scarlett saw it all, lived with it by day, took it to bed with her at night, dreading alwayswhat might happen next. she knew that she and frank were already in the yankees’ black books,because of tony, and disaster might descend on them at any hour. but, now of all times, she couldnot afford to be pushed back to her beginnings—not now with a baby coming, the mill justcommencing to pay and tara depending on her for money until the cotton came in in the fall. oh,suppose she should lose everything! suppose she should have to start all over again with only herpuny weapons against this mad world! to have to pit her red lips and green eyes and her shrewdshallow brain against the yankees and everything the yankees stood for. weary with dread, she feltthat she would rather kill herself than try to make a new beginning.
in the ruin and chaos of that spring of 1866, she single mindedly turned her energies to makingthe mill pay. there was money in atlanta. the wave of rebuilding was giving her the opportunityshe wanted and she knew she could make money if only she could stay out of jail. but, she toldherself time and again, she would have to walk easily, gingerly, be meek under insults, yielding toinjustices, never giving offense to anyone, black or white, who might do her harm. she hated theimpudent free negroes as much as anyone and her flesh crawled with fury every time she heardtheir insulting remarks and high-pitched laughter as she went by. but she never even gave them aglance of contempt. she hated the carpetbaggers and scalawags who were getting rich with easewhile she struggled, but she said nothing in condemnation of them. no one in atlanta could haveloathed the yankees more than she, for the very sight of a blue uniform made her sick with rage,but even in the privacy of her family she kept silent about them.
i won’t be a big-mouthed fool, she thought grimly. let others break their hearts over the olddays and the men who’ll never come back. let others burn with fury over the yankee rule andlosing the ballot. let others go to jail for speaking their minds and get themselves hanged for beingin the ku klux klan. (oh, what a dreaded name that was, almost as terrifying to scarlett as to thenegroes.) let other women be proud that their husbands belonged. thank god, frank had neverbeen mixed up in it! let others stew and fume and plot and plan about things they could not help.
what did the past matter compared with the tense present and the dubious future? what did the ballot matter when bread, a roof and staying out of jail were the real problems? and, please god,just let me stay out of trouble until june!
only till june! by that month scarlett knew she would be forced to retire into aunt pitty’s houseand remain secluded there until after her child was born. already people were criticizing her forappearing in public when she was in such a condition. no lady ever showed herself when she waspregnant. already frank and pitty were begging her not to expose herself—and them—toembarrassment and she had promised them to stop work in june.
only till june! by june she must have the mill well enough established for her to leave it. byjune she must have money enough to give her at least some little protection against misfortune. somuch to do and so little time to do it! she wished for more hours of the day and counted theminutes, as she strained forward feverishly in her pursuit of money and still more money.
because she nagged the timid frank, the store was doing better now and he was even collectingsome of the old bills. but it was the sawmill on which her hopes were pinned. atlanta these dayswas like a giant plant which had been cut to the ground but now was springing up again withsturdier shoots, thicker foliage, more numerous branches. the demand for building materials wasfar greater than could be supplied. prices of lumber, brick and stone soared and scarlett kept themill running from dawn until lantern light.
a part of every day she spent at the mill, prying into everything, doing her best to check thethievery she felt sure was going on. but most of the time she was riding about the town, makingthe rounds of builders, contractors and carpenters, even calling on strangers she had heard mightbuild at future dates, cajoling them into promises of buying from her and her only.
soon she was a familiar sight on atlanta’s streets, sitting in her buggy beside the dignified,disapproving old darky driver, a lap robe pulled high about her, her little mittened hands clasped inher lap. aunt pitty had made her a pretty green mantelet which hid her figure and a green pancakehat which matched her eyes, and she always wore these becoming garments on her business calls.
a faint dab of rouge on her cheeks and a fainter fragrance of cologne made her a charming picture,as long as she did not alight from the buggy and show her figure. and there was seldom any needfor this, for she smiled and beckoned and the men came quickly to the buggy and frequently stoodbareheaded in the rain to talk business with her.
she was not the only one who had seen the opportunities for making money out of lumber, butshe did not fear her competitors. she knew with conscious pride in her own smartness that she wasthe equal of any of them. she was gerald’s own daughter and the shrewd trading instinct she hadinherited was now sharpened by her needs.
at first the other dealers had laughed at her, laughed with good-natured contempt at the veryidea of a woman in business. but now they did not laugh. they swore silently as they saw her rideby. the fact that she was a woman frequently worked in her favor, for she could upon occasionlook so helpless and appealing that she melted hearts. with no difficulty whatever she couldmutely convey the impression of a brave but timid lady, forced by brutal circumstance into adistasteful position, a helpless little lady who would probably starve if customers didn’t buy herlumber. but when ladylike airs failed to get results she was coldly businesslike and willinglyundersold her competitors at a loss to herself if it would bring her a new customer. she was not above selling a poor grade of lumber for the price of good lumber if she thought she would not bedetected, and she had no scruples about blackguarding the other lumber dealers. with everyappearance of reluctance at disclosing the unpleasant truth, she would sigh and tell prospectivecustomers that her competitors’ lumber was far too high in price, rotten, full of knot holes and ingeneral of deplorably poor quality.
the first time scarlett lied in this fashion she felt disconcerted and guilty—disconcerted becausethe lie sprang so easily and naturally to her lips, guilty because the thought flashed into her mind:
what would mother say?
there was no doubt what ellen would say to a daughter who told lies and engaged in sharppractices. she would be stunned and incredulous and would speak gentle words that stung despitetheir gentleness, would talk of honor and honesty and truth and duty to one’s neighbor. momentarily,scarlett cringed as she pictured the look on her mother’s face. and then the picturefaded, blotted out by an impulse, hard, unscrupulous and greedy, which had been born in the leandays at tara and was now strengthened by the present uncertainty of life. so she passed thismilestone as she had passed others before it—with a sigh that she was not as ellen would like herto be, a shrug and the repetition of her unfailing charm: “i’ll think of all this later.”
but she never again thought of ellen in connection with her business practices, never againregretted any means she used to take trade away from other lumber dealers. she knew she wasperfectly safe in lying about them. southern chivalry protected her. a southern lady could lie abouta gentleman but a southern gentleman could not lie about a lady or, worse still, call the lady a liar.
