Scarlett (60 page)

Uncle Henry Hamilton was furious that she’d transferred the money to the Savannah bank. Too bad. Scarlett crumpled up his brief letter and dropped it on the floor.

The fat envelope was from Aunt Pauline. Her meandering complaints could wait, and they were sure to be complaints. Scarlett opened the stiff square envelope next. She didn’t recognize the handwriting on the front.

It was an invitation. The name was unfamiliar, and she had to think hard before she remembered. Of course. Hodgson was the married name of one of those old ladies, the Telfair sisters. The invitation was for a ceremony of dedication for Hodgson Hall, with a reception to follow. “New home of the Georgia Historical Society.” It sounded even deadlier than that awful musicale. Scarlett made a face and put the invitation aside. She’d have to find some letter paper and send her regrets. The aunts liked to be bored to death, but not she.

The aunts. Might as well get it over with. She tore open Pauline’s letter.

…
profoundly ashamed of your outrageous behavior. If we had known that you were coming with us to Savannah without so much as a word of explanation to Eleanor Butler, we would have insisted that you leave the train and go back.

What the devil was Aunt Pauline saying? Was it possible that Miss Eleanor didn’t mention the note I left for her? Or that she didn’t get it? No, it wasn’t possible. Aunt Pauline was just making trouble.

Scarlet’s eyes moved quickly over Pauline’s complaints about the folly of Scarlett’s travelling after her ordeal when the boat capsized and about Scarlett’s “unnatural reticence” in not telling her aunts that she’d been in the accident.

Why couldn’t Pauline tell her what she wanted to know? There wasn’t a word about Rhett. She went through page after page of Pauline’s spiky handwriting, looking for his name. God’s nightgown! Her aunt could lecture longer than a hellfire preacher. There. At last.

…
dear Eleanor is understandably concerned that Rhett felt it necessary to travel all the way to Boston for the meeting about his fertilizer shipments. He should not have gone to the chill of the Northern climate immediately after the ordeal of his long immersion in cold water following the capsizing of his boat…

Scarlett let the pages fall into her lap. Of course! Oh, thank God. That’s why Rhett hadn’t come after her yet. Why didn’t Uncle Henry tell me Rhett’s telegram came from Boston? Then I wouldn’t have driven myself crazy expecting him to show up on the doorstep any minute. Does Aunt Pauline say when he’s coming back?

Scarlett pawed through the jumble of letter sheets. Where had she stopped? She found her place and read eagerly to the end. But there was no mention of what she wanted to know. Now what am I going to do? Rhett might be gone for weeks. Or he might be on his way back right this very minute.

Scarlett picked up the invitation from Mrs. Hodgson again. At least it would be someplace to go. She’d have a screaming fit if she had to stay in this house day after day.

If only she could run over to Jamie’s every now and then, just for a cup of tea. But no, that was unthinkable.

And yet, she couldn’t not think of the O’Haras. The next morning she went with the sullen cook to the City Market to supervise what she bought and how much she paid for it. With nothing else to occupy her, Scarlett was determined to see her grandfather’s house in order. While she was having coffee, she heard a soft hesitant voice speak her name. It was lovely, shy young Kathleen. “I’m not familiar with all the American fishes,” she said. “Will you help me choose the best prawns?” Scarlett was bewildered until the girl gestured toward the shrimp.

“The angels must have sent you, Scarlett,” Kathleen said when her purchase was made. “I’d be lost for sure without you. Maureen wants only the best. We’re expecting Colum, you see.”

Colum—am I supposed to know him? Maureen or somebody mentioned that name once, too. “Why’s Colum so important?”

Kathleen’s blue eyes widened in amazement that the question could be asked. “Why? Well… because Colum’s Colum, that’s all. He’s…” She couldn’t find the words she was looking for. “He’s just Colum, that’s all. He brought me here, don’t you know? He’s my brother, like Stephen.”

Stephen. The quiet dark one. Scarlett hadn’t realized he was Kathleen’s brother. Maybe that’s why he’s so quiet. Maybe they’re all shy as mice in that family. “Which one of Uncle James’ brothers is your father?” she asked Kathleen.

“Ah, but my father’s dead, God rest his soul.”

