Chapter - 53 | Gone with the Wind

-three
IT WAS ASHLEY’S BIRTHDAY and Melanie was giving him a surprise reception
that night. Everyone knew about the reception, except Ashley. Even Wade
and little Beau knew and were sworn to a secrecy that puffed them up with
pride. Everyone in Atlanta who was nice had been invited and was coming.
General Gordon and his family had graciously accepted, Alexander
Stephens would be present if his ever-uncertain health permitted and even
Bob Toombs, the stormy petrel of the Confederacy, was expected.
All that morning, Scarlett, with Melanie, India and Aunt Pitty, ﬂew
about the little house, directing the negroes as they hung freshly laundered
curtains, polished silver, waxed the ﬂoor and cooked, stirred and tasted the
refreshments. Scarlett had never seen Melanie so excited or so happy.
“You see, dear, Ashley hasn’t had a birthday party since—since, you
remember the barbecue at Twelve Oaks? The day we heard about Mr.
Lincoln’s call for volunteers? Well, he hasn’t had a birthday party since
then. And he works so hard and he’s so tired when he gets home at night
that he really hasn’t thought about today being his birthday. And won’t he
be surprised after supper when everybody troops in!”
“How you goin’ to manage them lanterns on the lawn without Mr.
Wilkes seein’ them when he comes home to supper?” demanded Archie
grumpily.
He had sat all morning watching the preparations, interested but
unwilling to admit it. He had never been behind the scenes at a large town
folks’ party and it was a new experience. He made frank remarks about
women running around like the house was aﬁre, just because they were
having company, but wild horses could not have dragged him from the
scene. The colored-paper lanterns which Mrs. Elsing and Fanny had made
and painted for the occasion held a special interest for him, as he had never

seen “sech contraptions” before. They had been hidden in his room in the
cellar and he had examined them minutely.
“Mercy! I hadn’t thought of that!” cried Melanie. “Archie, how
fortunate that you mentioned it. Dear, dear! What shall I do? They’ve got
to be strung on the bushes and trees and little candles put in them and
lighted just at the proper time when the guests are arriving. Scarlett, can
you send Pork down to do it while we’re eating supper?”
“Miz Wilkes, you got more sense than most women but you gits ﬂurried
right easy,” said Archie. “And as for that fool nigger, Pork, he ain’t got no
bizness with them thar contraptions. He’d set them aﬁre in no time. They
are—right pretty,” he conceded. “I’ll hang them for you, whilst you and Mr.
Wilkes are eatin’.”
“Oh, Archie, how kind of you!” Melanie turned childlike eyes of
gratitude and dependence upon him. “I don’t know what I should do
without you. Do you suppose you could go put the candles in them now, so
we’d have that much out of the way?”
“Well, I could, p’raps,” said Archie ungraciously and stumped off toward
the cellar stairs.
“There’s more ways of killing a cat than choking him to death with
butter,” giggled Melanie when the whiskered old man had thumped down
the stairs. “I had intended all along for Archie to put up those lanterns but
you know how he is. He won’t do a thing if you ask him to. And now we’ve
got him out from underfoot for a while. The darkies are so scared of him
they just won’t do any work when he’s around, breathing down their
necks.”
“Melly, I wouldn’t have that old desperado in my house,” said Scarlett
crossly. She hated Archie as much as he hated her and they barely spoke.
Melanie’s was the only house in which he would remain if she were
present. And even in Melanie’s house, he stared at her with suspicion and
cold contempt. “He’ll cause you trouble, mark my words.”
“Oh, he’s harmless if you ﬂatter him and act like you depend on him,”
said Melanie. “And he’s so devoted to Ashley and Beau that I always feel
safe having him around.”
“You mean he’s so devoted to you, Melly,” said India, her cold face
relaxing into a faintly warm smile as her gaze rested fondly on her sister-in-
law. “I believe you’re the ﬁrst person that old rufﬁan has loved since his