other lumbermen could only fume inwardly and state heatedly, in the bosoms of their families, thatthey wished to god mrs. kennedy was a man for just about five minutes.
one poor white who operated a mill on the decatur road did try to fight scarlett with her ownweapons, saying openly that she was a liar and a swindler. but it hurt him rather than helped, foreveryone was appalled that even a poor white should say such shocking things about a lady ofgood family, even when the lady was conducting herself in such an unwomanly way. scarlett borehis remarks with silent dignity and, as time went by, she turned all her attention to him and hiscustomers. she undersold him so relentlessly and delivered, with secret groans, such an excellentquality of lumber to prove her probity that he was soon bankrupt. then, to frank’s horror, shetriumphantly bought his mill at her own price.
once in her possession there arose the perplexing problem of finding a trustworthy man to put incharge of it. she did not want another man like mr. johnson. she knew that despite all herwatchfulness he was still selling her lumber behind her back, but she thought it would be easy tofind the right sort of man. wasn’t everybody as poor as job’s turkey, and weren’t the streets full ofmen, some of them formerly rich, who were without work? the day never went by that frank didnot give money to some hungry ex-soldier or that pitty and cookie did not wrap up food for gauntbeggars.
but scarlett, for some reason she could not understand, did not want any of these. “i don’t wantmen who haven’t found something to do after a year,” she thought. “if they haven’t adjusted topeace yet, they couldn’t adjust to me. and they all look so hangdog and licked. i don’t want a manwho’s licked. i want somebody who’s smart and energetic like renny or tommy wellburn or kells whiting or one of the simmons boys or—or any of that tribe. they haven’t got that i-don’t-careabout-anything look the soldiers had right after the surrender. they look like they cared a heapabout a heap of things.”
but to her surprise the simmons boys, who had started a brick kiln, and kells whiting, who wasselling a preparation made up in his mother’s kitchen, that was guaranteed to straighten the lankiestnegro hair in six applications, smiled politely, thanked her and refused. it was the same with thedozen others she approached. in desperation she raised the wage she was offering but she was stillrefused. one of mrs. merriwether’s nephews observed impertinently that while he didn’tespecially enjoy driving a dray, it was his own dray and he would rather get somewhere under hisown steam than scarlett’s.
one afternoon, scarlett pulled up her buggy beside rené picard’s pie wagon and hailed renéand the crippled tommy wellburn, who was catching a ride home with his friend.
“look here, renny, why don’t you come and work for me? managing a mill is a sight morerespectable than driving a pie wagon. i’d think, you’d be ashamed.”
“me, i am dead to shame,” grinned rené. “who would be respectable? all of my days i wasrespectable until ze war set me free lak ze darkies. nevaire again must i be deegneefied and full ofennui. free lak ze bird! i lak my pie wagon. i lak my mule. i lak ze dear yankees who so kindlybuy ze pie of madame belle mère. no, my scarlett, i must be ze king of ze pies. eet ees my destiny!
lak napoleon, i follow my star.” he flourished his whip dramatically.
“but you weren’t raised to sell pies any more than tommy was raised to wrastle with a bunch ofwild irish masons. my kind of work is more—”
“and i suppose you were raised to run a lumber mill,” said tommy, the corners of his mouthtwitching. “yes, i can just see little scarlett at her mother’s knee, lisping her lesson, ‘never sellgood lumber if you can get a better price for bad.’ ”
rené roared at this, his small monkey eyes dancing with glee as he whacked tommy on histwisted back.
“don’t be impudent,” said scarlett coldly, for she saw little humor in tommy’s remark. “ofcourse, i wasn’t raised to run a sawmill.”
“i didn’t mean to be impudent. but you are running a sawmill, whether you were raised to it ornot. and running it very well, too. well, none of us, as far as i can see, are doing what we intendedto do right now, but i think well make out just the same. it’s a poor person and a poor nation thatsits down and cries because life isn’t precisely what they expected it to be. why don’t you pick upsome enterprising carpetbagger to work for you, scarlett? the woods are full of them, godknows.”
“i don’t want a carpetbagger. carpetbaggers will steal anything that isn’t red hot or naileddown. if they amounted to anything they’d have stayed where they were, instead of coming downhere to pick our bones. i want a nice man, from nice folks, who is smart and honest and energeticand—”
“you don’t want much. and you won’t get it for the wage you’re offering. all the men of that description, barring the badly maimed ones, have already got something to do. they may be roundpegs in square holes but they’ve all got something to do. something of their own that they’d ratherdo than work for a woman.”
“men haven’t got much sense, have they, when you get down to rock bottom?”
“maybe not but they’ve got a heap of pride,” said tommy soberly.
“pride! pride tastes awfully good, especially when the crust is flaky and you put meringue onit,” said scarlett tartly.
the two men laughed, a bit unwillingly, and it seemed to scarlett that they drew together inunited masculine disapproval of her. what tommy said was true, she thought, running over in hermind the men she had approached and the ones she intended to approach. they were all busy, busyat something, working hard, working harder than they would have dreamed possible in the daysbefore the war. they weren’t doing what they wanted to do perhaps, or what was easiest to do, orwhat they had been reared to do, but they were doing something. times were too hard for men tobe choosy. and if they were sorrowing for lost hopes, longing for lost ways of living, no one knewit but they. they were fighting a new war, a harder war than the one before. and they were caringabout life again, caring with the same urgency and the same violence that animated them beforethe war had cut their lives in two.
“scarlett,” said tommy awkwardly, “i do hate to ask a favor of you, after being impudent toyou, but i’m going to ask it just the same. maybe it would help you anyway. my brother-in-law,hugh elsing, isn’t doing any too well peddling kindling wood. everybody except the yankees goesout and collects his own kindling wood. and i know things are mighty hard with the whole elsingfamily. i—i do what i can, but you see i’ve got fanny to support, and then, too, i’ve got mymother and two widowed sisters down in sparta to look after. hugh is nice, and you wanted a niceman, and he’s from nice folks, as you know, and he’s honest.”
“but—well, hugh hasn’t got much gumption or else he’d make a success of his kindling.”
tommy shrugged.