Was the girl simple? “What was his name, Kathleen?”

“Oh, it’s his name you’re wanting to know! Patrick, that was his name, Patrick O’Hara. Patricia’s called after him, being Jamie’s firstborn and Patrick his own father’s name.”

Scarlett’s forehead creased in concentration. So Jamie was Kathleen’s brother, too. So much for thinking the whole family was shy. “Do you have any other brothers?” she asked.

“Oh, yes,” Kathleen said with a happy smile, “brothers, and sisters, too. Fourteen of us all told. Still living, I mean.” And she crossed herself.

Scarlett drew away from the girl. Oh, Lord, more than likely the cook’s been listening, and it’ll get back to grandfather. I can hear him now. Talking about Catholics breeding like rabbits.

But in fact Pierre Robillard made no mention at all of Scarlett’s cousins. He summoned her for a presupper visit, announced that his meals were proving satisfactory, then dismissed her.

She stopped Jerome to check over the supper tray, examined the silver to see that it was gleaming and free of fingerprints. When she put the coffee spoon down it tapped against the soup spoon. I wonder if Maureen would teach me to play the spoons? The thought caught her off guard.

That night she dreamed about her father. She woke in the morning with a smile still on her lips, but her cheeks stiff with the dried streaks of tears.

At the City Market she heard Maureen O’Hara’s distinctive gusty laughter just in time to dart behind one of the thick brick piers and miss being seen. But she could see Maureen, and Patricia, looking as big as a house, and a straggle of children behind them. “Your father’s the only one of us not in a fever for your uncle to arrive,” she heard Maureen say. “He’s enjoying the special treats I fix for supper every night in hopes of Colum.”

I’d like a special treat myself, Scarlett thought rebelliously. I’m getting mighty tired of food soft enough for Grandfather. She turned on the cook. “Get some chicken, too,” she ordered, “and fry up a couple of pieces for my dinner.”

Her bad mood cleared up long before dinner, however. When she got back to the house, there was a note from the Mother Superior. The Bishop was going to consider Scarlett’s request to allow her to buy back Carreen’s dowry.

Tara. I’m going to get Tara! So busy was her mind with planning Tara’s rebirth that she didn’t notice the time passing at all, nor was she conscious of what was on her plate at mealtime.

She could see it so clearly in her mind. The house, gleaming fresh white on top of the hill; the clipped lawn green, so green, and thick with clover; the pasture, shimmering green with its deep satiny grass bending before the breeze, unrolling like a carpet down the hill and into the mysterious shadowy dark green of the pines that bordered the river and hid it from view. Spring with clouds of tender dogwood blossoms and the heady scent of wisteria; then summer, the crisp starched white curtains billowing from the open windows, the thick sweetness of honeysuckle flowing through them into all the rooms, all restored to their dreaming, polished quiet perfection. Yes, summer was the best. The long, lazy Georgia summer when twilight lasted for hours and lightning bugs signalled in the slow thickening darkness. Then the stars, fat and close in the velvet sky, or a moon round and white, as white as the sleeping house it lit on the dark, gently rising hill.

Summer… Scarlett’s eyes widened. That was it! Why hadn’t she realized it before? Of course. Summer—when she loved Tara most—summer was when Rhett couldn’t go to Dunmore Landing because of the fever. It was perfect. They’d spend October to June in Charleston, with the Season to break the monotony of all those stuffy boring tea parties, and the promise of summer at Tara to break the monotony of the Season. She could bear it, she knew she could. As long as there was the long summer at Tara.

Oh, if only the Bishop would hurry!

P
ierre Robillard escorted Scarlett to the dedication ceremonies at Hodgson Hall. He was an imposing figure in his old-fashioned dress suit, with its satin knee breeches and velvet tailcoat, the tiny red rosette of the Legion of Honor in his buttonhole and a broad diagonal red sash across his chest. Scarlett had never seen anyone look quite so distinguished and aristocratic as her grandfather.