wife—er—since his wife. I think he’d really like for somebody to insult you,
so he could kill them to show his respect for you.”
“Mercy! How you run on, India!” said Melanie blushing. “He thinks I’m
a terrible goose and you know it.”
“Well, I don’t see that what that smelly old hill-billy thinks is of any
importance,” said Scarlett abruptly. The very thought of how Archie had
sat in judgment upon her about the convicts always enraged her. “I have to
go now. I’ve got to go get dinner and then go by the store and pay off the
clerks and go by the lumber yard and pay the drivers and Hugh Elsing.”
“Oh, are you going to the lumber yard?” asked Melanie. “Ashley is
coming into the yard in the late afternoon to see Hugh. Can you possibly
hold him there till ﬁve o’clock? If he comes home earlier he’ll be sure to
catch us ﬁnishing up a cake or something and then he won’t be surprised at
all.”
Scarlett smiled inwardly, good temper restored.
“Yes, I’ll hold him,” she said.
As she spoke, India’s pale lashless eyes met hers piercingly. “She always
looks at me so oddly when I speak of Ashley,” thought Scarlett.
“Well, hold him there as long as you can after ﬁve o’clock,” said
Melanie. “And then India will drive down and pick him up…. Scarlett, do
come early tonight. I don’t want you to miss a minute of the reception.”
As Scarlett rode home she thought sullenly: “She doesn’t want me to
miss a minute of the reception, eh? Well then, why didn’t she invite me to
receive with her and India and Aunt Pitty?”
Generally, Scarlett would not have cared whether she received at
Melly’s piddling parties or not. But this was the largest party Melanie had
ever given and Ashley’s birthday party too, and Scarlett longed to stand by
Ashley’s side and receive with him. But she knew why she had not been
invited to receive. Even had she not known it, Rhett’s comment on the
subject had been frank enough.
“A Scallawag receive when all the prominent ex-Confederates and
Democrats are going to be there? Your notions are as enchanting as they
are muddle headed. It’s only because of Miss Melly’s loyalty that you are
invited at all.”
Scarlett dressed with more than usual care that afternoon for her trip to
the store and the lumber yard, wearing the new dull-green changeable

taffeta frock that looked lilac in some lights and the new pale-green
bonnet, circled about with dark-green plumes. If only Rhett would let her
cut bangs and frizzle them on her forehead, how much better this bonnet
would look! But he had declared that he would shave her whole head if she
banged her forelocks. And these days he acted so atrociously he really
might do it.
It was a lovely afternoon, sunny but not too hot, bright but not glaring,
and the warm breeze that rustled the trees along Peachtree Street made the
plumes on Scarlett’s bonnet dance. Her heart danced too, as always when
she was going to see Ashley. Perhaps, if she paid off the team drivers and
Hugh early, they would go home and leave her and Ashley alone in the
square little ofﬁce in the middle of the lumber yard. Chances to see Ashley
alone were all too infrequent these days. And to think that Melanie had
asked her to hold him! That was funny!
Her heart was merry when she reached the store, and she paid off Willie
and the other counter boys without even asking what the day’s business
had been. It was Saturday, the biggest day of the week for the store, for all
the farmers came to town to shop that day, but she asked no questions.
Along the way to the lumber yard she stopped a dozen times to speak
with Carpetbagger ladies in splendid equipages—not so splendid as her
own, she thought with pleasure—and with many men who came through
the red dust of the street to stand hat in hand and compliment her. It was a
beautiful afternoon, she was happy, she looked pretty and her progress was a
royal one. Because of these delays she arrived at the lumber yard later than
she intended and found Hugh and the team drivers sitting on a low pile of
lumber waiting for her.
“Is Ashley here?”
“Yes, he’s in the ofﬁce,” said Hugh, the habitually worried expression
leaving his face at the sight of her happy, dancing eyes. “He’s trying to— I
mean, he’s going over the books.”
“Oh, he needn’t bother about that today,” she said and then lowering
her voice: “Melly sent me down to keep him here till they get the house
straight for the reception tonight.”
Hugh smiled for he was going to the reception. He liked parties and he
guessed Scarlett did too from the way she looked this afternoon. She paid
off the teamsters and Hugh and, abruptly leaving them, walked toward the