“you’ve got a hard way of looking at things, scarlett,” he said. “but you think hugh over. youcould go far and do worse. i think his honesty and his willingness will outweigh his lack ofgumption.”
scarlett did not answer, for she did not want to be too rude. but to her mind there were few, ifany, qualities that out-weighed gumption.
after she had unsuccessfully canvassed the town and refused the importuning of many eagercarpetbaggers, she finally decided to take tommy’s suggestion and ask hugh elsing. he had beena dashing and resourceful officer during the war, but two severe wounds and four years of fightingseemed to have drained him of all his resourcefulness, leaving him to face the rigors of peace asbewildered as a child. there was a lost-dog look in his eyes these days as he went about peddlinghis firewood, and he was not at all the kind of man she had hoped to get.
“he’s stupid,” she thought. “he doesn’t know a thing about business and i’ll bet he can’t addtwo and two. and i doubt if he’ll ever learn. but, at least, he’s honest and won’t swindle me.”
scarlett had little use these days for honesty in herself, but the less she valued it in herself themore she was beginning to value it in others.
“it’s a pity johnnie gallegher is tied up with tommy wellburn on that construction work,” shethought. “he’s just the kind of man i want he’s hard as nails and slick as a snake, but he’d behonest if it paid him to be honest i understand him and he understands me and we could dobusiness together very well. maybe i can get him when the hotel is finished and till then i’ll haveto make out on hugh and mr. johnson. if i put hugh in charge of the new mill and leave mr.
johnson at the old one, i can stay in town and see to the selling while they handle the milling andhauling. until i can get johnnie i’ll have to risk mr. johnson robbing me if i stay in town all thetime. if only he wasn’t a thief! i believe i’ll build a lumber yard on half that lot charles left me. ifonly frank didn’t holler so loud about me building a saloon on the other half! well, i shall buildthe saloon just as soon as i get enough money ahead, no matter how he takes on. if only frankwasn’t so thin skinned. oh, god, if only i wasn’t going to have a baby at this of all times! in a littlewhile i’ll be so big i can’t go out. oh, god, if only i wasn’t going to have a baby! and oh, god, ifthe damned yankees will only let me alone! if—”
if! if! if! there were so many ifs in life, never any certainty of anything, never any sense ofsecurity, always the dread of losing everything and being cold and hungry again. of course, frankwas making a little more money now, but frank was always ailing with colds and frequently forcedto stay in bed for days. suppose he should become an invalid. no, she could not afford to count onfrank for much. she must not count on anything or anybody but herself. and what she could earnseemed so pitiably small. oh, what would she do if the yankees came and took it all away fromher? if! if! if!
half of what she made every month went to will at tara, part to rhett to repay his loan and therest she hoarded. no miser ever counted his gold oftener than she and no miser ever had greaterfear of losing it. she would not put the money in the bank, for it might fail or the yankees mightconfiscate it. so she carried what she could with her, tucked into her corset, and hid small wads ofbills about the house, under loose bricks on the hearth, in her scrap bag, between the pages of thebible. and her temper grew shorter and shorter as the weeks went by, for every dollar she savedwould be just one more dollar to lose if disaster descended.
frank, pitty and the servants bore her outbursts with maddening kindness, attributing her baddisposition to her pregnancy, never realizing the true cause. frank knew that pregnant women mustbe humored, so he put his pride in his pocket and said nothing more about her running the millsand her going about town at such a time, as no lady should do. her conduct was a constantembarrassment to him but he reckoned he could endure it for a while longer. after the baby came,he knew she would be the same sweet feminine girl he had courted. but in spite of everything hedid to appease her, she continued to have her tantrums and often he thought she acted like onepossessed.
no one seemed to realize what really possessed her, what drove her like a mad woman. it was apassion to get her affairs in order before she had to retire behind doors, to have as much money aspossible in case the deluge broke upon her again, to have a stout levee of cash against the risingtide of yankee hate. money was the obsession dominating her mind these days. when she thoughtof the baby at all, it was with baffled rage at the untimeliness of it.
“death and taxes and childbirth! there’s never any convenient time for any of them!”
atlanta had been scandalized enough when scarlett, a woman, began operating the sawmill butas time went by, the town decided there was no limit to what she would do. her sharp trading wasshocking, especially when her poor mother had been a robillard, and it was positively indecent theway she kept on going about the streets when everyone knew she was pregnant. no respectablewhite woman and few negroes ever went outside their homes from the moment they first suspectedthey were with child, and mrs. merriwether declared indignantly that from the way scarlett wasacting she was likely to have the baby on the public streets.
but all the previous criticism of her conduct was as nothing compared with the buzz of gossipthat now went through the town. scarlett was not only trafficking with the yankees but was givingevery appearance of really liking it!
mrs. merriwether and many other southerners were also doing business with the newcomersfrom the north, but the difference was that they did not like it and plainly showed they did not likeit. and scarlett did, or seemed to, which was just as bad. she had actually taken tea with theyankee officers’ wives in their homes! in fact, she had done practically everything short of invitingthem into her own home, and the town guessed she would do even that, except for aunt pitty andfrank.
scarlett knew the town was talking but she did not care, could not afford to care. she still hatedthe yankees with as fierce a hate as on the day when they tried to burn tara, but she coulddissemble that hate. she knew that if she was going to make money, she would have to make it outof the yankees, and she had learned that buttering them up with smiles and kind words was thesurest way to get their business for her mill.
some day when she was very rich and her money was hidden away where the yankees could notfind it, then, then she would tell them exactly what she thought of them, tell them how she hatedand loathed and despised them. and what a joy that would be! but until that time came, it was justplain common sense to get along with them. and if that was hypocrisy, let atlanta make the mostof it.
she discovered that making friends with the yankee officers was as easy as shooting birds on theground. they were lonely exiles in a hostile land and many of them were starved for politefeminine associations in a town where respectable women drew their skirts aside in passing andlooked as if they would like to spit on them. only the prostitutes and the negro women had kindwords for them. but scarlett was obviously a lady and a lady of family, for all that she worked, andthey thrilled to her flashing smile and the pleasant light in her green eyes.
