Gone With the Wind (62 page)

There, she thought, I’ve said “nigger” and Mother wouldn’t like that at all.

Prissy rolled her eyes wildly, peeping first at the set face of her mistress and then at the cow which bawled plaintively. Scarlett seemed the less dangerous of the two, so Prissy clutched at the sides of the wagon and remained where she was.

Stiffly, Scarlett climbed down from the seat, each movement of agony of aching muscles. Prissy was not the only one who was “sceered” of cows. Scarlett had always feared them, even the mildest cow seemed sinister to her, but this was no time to truckle to small fears when great ones crowded so thick upon her. Fortunately the cow was gentle. In its pain it had sought human companionship and help and it made no threatening gesture as she looped one end of the torn petticoat about its horns. She tied the other end to the back of the wagon, as securely as her awkward fingers would permit. Then, as she started back toward the driver’s seat, a vast weariness assailed her and she swayed dizzily. She clutched the side of the wagon to keep from falling.

Melanie opened her eyes and, seeing Scarlett standing beside her, whispered: “Dear—are we home?”

Home! Hot tears came to Scarlett’s eyes at the word. Home. Melanie did not know there was no home and that they were alone in a mad and desolate world.

“Not yet,” she said, as gently as the constriction of her throat would permit, “but we will be, soon. I’ve just found a cow and soon well have some milk for you and the baby.”

“Poor baby,” whispered Melanie, her hand creeping feebly toward the child and falling short.

Climbing back into the wagon required all the strength Scarlett could muster, but at last it was done and she picked up the lines. The horse stood with head drooping dejectedly and refused to start. Scarlett laid on the whip mercilessly. She hoped God would forgive her for hurting a tired animal. If He didn’t she was sorry. After all, Tara lay just ahead, and after the next quarter of a mile, the horse could drop in the shafts if he liked.

Finally he started slowly, the wagon creaking and the cow lowing mournfully at every step. The pained animal’s voice rasped on Scarlett’s nerves until she was tempted to stop and untie the beast. What good would the cow do them anyway if there should be no one at Tara? She couldn’t milk her and, even if she could, the animal would probably kick anyone who touched her sore udder. But she had the cow and she might as well keep her. There was little else she had in this world now.

Scarlett’s eyes grew misty when, at last, they reached the bottom of a gentle incline, for just over the rise lay Tara! Then her heart sank. The decrepit animal would never pull the hill. The slope had always seemed so slight, so gradual, in days when she galloped up it on her fleet-footed mare. It did not seem possible it could have grown so steep since she saw it last. The horse would never make it with the heavy load.

Wearily she dismounted and took the animal by the bridle.

“Get out, Prissy,” she commanded, “and take Wade. Either carry him or make him walk. Lay the baby by Miss Melanie.”

Wade broke into sobs and whimperings from which Scarlett could only distinguish: “Dark—dark— Wade fwightened!”

“Miss Scarlett, Ah kain walk. Mah feets done blistered an’ dey’s thoo mah shoes, an’ Wade an’ me doan weigh so much an’—”

“Get out! Get out before I pull you out! And if I do, I’m going to leave you right here, in the dark by yourself. Quick, now!”

Prissy moaned, peering at the dark trees that closed about them on both sides of the road—trees which might reach out and clutch her if she left the shelter of the wagon. But she laid the baby beside Melanie, scrambled to the ground and, reaching up, lifted Wade out. The little boy sobbed, shrinking close to his nurse.

“Make him hush. I can’t stand it,” said Scarlett, taking the horse by the bridle and pulling him to a reluctant start. “Be a little man, Wade, and stop crying or I will come over there and slap you.”

Why had God invented children, she thought savagely as she turned her ankle cruelly on the dark road—useless, crying nuisances they were, always demanding care, always in the way. In her exhaustion, there was no room for compassion for the frightened child, trotting by Prissy’s side, dragging at her hand and sniffling—only a weariness that she had borne him, only a tired wonder that she had ever married Charles Hamilton.

“Miss Scarlett” whispered Prissy, clutching her mistress’ arm, “doan le’s go ter Tara. Dey’s not dar. Dey’s all done gone. Maybe dey daid—Maw an’ all’m.”

The echo of her own thoughts infuriated her and Scarlett shook off the pinching fingers.

“Then give me Wade’s hand. You can sit right down here and stay.”

“No’m! No’m!”

Then
hush!”