ofﬁce, showing plainly by her manner that she did not care to be
accompanied. Ashley met her at the door and stood in the afternoon
sunshine, his hair bright and on his lips a little smile that was almost a grin.
“Why, Scarlett, what are you doing downtown this time of the day?
Why aren’t you out at my house helping Melly get ready for the surprise
party?”
“Why, Ashley Wilkes!” she cried indignantly. “You weren’t supposed to
know a thing about it. Melly will be so disappointed if you aren’t surprised.”
“Oh, I won’t let on. I’ll be the most surprised man in Atlanta,” said
Ashley, his eyes laughing.
“Now, who was mean enough to tell you?”
“Practically every man Melly invited. General Gordon was the ﬁrst. He
said it had been his experience that when women gave surprise parties they
usually gave them on the very nights men had decided to polish and clean
all the guns in the house. And then Grandpa Merriwether warned me. He
said Mrs. Merriwether gave him a surprise party once and she was the most
surprised person there, because Grandpa had been treating his rheumatism,
on the sly, with a bottle of whisky and he was too drunk to get out of bed
and—oh, every man who’s ever had a surprise party given him told me.”
“The mean things!” cried Scarlett but she had to smile.
He looked like the old Ashley she knew at Twelve Oaks when he smiled
like this. And he smiled so seldom these days. The air was so soft, the sun
so gentle, Ashley’s face so gay, his talk so unconstrained that her heart
leaped with happiness. It swelled in her bosom until it positively ached
with pleasure, ached as with a burden of joyful, hot, unshed tears. Suddenly
she felt sixteen again and happy, a little breathless and excited. She had a
mad impulse to snatch off her bonnet and toss it into the air and cry
“Hurray!” Then she thought how startled Ashley would be if she did this,
and she suddenly laughed, laughed until tears came to her eyes. He
laughed, too, throwing back his head as though he enjoyed laughter,
thinking her mirth came from the friendly treachery of the men who had
given Melly’s secret away.
“Come in, Scarlett. I’m going over the books.”
She passed into the small room, blazing with the afternoon sun, and sat
down in the chair before the roll-topped desk. Ashley, following her, seated
himself on the corner of the rough table, his long legs dangling easily.

“Oh, don’t let’s fool with any books this afternoon, Ashley! I just can’t
be bothered. When I’m wearing a new bonnet, it seems like all the ﬁgures I
know leave my head.”
“Figures are well lost when the bonnet’s as pretty as that one,” he said.
“Scarlett, you get prettier all the time!”
He slipped from the table and, laughing, took her hands, spreading them
wide so he could see her dress. “You are so pretty! I don’t believe you’ll ever
get old!”
At his touch she realized that, without being conscious of it, she had
hoped that just this thing would happen. All this happy afternoon, she had
hoped for the warmth of his hands, the tenderness of his eyes, a word that
would show he cared. This was the ﬁrst time they had been utterly alone
since the cold day in the orchard at Tara, the ﬁrst time their hands had met
in any but formal gestures, and through the long months she had hungered
for closer contact. But now—
How odd that the touch of his hands did not excite her! Once his very
nearness would have set her a-tremble. Now she felt only a curious warm
friendliness and content. No fever leaped from his hands to hers and in his
hands her heart hushed to happy quietness. This puzzled her, made her a
little disconcerted. He was still her Ashley, still her bright, shining darling
and she loved him better than life. Then why—
But she pushed the thought from her mind. It was enough that she was
with him and he was holding her hands and smiling, completely friendly,
without strain or fever. It seemed miraculous that this could be when she
thought of all the unsaid things that lay between them. His eyes looked
into hers, clear and shining, smiling in the old way she loved, smiling as
though there had never been anything between them but happiness. There
was no barrier between his eyes and hers now, no bafﬂing remoteness. She
laughed.
“Oh, Ashley, I’m getting old and decrepit.”
“Ah, that’s very apparent! No, Scarlett, when you are sixty, you’ll look
the same to me. I’ll always remember you as you were that day of our last
barbecue, sitting under an oak with a dozen boys around you. I can even
tell you just how you were dressed, in a white dress covered with tiny green
ﬂowers and a white lace shawl about your shoulders. You had on little green
slippers with black lacings and an enormous leghorn hat with long green