frequently when scarlett sat in her buggy talking to them and making her dimples play, herdislike for them rose so strong that it was hard not to curse them to their faces. but she restrainedherself and she found that twisting yankee men around her finger was no more difficult than thatsame diversion had been with southern men. only this was no diversion but a grim business. therole she enacted was that of a refined sweet southern lady in distress. with an air of dignifiedreserve she was able to keep her victims at their proper distance, but there was nevertheless a graciousness in her manner which left a certain warmth in the yankee officers’ memories of mrs.
kennedy.
this warmth was very profitable—as scarlett had intended it to be. many of the officers of thegarrison, not knowing how long they would be stationed in atlanta, had sent for their wives andfamilies. as the hotels and boarding houses were overflowing, they were building small houses;and they were glad to buy their lumber from the gracious mrs. kennedy, who treated them morepolitely than anyone else in town. the carpetbaggers and scalawags also, who were building finehomes and stores and hotels with their new wealth, found it more pleasant to do business with herthan with the former confederate soldiers who were courteous but with a courtesy more formaland cold than outspoken hate.
so, because she was pretty and charming and could appear quite helpless and forlorn at times,they gladly patronized her lumber yard and also frank’s store, feeling that they should help aplucky little woman who apparently had only a shiftless husband to support her. and scarlett,watching the business grow, felt that she was safeguarding not only the present with yankee moneybut the future with yankee friends.
keeping her relations with the yankee officers on the plane she desired was easier man sheexpected, for they all seemed to be in awe of southern ladies, but scarlett soon found that theirwives presented a problem she had not anticipated. contacts with the yankee women were not ofher seeking. she would have been glad to avoid them but she could not, for the officers’ wiveswere determined to meet her. they had an avid curiosity about the south and southern women,and scarlett gave them their first opportunity to satisfy it. other atlanta women would havenothing to do with them and even refused to bow to them in church, so when business broughtscarlett to their homes, she was like an answer to prayer. often when scarlett sat in her buggy infront of a yankee home talking of uprights and shingles with the man of the house, the wife cameout to join in the conversation or insist that she come inside for a cup of tea. scarlett seldomrefused, no matter how distasteful the idea might be, for she always hoped to have an opportunityto suggest tactfully that they do their trading at frank’s store. but her self-control was severelytested many times, because of the personal questions they asked and because of the smug andcondescending attitude they displayed toward all things southern.
accepting uncle tom’s cabin as revelation second only to the bible, the yankee women allwanted to know about the bloodhounds which every southerner kept to track down runawayslaves. and they never believed her when she told them she had only seen one bloodhound in allher life and it was a small mild dog and not a huge ferocious mastiff. they wanted to know aboutthe dreadful branding irons which planters used to mark the faces of their slaves and the cat-o’nine-tails with which they beat them to death, and they evidenced what scarlett felt was a verynasty and ill-bred interest in slave concubinage. especially did she resent this in view of theenormous increase in mulatto babies in atlanta since the yankee soldiers had settled in the town.
any other atlanta woman would have expired in rage at having to listen to such bigotedignorance but scarlett managed to control herself. assisting her in this was the fact that theyaroused her contempt more than her anger. after all, they were yankees and no one expected anythingbetter from yankees. so their unthinking insults to her state, her people and their morals,glanced off and never struck deep enough to cause her more than a well-concealed sneer until an incident occurred which made her sick with rage and showed her, if she needed any showing, howwide was the gap between north and south and how utterly impossible it was to bridge it.
while driving home with uncle peter one afternoon, she passed the house into which werecrowded the families of three officers who were building their own homes with scarlett’s lumber.
the three wives were standing in the walk as she drove by and they waved to her to stop. comingout to the carriage block they greeted her in accents that always made her feel that one couldforgive yankees almost anything except their voices.
“you are just the person i want to see, mrs. kennedy,” said a tall thin woman from maine. “iwant to get some information about this benighted town.”
scarlett swallowed the insult to atlanta with the contempt it deserved and smiled her best.
“and what can i tell you?”
“my nurse, my bridget, has gone back north. she said she wouldn’t stay another day down hereamong the ‘nay-gurs’ as she calls them. and the children are just driving me distracted! do tell mehow to go about getting another nurse. i do not know where to apply.”
that shouldn’t be difficult,” said scarlett and laughed. “if you can find a darky just in from thecountry who hasn’t been spoiled by the freedmen’s bureau, you’ll have the best kind of servantpossible. just stand at your gate here and ask every darky woman who passes and i’m sure—”
the three women broke into indignant outcries.
“do you think i’d trust my babies to a black nigger?” cried the maine woman. “i want a goodirish girl.”
“i’m afraid you’ll find no irish servants in atlanta,” answered scarlett, coolness in her voice.
“personally, i’ve never seen a white servant and i shouldn’t care to have one in my house. and,”
she could not keep a slight note of sarcasm from her words, “i assure you that darkies aren’tcannibals and are quite trustworthy.”
“goodness, no! i wouldn’t have one in my house. the idea!”
“i wouldn’t trust them any farther than i could see them and as for letting them handle mybabies ...”
scarlett thought of the kind, gnarled hands of mammy worn rough in ellen’s service and hersand wade’s. what did these strangers know of black hands, how dear and comforting they couldbe, how unerringly they knew how to soothe, to pat, to fondle? she laughed shortly.
“it’s strange you should feel that way when it was you all who freed them.”
“lor’! not i, dearie,” laughed the maine woman. “i never saw a nigger till i came south lastmonth and i don’t care if i never see another. they give me the creeps. i wouldn’t trust one ofthem. ...”
for some moments scarlett had been conscious that uncle peter was breathing hard and sittingup very straight as he stared steadily at the horse’s ears. her attention was called to him moreforcibly when the maine woman broke off suddenly with a laugh and pointed him out to hercompanions.