He could be proud of her, too, she thought. Her pearls and diamonds were of the first water, and her gown was magnificent, a shining column of gold brocaded silk trimmed with gold lace and a gold brocaded train that was a full four feet long. She’d never had a chance to wear it, because she’d had to dress so dowdy in Charleston. How lucky, after all, that she’d had all those clothes made before she went to Charleston. Why, there were a half dozen dresses that had hardly been on her back. Even without the trim that Rhett had taunted her into removing, they were much prettier than anything she’d seen on anybody in Savannah. Scarlett was preening as Jerome handed her up into the hired carriage to sit across from her grandfather.

The ride to the south end of town was silent. Pierre Robillard’s white-crowned head nodded, half-sleeping. It jerked upright when Scarlett exclaimed, “Oh, look!” There were crowds of people on the street outside the iron-fenced classical building, there to watch the arrival of Savannah’s elite society. Just like the Saint Cecilia. Scarlett held her head arrogantly high as a liveried attendant helped her from the carriage to the sidewalk. She could hear murmurs of admiration from the crowds. While her grandfather slowly stepped down to join her, she bobbed her head to set her earbobs flashing in the lamplight and cast her train from over her arm to spread out behind her for her entrance up the tall, red-carpeted steps to the Hall’s door.

“Ooooh,” she heard from the crowd and, “aaah,” “beautiful,” “who is she?” As she extended her white-gloved hand to rest on her grandfather’s velvet sleeve a familiar voice called out clearly, “Katie Scarlett, darling, you’re as dazzling as the Queen of Sheba!” She looked quickly, in a panic, to her left, then, even more quickly, turned away from Jamie and his brood as if she didn’t know them, and proceeded at Pierre Robillard’s slow, stately pace to mount the stairs. But the picture was seared into her mind. Jamie had his left arm around the shoulders of his laughing, bright-haired untidy wife, his Derby hat tipped carelessly on the back of his curly head. Another man stood at his right side, illuminated by the street lamp. He was only as tall as Jamie’s shoulder, and his overcoated figure was thick, stocky, a dark block. His florid round face was bright, his eyes flashing blue, and his uncovered head a halo of silver curls. He was the very image of Gerald O’Hara, Scarlett’s Pa.

Hodgson Hall had a handsome, serious interior, appropriate to its scholarly purpose. Rich, polished wood panelling covered the walls and framed the Historical Society’s collection of old maps and sketches. Huge brass chandeliers fitted with white glass-globed gaslights hung from the tall ceiling. They cast an unkind, bright, bleaching light on the pale, lined aristocratic faces below them. Scarlett sought instinctively for some shadow. Old. They all look so old.

She felt panicky, as if somehow she was aging rapidly, as if old age were a contagion. Her thirtieth birthday had come and gone unnoticed while she was in Charleston, but now she was acutely aware of it. Everyone knew that once a woman was thirty, she just as well be dead. Thirty was so old that she’d never believed it could happen to her. It couldn’t be true.

“Scarlett,” said her grandfather. He held her arm above the elbow and propelled her toward the receiving line. His fingers were cold as death; she could feel the cold through the thin leather of the glove that covered her arm almost to her shoulder.

Ahead of her the elderly officers of the Historical Society were welcoming elderly guests, one by one. I can’t! Scarlett thought frantically. I can’t shake all those dead cold hands and smile and say I’m happy to be here. I’ve got to get away.

She sagged against her grandfather’s stiff shoulder. “I’m not well,” she said. “Grandfather, I feel ill all of a sudden.”

“You are not permitted to feel ill,” he said. “Stand straight, and do what’s expected of you. You may leave after the ceremony of dedication, not before.”

Scarlett stiffened her spine and stepped forward. What a monster her grandfather was! No wonder that she’d never heard her mother say much about him; there was nothing nice to say. “Good evening, Mrs. Hodgson,” she said. “I’m so happy to be here.”

Pierre Robillard’s progress along the lengthy receiving line was much slower than Scarlett’s. He was still bowing stiffly over the hand of a lady halfway along when Scarlett was finished. She pushed her way through a group of people and hurried to the door.

Outside, she gulped the crisp air with desperation. Then she ran. Her train glittered in the lamplight on the stairs, on the gala red carpet, stretching up behind her as if it were floating free in the air. “The Robillard carriage. Quickly!” she begged the attendant. Responding to her urgency, he ran to the corner. Scarlett ran after him, heedless of her train on the rough bricks of the sidewalk. She had to get away before anyone could stop her.