streamers. I know that dress by heart because when I was in prison and
things got too bad, I’d take out my memories and thumb them over like
pictures, recalling every little detail—”
He stopped abruptly and the eager light faded from his face. He dropped
her hands gently and she sat waiting, waiting for his next words.
“We’ve come a long way, both of us, since that day, haven’t we, Scarlett?
We’ve traveled roads we never expected to travel. You’ve come swiftly,
directly, and I, slowly and reluctantly.”
He sat down on the table again and looked at her and a small smile
crept back into his face. But it was not the smile that had made her so
happy so short a while before. It was a bleak smile.
“Yes, you came swiftly, dragging me at your chariot wheels. Scarlett,
sometimes I have an impersonal curiosity as to what would have happened
to me without you.”
Scarlett went quickly to defend him from himself, more quickly because
treacherously there rose to her mind Rhett’s words on this same subject.
“But I’ve never done anything for you, Ashley. Without me, you’d have
been just the same. Some day, you’d have been a rich man, a great man like
you are going to be.”
“No, Scarlett, the seeds of greatness were never in me. I think that if it
hadn’t been for you, I’d have gone down into oblivion—like poor Cathleen
Calvert and so many other people who once had great names, old names.”
“Oh, Ashley, don’t talk like that. You sound so sad.”
“No, I’m not sad. Not any longer. Once—once I was sad. Now, I’m only
—”
He stopped and suddenly she knew what he was thinking. It was the ﬁrst
time she had ever known what Ashley was thinking when his eyes went
past her, crystal clear, absent. When the fury of love had beaten in her
heart, his mind had been closed to her. Now, in the quiet friendliness that
lay between them, she could walk a little way into his mind, understand a
little. He was not sad any longer. He had been sad after the surrender, sad
when she begged him to come to Atlanta. Now, he was only resigned.
“I hate to hear you talk like that, Ashley,” she said vehemently. “You
sound just like Rhett. He’s always harping on things like that and
something he calls the survival of the ﬁtting till I’m so bored I could
scream.”

Ashley smiled.
“Did you ever stop to think, Scarlett, that Rhett and I are fundamentally
alike?”
“Oh, no! You are so ﬁne, so honorable and he—” She broke off,
confused.
“But we are. We came of the same kind of people, we were raised in the
same pattern, brought up to think the same things. And somewhere along
the road we took different turnings. We still think alike but we react
differently. As, for instance, neither of us believed in war but I enlisted and
fought and he stayed out till nearly the end. We both knew the war was all
wrong. We both knew it was a losing ﬁght. I was willing to ﬁght a losing
ﬁght. He wasn’t. Sometimes I think he was right and then, again—”
“Oh, Ashley, when will you stop seeing both sides of questions?” she
asked. But she did not speak impatiently as she once would have done. “No
one ever gets anywhere seeing both sides.”
“That’s true but—Scarlett, just where do you want to get? I’ve often
wondered. You see, I never wanted to get anywhere at all. I’ve only wanted
to be myself.”
Where did she want to get? That was a silly question. Money and
security, of course. And yet— Her mind fumbled. She had money and as
much security as one could hope for in an insecure world. But, now that
she thought about it, they weren’t quite enough. Now that she thought
about it, they hadn’t made her particularly happy, though they had made
her less harried, less fearful of the morrow. “If I’d had money and security
and you, that would have been where I wanted to get,” she thought,
looking at him yearningly. But she did not speak the words, fearful of
breaking the spell that lay between them, fearful that his mind would close
against her.
“You only want to be yourself?” she laughed, a little ruefully. “Not being
myself has always been my hardest trouble! As to where I want to go, well,
I guess I’ve gotten there. I wanted to be rich and safe and—”
“But, Scarlett, did it ever occur to you that I don’t care whether I’m rich
or not?”
No, it had never occurred to her that anyone would not want to be rich.
“Then, what do you want?”