“look at that old nigger swell up like a toad,” she giggled. “i’ll bet he’s an old pet of yours, isn’the? you southerners don’t know how to treat niggers. you spoil them to death.”
peter sucked in his breath and his wrinkled brow showed deep furrows but he kept his eyesstraight ahead. he had never had the term “nigger” applied to him by a white person in all his life.
by other negroes, yes. but never by a white person. and to be called untrustworthy and an “oldpet,” he, peter, who had been the dignified mainstay of the hamilton family for years!
scarlett felt, rather than saw, the black chin begin to shake with hurt pride, and a killing rageswept over her. she had listened with calm contempt while these women had underrated theconfederate army, blackguarded jeff davis and accused southerners of murder and torture of theirslaves. if it were to her advantage she would have endured insults about her own virtue andhonesty. but the knowledge that they had hurt the faithful old darky with their stupid remarks firedher like a match in gunpowder. for a moment she looked at the big horse pistol in peter’s belt andher hands itched for the feel of it. they deserved killing, these insolent, ignorant, arrogantconquerors. but she bit down on her teeth until her jaw muscles stood out, reminding herself thatthe time had not yet come when she could tell the yankees just what she thought of them. someday, yes. my god, yes! but not yet.
“uncle peter is one of our family,” she said, her voice shaking. “good afternoon. drive on,peter.”
peter laid the whip on the horse so suddenly that the startled animal jumped forward and as thebuggy jounced off, scarlett heard the maine woman say with puzzled accents: “her family? youdon’t suppose she meant a relative? he’s exceedingly black.”
god damn them! they ought to be wiped off the face of the earth. if ever i get money enough,i’ll spit in all their faces! i’ll—she glanced at peter and saw that a tear was trickling down his nose. instantly a passion oftenderness, of grief for his humiliation swamped her, made her eyes sting. it was as thoughsomeone had been senselessly brutal to a child. those women had hurt uncle peter—peter whohad been through the mexican war with old colonel hamilton, peter who had held his master inhis arms when he died, who had raised melly and charles and looked after the feckless, foolishpittypat, “pertecked” her when she refugeed, and “ ‘quired” a horse to bring her back from maconthrough a war-torn country after the surrender. and they said they wouldn’t trust niggers!
“peter,” she said, her voice breaking as she put her hand on his thin arm. “i’m ashamed of youfor crying. what do you care? they aren’t anything but damned yankees!”
“dey talked in front of me lak ah wuz a mule an’ couldn’ unnerstan’ dem—lak ah wuz aaffikun an’ din’ know whut dey wuz talkin’ ‘bout,” said peter, giving a tremendous sniff. “an’ deycall me a nigger an’ ah’ ain’ never been call a nigger by no w’ite folks, an’ dey call me a ole petan’ say dat niggers ain’ ter be trus’ed! me not ter be trus’ed! why, w’en de ole cunnel wuz dyin’
he say ter me, “you, peter! you look affer mah chillun. tek keer of yo’ young miss pittypat,’ hesay, ‘ ‘cause she ain’ got no mo’ sense dan a hoppergrass.’ an’ ah done tek keer of her good alldese y’ars—”
“nobody but the angel gabriel could have done better,” said scarlett soothingly. “we just couldn’t have lived without you.”
“yas’m, thankee kinely, ma’m. ah knows it an’ you knows it, but dem yankee folks doan knowit an’ dey doan want ter know it, huccome dey come mixin’ in our bizness, miss scarlett? deydoan unnerstan’ us confedruts.”
scarlett said nothing for she was still burning with the wrath she had not exploded in the yankeewomen’s faces. the two drove home in silence. peter’s sniffles stopped and his underlip began toprotrude gradually until it stuck out alarmingly. his indignation was mounting, now that the initialhurt was subsiding.
scarlett thought: what damnably queer people yankees are! those women seemed to think thatbecause uncle peter was black, he had no ears to hear with and no feelings, as tender as their own,to be hurt. they did not know that negroes had to be handled gently, as though they were children,directed, praised, petted, scolded. they didn’t understand negroes or the relations between thenegroes and their former masters. yet they had fought a war to free them. and having freed them,they didn’t want to have anything to do with them, except to use them to terrorize southerners.
they didn’t like them, didn’t trust them, didn’t understand them, and yet their constant cry was thatsoutherners didn’t know how to get along with them.
not trust a darky! scarlett trusted them far more than most white people, certainly more than shetrusted any yankee. there were qualities of loyalty and tirelessness and love in them that no straincould break, no money could buy. she thought of the faithful few who remained at tara in the faceof the yankee invasion when they could have fled or joined the troops for lives of leisure. but theyhad stayed. she thought of dilcey toiling in the cotton fields beside her, of pork risking his life inneighboring hen houses that the family might eat, of mammy coming to atlanta with her to keepher from doing wrong. she thought of the servants of her neighbors who had stood loyally besidetheir white owners, protecting their mistresses while the men were at the front, refugeeing withthem through the terrors of the war, nursing the wounded, burying the dead, comforting thebereaved, working, begging, stealing to keep food the tables. and even now, with the freedmen’sbureaupromisingallmannerofwonders,the(on) y still stuck with their white folks andworked much harder than they ever worked in slave times. but the yankees didn’t understand thesethings and would never understand them.
“yet they set you free,” she said aloud.
“no, ma’m! dey din’ sot me free. ah wouldn’ let no sech trash sot me free,” said peterindignantly. “ah still b’longs ter miss pitty an’ w’en ah dies she gwine lay me in de hamiltonbuhyin’ groun’ whar ah b’longs. ... mah miss gwine ter be in a state w’en ah tells her ‘bout howyou let dem yankee women ‘sult me.”
“i did no such thing!” cried scarlett, startled.
“you did so, miss scarlett,” said peter, pushing out his lip even farther. “de pint is, needer younor me had no bizness bein’ wid yankees, so dey could ‘sult me. ef you hadn’t talked wid dem,dey wouldn’ had no chance ter treat me lak a mule or a affikun. an’ you din’ tek up fer me,needer.”
“i did, too!” said scarlett, stung by the criticism. “didn’t i tell them you were one of the family?”
“dat ain’ tekkin’ up. dat’s jes’ a fac’,” said peter. “miss scarlett, you ain’ got no bizness havin’
no truck wid yankees. ain’ no other ladies doin’ it. you wouldn’ ketch miss pitty wipin’ her lilshoes on sech trash. an’ she ain’ gwine lake it w’en she hear ‘bout whut dey said ‘bout me.”
peter’s criticism hurt worse than anything frank or aunt pitty or the neighbors had said and it soannoyed her she longed to shake the old darky until his toothless gums clapped together. whatpeter said was true but she hated to hear it from a negro and a family negro, too. not to stand highin the opinion of one’s servants was as humiliating a thing as could happen to a southerner.
