Gone with the Wind (132 page)

“What's the matter, honey?”

No one in the world could say that foolish word of endearment as caressingly as Rhett, even when he was joking, but he did not look as if he were joking now. She raised tormented eyes to his face and somehow found comfort in the blank inscrutability she saw there. She did not know why this should be, for he was such an unpredictable, callous person. Perhaps it was because, as he often said, they were so much alike. Sometimes she thought that all the people she had ever known were strangers except Rhett.

“Can't you tell me?” he took her hand, oddly gentle. “It's more than just old Frank leaving you? Do you need money?”

“Money? God, no! Oh, Rhett, I'm so afraid.”

“Don't be a goose, Scarlett, you've never been afraid in your life.”

“Oh, Rhett, I am afraid!”

The words bubbled up faster than she could speak them. She could tell him. She could tell Rhett anything. He's been so bad himself that he wouldn't sit in judgment on her. How wonderful to know someone who was bad and dishonorable and a cheat and a liar, when all the world was filled with people who would not lie to save their souls and who would rather starve than do a dishonorable deed!

“I'm afraid I'll die and go to hell.”

If he laughed at her she would die, right then. But he did not laugh.

“You are pretty healthy—and maybe there isn't any hell after all.”

“Oh, but there is, Rhett! You know there is!”

“I know there is but it's right here on earth. Not after we die. There's nothing after we die, Scarlett. You are having your hell now.”

“Oh, Rhett, that's blasphemous!”

“But singularly comforting. Tell me, why are you going to hell?”

He was teasing now, she could see the glint in his eyes but she did not mind. His hands felt so warm and strong, so comforting to cling to.

“Rhett, I oughtn't to have married Frank. It was wrong. He was Suellen's beau and he loved her, not me. But I lied to him and told him she was going to marry Tony Fontaine. Oh, how could I have done it?”

“Ah, so that was how it came about! I always wondered.”

“And then I made him so miserable. I made him do all sorts of things he didn't want to do, like making people pay their bills when they really couldn't afford to pay them. And it hurt him so when I ran the mills and built the saloon and leased convicts. He could hardly hold his head up for shame. And Rhett, I killed him. Yes, I did! I didn't know he was in the Klan. I never dreamed he had that much gumption. But I ought to have known. And I killed him.”

“‘Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?'”

“What?”

“No matter. Go on.”

“Go on? That's all. Isn't it enough? I married him, I made him unhappy and I killed him. Oh, my God! I don't see how I could have done it! I lied to him and I married him. It all seemed so right when I did it but now I see how wrong it was. Rhett, it doesn't seem like it was me who did all these things. I was so mean to him but I'm not really mean. I wasn't raised that way. Mother—” She stopped and swallowed. She had avoided thinking of Ellen all day but she could no longer blot out her image.

“I often wondered what she was like. You seemed to me so like your father.”

“Mother was— Oh, Rhett, for the first time I'm glad she's dead, so she can't see me. She didn't raise me to be mean. She was so kind to everybody, so good. She'd rather I'd have starved than done this. And I so wanted to be just like her in every way and I'm not like her one bit. I hadn't thought of that—there's been so much else to think about—but I wanted to be like her. I didn't want to be like Pa. I loved him but he was—so—so thoughtless. Rhett, sometimes I did try so hard to be nice to people and
kind to Frank, but then the nightmare would come back and scare me so bad I'd want to rush out and just grab money away from people, whether it was mine or not.”

Tears were streaming unheeded down her face and she clutched his hand so hard that her nails dug into his flesh.

“What nightmare?” His voice was calm and soothing.

“Oh—I forgot you didn't know. Well, just when I would try to be nice to folks and tell myself that money wasn't everything, I'd go to bed and dream that I was back at Tara right after Mother died, right after the Yankees went through. Rhett, you can't imagine— I get cold when I think about it. I can see how everything is burned and so still and there's nothing to eat. Oh, Rhett, in my dream I'm hungry again.”

