Gone With the Wind (94 page)

There came to her, from the recesses of her mind, words Rhett had spoken in the early years of the war about the money he made in the blockade. She had not taken the trouble to understand them then, but now they seemed perfectly clear and she wondered if it had been only her youth or plain stupidity which had kept her from appreciating them.

“There’s just as much money to be made in the wreck of a civilization as in the upbuilding of one.”

“This is the wreck he foresaw,” she thought, “and he was right. There’s still plenty of money to be made by anyone who isn’t afraid to work—or to grab.”

She saw Frank coming across the floor toward her with a glass of blackberry wine in his hand and a morsel of cake on a saucer and she pulled her face into a smile. It did not occur to her to question whether Tara was worth marrying Frank. She knew it was worth it and she never gave the matter a second thought.

She smiled up at him as she sipped the wine, knowing that her cheeks were more attractively pink than any of the dancers’. She moved her skirts for him to sit by her and waved her handkerchief idly so that the faint sweet smell of the cologne could reach his nose. She was proud of the cologne, for no other woman in the room was wearing any and Frank had noticed it. In a fit of daring he had whispered to her that she was as pink and fragrant as a rose.

If only he were not so shy! He reminded her of a timid old brown field rabbit. If only he had the gallantry and ardor of the Tarleton boys or even the coarse impudence of Rhett Butler. But, if he possessed those qualities, he’d probably have sense enough to feel the desperation that lurked just beneath her demurely fluttering eyelids. As it was, he didn’t know enough about women even to suspect what she was up to. That was her good fortune but it did not increase her respect for him.

CHAPTER XXXVI

SHE MARRIED Frank Kennedy two weeks later after a whirlwind courtship which she blushingly told him left her too breathless to oppose his ardor any longer.

He did not know that during those two weeks she had walked the floor at night, gritting her teeth at the slowness with which he took hints and encouragements, praying that no untimely letter from Suellen would reach him and ruin her plans. She thanked God that her sister was the poorest of correspondents, delighting to receive letters and disliking to write them. But there was always a chance, always a chance, she thought in the long night hours as she padded back and forth across the cold floor of her bedroom, with Ellen’s faded shawl clutched about her nightdress. Frank did not know she had received a laconic letter from Will, relating that Jonas Wilkerson had paid another call at Tara and, finding her gone to Atlanta, had stormed about until Will and Ashley threw him bodily off the place. Will’s letter hammered into her mind the fact she knew only too well—that time was getting shorter and shorter before the extra taxes must be paid. A fierce desperation drove her as she saw the days slipping by and she wished she might grasp the hourglass in her hands and keep the sands from running.

But so well did she conceal her feelings, so well did she enact her role, Frank suspected nothing, saw no more than what lay on the surface—the pretty and helpless young widow of Charles Hamilton who greeted him every night in Miss Pittypat’s parlor and listened, breathless with admiration, as he told of future plans for his store and how much money he expected to make when he was able to buy the sawmill. Her sweet sympathy and her bright-eyed interest in every word he uttered were balm upon the wound left by Suellen’s supposed defection. His heart was sore and bewildered at Suellen’s conduct and his vanity, the shy, touchy vanity of a middle-aged bachelor who knows himself to be unattractive to women, was deeply wounded. He could not write Suellen, upbraiding her for her faithlessness; he shrank from the very idea. But he could ease his heart by talking about her to Scarlett. Without saying a disloyal word about Suellen, she could tell him she understood how badly her sister had treated him and what good treatment he merited from a woman who really appreciated him.

Little Mrs. Hamilton was such a pretty pink-cheeked person, alternating between melancholy sighs when she thought of her sad plight, and laughter as gay and sweet as the tinkling of tiny silver bells when he made small jokes to cheer her. Her green gown, now neatly cleaned by Mammy, showed off her slender figure with its tiny waist to perfection, and how bewitching was the faint fragrance which always clung about her handkerchief and her hair! It was a shame that such a fine little woman should be alone and helpless in a world so rough that she didn’t even understand its harshness. No husband nor brother nor even a father now to protect her. Frank thought the world too rude a place for a lone woman and, in that idea, Scarlett silently and heartily concurred.

