Scarlett (80 page)

Colum crossed himself.

Scarlett laughed harshly. “Poor Colum. You must have heard about the woman scorned, don’t be so shocked. Don’t fret, I won’t frighten you any more.” She smiled, and he could almost believe he’d imagined what he’d seen in her face a moment earlier. Scarlett’s smile was open and affectionate.

“I know you’re trying to help me, and I’m grateful, Colum, I really am. You’ve been so good to me, such a good friend, probably the best friend I ever had except Melly. You’re like a brother. I always wished I had a brother. I hope you’ll always be my friend.”

Colum assured her that he would. He thought to himself that he’d never seen a soul so in need of help.

“I want you to take these letters to America for me, please, Colum. This one’s to my Aunt Pauline. I want her to know I got her letter so she’ll get all the pleasure possible out of her love for telling people ‘I told you so.’ And this one’s to my Atlanta lawyer, there’s business I have to settle. Both should be posted in Boston, I don’t want anyone to know where I really am. This one I want you to hand-deliver. It’ll mean more travel for you, but it’s terribly important. It’s to the bank in Savannah. I have a pile of gold and my jewelry in their vault, and I’m counting on you to bring it back safe for me. Did Bridie give you the bag I had ’round my neck? Good. That’ll do me to get started with. Now I need you to find me a lawyer I can trust, if there is such a thing. I’m going to use Rhett Butler’s money. I’m going to buy Ballyhara, where the O’Haras began. This child’s going to have a heritage he could never provide. I’ll show him a thing or two about roots that go deep.”

“Scarlett darling, I beseech you. Wait a bit. We can stay in Galway awhile, with Bridie and me to take care of you. You’re not over the shocks. One right on top the other the way they came, it’s been too much for you to be making such big decisions.”

“You think I’ve gone crazy, I suppose. Maybe I have. But this is my way, Colum, and I mean to take it. With your help or without it. No reason for you and Bridie to stay, either. I plan to go back to Daniel’s tomorrow and ask them to take me in again until Ballyhara’s mine. If you’re afraid I need looking after, you can surely trust Kathleen and them.

“Come on, Colum,” Scarlett said, “admit it. I’ve got you beat.”

He spread his hands and admitted it.

Later he escorted her to the office of an English lawyer with a reputation for successful completion of whatever he put his hand to, and the search for the owner of Ballyhara was set into motion.

The following day Colum went to the Market as soon as the first tables were set up. He took the purchases Scarlett wanted back to the hotel. “Here you are then, Mrs. O’Hara,” he said. “Black skirts and shirts and shawl and cloak and stockings for the poor new widow, and I’ve told Bridie that’s what the news was that gave you the collapse. Your husband was taken by sickness before there was time for you to reach his side. And here you are as well—a wee gift from me. I’m thinking that when widow’s weeds pull your spirits down, you’ll feel better for knowing you’ve got them on.” Colum deposited a heap of bright colored petticoats in Scarlett’s lap.

Scarlett smiled. Her eyes brimmed with emotion. “How did you know I was kicking myself for giving all my Irish clothes to the cousins in Adamstown?” She waved at her trunk and valises. “I won’t need these things any more. Take them with you and give them to Maureen to dole out.”

“That’s foolish extravagance and impetuosity, Scarlett.”

“Fiddle-dee-dee! I took out my boots and my shimmies. The frocks are no use to me. I’m never going to be squeezed into a corset again, never. I’m Scarlett O’Hara, an Irish lass with a free-swinging skirt and a secret red petticoat. Free, Colum! I’m going to make a world for myself by my rules, not anybody else’s. Don’t worry about me. I’m going to learn to be happy.” Colum averted his eyes from the grimly determined expression on Scarlett’s face.

T
he ship’s sailing was delayed two days, so Colum and Bridie were able to escort Scarlett to the train station on Sunday morning. First they all went to Mass.

“You must have a word with her, now, Colum,” Bridie whispered in his ear when they met in the hallway. She rolled her eyes toward Scarlett.

