Gone With the Wind (124 page)

“Tonight?” Rhett began to laugh. He laughed so hard that he sat down on the sofa and put his head in his hands. “Not tonight, Tom,” he said when he could speak. “These two have been with me tonight—ever since eight o’clock when they were supposed to be at the meeting.”

“With you, Rhett? But—” A frown came over the captain’s forehead and he looked uncertainly at the snoring Ashley and his weeping wife. “But—where were you?”

“I don’t like to say,” and Rhett shot a look of drunken cunning at Melanie.

“You’d better say!”

“Le’s go out on the porch and I’ll tell you where we were.”

“You’ll tell me now.”

“Hate to say it in front of ladies. If you ladies’ll step out of the room—”

“I won’t go,” cried Melanie, dabbing angrily at her eyes with her handkerchief. “I have a right to know. Where was my husband?”

“At Belle Watling’s sporting house,” said Rhett, looking abashed. “He was there and Hugh and Frank Kennedy and Dr. Meade and—and a whole lot of them. Had a party. Big party. Champagne. Girls—”

“At—at Belle Watling’s?”

Melanie’s voice rose until it cracked with such pain that all eyes turned frightenedly to her. Her hand went clutching at her bosom and, before Archie could catch her, she had fainted. Then a hubbub ensued, Archie picking her up, India running to the kitchen for water, Pitty and Scarlett fanning her and slapping her wrists, while Hugh Elsing shouted over and over: “Now you’ve done it! Now you’ve done it!”

“Now it’ll be all over town,” said Rhett savagely. “I hope you’re satisfied, Tom. There won’t be a wife in Atlanta who’ll speak to her husband tomorrow.”

“Rhett, I had no idea—” Though the chill wind was blowing through the open door on his back, the captain was perspiring. “Look here! You take an oath they were at—er—at Belle’s?”

“Hell, yes,” growled Rhett “Go ask Belle herself if you don’t believe me. Now, let me carry Mrs. Wilkes to her room. Give her to me, Archie. Yes, I can carry her. Miss Pitty, go ahead with a lamp.”

He took Melanie’s limp body from Archie’s arms with ease.

“You get Mr. Wilkes to bed, Archie. I don’t want to ever lay eyes or hands on him again after this night.”

Pitty’s hand trembled so that the lamp was a menace to the safety of the house but she held it and trotted ahead toward the dark bedroom. Archie, with a grunt, got an arm under Ashley and raised him.

“But—I’ve got to arrest these men!”

Rhett turned in the dim hallway.

“Arrest them in the morning then. They can’t run away in this condition—and I never knew before that it was illegal to get drunk in a sporting house. Good God, Tom, there are fifty witnesses to prove they were at Belle’s.”

“There are always fifty witnesses to prove a Southerner was somewhere he wasn’t,” said the captain morosely. “You come with me, Mr. Elsing. I’ll parole Mr. Wilkes on the word of—”

“I am Mr. Wilkes’ sister. I will answer for his appearance,” said India coldly. “Now, will you please go? You’ve caused enough trouble for one night.”

“I regret it exceedingly.” The captain bowed awkwardly. “I only hope they can prove their presence at the—er—Miss—Mrs. Watling’s house. Will you tell your brother that he must appear before the provost marshal tomorrow morning for questioning?”

India bowed coldly and, putting her hand upon the door knob, intimated silently that his speedy retirement would be welcome. The captain and the sergeant backed out, Hugh Elsing with them, and she slammed the door behind them. Without even looking at Scarlett, she went swiftly to each window and drew down the shade. Scarlett, her knees shaking, caught hold of the chair in which Ashley had been sitting to steady herself. Looking down at it, she saw that there was a dark moist spot, larger than her hand, on the cushion in the back of the chair. Puzzled, her hand went over it and, to her horror, a sticky red wetness appeared on her palm.

“India,” she whispered, “India, Ashley’s—he’s hurt.”

“You fool! Did you think he was really drunk?” India snapped down the last shade and started on flying feet for the bedroom, with Scarlett close behind her, her heart in her throat. Rhett’s big body barred the doorway but, past his shoulder, Scarlett saw Ashley lying white and still on the bed. Melanie, strangely quick for one so recently in a faint, was rapidly cutting off his blood-soaked shirt with embroidery scissors. Archie held the lamp low over the bed to give light and one of his gnarled fingers was on Ashley’s wrist.

“Is he dead?” cried both girls together.

