She wondered how long Mammy had been standing
there and how much she had heard and observed. Probably everything, to
judge by the gleam in her old eyes.
“Miss Scarlett look lak she tared. Ah spec she better go ter bed.”
“I am tired,” said Scarlett, rising and meeting Mammy’s eyes with a
childlike, helpless look, “and I’m afraid I’m catching a cold too. Aunt Pitty,
would you mind if I stayed in bed tomorrow and didn’t go calling with you?
I can go calling any time and I’m so anxious to go to Fanny’s wedding
tomorrow night. And if my cold gets worse I won’t be able to go. And a day
in bed would be such a lovely treat for me.”
Mammy’s look changed to faint worry as she felt Scarlett’s hands and
looked into her face. She certainly didn’t look well. The excitement of her
thoughts had abruptly ebbed, leaving her white and shaking.
“Yo’ han’s lak ice, honey. You come ter bed an’ Ah’ll brew you some
sassfrass tea an’ git you a hot brick ter mek you sweat.”
“How thoughtless I’ve been,” cried the plump old lady, hopping from
her chair and patting Scarlett’s arm. “Just chattering on and not thinking of
you. Honey, you shall stay in bed all tomorrow and rest up and we can
gossip together— Oh, dear, no! I can’t be with you. I’ve promised to sit
with Mrs. Bonnell tomorrow. She is down with la grippe and so is her cook.
Mammy, I’m so glad you are here. You must go over with me in the
morning and help me.”
Mammy hurried Scarlett up the dark stairs, muttering fussy remarks
about cold hands and thin shoes and Scarlett looked meek and was well
content. If she could only lull Mammy’s suspicions further and get her out
of the house in the morning, all would be well. Then she could go to the
Yankee jail and see Rhett. As she climbed the stairs, the faint rumbling of
thunder began and, standing on the well-remembered landing, she thought
how like the siege cannon it sounded. She shivered. Forever, thunder
would mean cannon and war to her.