“I don’t know, now. I knew once but I’ve half forgotten. Mostly to be left
alone, not to be harried by people I don’t like, driven to do things I don’t
want to do. Perhaps—I want the old days back again and they’ll never
come back, and I am haunted by the memory of them and of the world
falling about my ears.”
Scarlett set her mouth obstinately. It was not that she did not know
what he meant. The very tones of his voice called up other days as nothing
else could, made her heart hurt suddenly, as she too remembered. But since
the day she had lain sick and desolate in the garden at Twelve Oaks and
said: “I won’t look back,” she had set her face against the past.
“I like these days better,” she said. But she did not meet his eyes as she
spoke. “There’s always something exciting happening now, parties and so
on. Everything’s got a glitter to it. The old days were so dull.” (Oh, lazy
days and warm still country twilights! The high soft laughter from the
quarters! The golden warmth life had then and the comforting knowledge
of what all tomorrows would bring! How can I deny you?)
“I like these days better,” she said but her voice was tremulous.
He slipped from the table, laughing softly in unbelief. Putting his hand
under her chin, he turned her face up to his.
“Ah, Scarlett, what a poor liar you are! Yes, life has a glitter now—of a
sort. That’s what’s wrong with it. The old days had no glitter but they had a
charm, a beauty, a slow-paced glamor.”
Her mind pulled two ways, she dropped her eyes. The sound of his voice,
the touch of his hand were softly un-locking doors that she had locked
forever. Behind those doors lay the beauty of the old days, and a sad hunger
for them welled up within her. But she knew that no matter what beauty
lay behind, it must remain there. No one could go forward with a load of
aching memories.
His hand dropped from her chin and he took one of her hands between
his two and held it gently.
“Do you remember,” he said—and a warning bell in her mind rang:
Don’t look back! Don’t look back!
But she swiftly disregarded it, swept forward on a tide of happiness. At
last she was understanding him, at last their minds had met. This moment
was too precious to be lost, no matter what pain came after.

“Do you remember,” he said and under the spell of his voice the bare
walls of the little ofﬁce faded and the years rolled aside and they were
riding country bridle paths together in a long-gone spring. As he spoke his
light grip tightened on her hand and in his voice was the sad magic of old
half-forgotten songs. She could hear the gay jingle of bridle bits as they
rode under the dogwood trees to the Tarletons’ picnic, hear her own
careless laughter, see the sun glinting on his silver-gilt hair and note the
proud easy grace with which he sat his horse. There was music in his voice,
the music of ﬁddles and banjos to which they had danced in the white
house that was no more. There was the far-off yelping of possum dogs in
the dark swamp under cool autumn moons and the smell of eggnog bowls,
wreathed with holly at Christmas time and smiles on black and white faces.
And old friends came trooping back, laughing as though they had not been
dead these many years: Stuart and Brent with their long legs and their red
hair and their practical jokes, Tom and Boyd as wild as young horses, Joe
Fontaine with his hot black eyes, and Cade and Raiford Calvert who
moved with such languid grace. There was John Wilkes, too; and Gerald,
red with brandy; and a whisper and a fragrance that was Ellen. Over it all
rested a sense of security, a knowledge that tomorrow could only bring the
same happiness today had brought.
His voice stopped and they looked for a long quiet moment into each
other’s eyes and between them lay the sunny lost youth that they had so
unthinkingly shared.
“Now I know why you can’t be happy,” she thought sadly. “I never
understood you before. I never understood why I wasn’t altogether happy
either. But—why, we are talking like old people talk!” she thought with
dreary surprise. “Old people looking back ﬁfty years. And we’re not old! It’s
just that so much has happened in between. Everything’s changed so much
that it seems like ﬁfty years ago. But we’re not old!”
But when she looked at Ashley he was no longer young and shining. His
head was bowed as he looked down absently at her hand which he still held
and she saw that his once bright hair was very gray, silver gray as moonlight
on still water. Somehow the bright beauty had gone from the April
afternoon and from her heart as well and the sad sweetness of remembering
was as bitter as gall.