“No, just fainted from loss of blood. It’s through his shoulder,” said Rhett.

“Why did you bring him here, you fool?” cried India, “Let me get to him! Let me pass! Why did you bring him here to be arrested?”

“He was too weak to travel. There was nowhere else to bring him, Miss Wilkes. Besides—do you want him to be an exile like Tony Fontaine? Do you want a dozen of your neighbors to live in Texas under assumed names for the rest of their lives? There’s a chance that we may get them all off if Belle—”

“Let me pass!”

“No, Miss Wilkes. There’s work for you. You must go for a doctor— Not Dr. Meade. He’s implicated in this and is probably explaining to the Yankees at this very minute. Get some other doctor. Are you afraid to go out alone at night?”

“No,” said India, her pale eyes glittering. “I’m not afraid.” She caught up Melanie’s hooded cape which was hanging on a book in the hall. “I’ll go for old Dr. Dean.” The excitement went out of her voice as, with an effort, she forced calmness. “I’m sorry I called you a spy and a fool. I did not understand. I’m deeply grateful for what you’ve done for Ashley—but I despise you just the same.”

“I appreciate frankness—and I thank you for it.” Rhett bowed and his lip curled down in an amused smile. “Now, go quickly and by back ways and when you return do not come in this house if you see signs of soldiers about.”

India shot one more quick anguished look at Ashley, and, wrapping her cape about her, ran lightly down the hall to the back door and let herself out quietly into the night.

Scarlett, straining her eyes past Rhett, felt her heart beat again as she saw Ashley’s eyes open. Melanie snatched a folded towel from the washstand rack and pressed it against his streaming shoulder and he smiled up weakly, reassuringly into her face. Scarlett felt Rhett’s hard penetrating eyes upon her, knew that her heart was plain upon her face, but she did not care. Ashley was bleeding, perhaps dying and she who loved him had torn that hole through his shoulder. She wanted to run to the bed, sink down beside it and clasp him to her but her knees trembled so that she could not enter the room. Hand at her mouth, she stared while Melanie packed a fresh towel against his shoulder, pressing it hard as though she could force back the blood into his body. But the towel reddened as though by magic.

How could a man bleed so much and still live? But, thank God, there was no bubble of blood at his lips—oh, those frothy red bubbles, forerunners of death that she knew so well from the dreadful day of the battle at Peachtree Creek when the wounded had died on Aunt Pitty’s lawn with bloody mouths.

“Brace up,” said Rhett, and there was a hard, faintly jeering note in his voice. “He won’t die. Now, go take the lamp and hold it for Mrs. Wilkes. I need Archie to run errands.”

Archie looked across the lamp at Rhett.

“I ain’t takin’ no orders from you,” he said briefly, shifting his wad of tobacco to the other cheek.

“You do what he says,” said Melanie sternly, “and do it quickly. Do everything Captain Butler says. Scarlett, take the lamp.”

Scarlett went forward and took the lamp, holding it in both hands to keep from dropping it. Ashley’s eyes had closed again. His bare chest heaved up slowly and sank quickly and the red stream seeped from between Melanie’s small frantic fingers. Dimly she heard Archie stump across the room to Rhett and heard Rhett’s low rapid words. Her mind was so fixed upon Ashley that of the first half-whispered words of Rhett, she only heard: Take my horse … tied outside … ride like hell.”

Archie mumbled some question and Scarlett heard Rhett reply: “The old Sullivan plantation. You’ll find the robes pushed up the biggest chimney. Burn them.”

“Um,” grunted Archie.

“And there’s two—men in the cellar. Pack them over the horse as best you can and take them to that vacant lot behind Belle’s—the one between her house and the railroad tracks. Be careful. If anyone sees you, you’ll hang as well as the rest of us. Put them in that lot and put pistols near them—in their hands. Here—take mine.”

Scarlett, looking across the room, saw Rhett reach under his coat tails and produce two revolvers which Archie took and shoved into his waist band.

“Fire one shot from each. It’s got to appear like a plain case of shooting. You understand?”

Archie nodded as if he understood perfectly and an unwilling gleam of respect shone in his cold eye. But understanding was far from Scarlett. The last half-hour had been so nightmarish that she felt nothing would ever be plain and clear again. However, Rhett seemed in perfect command of the bewildering situation and that was a small comfort.

Archie turned to go and then swung about and his one eye went questioningly to Rhett’s face.

“Him?”

“Yes.”

Archie grunted and spat on the floor.