How slowly the horse moved! The moisture from his slobbering mouth dripped down upon her hand. Through her mind ran a few words of the song she had once sung with Rhett—she could not recall the rest:

“Just a few more days for to tote the weary load—”

“Just a few more steps,” hummed her brain, over and over, “just a few more steps for to tote the weary load.”

Then they topped the rise and before them lay the oaks of Tara, a towering dark mass against the darkening sky. Scarlett looked hastily to see if there was a light anywhere. There was none.

“They are gone!” said her heart, like cold lead in her breast. “Gone!”

She turned the horse’s head into the driveway, and the cedars, meeting over their heads, cast them into midnight blackness. Peering up the long tunnel of darkness, straining her eyes, she saw ahead—or did she see? Were her tired eyes playing her tricks?—the white bricks of Tara blurred and indistinct Home! Home! The dear white walls, the windows with the fluttering curtains, the wide verandas—were they all there ahead of her, in the gloom? Or did the darkness mercifully conceal such a horror as the Macintosh house?

The avenue seemed miles long and the horse, pulling stubbornly at her hand, plopped slower and slower. Eagerly her eyes searched the darkness. The roof seemed to be intact Could it be—could it be—? No, it wasn’t possible. War stopped for nothing, not even Tara, built to last five hundred years. It could not have passed over Tara.

Then the shadowy outline did take form. She pulled the horse forward faster. The white walls did show there through the darkness. And untarnished by smoke. Tara had escaped! Home! She dropped the bridle and ran the last few steps, leaped forward with an urge to clutch the walls themselves in her arms. Then she saw a form, shadowy in the dimness, emerging from the blackness of the front veranda and standing at the top of the steps. Tara was not deserted. Someone was home!

A cry of joy rose to her throat and died there. The house was so dark and still and the figure did not move or call to her. What was wrong? What was wrong? Tara stood intact, yet shrouded with the same eerie quiet that hung over the whole stricken countryside. Then the figure moved. Stiffly and slowly, it came down the steps.

“Pa?” she whispered huskily, doubting almost that it was he. “It’s me—Katie Scarlett. I’ve come home.”

Gerald moved toward her, silent as a sleepwalker, his stiff leg dragging. He came close to her, looking at her in a dazed way as if he believed she was part of a dream. Putting out his hand, he laid it on her shoulder. Scarlett felt it tremble, tremble as if he had been awakened from a nightmare into a half-sense of reality.

“Daughter,” he said with an effort “Daughter.”

Then he was silent

Why—he’s an old man! thought Scarlett

Gerald’s shoulders sagged. In the face which she could only see dimly, there was none of the virility, the restless vitality of Gerald, and the eyes that looked into hers had almost the same fear-stunned look that lay in little Wade’s eyes. He was only a little old man and broken.

And now, fear of unknown things seized her, leaped swiftly out of the darkness at her and she could only stand and stare at him, all the flood of questioning dammed up at her lips.

From the wagon the faint wailing sounded again and Gerald seemed to rouse himself with an effort

“It’s Melanie and her baby,” whispered Scarlett rapidly. “She’s very ill—I brought her home.”

Gerald dropped his hand from her arm and straightened his shoulders. As he moved slowly to the side of the wagon, there was a ghostly semblance of the old host of Tara welcoming guests, as if Gerald spoke words from out of shadowy memory.

“Cousin Melanie!”

Melanie’s voice murmured indistinctly.

“Cousin Melanie, this is your home. Twelve Oaks is burned. You must stay with us.”

Thoughts of Melanie’s prolonged suffering spurred Scarlett to action. The present was with her again, the necessity of laying Melanie and her child on a soft bed and doing those small things for her that could be done.

“She must be carried. She can’t walk.”

There was a scuffle of feet and a dark figure emerged from the cave of the front hall. Pork ran down the steps.

“Miss Scarlett! Miss Scarlett!” he cried.

Scarlett caught him by the arms. Pork, part and parcel of Tara, as dear as the bricks and the cool corridors! She felt his tears stream down on her hands as he patted her clumsily, crying: “Sho is glad you back! Sho is—”

Prissy burst into tears and incoherent mumblings: “Poke! Poke, honey!” And little Wade, encouraged by the weakness of his elders, began sniffling: “Wade thirsty!”

Scarlett caught them all in hand.