“I shouldn’t have let him make me look back,” she thought despairingly.
“I was right when I said I’d never look back. It hurts too much, it drags at
your heart till you can’t ever do anything else except look back. That’s
what’s wrong with Ashley. He can’t look forward any more. He can’t see
the present, he fears the future, and so he looks back. I never understood it
before. I never understood Ashley before. Oh, Ashley, my darling, you
shouldn’t look back! What good will it do? I shouldn’t have let you tempt
me into talking of the old days. This is what happens when you look back
to happiness, this pain, this heartbreak, this discontent.”
She rose to her feet, her hand still in his. She must go. She could not
stay and think of the old days and see his face, tired and sad and bleak as it
now was.
“We’ve come a long way since those days, Ashley,” she said, trying to
steady her voice, trying to ﬁght the constriction in her throat. “We had ﬁne
notions then, didn’t we?” And then, with a rush, “Oh, Ashley, nothing has
turned out as we expected!”
“It never does,” he said. “Life’s under no obligation to give us what we
expect. We take what we get and are thankful it’s no worse than it is.”
Her heart was suddenly dull with pain, with weariness, as she thought of
the long road she had come since those days. There rose up in her mind the
memory of Scarlet O’Hara who loved beaux and pretty dresses and who
intended, some day, when she had the time, to be a great lady like Ellen.
Without warning, tears started in her eyes and rolled slowly down her
cheeks and she stood looking at him dumbly, like a hurt bewildered child.
He said no word but took her gently in his arms, pressed her head against
his shoulder and, leaning down, laid his cheek against hers. She relaxed
against him and her arms went round his body. The comfort of his arms
helped dry her sudden tears. Ah, it was good to be in his arms, without
passion, without tenseness, to be there as a loved friend. Only Ashley who
shared her memories and her youth, who knew her beginnings and her
present could understand.
She heard the sound of feet outside but paid little heed, thinking it was
the teamsters going home. She stood for a moment, listening to the slow
beat of Ashley’s heart. Then suddenly he wrenched himself from her,
confusing her by his violence. She looked up into his face in surprise but he
was not looking at her. He was looking over her shoulder at the door.

She turned and there stood India, white faced, her pale eyes blazing, and
Archie, malevolent as a one-eyed parrot. Behind them stood Mrs. Elsing.
* * *
How she got out of the ofﬁce she never remembered. But she went
instantly, swiftly, by Ashley’s order, leaving Ashley and Archie in grim
converse in the little room and India and Mrs. Elsing outside with their
backs to her. Shame and fear sped her homeward and, in her mind, Archie
with his patriarch’s beard assumed the proportions of an avenging angel
straight from the pages of the Old Testament.
The house was empty and still in the April sunset. All the servants had
gone to a funeral and the children were playing in Melanie’s back yard.
Melanie—
Melanie! Scarlett went cold at the thought of her as she climbed the
stairs to her room. Melanie would hear of this. India had said she would tell
her. Oh, India would glory in telling her, not caring if she blackened
Ashley’s name, not caring if she hurt Melanie, if by so doing she could
injure Scarlett! And Mrs. Elsing would talk too, even though she had really
seen nothing, because she was behind India and Archie in the door of the
lumber ofﬁce. But she would talk, just the same. The news would be all
over town by supper time. Everyone, even the negroes, would know by
tomorrow’s breakfast. At the party tonight, women would gather in corners
and whisper discreetly and with malicious pleasure. Scarlett Butler tumbled
from her high and mighty place! And the story would grow and grow.
There was no way of stopping it. It wouldn’t stop at the bare facts, that
Ashley was holding her in his arms while she cried. Before nightfall people
would be saying she had been taken in adultery. And it had been so
innocent, so sweet! Scarlett thought wildly: If we had been caught that
Christmas of his furlough when I kissed him good-by—if we had been
caught in the orchard at Tara when I begged him to run away with me—
oh, if we’d been caught any of the times when we were really guilty, it
wouldn’t be so bad! But now! Now! When I went to his arms as a friend—
But no one would believe that. She wouldn’t have a single friend to take
her part, not a single voice would be raised to say: “I don’t believe she was