“a ole pet!” peter grumbled. “ah specs miss pitty ain’t gwine want me ter drive you roun’ nomo’ after dat. no, ma’m!”
“aunt pitty will want you to drive me as usual,” she said sternly, “so let’s hear no more aboutit.”
“ah’ll git a mizry in mah back,” warned peter darkly. “mah back huttin’ me so bad dis minuteah kain sceercely set up. mah miss ain’ gwine want me ter do no drivin’ w’en ah got a mizry. ...
miss scarlett, it ain’ gwine do you no good ter stan’ high wid de yankees an’ de w’ite trash, ef yo’
own folks doan ‘prove of you.”
that was as accurate a summing up of the situation as could be made and scarlett relapsed intoinfuriated silence. yes, the conquerors did approve of her and her family and her neighbors did not.
she knew all the things the town was saying about her. and now even peter disapproved of her tothe point of not caring to be seen in public with her. that was the last straw.
heretofore she had been careless of public opinion, careless and a little contemptuous. butpeter’s words caused fierce resentment to burn in her breast, drove her to a defensive position,made her suddenly dislike her neighbors as much as she disliked the yankees.
“why should they care what i do?” she thought. “they must think i enjoy associating withyankees and working like a field hand. they’re just making a hard job harder for me. but i don’tcare what they think. i won’t let myself care. i can’t afford to care now. but some day—some day—”
oh some day! when there was security in her world again, then she would sit back and fold herhands and be a great lady as ellen had been. she would be helpless and sheltered, as a lady shouldbe, and then everyone would approve of her. oh, how grand she would be when she had moneyagain! then she could permit herself to be kind and gentle, as ellen had been, and thoughtful ofother people and of the proprieties, too. she would not be driven by fears, day and night, and lifewould be a placid, unhurried affair. she would have time to play with her children and listen totheir lessons. there would be long warm afternoons when ladies would call and, amid the rustlingsof taffeta petticoats and the rhythmic harsh cracklings of palmetto fans, she would serve tea anddelicious sandwiches and cakes and leisurely gossip the hours away. and she would be so kind tothose who were suffering misfortune, take baskets to the poor and soup and jelly to the sick and“air” those less fortunate in her fine carriage. she would be a lady in the true southern manner, asher mother had been. and then, everyone would love her as they had loved ellen and they wouldsay how unselfish she was and call her “lady bountiful.”
her pleasure in these thoughts of the future was un-dimmed by any realization that she had noreal desire to be unselfish or charitable or kind. all she wanted was the reputation for possessingthese qualities. but the meshes of her brain were too wide, too coarse, to filter such smalldifferences. it was enough that some day, when she had money, everyone would approve of her.
some day! but not now. not now, in spite of what anyone might say of her. now, there was notime to be a great lady.
peter was as good as his word. aunt pitty did get into a state, and peter’s misery developedovernight to such proportions that he never drove the buggy again. thereafter scarlett drove aloneand the calluses which had begun to leave her palms came back again.
so the spring months went by, the cool rains of april passing into the warm balm of green mayweather. the weeks were packed with work and worry and the handicaps of increasing pregnancy,with old friends growing cooler and her family increasingly kind, more maddeningly solicitousandmorecompletelyblindtowhatwasdrivingher.during(more) those days of anxiety andstruggle there was only one dependable, understanding person in her world, and that person wasrhett butler. it was odd that he of all people should appear in this light, for he was as unstable asquicksilver and as perverse as a demon fresh from the pit. but he gave her sympathy, somethingshe had never had from anyone and never expected from him.
frequently he was out of town on those mysterious trips to new orleans which he neverexplained but which she felt sure, in a faintly jealous way, were connected with a woman—orwomen. but after uncle peter’s refusal to drive her, he remained in atlanta for longer and longerintervals.
while in town, he spent most of his time gambling in the rooms above the girl of the periodsaloon, or in belle watling’s bar hobnobbing with the wealthier of the yankees and carpetbaggersin money-making schemes which made the townspeople detest him even more than his cronies. hedid not call at the house now, probably in deference to the feelings of frank and pitty who wouldhave been outraged at a male caller while scarlett was in a delicate condition. but she met him byaccident almost every day. time and again, he came riding up to her buggy when she was passingthrough lonely stretches of peachtree road and decatur road where the mills lay. he always drewrein and talked and sometimes he tied his horse to the back of the buggy and drove her on herrounds. she tired more easily these days than she liked to admit and she was always silentlygrateful when he took the reins. he always left her before they reached the town again but allatlanta knew about their meetings, and it gave the gossips something new to add to the long list ofscarlett’s affronts to the proprieties.
she wondered occasionally if these meetings were not more than accidental. they became moreand more numerous as the weeks went by and as the tension in town heightened over negrooutrages. but why did he seek her out, now of all times when she looked her worst? certainly hehad no designs upon her if he had ever had any, and she was beginning to doubt even this. it hadbeen months since he made any joking references to their distressing scene at the yankee jail. henever mentioned ashley and her love for him, or made any coarse and ill-bred remarks about“coveting her.” she thought it best to let sleeping dogs lie, so she did not ask for an explanation oftheir frequent meetings. and finally she decided that, because he had little to do besides gamble and had few enough nice friends in atlanta, he sought her out solely for companionship’s sake.
whatever his reason might be, she found his company most welcome. he listened to her moansabout lost customers and bad debts, the swindling ways of mr. johnson and the incompetency ofhugh. he applauded her triumphs, where frank merely smiled indulgently and pitty said “dearme!” in a dazed manner. she was sure that rich yankees and carpetbaggers intimately, but healways denied being helpful. she knew him for what he was and she never trusted him, but herspirits always rose with pleasure at the sight of him riding around the curve of a shady road on hisbig black horse. when he climbed into the buggy and took the reins from her and threw her someimpertinent remark, she felt young and gay and attractive again, for an her worries and herincreasing bulk. she could talk to him about almost everything, with no care for concealing hermotives or her real opinions and she never ran out of things to say as she did with frank—or evenwith ashley, if she must be honest with herself. but of course, in all her conversations with ashleythere were so many things which could not be said, for honor’s sake, that the sheer force of theminhibited other remarks. it comforting to have friend like rhett, that for some unaccountablereasonhehaddec(was) idedtobeongoodbeh(a) aviorwithher.verycom(now) forting, for shehad so few friends these days.
