Alexandra Ripley - Scarlett

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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