Colum hid his smile with a cough. Scarlett was dressed like a widowed peasant, even to wearing a shawl instead of a cloak.

“We’ll go along with her, Brigid,” he said firmly. “She has a right to mourn any way she sees fit.”

“But, Colum—this grand English hotel, all the people will be staring, and talking.”

“And don’t they have their rights, too? Let them stare and say what they will. We’ll give no notice.” He took Bridie’s arm in a firm grasp, offered his other hand to Scarlett. She rested hers elegantly on top of it, as if he were leading her into a ballroom.

When she was seated in her first-class compartment on the train, Colum watched with relish, Bridie with horror, as one group of English travellers after another opened the door to the compartment, then backed away.

“The authorities shouldn’t allow those people to buy first-class tickets,” one woman said loudly to her husband.

Scarlett’s hand shot out to hold the door before the Anglo could close it. She called out to Colum, who was on the platform nearby. “Faith! I forgot my basket of boiled taties, Father. Will you say a prayer to the Blessed Virgin that there’ll be a peddler selling some food on this train?” Her brogue was so exaggerated that Colum could barely understand the words. He was still laughing when a station attendant closed the door, and the train began to move. The English couple, he was pleased to see, abandoned all dignity in their scramble into another compartment.

Scarlett waved goodbye, smiling, as her window moved out of his sight.

Then she sat back in her seat and allowed her face to relax, permitted a single tear to escape. She was bone tired and dreading the return to Adamstown. Daniel’s two-room cottage had seemed quaint and delightfully different from all she was accustomed to, as long as she was on a vacation visit. Now it was a cramped, crowded house with no luxuries, and it was the only place she could call home—for who knew how long. The lawyer might not be able to find the owner of Ballyhara. The owner might not be willing to sell. The price might be more, even, than all the money Rhett had given her.

Her carefully thought-out plan was riddled with holes, and she had no certainty about anything.

I won’t think about it now, there’s nothing I can do about any of those things. At least nobody’ll be crowding in here wanting to chatter at me. Scarlett folded up the arms separating the three deeply cushioned seats, stretched out with a sigh, and fell asleep, her ticket on the floor where the conductor could see it. She had made a plan, and she was going to see it through as far as she could. It would be a lot easier if she wasn’t tired half to death.

The first step proceeded without a hitch. She bought a pony and trap in Mullingar and drove it home to Adamstown. It wasn’t as stylish a rig as Molly’s; the trap was distinctly shabby looking. But the pony was younger and larger and stronger. And she’d made a start.

The family were shocked when she returned, and sympathetic for her loss in the best possible way. Once expressed, they never again spoke of their feelings; instead they asked was there anything they could do for her.

“You can teach me,” said Scarlett. “I want to learn about an Irish farm.” She followed Daniel and his sons through their work routines. She even set her jaw and forced herself to learn how to handle cattle, including milking the cow. After she’d learned all she could about Daniel’s farm, Scarlett put herself out to charm Molly, then Molly’s loathsome husband, Robert. His farm was five times the size of Daniel’s. After Robert it was the turn of his boss, Mr. Alderson, manager of the Earl’s entire estate. Not even in the days when she was captivating every man in Clayton County had Scarlett been so charming. Or worked so hard. Or succeeded so well. She had no time to notice the austerity of the cottage. All that mattered was the soft mattress at the end of the long, long summer day of work.

After a month, she knew almost as much about Adamstown as Alderson, and she’d identified at least six ways it could be improved. It was just about that time that she received the letter from her Galway lawyer.

The widow of Ballyhara’s deceased owner had remarried only a year after his death and had herself died five years ago. Her heir and eldest son, now twenty-seven, lived in England where he was also heir to the estate of his father, who was still living. He had said he would give consideration to any offer in excess of fifteen thousand pounds. Scarlett studied the copy of the survey map of Ballyhara that was attached to the letter. It was much bigger than she’d thought.

Why, it’s both sides of the road to Trim. And there’s another river. The boundary’s the Boyne on this side and—she squinted at the tiny lettering—the Knightsbrook on the other. What an elegant name. Knightsbrook. Two rivers. I’ve got to have it. But—fifteen thousand pounds!