“Miss Melanie is in the wagon and her baby too. Pork, you must carry her upstairs very carefully and put her in the back company room. Prissy, take the baby and Wade inside and give Wade a drink of water. Is Mammy here, Pork? Tell her I want her.”

Galvanized by the authority in her voice, Pork approached the wagon and fumbled at the backboard. A moan was wrenched from Melanie as he half-lifted, half-dragged her from the feather tick on which she had lain so many hours. And then she was in Pork’s strong arms, her head drooping like a child’s across his shoulder. Prissy, holding the baby and dragging Wade by the hand, followed them up the wide steps and disappeared into the blackness of the hall.

Scarlett’s bleeding fingers sought her father’s hand urgently.

“Did they get well, Pa?”

“The girls are recovering.”

Silence fell and in the silence an idea too monstrous for words took form. She could not, could not force it to her lips. She swallowed and swallowed but a sudden dryness seemed to have stuck the sides of her throat together. Was this the answer to the frightening riddle of Tara’s silence? As if answering the question in her mind Gerald spoke.

“Your mother—” he said and stopped.

“And—Mother?”

“Your mother died yesterday.”

Her father’s arm held tightly in her own, Scarlett felt her way down the wide dark hall which, even in its blackness, was as familiar as her own mind. She avoided the high-backed chairs, the empty gun rack, the old sideboard with its protruding claw feet, and she felt herself drawn by instinct to the tiny office at the back of the house where Ellen always sat, keeping her endless accounts. Surely, when she entered that room, Mother would again be sitting there before the secretary and would look up, quill poised, and rise with sweet fragrance and rustling hoops to meet her tired daughter. Ellen could not be dead, not even though Pa had said it, said it over and over like a parrot that knows only one phrase: “She died yesterday—she died yesterday—she died yesterday.”

Queer that she should feel nothing now, nothing except a weariness that shackled her limbs with heavy iron chains and a hunger that made her knees tremble. She would think of Mother later. She must put her mother out of her mind now, else she would stumble stupidly like Gerald or sob monotonously like Wade.

Pork came down the wide dark steps toward them, hurrying to press close to Scarlett like a cold animal toward a fire.

“Lights?” she questioned. “Why is the house so dark, Pork? Bring candles.”

“Dey tuck all de candles, Miss Scarlett, all ‘cept one we been usin’ ter fine things in de dahk wid, an’ it’s ‘bout gone. Mammy been usin’ a rag in a dish of hawg fat fer a light fer nussin’ Miss Careen an’ Miss Suellen.”

“Bring what’s left of the candle,” she ordered. “Bring it into Mother’s—into the office.”

Pork pattered into the dining room and Scarlett groped her way into the inky small room and sank down on the sofa. Her father’s arm still lay in the crook of hers, helpless, appealing, trusting, as only the hands of the very young and the very old can be.

“He’s an old man, an old tired man,” she thought again and vaguely wondered why she could not care.

Light wavered into the room as Pork entered carrying high a half-burned candle stuck in a saucer. The dark cave came to life, the sagging old sofa on which they sat, the tall secretary reaching toward the ceiling with Mother’s fragile carved chair before it, the racks of pigeonholes, still stuffed with papers written in her fine hand, the worn carpet—all, all were the same, except that Ellen was not there, Ellen with the faint scent of lemon verbena sachet and the sweet look in her tip-tilted eyes. Scarlett felt a small pain in her heart as of nerves numbed by a deep wound, struggling to make themselves felt again. She must not let them come to life now; there was all the rest of her life ahead of her in which they could ache. But, not now! Please, God, not now!

She looked into Gerald’s putty-colored face and, for the first time in her life, she saw him unshaven, his once florid face covered with silvery bristles. Pork placed the candle on the candle stand and came to her side. Scarlett felt that if he had been a dog he would have laid his muzzle in her lap and whined for a kind hand upon his head.

“Pork, how many darkies are here?”

“Miss Scarlett, dem trashy niggers done runned away an’ some of dem went off wid de Yankees an’—”

“How many are left?”

“Dey’s me, Miss Scarlett, an’ Mammy. She been nussin’ de young Misses all day. An’ Dilcey, she settin’ up wid de young Misses now. Us three, Miss Scarlett.”

“Us three” where there had been a hundred. Scarlett with an effort lifted her head on her aching neck. She knew she must keep her voice steady. To her surprise, words came out as coolly and naturally as if there had never been a war and she could, by waving her hand, call ten house servants to her.