He came to call every night, for the atmosphere of Pitty’s house was pleasant and soothing. Mammy’s smile at the front door was the smile reserved for quality folks, Pitty served him coffee laced with brandy and fluttered about him and Scarlett hung on his every utterance. Sometimes in the afternoons he took Scarlett riding with him in his buggy when he went out on business. These rides were merry affairs because she asked so many foolish questions—“just like a woman,” he told himself approvingly. He couldn’t help laughing at her ignorance about business matters and she laughed too, saying: “Well, of course, you can’t expect a silly little woman like me to understand men’s affairs.”

She made him feel, for the first time in his old-maidish life, that he was a strong upstanding man fashioned by God in a nobler mold than other men, fashioned to protect silly helpless women.

When, at last, they stood together to be married, her confiding little hand in his and her downcast lashes throwing thick black crescents on her pink cheeks, he still did not know how it all came about. He only knew he had done something romantic and exciting for the first time in his life. He, Frank Kennedy, had swept this lovely creature off her feet and into his strong arms. That was a heady feeling.

No friend or relative stood up with them at their marriage. The witnesses were strangers called in from the street. Scarlett had insisted on that and he had given in, though reluctantly, for he would have liked his sister and his brother-in-law from Jonesboro to be with him. And a reception with toasts drunk to the bride in Miss Pitty’s parlor amid happy friends would have been a joy to him. But Scarlett would not hear of even Miss Pitty being present.

“Just us two, Frank,” she begged, squeezing his arm. “Like an elopement. I always did want to run away and be married! Please, sweetheart, just for me!”

It was that endearing term, still so new to his ears, and the bright teardrops which edged her pale green eyes as she looked up pleadingly at him that won him over. After all, a man had to make some concessions to his bride, especially about the wedding, for women set such a store by sentimental things.

And before he knew it, he was married.

Frank gave her the three hundred dollars, bewildered by her sweet urgency, reluctant at first, because it meant the end of his hope of buying the sawmill immediately. But he could not see her family evicted, and his disappointment soon faded at the sight of her radiant happiness, disappeared entirely at the loving way she “took on” over his generosity. Frank had never before had a woman “take on” over him and he came to feel that the money had been well spent, after all.

Scarlett dispatched Mammy to Tara immediately for the triple purpose of giving Will the money, announcing her marriage and bringing Wade to Atlanta. In two days she had a brief note from Will which she carried about with her and read and reread with mounting joy. Will wrote that the taxes had been paid and Jonas Wilkerson “acted up pretty bad” at the news but had made no other threats so far. Will closed by wishing her happiness, a laconic formal statement which he qualified in no way. She knew Win understood what she had done and why she had done it and neither blamed nor praised. But what must Ashley think? she wondered feverishly. What must he think of me now, after what I said to him so short a while ago in the orchard at Tara?

She also had a letter from Suellen, poorly spelled, violent, abusive, tear splotched, a letter so full of venom and truthful observations upon her character that she was never to forget it nor forgive the writer. But even Suellen’s words could not dim her happiness that Tara was safe, at least from immediate danger.

It was hard to realize that Atlanta and not Tara was her permanent home now. In her desperation to obtain the tax money, no thought save Tara and the fate which threatened it had any place in her mind. Even at the moment of marriage, she had not given a thought to the fact that the price she was paying for the safety of home was permanent exile from it. Now that the deed was done, she realized this with a wave of homesickness hard to dispel. But there it was. She had made her bargain and she intended to stand by it. And she was so grateful to Frank for saving Tara she felt a warm affection for him and an equally warm determination that he should never regret marrying her.

The ladies of Atlanta knew their neighbors’ business only slightly less completely than they knew their own and were far more interested in it. They all knew that for years Frank Kennedy had had an “understanding” with Suellen O’Hara. In fact, he had said, sheepishly, that he expected to get married in the spring. So the tumult of gossip, surmise and deep suspicion which followed the announcement of his quiet wedding to Scarlett was not surprising. Mrs. Merriwether, who never let her curiosity go long unsatisfied if she could help it, asked him point-blank just what he meant by marrying one sister when he was betrothed to the other. She reported to Mrs. Elsing that all the answer she got for her pains was a silly look. Not even Mrs. Merriwether, doughty soul that she was, dared to approach Scarlett on the subject. Scarlett seemed demure and sweet enough these days, but there was a pleased complacency in her eyes which annoyed people and she carried a chip on her shoulder which no one cared to disturb.