She already knew from Alderson that ten pounds was a price paid only for prime growing land, and a high price at that. Eight was more like it, seven and a half for a shrewd bargainer. Ballyhara had a sizable area of bog, too. Useful for fuel, there was enough peat to last a few centuries. But nothing grew on bog, and the fields around it were too acid for wheat. Plus the land had gone to ruin in thirty years. It all needed clearing of scrub growth and tap-rooted weeds. She shouldn’t pay more than four, four and a half. For 1,240 acres, that came to £4,960 or £5,580 at the most. There was the house, of course; it was huge. Not that she cared. The buildings in the town were more important. Forty-six of them all told, plus two churches. Five of the houses were quite grand, two dozen were only cottages.

But all were deserted. Likely to stay that way, too, with no one tending to the estate. Taken all in all, ten thousand pounds would be more than fair. He’d be lucky to get it. Ten thousand pounds—that was fifty thousand dollars! Scarlett was horrified.

I’ve got to start thinking in real money, I get too careless otherwise. Ten thousand doesn’t sound like all that much of anything, but fifty thousand dollars is different. I know that’s a fortune. With all that scrimping and saving and sharp dealing at the lumber mills and the store… and selling the mills outright… and the rent for the saloon… and never spending a penny I didn’t absolutely have to, year in and year out, in ten years I only managed to put together a little over thirty thousand dollars. And I wouldn’t have half that if Rhett hadn’t paid for everything for almost the last seven years. Uncle Henry says I’m a rich woman with my thirty thousand, and I reckon he’s right. Those houses I’m building don’t cost more than a hundred to put up. What on earth kind of people have fifty thousand dollars to pay for a ramshackle ghost town and unworked land?

People like Rhett Butler, that’s who. And I’ve got five hundred thousand of his dollars. To buy back the land stolen from my people. Ballyhara wasn’t just land, it was O’Hara land. How could she even think about what she should or shouldn’t pay? Scarlett made a firm offer of fifteen thousand pounds—take it or leave it.

After her letter was in the post, she shook all over, from head to toe. Suppose Colum didn’t come back with her gold in time? There was no way of knowing how long the lawyer would take or when Colum would return. She barely said goodbye to Matt O’Toole after she gave him the letter. She was in a hurry.

She walked as quickly as the uneven ground would allow, wishing for rain. The tall thick hedges held the June heat in the narrow path between them. She had no hat to keep her head cool and to protect her skin from the sun. She almost never wore one; the frequent showers and the clouds that preceded and followed them made hats unnecessary. As for parasols, they were only ornaments in Ireland.

When she reached the ford over the Boyne she tucked up her skirts and stood in the water until her body was cooled. Then she went to the tower.

During the month she’d been back at Daniel’s, the tower had become very important to her. She always went there when she was worried about anything or bothered or sad. Its great stones held heat and cool both; she could lay her hands on them or her cheek against them and find the solace and comfort she needed in its enduring ancient solidity. Sometimes she talked to it as if it were her father. More rarely she stretched her arms over its stones and wept upon it. She never heard a sound other than her own voice and the song of birds and the whisper of the river. She never sensed the presence of the eyes that were watching her.

Colum returned to Ireland on June 18. He sent a telegram from Galway:
WILL ARRIVE TWO FIVE JUNE WITH SAVANNAH GOODS
. The village was in an uproar. There had never been a telegram in Adamstown. There had never been a rider from Trim who was so uninterested in Matt O’Toole’s porter, or a horse so swift carrying a rider.

When, two hours later, a second rider galloped into the village on an even more noteworthy horse, people’s excitement knew no bounds. Another telegram for Scarlett from Galway.
OFFER ACCEPTED STOP LETTER AND CONTRACT FOLLOW
.

It took little discussion before the villagers agreed to do the only sensible thing. O’Toole’s and the smithy would close. The doctor would close his door. Father Danaher would be spokesman, and they would all walk up to Daniel O’Hara’s to find out what was going on.