“Hell to pay,” he said as he stumped down the hall to the back door.

Something in the last low interchange of words made a new fear and suspicion rise up in Scarlett’s breast like a chill ever-swelling bubble. When that bubble broke—

“Where’s Frank?” she cried.

Rhett came swiftly across the room to the bed, his big body swinging as lightly and noiselessly as a cat’s.

“All in good time,” he said and smiled briefly. “Steady that lamp, Scarlett. You don’t want to burn Mr. Wilkes up. Miss Melly—”

Melanie looked up like a good little soldier awaiting a command and so tense was the situation it did not occur to her that for the first time Rhett was calling her familiarly by the name which only family and old friends used.

“I beg your pardon, I mean, Mrs. Wilkes. …”

“Oh, Captain Butler, do not ask my pardon! I should feel honored if you called me ‘Melly’ without the Miss! I feel as though you were my—my brother or—or my cousin. How kind you are and how clever! How can I ever thank you enough?”

“Thank you,” said Rhett and for a moment he looked almost embarrassed. “I should never presume so far, but Miss Melly,” and his voice was apologetic, “I’m sorry I had to say that Mr. Wilkes was in Belle Watling’s house. I’m sorry to have involved him and the others in such a— But I had to think fast when I rode away from here and that was the only plan that occurred to me. I knew my word would be accepted because I have so many friends among the Yankee officers. They do me the dubious honor of thinking me almost one of them because they know my—shall we call it my ‘unpopularity’?—among my townsmen. And you see, I was playing poker in Belle’s bar earlier in the evening. There are a dozen Yankee soldiers who can testify to that. And Belle and her girls will gladly lie themselves black in the face and say Mr. Wilkes and the others were—upstairs all evening. And the Yankees will believe them. Yankees are queer that way. It won’t occur to them that women of—their profession are capable of intense loyalty or patriotism. The Yankees wouldn’t take the word of a single nice Atlanta lady as to the whereabouts of the men who were supposed to be at the meeting tonight but they will take the word of—fancy ladies. And I think that between the word of honor of a Scalawag and a dozen fancy ladies, we may have a chance of getting the men off.”

There was a sardonic grin on his face at the last words but it faded as Melanie turned up to him a face that blazed with gratitude.

“Captain Butler, you are so smart! I wouldn’t have cared if you’d said they were in hell itself tonight, if it saves them! For I know and every one else who matters knows that my husband was never in a dreadful place like that!”

“Well—” began Rhett awkwardly, “as a matter of fact, he was at Belle’s tonight.”

Melanie drew herself up coldly.

“You can never make me believe such a lie!”

“Please, Miss Melly! Let me explain! When I got out to the old Sullivan place tonight, I found Mr. Wilkes wounded and with him were Hugh Elsing and Dr. Meade and old man Merriwether—”

“Not the old gentleman!” cried Scarlett.

“Men are never too old to be fools. And your Uncle Henry—”

“Oh, mercy!” cried Aunt Pitty.

“The others had scattered after the brush with the troops and the crowd that stuck together had come to the Sullivan place to hide their robes in the chimney and to see how badly Mr. Wilkes was hurt. But for his wound, they’d be headed for Texas by now—all of them—but he couldn’t ride far and they wouldn’t leave him. It was necessary to prove that they had been somewhere instead of where they had been, and so I took them by back ways to Belle Watling’s.”

“Oh—I see. I do beg your pardon for my rudeness, Captain Butler. I see now it was necessary to take them there but— Oh, Captain Butler, people must have seen you going in!”

“No one saw us. We went in through a private back entrance that opens on the railroad tracks. It’s always dark and locked.”

“Then how—?”

“I have a key,” said Rhett laconically, and his eyes met Melanie’s evenly.

As the full impact of the meaning smote her, Melanie became so embarrassed that she fumbled with the bandage until it slid off the wound entirely.

“I did not mean to pry—” she said in a muffled voice, her white face reddening, as she hastily pressed the towel back into place.

“I regret having to tell a lady such a thing.”

“Then it’s true!” thought Scarlett with an odd pang. Then he does live with that dreadful Watling creature! He does own her house!”

“I saw Belle and explained to her. We gave her a list of the men who were out tonight and she and her girls will testify that they were all in her house tonight. Then to make our exit more conspicuous, she called the two desperadoes who keep order at her place and had us dragged downstairs, fighting, and through the barroom and thrown out into the street as brawling drunks who were disturbing the place.”