She knew Atlanta was talking but she did not care. After all, there wasn’t anything immoral in marrying a man. Tare was safe. Let people talk. She had too many other matters to occupy her mind. The most important was how to make Frank realize, in a tactful manner, that his store should bring in more money. After the fright Jonas Wilkerson had given her, she would never rest easy until she and Frank had some money ahead. And even if no emergency developed, Frank would need to make more money, if she was going to save enough for next year’s taxes. Moreover, what Frank had said about the sawmill stuck in her mind. Frank could make lots of money out of a mill. Anybody could, with lumber selling at such outrageous prices. She fretted silently because Frank’s money had not been enough to pay the taxes on Tara and buy the mill as well. And she made up her mind that he had to make more money on the store somehow, and do it quickly, so he could buy that mill before some one else snapped it up. She could see it was a bargain.

If she were a man she would have that mill, if she had to mortgage the store to raise the money. But, when she intimated this delicately to Frank, the day after they married, he smiled and told her not to bother her sweet pretty little head about business matters. It had come as a surprise to him that she even knew what a mortgage was and, at first, he was amused. But this amusement quickly passed and a sense of shock took its place in the early days of their marriage. Once, incautiously, he had told her that “people” (he was careful not to mention names) owed him money but could not pay just now and he was, of course, unwilling to press old friends and gentlefolk. Frank regretted ever mentioning it for, thereafter, she had questioned him about it again and again. She had the most charmingly childlike air but she was just curious, she said, to know who owed him and how much they owed. Frank was very evasive about the matter. He coughed nervously and waved his hands and repeated his annoying remark about her sweet pretty little head.

It had begun to dawn on him that this same sweet pretty little head was a “good head for figures.” In fact, a much better one than his own and the knowledge was disquieting. He was thunderstruck to discover that she could swiftly add a long column of figures in her head when he needed a pencil and paper for more than three figures. And fractions presented no difficulties to her at all. He felt there was something unbecoming about a woman understanding fractions and business matters and he believed that, should a woman be so unfortunate as to have such unladylike comprehension, she should pretend not to. Now he disliked talking business with her as much as be had enjoyed it before they were married. Then he had thought it all beyond her mental grasp and it had been pleasant to explain things to her. Now he saw that she understood entirely too well and he felt the usual masculine indignation at the duplicity of women. Added to it was the usual masculine disillusionment in discovering that a woman has a brain.

Just how early in his married life Frank learned of the deception Scarlett had used in marrying him, no one ever knew. Perhaps the truth dawned on him when Tony Fontaine, obviously fancy free, came to Atlanta on business. Perhaps it was told him more directly in letters from his sister in Jonesboro who was astounded at his marriage. Certainly he never learned from Suellen herself. She never wrote him and naturally he could not write her and explain. What good would explanations do anyway, now that he was married? He writhed inwardly at the thought that Suellen would never know the truth and would always think he had senselessly jilted her. Probably everyone else was thinking this too and criticizing him. It certainly put him in an awkward position. And he had no way of clearing himself, for a man couldn’t go about saying he had lost his head about a woman—and a gentleman couldn’t advertise the fact that his wife had entrapped him with a lie.

Scarlett was his wife and a wife was entitled to the loyalty of her husband. Furthermore, he could not bring himself to believe she had married him coldly and with no affection for him at all. His masculine vanity would not permit such a thought to stay long in his mind. It was more pleasant to think she had fallen so suddenly in love with him she had been willing to lie to get him. But it was all very puzzling. He knew he was no great catch for a woman half his age and pretty and smart to boot, but Frank was a gentleman and he kept his bewilderment to himself. Scarlett was his wife and he could not insult her by asking awkward questions which, after all, would not remedy matters.