Margaret Munnerlyn Mitchell - Gone with the Wind / Унесённые ветром

But Scarlett was wondering how to bring up the subject of Ashley without showing her motive. This was difficult. “How are they all over at Twelve Oaks? Did they say anything about the barbecue tomorrow?”

“Now that I think of it they did. Miss – what’s-her- name – the sweet little thing who was here last year, you know, Ashley’s cousin – oh, yes, Miss Melanie Hamilton, that’s the name – she and her brother Charles have already come from Atlanta and —”

Scarlett’s heart sank at the news. She had hoped against hope that something would keep Melanie Hamilton in Atlanta.

“Was Ashley there, too?”

“He was.” Gerald let go of his daughter’s arm and turned looking into her face. “And if that’s why you came out here to wait for me, why didn’t you say so without beating around the bush [10] ходить вокруг да около ?”

Scarlett could think of nothing to say, and she felt her face growing red.

“He was there and he asked most kindly after you, as did his sisters, and said they hoped nothing would keep you from the barbecue tomorrow. And now, daughter, what’s all this about you and Ashley?”

“There is nothing,” she said shortly. “Let’s go in, Pa.”

“But now I’m going to stand till I’m understanding you. Has he been flirting with you? Has he asked to marry you?”

“No,” she said shortly.

“Nor will he,” said Gerald. “Hold your tongue, Miss! I had it from John Wilkes this afternoon in the strictest confidence that Ashley’s to marry Miss Melanie. It’s to be announced tomorrow.”

Scarlett’s hand fell from his arm. So it was true! She felt a sharp pain in her heart.

“Is it a spectacle you’ve been making of yourself – of all of us? Have you been running after a man who’s not in love with you, when you could have any of the bucks in the County?”

“I haven’t been running after him. It – it just surprised me.”

“It’s lying you are!” said Gerald, and then, peering at her face, he added kindly: “I’m sorry, daughter. But after all, you are nothing but a child and there’s lots of other beaux.”

“Mother was only fifteen when she married you, and I’m sixteen,” said Scarlett.

“Your mother was different,” said Gerald. “She was never flighty like you. Now come, daughter, cheer up, and I’ll take you to Charleston [11] Чарльстон, старейший и крупнейший город штата Южная Каролина next week to visit your aunt and you’ll be forgetting about Ashley in a week. Besides, if you had any sense you’d have married Stuart or Brent Tarleton long ago. Then the plantations will run together and Jim Tarleton and I will build you a fine house and —”

“Will you stop treating me like a child!” cried Scarlett. “I don’t want to go to Charleston or have a house or marry the twins. I only want —” She caught herself but not in time.

Gerald’s voice was strangely quiet and he spoke slowly.

“It’s only Ashley you’re wanting, and you’ll not be having him. And if he wanted to marry you, ’twould be with misgivings that I’d say Yes, for all the fine friendship that’s between me and John Wilkes.” And, seeing her startled look, he continued: “I want my girl to be happy and you wouldn’t be happy with him.”

“Oh, I would! I would!”

“That you would not, daughter. Only when like marries like can there be any happiness.”

“Our people and the Wilkes are different,” he went on slowly, fumbling for words. “They are queer folk, and it’s best that they marry their cousins and keep their queerness to themselves.”

“Why, Pa, Ashley is not —”

“I said nothing against the lad, for I like him. And when I say queer, it’s not crazy I’m meaning. But it’s neither heads nor tails I can make of most he says [12] Но когда он говорит, я почти ничего не понимаю. . Now, Puss, tell me true, do you understand his folderol [13] пустые ра зговоры about books and poetry and music and oil paintings and such foolishness?”

“Oh, Pa,” cried Scarlett impatiently, “if I married him, I’d change all that!”

“No wife has ever changed a husband, and don’t you be forgetting that. And as for changing a Wilkes, daughter! Look at the way they go to New York and Boston to hear operas and see oil paintings. And ordering French and German books from the Yankees! And there they sit reading and dreaming the dear God knows what, when they’d be better spending their time hunting and playing poker as proper men should.”

“There’s nobody in the County who sits a horse better than Ashley. And as for poker, didn’t Ashley take two hundred dollars away from you just last week in Jonesboro?”

“Yes, he can do all those things, but his heart’s not in it. That’s why I say he’s queer.”

Scarlett was silent and her heart sank, for she knew Gerald was right.

Gerald patted her arm and said: “There now, Scarlett! You admit ’tis true. And when I’m gone – darlin’, listen to me! I’ll leave Tara to you —”

“I don’t want Tara or any old plantation. Plantations don’t mean anything when —”

She was going to say “when you haven’t the man you want,” but Gerald got furious.

“Do you stand there, Scarlett O’Hara, and tell me that Tara – that land – doesn’t mean anything?”

Scarlett nodded obstinately. “Land is the only thing in the world,” he shouted, “worth working for, worth fighting for – worth dying for.”

“Oh, Pa,” she said, “you talk like an Irishman!”

“Have I ever been ashamed of it? No, ’tis proud I am. And don’t be forgetting that you are half Irish, Miss! And to anyone with a drop of Irish blood in them the land they live on is like their mother. ’Tis ashamed of you I am this minute.”

Gerald had begun to work himself up into a rage when something in Scarlett’s face stopped him.

“But there, you’re young. ’Twill come to you, this love of land, if you’re Irish. You’re just a child and bothered about your beaux. When you’re older, you’ll be seeing how ’tis…”

By this time, Gerald was tired of the conversation and annoyed that the problem should be upon his shoulders.

“Now, Miss. It doesn’t matter who you marry, as long as he thinks like you and is a gentleman and a Southerner. For a woman, love comes after marriage.”

“Oh, Pa, that’s such an Old Country notion!”

“And a good notion it is! All this American business of marrying for love, like servants, like Yankees! The best marriages are when the parents choose for the girl. For how can a silly piece like yourself tell a good man from a scoundrel?”

Gerald looked at her bowed head.

“It’s not crying you are?” he questioned, trying to turn her face upward.

“No,” she cried, jerking away.

“It’s lying you are, and I’m proud of it. And I want to see pride in you tomorrow at the barbecue.”

Gerald took her arm and passed it through his.

“We’ll be going in to supper now, and all this is between us. I’ll not be worrying your mother with this – nor do you do it either. Blow your nose, daughter.”

They started up the dark drive arm in arm, the horse following slowly. Near the house, Scarlett saw her mother and behind her was Mammy, holding in her hand the black leather bag in which Ellen O’Hara always carried the bandages and medicines she used in doctoring the slaves.

“Mr. O’Hara,” called Ellen as she saw the two coming up the driveway – Ellen belonged to a generation that was formal even after seventeen years of marriage – “Mr. O’Hara, there is illness at the Slattery house. Emmie’s baby has been born and is dying and must be baptized. I am going there with Mammy to see what I can do.”