“rhett,” she asked stormily, shortly after uncle peter’s ultimatum, “why do folks in this towntreat me so scurvily and talk about me so? it’s a toss-up who they talk worst about, me or thecarpetbaggers! i’ve minded my own business and haven’t done anything wrong and—”
“if you haven’t done anything wrong, it’s because you haven’t had the opportunity, and perhapsthey dimly realize it.”
“oh, do be serious! they make me so mad. all i’ve done is try to make a little money and—”
“all you’ve done is to be different from other women and you’ve made a little success at it. asi’ve told you before, that is the one unforgivable sin in any society. be different and be damned!
scarlett, the mere fact that you’ve made a success of your mill is an insult to every man who hasn’tsucceeded. remember, a well-bred female’s place is in the home and she should know nothingabout this busy, brutal world.”
“but if i had stayed in my home, i wouldn’t have had any home left to stay in.”
“the inference is that you should have starved genteelly and with pride.”
“oh, fiddle-dee-dee! but look at mrs. merriwether. she’s selling pies to yankees and that’sworse than running a sawmill, and mrs. elsing takes in sewing and keeps boarders, and fannypaints awful-looking china things that nobody wants and everybody buys to help her and—”
“but you miss the point, my pet. they aren’t successful and so they aren’t affronting the hotsouthern pride of their men folks. the men can still say, ‘poor sweet sillies, how hard they try!
well, i’ll let them think they’re helping.’and besides, the ladies you mentioned don’t enjoy havingto work. they let it be known that they are only doing it until some man conies along to relievethem of their unwomanly burdens. and so everybody feels sorry for them. but obviously you dolike to work and obviously you aren’t going to let any man tend to your business for you, and so noone can feel sorry for you. and atlanta is never going to forgive you for that. it’s so pleasant tofeel sorry for people.”
“i wish you’d be serious, sometimes.”
“did you ever hear the oriental proverb: the dogs bark but the caravan passes on?” let thembark, scarlett. i fear nothing will stop your caravan.”
“but why should they mind my making a little money?”
“you can’t have everything, scarlett. you can either make money in your present unladylikemanner and meet cold shoulders everywhere you go, or you can be poor and genteel and have lotsof friends. you’ve made your choice.”
“i won’t be poor,” she said swiftly. “but—it is the right choice, isn’t it?”
“if it’s money you want most.”
“yes, i want money more than anything else in the world.”
“then you’ve made the only choice. but there’s a penalty attached, as there is to most thingsyou want. it’s loneliness.”
that silenced her for a moment. it was true. when she stopped to think about it, she was a littlelonely—lonely for feminine companionship. during the war years she had had ellen to visit whenshe felt blue. and since ellen’s death, there had always been melanie, though she and melanie hadnothing in common except the hard work at tara. now there was no one, for aunt pitty had noconception of life beyond her small round of gossip.
“i think—i think,” she began hesitantly, “that i’ve always been lonely where women wereconcerned. it isn’t just my working that makes atlanta ladies dislike me. they just don’t like meanyway. no woman ever really liked me, except mother. even my sisters. i don’t know why, buteven before the war, even before i married charlie, ladies didn’t seem to approve of anything i did—”
“you forget mrs. wilkes,” said rhett and his eyes gleamed maliciously. “she has alwaysapproved of you up to the hilt. i daresay she’d approve of anything you did, short of murder.”
scarlett thought grimly: “she’s even approved of murder,” and she laughed contemptuously.
“oh, melly!” she said, and then, ruefully: “it’s certainly not to my credit that melly is the onlywoman who approves of me, for she hasn’t the sense of a guinea hen. if she had any sense—” shestopped in some confusion.
“if she had any sense, she’d realize a few things and she couldn’t approve,” rhett finished.
“well, you know more about that than i do, of course.”
“oh, damn your memory and your bad manners!”
“i’ll pass over your unjustified rudeness with the silence it deserves and return to our formersubject. make up your mind to this. if you are different; you are isolated, not only from people ofyour own age but from those of your parents’ generation and from your children’s generation too.
they’ll understand you and they’ll be shocked no matter what you do. but yourgrandparentsw(never) ould probably be proud of you and say: ‘there’s a chip off the old block,’ and yourgrandchildren will sigh enviously and say: ‘what an old rip grandma must have been!’ and they’lltry to be like you.”
scarlett laughed with amusement.
“sometimes you do hit on the truth! now there was my grandma robillard. mammy used tohold her over my head whenever i was naughty. grandma was as cold as an icicle and strict abouther manners and everybody else’s manners, but she married three times and had any number ofduels fought over her and she wore rouge and the most shockingly low-cut dresses and no—well,er—not much under her dresses.”
“and you admired her tremendously, for all that you tried to be like your mother! i had agrandfather on the butler side who was a pirate.”
“not really! a walk-the-plank kind?”
“i daresay he made people walk the plank if there was any money to be made that way. at anyrate, he made enough money to leave my father quite wealthy. but the family always referred tohim carefully as a ‘sea captain.’ he was killed in a saloon brawl long before i was born. his deathwas, needless to say, a great relief to his children, for the old gentleman was drunk most of thetime and when in his cups apt to forget that he retired sea captain and give reminiscencesthatcurledhischild(was) ren’shair.however,iadmir(was) ed(a) him and tried to copy him farmore than i ever did my father, for father is an amiable gentleman full of honorable habits andpious saws—so you see how it goes. i’m sure your children won’t approve of you, scarlett, anymore than mrs. merriwether and mrs. elsing and their broods approve of you now. your childrenwill probably be soft, prissy creatures, as the children of hard-bitten characters usually are. and tomake them worse, you, like every other mother, are probably determined that they shall neverknow the hardships you’ve known. and that’s all wrong. hardships make or break people. soyou’ll have to wait for approval from your grandchildren.”
“i wonder what our grandchildren will be like!”