doing anything wrong.” She had outraged old friends too long to ﬁnd a
champion among them now. Her new friends, suffering in silence under her
insolences, would welcome a chance to blackguard her. No, everybody
would believe anything about her, though they might regret that so ﬁne a
man as Ashley Wilkes was mixed up in so dirty an affair. As usual they
would cast the blame upon the woman and shrug at the man’s guilt. And in
this case they would be right. She had gone into his arms.
Oh, she could stand the cuts, the slights, the covert smiles, anything the
town might say, if she had to stand them—but not Melanie! Oh, not
Melanie! She did not know why she should mind Melanie knowing, more
than anyone else. She was too frightened and weighed down by a sense of
past guilt to try to understand it. But she burst into tears at the thought of
what would be in Melanie’s eyes when India told her that she had caught
Ashley fondling Scarlett. And what would Melanie do when she knew?
Leave Ashley? What else could she do, with any dignity? And what will
Ashley and I do then? she thought frenziedly, the tears streaming down her
face. Oh, Ashley will die of shame and hate me for bringing this on him.
Suddenly her tears stopped short as a deadly fear went through her heart.
What of Rhett? What would he do?
Perhaps he’d never know. What was that old saying, that cynical saying?
“The husband is always the last to ﬁnd out.” Perhaps no one would tell
him. It would take a brave man to break such news to Rhett, for Rhett had
the reputation for shooting ﬁrst and asking questions afterwards. Please,
God, don’t let anybody be brave enough to tell him! But she remembered
the face of Archie in the lumber ofﬁce, the cold, pale eye, remorseless, full
of hate for her and all women. Archie feared neither God nor man and he
hated loose women. He had hated them enough to kill one. And he had
said he would tell Rhett. And he’d tell him in spite of all Ashley could do
to dissuade him. Unless Ashley killed him, Archie would tell Rhett, feeling
it his Christian duty.
She pulled off her clothes and lay down on the bed, her mind whirling
round and round. If she could only lock her door and stay in this safe place
forever and ever and never see anyone again. Perhaps Rhett wouldn’t ﬁnd
out tonight. She’d say she had a headache and didn’t feel like going to the
reception. By morning she would have thought up some excuse to offer,
some defense that might hold water.

“I won’t think of it now,” she said desperately, burying her face in the
pillow. “I won’t think of it now. I’ll think of it later when I can stand it.”
She heard the servants come back as night fell and it seemed to her that
they were very silent as they moved about preparing supper. Or was it her
guilty conscience? Mammy came to the door and knocked but Scarlett sent
her away, saying she did not want any supper. Time passed and ﬁnally she
heard Rhett coming up the steps. She held herself tensely as he reached the
upper hall, gathered all her strength for a meeting but he passed into his
room. She breathed easier. He hadn’t heard. Thank God, he still respected
her icy request that he never put foot in her bedroom again, for if he saw
her now, her face would give her away. She must gather herself together
enough to tell him that she felt too ill to go to the reception. Well, there
was time enough for her to calm herself. Or was there time? Since the awful
moment that afternoon, life had seemed timeless. She heard Rhett moving
about in his room for a long time, speaking occasionally to Pork. Still she
could not ﬁnd courage to call to him. She lay still on the bed in the
darkness, shaking.
After a long time, he knocked on her door and she said, trying to
control her voice: “Come in.”
“Am I actually being invited into the sanctuary?” he questioned,
opening the door. It was dark and she could not see his face. Nor could she
make anything of his voice. He entered and closed the door.
“Are you ready for the reception?”
“I’m so sorry but I have a headache.” How odd that her voice sounded
natural! Thank God for the dark! “I don’t believe I’ll go. You go, Rhett,
and give Melanie my regrets.”
There was a long pause and he spoke drawlingly, bitingly in the dark.
“What a white livered, cowardly little bitch you are.”
He knew! She lay shaking, unable to speak. She heard him fumble in
the dark, strike a match and the room sprang into light. He walked over to
the bed and looked down at her. She saw that he was in evening clothes.
“Get up,” he said and there was nothing in his voice. “We are going to
the reception. You will have to hurry.”
“Oh, Rhett, I can’t. You see—”
“I can see. Get up.”
“Rhett, did Archie dare—”