“Go on.”

“I'm hungry and everybody, Pa and the girls and the darkies, are starving and they keep saying over and over: ‘We're hungry' and I'm so empty it hurts, and so frightened. My mind keeps saying: ‘If I ever get out of this, I'll never, never be hungry again' and then the dream goes off into a gray mist and I'm running, running in the mist, running so hard my heart's about to burst and something is chasing me, and I can't breathe but I keep thinking that if I can just get there, I'll be safe. But I don't know where I'm trying to get to. And then I'd wake up and I'd be cold with fright and so afraid that I'd be hungry again. When I wake up from that dream, it seems like there's not enough money in the world to keep me from being afraid of being hungry again. And then Frank would be so mealy mouthed and slow poky that he would make me mad and I'd lose my temper. He didn't understand, I guess, and I couldn't make him understand. I kept thinking
that I'd make it up to him some day when we had money and I wasn't so afraid of being hungry. And now he's dead and it's too late. Oh, it seemed so right when I did it but it was all so wrong. If I had it to do over again, I'd do it so differently.”

“Hush,” he said, disentangling her frantic grip and pulling a clean handkerchief from his pocket. “Wipe your face. There is no sense in your tearing yourself to pieces this way.”

She took the handkerchief and wiped her damp cheeks, a little relief stealing over her as if she had shifted some of her burden to his broad shoulders. He looked so capable and calm and even the slight twist of his mouth was comforting as though it proved her agony and confusion unwarranted.

“Feel better now? Then let's get to the bottom of this. You say if you had it to do over again, you'd do it differently. But would you? Think, now. Would you?”

“Well—”

“No, you'd do the same things again. Did you have any other choice?”

“No.”

“Then what are you sorry about?”

“I was so mean and now he's dead.”

“And if he wasn't dead, you'd still be mean. As I understand it, you are not really sorry for marrying Frank and bullying him and inadvertently causing his death. You are only sorry because you are afraid of going to hell. Is that right?”

“Well—that sounds so mixed up.”

“Your ethics are considerably mixed up too. You are in the exact position of a thief who's been caught red handed and isn't sorry he stole but is terribly, terribly sorry he's going to jail.”

“A thief—”

“Oh, don't be so literal! In other words if you didn't have this silly idea that you were damned to hell fire eternal, you'd think you were well rid of Frank.”

“Oh, Rhett!”

“Oh, come! You are confessing and you might as well confess the truth as a decorous lie. Did your—er—conscience bother you much when you offered to—shall we say—part with that jewel which is dearer than life for three hundred dollars?”

The brandy was spinning in her head now and she felt giddy and a little reckless. What was the use in lying to him? He always seemed to read her mind.

“I really didn't think about God much then—or hell. And when I did think—well, I just reckoned God would understand.”

“But you don't credit God with understanding why you married Frank?”

“Rhett, how can you talk so about God when you know you don't believe there is one?”

“But you believe in a God of Wrath and that's what's important at present. Why shouldn't the Lord understand? Are you sorry you still own Tara and there aren't Carpetbaggers living there? Are you sorry you aren't hungry and ragged?”

“Oh, no!”

“Well, did you have any alternative except marrying Frank?”

“No.”

“He didn't have to marry you, did he? Men are free agents. And he didn't have to let you bully him into doing things he didn't want to, did he?”

“Well—”

“Scarlett, why worry about it? If you had it to do over again you would be driven to the lie and he to marrying you. You would still have run yourself into danger and he would have had to avenge you. If he had married Sister Sue, she might not have caused his death but she'd probably have made him twice as unhappy as you did. It couldn't have happened differently.”

“But I could have been nicer to him.”

“You could have been—if you'd been somebody else. But you were born to bully anyone who'll let you do it. The strong were made to bully and the weak to knuckle under. It's all Frank's fault for not beating you with a buggy whip…. I'm surprised at you, Scarlett, for sprouting a conscience this late in life. Opportunists like you shouldn't have them.”