“are you suggesting by that ‘our’ that you and i will have mutual grandchildren? fie, mrs.
kennedy!”
scarlett, suddenly conscious of her error of speech, went red. it was more than his joking wordsthat shamed her, for she was suddenly aware again of her thickening body. in no way had either ofthem ever hinted at her condition and she had always kept the lap robe high under her armpitswhen with him, even on warm days, comforting herself in the usual feminine manner with thebelief that she did not show at all when thus covered, and she was suddenly sick with quick rage ather own condition and shame that he should know.
“you get out of this buggy, you dirty-minded varmint,” she said, her voice shaking.
“i’ll do nothing of the kind,” he returned calmly. “it’ll be dark before you get home and there’s anew colony of darkies living in tents and shanties near the next spring, mean niggers i’ve beentold, and i see no reason why you should give the impulsive ku klux a cause for putting on theirnightshirts and riding abroad this evening.”
“get out!” she cried, tugging at the reins and suddenly nausea overwhelmed her. he stopped thehorse quickly, passed her two clean handkerchiefs and held her head over the side of the buggywith some skill. the afternoon sun, slanting low through the newly leaved trees, spun sickeninglyfor a few moments in a swirl of gold and green. when the spell had passed, she put her head in her hands and cried from sheer mortification. not only had she vomited before a man—in itself ashorrible a contretemps as could overtake a woman—but by doing so, the humiliating fact of herpregnancy must now be evident. she felt that she could never look him in the face again. to havethis happen with him, of all people, with rhett who had no respect for women! she cried,expecting some coarse and jocular remark from him which she would never be able to forget.
“don’t be a fool,” he said quietly. “and you are a fool, if you are crying for shame. come,scarlett, don’t be a child. surely you must know that, not being blind, i knew you were pregnant.”
she said “oh” in a stunned voice and tightened her fingers over her crimson face. the worditself horrified her. frank always referred to her pregnancy embarrassedly as “your condition,”
gerald had been won’t to say delicately “in the family way,” when he had to mention such matters,and ladies genteelly referred to pregnancy as being “in a fix.”
“you are a child if you thought i didn’t know, for all your smothering yourself under that hot laprobe. of course, i knew. why else do you think i’ve been—”
he stopped suddenly and a silence fell between them. he picked up the reins and clucked to thehorse. he went on talking quietly and as his drawl fell pleasantly on her ears, some of the colorfaded from her down-tucked face.
“i didn’t think you could be so shocked, scarlett. i thought you were a sensible person and i’mdisappointed. can it be possible that modesty still lingers in your breast? i’m afraid i’m not agentleman to have mentioned the matter. and i know i’m not a gentleman, in view of the fact thatpregnant women do not embarrass me as they should. i find it possible to treat them as normalcreatures and not look at the ground or the sky or anywhere else in the universe except their waistlines—and then cast at them those furtive glances i’ve always thought the height of indecency.
why should i? it’s a perfectly normal state. the europeans are far more sensible than we are. theycompliment expectant mothers upon their expectations. while i wouldn’t advise going that far, stillit’s more sensible than our way of trying to ignore it. it’s a normal state and women should beproud of it, instead of hiding behind closed doors as if they’d committed a crime.”
“proud!” she cried in a strangled voice. “proud—ugh!”
“aren’t you proud to be having a child?”
“oh dear god, no! i—i hate babies!”
“you mean—frank’s baby.”
“no—anybody’s baby.”
for a moment she went sick again at this new error of speech, but his voice went on as easily asthough he had not marked it.
“then we’re different. i like babies.”
“you like them?” she cried, looking up, so startled at the statement that she forgot herembarrassment “what a liar you are!”
“i like babies and i like little children, till they begin to grow up and acquire adult habits ofthought and adult abilities to lie and cheat and be dirty. that can’t be news to you. you know i like wade hampton a lot, for all that he isn’t the boy he ought to be.”
that was true, thought scarlett, suddenly marveling. he did seem to enjoy playing with wadeand often brought him presents.
“now that we’ve brought this dreadful subject into the light and you admit that you expect ababy some time in the not too distant future, i’ll say something i’ve been wanting to say for weeks—two things. the first is that it’s dangerous for you to drive alone. you know it. you’ve been toldit often enough. if you don’t care personally whether or not you are raped, you might consider theconsequences. because of your obstinacy, you may get yourself into a situation where your gallantfellow townsmen will be forced to avenge you by stringing up a few darkies. and that will bringthe yankees down on them and someone will probably get hanged. has it ever occurred to you thatperhaps one of the reasons the ladies do not like you is that your conduct may cause the neck-stretching of their sons and husbands? and furthermore, if the ku klux handles many morenegroes, the yankees are going to tighten up on atlanta in a way that will make sherman’s conductlook angelic. i know what i’m talking about, for i’m hand in glove with the yankees. shameful tostate, they treat me as one of them and i hear them talk openly. they mean to stamp out the kuklux if it means burning the whole town again and hanging every male over ten. that would hurtyou, scarlett. you might lose money. and there’s no telling where a prairie fire will stop, once itgets started. confiscation of property, higher taxes, fines for suspected women—i’ve heard themall suggested. the ku klux—”
“do you know any ku klux? is tommy wellburn or hugh or—”
he shrugged impatiently.
“how should i know? i’m a renegade, a turncoat, a scalawag. would i be likely to know? but ido know men who are suspected by the yankees and one false move from them and they are asgood as hanged. while i know you would have no regrets at getting your neighbors on the gallows,i do believe you’d regret losing your mills. i see by the stubborn look on your face that you do notbelieve me and my words are falling on stony ground. so all i can say is, keep that pistol of yourshandy—and when i’m in town, i’ll try to be on hand to drive you.”
“rhett, do you really—is it to protect me that you—”
“yes, my dear, it is my much advertised chivalry that makes me protect you.” the mocking lightbegan to dance in his black eyes and all signs of earnestness fled from his face. “and why?
because of my deep love for you, mrs. kennedy. yes, i have silently hungered and thirsted for youand worshipped you from afar; but being an honorable man, like mr. ashley wilkes, i haveconcealed it from you. you are, alas, frank’s wife and honor has forbidden my telling this to you.
but even as mr. wilkes’ honor cracks occasionally, so mine is cracking now and i reveal my secretpassion and my—”
&l