“Archie dared. A very brave man, Archie.”
“You should have killed him for telling lies—”
“I have a strange way of not killing people who tell the truth. There’s no
time to argue now. Get up.”
She sat up, hugging her wrapper close to her, her eyes searching his face.
It was dark and impassive.
“I won’t go, Rhett. I can’t until this—misunderstanding is cleared up.”
“If you don’t show your face tonight, you’ll never be able to show it in
this town as long as you live. And while I may endure a trollop for a wife, I
won’t endure a coward. You are going tonight, even if everyone, from Alex
Stephens down, cuts you and Mrs. Wilkes asks us to leave the house.”
“Rhett, let me explain.”
“I don’t want to hear. There isn’t time. Get on your clothes.”
“They misunderstood—India and Mrs. Elsing and Archie. And they
hate me so. India hates me so much that she’d even tell lies about her own
brother to make me appear in a bad light. If you’ll only let me explain—”
“Oh, Mother of God,” she thought in agony, “suppose he says: ‘Pray do
explain!’ What can I say? How can I explain?”
“They’ll have told everybody lies. I can’t go tonight.”
“You will go,” he said, “if I have to drag you by the neck and plant my
boot on your ever so charming bottom every step of the way.”
There was a cold glitter in his eyes as he jerked her to her feet. He
picked up her stays and threw them at her.
“Put them on. I’ll lace you. Oh yes, I know all about lacing. No, I won’t
call Mammy to help you and have you lock the door and skulk here like
the coward you are.”
“I’m not a coward,” she cried, stung out of her fear. “I—”
“Oh, spare me your saga about shooting Yankees and facing Sherman’s
army. You’re a coward—among other things. If not for your own sake, you
are going tonight for Bonnie’s sake. How could you further ruin her
chances? Put on your stays, quick.”
Hastily she slipped off her wrapper and stood clad only in her chemise.
If only he would look at her and see how nice she looked in her chemise,
perhaps that frightening look would leave his face. After all, he hadn’t seen
her in her chemise for ever and ever so long. But he did not look. He was
in her closet, going through her dresses swiftly. He fumbled and drew out

her new jade-green watered-silk dress. It was cut low over the bosom and
the skirt was draped back over an enormous bustle and on the bustle was a
huge bunch of pink velvet roses.
“Wear that,” he said, tossing it on the bed and coming toward her. “No
modest, matronly dove grays and lilacs tonight. Your ﬂag must be nailed to
the mast, for obviously you’d run it down if it wasn’t. And plenty of rouge.
I’m sure the woman the Pharisees took in adultery didn’t look half so pale.
Turn around.”
He took the strings of the stays in his hands and jerked them so hard
that she cried out, frightened, humiliated, embarrassed at such an untoward
performance.
“Hurts, does it?” He laughed shortly and she could not see his face. “Pity
it isn’t around your neck.”
Melanie’s house blazed lights from every room and they could hear the
music far up the street. As they drew up in front, the pleasant exciting
sounds of many people enjoying themselves ﬂoated out. The house was
packed with guests. They overﬂowed on verandas and many were sitting on
the benches in the dim lantern-hung yard.
“I can’t go in—I can’t,” thought Scarlett, sitting in the carriage, gripping
her balled-up handkerchief. “I can’t. I won’t. I will jump out and run away,
somewhere, back home to Tara. Why did Rhett force me to come here?
What will people do? What will Melanie do? What will she look like? Oh, I
can’t face her. I will run away.”
As though he read her mind, Rhett’s hand closed upon her arm in a grip
that would leave a bruise, the rough grip of a careless stranger.
“I’ve never known an Irishman to be a coward. Where’s your much-
vaunted courage?”
“Rhett, do please, let me go home and explain.”
“You have eternity in which to explain and only one night to be a
martyr in the amphitheater. Get out, darling, and let me see the lions eat
you. Get out.”
She went up the walk somehow, the arm she was holding as hard and
steady as granite, communicating to her some courage. By God, she could
face them and she would. What were they but a bunch of howling, clawing
cats who were jealous of her? She’d show them. She didn’t care what they
thought. Only Melanie—only Melanie.

They were on the porch and Rhett was bowing right and left, his hat in
his hand, his voice cool and soft. The music stopped as they entered and
the crowd of people seemed to her confused mind to surge up to her like
the roar of the sea and then ebb away, with lessening, ever-lessening sound.
Was everyone going to cut her? Well, God’s nightgown, let them do it! Her
chin went up and she smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling.
Before she could turn to speak to those nearest the door, someone came
through the press of people. There was an odd hush that caught at
Scarlett’s heart. Then through the lane came Melanie on small feet that
hurried, hurried to meet Scarlett at the door, to speak to her before anyone
else could speak. Her narrow shoulders were squared and her small jaw set
indignantly and, for all her notice, she might have had no other guest but
Scarlett. She went to her side and slipped an arm about her waist.
“What a lovely dress, darling,” she said in her small, clear voice. “Will
you be an angel? India was unable to come tonight and assist me. Will you
receive with me?”