“What is an oppor—what did you call it?”

“A person who takes advantage of opportunities.”

“Is that wrong?”

“It has always been held in disrepute—especially by those who had the same opportunities and didn't take them.”

“Oh, Rhett, you are joking and I thought you were going to be nice!”

“I am being nice—for me. Scarlett, darling, you are tipsy. That's what's the matter with you.”

“You dare—”

“Yes, I dare. You are on the verge of what is vulgarly called a ‘crying jag' and so I shall change the subject and cheer you up by telling you some news that will amuse you. In fact, that's why I came here this evening, to tell you my news before I went away.”

“Where are you going?”

“To England and I may be gone for months. Forget
your conscience, Scarlett. I have no intention of discussing your soul's welfare any further. Don't you want to hear my news?”

“But—” she began feebly and paused. Between the brandy which was smoothing out the harsh contours of remorse and Rhett's mocking but comforting words, the pale specter of Frank was receding into shadows. Perhaps Rhett was right. Perhaps God did understand. She recovered enough to push the idea from the top of her mind and decide: “I'll think about it all tomorrow.”

“What's your news?” she said with an effort, blowing her nose on his handkerchief and pushing back the hair that had begun to straggle.

“My news is this,” he answered, grinning down at her. “I still want you more than any woman I've ever seen and now that Frank is gone, I thought you'd be interested to know it.”

Scarlett jerked her hands away from his grasp and sprang to her feet.

“I—you are the most ill-bred man in the world, coming here at this time of all times with your filthy—I should have known you'd never change. And Frank hardly cold! If you had any decency— Will you leave this—”

“Do be quiet or you'll have Miss Pittypat down here in a minute,” he said, not rising but reaching up and taking both her fists. “I'm afraid you miss my point.”

“Miss your point? I don't miss anything.” She pulled against his grip. “Turn me loose and get out of here. I never heard of such bad taste. I—”

“Hush,” he said. “I am asking you to marry me. Would you be convinced if I knelt down?”

She said “Oh” breathlessly and sat down hard on the sofa.

She stared at him, her mouth open, wondering if the brandy were playing tricks on her mind, remembering senselessly his jibing: “My dear, I'm not a marrying man.” She was drunk or he was crazy. But he did not look crazy. He looked as calm as though he were discussing the weather, and his smooth drawl fell on her ears with no particular emphasis.

“I always intended having you, Scarlett, since that first day I saw you at Twelve Oaks when you threw that vase and swore and proved that you weren't a lady. I always intended having you, one way or another. But as you and Frank have made a little money, I know you'll never be driven to me again with any interesting propositions of loans and collaterals. So I see I'll have to marry you.”

“Rhett Butler, is this one of your vile jokes?”

“I bare my soul and you are suspicious! No, Scarlett, this is a bona fide honorable declaration. I admit that it's not in the best of taste, coming at this time, but I have a very good excuse for my lack of breeding. I'm going away tomorrow for a long time and I fear that if I wait till I return you'll have married some one else with a little money. So I thought, why not me and my money? Really, Scarlett, I can't go all my life, waiting to catch you between husbands.”

He meant it. There was no doubt about it. Her mouth was dry as she assimilated this knowledge and she swallowed and looked into his eyes, trying to find some clue. They were full of laughter but there was something else, deep in them, which she had never seen before, a gleam that defied analysis. He sat easily, carelessly but she felt that he was watching her as alertly as a cat watches a mouse hole. There was a sense of leashed power straining
beneath his calm that made her draw back, a little frightened.

He was actually asking her to marry him; he was committing the incredible. Once she had planned how she would torment him should he ever propose. Once she had thought that if he ever spoke those words she would humble him and make him feel her power and take a malicious pleasure in doing it. Now, he had spoken and the plans did not even occur to her, for he was no more in her power than he had ever been. In fact, he held the whip hand of the situation so completely that she was as flustered as a girl at her first proposal and she could only blush and stammer.