Scarlett (81 page)

Scarlett had driven out in her pony trap, they learned, and no more, because Kathleen knew no more than they did. But everyone got to hold and read the telegrams. Scarlett had left them on the table for all the world to see.

Scarlett drove the tortuous roads to Tara with a jubilant heart. Now she could really begin. Her plan was clear in her head, each step following logically upon the previous one. This trip to Tara was not one of the steps; it had come into her mind when the second telegram arrived, more as a compulsion than as an impulse. It was compellingly necessary on this glorious sunlit day to see from Tara’s hill the sweet green land that was now her chosen home.

There were many more sheep grazing today than when she’d been here before. She looked over their wide backs and thought about wool. No one grazed sheep in Adamstown; she’d have to learn about the problems and profits of raising sheep from a fresh source.

Scarlett stopped in her tracks. There were people on the mounds that had once been the great banqueting hall of Tara. She’d expected to be alone. They’re English too, damn them for the interlopers they are. Resentment of the English was part of every Irishman’s life, and Scarlett had absorbed it with the bread she ate and the music she danced to. These picnickers had no right to spread rugs and a tablecloth where the High Kings of Ireland had once dined, or to talk in their honking voices where harps had played.

Particularly when that spot was where Scarlett O’Hara intended to stand, solitary, to look at her country. She glowered with frustration at the dandified men in their straw hats and the women with their flowered silk parasols.

I won’t let them spoil my day, I’ll go where they’re out of my sight. She walked to the twice-ringed mound that had been the wall-encircled house of King Cormac, builder of the banquet hall. The Lia Fail was here, the stone of destiny. Scarlett leaned against it. Colum had been shocked when she did that the day he first brought her to Tara. The Lia Fail was the coronation test of the ancient kings, he told her. If it cried aloud, the man being tested was acceptable as Ireland’s High King.

She’d been so strangely elated that day that nothing would have surprised her, not even if the weathered granite pillar had called her by name. As, of course, it had not. It was almost as tall as she was; the top made a good resting place for the hollow at the base of her skull. She looked dreamily at the racing clouds above her in the blue sky and felt the wind lifting the loose locks of hair from her forehead and temples. The English voices were now only muted background to the gentle tinkling bells on the necks of some of the sheep. So peaceful. Maybe that’s why I needed to come to Tara. I’ve been so busy I’d forgotten to be happy, and that was the most important part of my plan. Can I be happy in Ireland? Can I make it my real home?

There is happiness here in the free life I live. And how much more there’ll be when my plan is complete. The hard part is done, the part that other people controlled. Now it’s all up to me, the way I want it. And there’s so much to do! She smiled at the breeze.

The sun slipped in and out of the clouds, and the lush long grass smelled richly alive. Scarlett’s back slid down the stone and she sat on the green. Maybe she’d find a shamrock; Colum said they grew more thickly here than any place in Ireland. She’d tried lots of grassy patches, but never yet seen the unmistakable Irish clover. On an impulse Scarlett rolled down her black stockings and took them off. How white her feet looked. Ugh! She pulled her skirts up above her knees to let the sun warm her legs and feet. The yellow and red petticoats under her black skirt made her smile again. Colum had been right about that.

Scarlett wiggled her toes in the breeze.

What was that? Her head snapped erect.

And the tiny stir of life moved again in her body. “Oh,” she whispered, and again, “Oh.” She placed her hands gently over the small swelling under her skirts. The only thing she could feel was the bulky folded wool. It was no surprise that the quickening wasn’t touchable; Scarlett knew it would be many weeks before her hands could feel the kicking.

She stood, facing the wind, and thrust out her cradled belly. Green and gold fields and summer-thick green trees filled the world as far as her eyes could see. “All this is yours, little Irish baby,” she said. “Your mother will give it to you. By herself!” Scarlett could feel the cool windblown grass beneath her feet, and the warm earth beneath the grass.

She knelt then and ripped up a tuft of grass. Her face was unearthly when she dug into the ground beneath it with her nails, when she rubbed the moist fragrant earth in circles over her belly, when she said, “Yours, your green high Tara.”

They were talking about Scarlett in Daniel’s house. That was nothing new; Scarlett had been the villagers’ chief topic of conversation ever since she first arrived from America. Kathleen took no offense, why should she? Scarlett fascinated and mystified her too. She had no trouble understanding Scarlett’s decision to stay in Ireland. “Wasn’t I that heartsore my own self,” she said to one and all, “missing the mists and the soft earth and all in that hot, closed-in city? When she saw what was better, she knew not to give it up.”

“Is it true, then, Kathleen that her husband beat her something wonderful, and she ran from him to save her baby?”

“Not at all, Clare O’Gorman, and who’d be spreading such terrible lies as that?” Peggy Monaghan was indignant. “It’s a well-known fact that the sickness that took him in the end was already upon him, and he sent her away lest it reach into her womb.”

“It’s a terrible thing to be a widow and all alone with a baby on the way,” sighed Kate O’Toole.

“Not so terrible as it might be,” said Kathleen, the knowledgeable one, “not when you’re richer than the Queen of England.”

Everyone settled more comfortably in their seats around the fire. Now they were coming to it. Of all the intriguing speculation about Scarlett, the most enjoyable was to talk about her money.

And wasn’t it a grand thing to see a fortune in Irish hands for once instead of the English?

None of them knew that the richest days of gossip were just about to begin.

Scarlett flapped the reins of the pony’s back. “Get a move on,” she said, “this baby’s in a hurry for a home.” She was on her way to Ballyhara at last. Until everything was certain about buying it she hadn’t allowed herself to go any farther than the tower. Now she could look closely, see what she had.

“My houses in my town… my churches and my bars and my post office… my bog and my fields and my two rivers… What a wonderful lot there is to do!”

She was determined that the baby would be born in the place that would be its home. The Big House at Ballyhara. But everything else had to be done, too. Fields were most important. And a smithy in town to repair hinges and fashion plows. And leaks mended, windows reglazed, doors replaced on their hinges. The deterioration would have to be stopped immediately, now that the property was hers.

And the baby’s, of course. Scarlett concentrated on the life within her, but there was no movement. “Smart child,” she said aloud. “Sleep while you can. We’re going to be busy all the time from now on.” She only had twenty weeks to work in before the birth. It wasn’t hard to calculate the date. Nine months from February 14, Saint Valentine’s Day. Scarlett’s mouth twisted. What a joke that was… She wouldn’t think about that now—or ever. She had to keep her mind on November 14 and the work to be done before then. She smiled and started to sing.

When first I saw sweet Peggy, ’twas on a market day.

 

A low backed car she drove and sat upon a truss of hay.

 

But when that hay was blooming grass and deck’d with flow’rs of spring
,

 

No flow’r was there that could compare to the blooming girl I sing.

 

As she sat in her low backed car

 

The man at the turnpike bar

 

Never asked for the toll

 

But just rubbed his ould poll

 

And look’d after the low backed car…

 

What a good thing it was to be happy! This excited anticipation and these unexpected good spirits definitely added up to happiness. She’d said, back in Galway, that she was going to be happy, and she was.

“To be sure,” Scarlett added aloud, and she laughed at herself.

C
olum was surprised when Scarlett met his train in Mullingar. Scarlett was surprised when he stepped out of the baggage car and not the coach. And when his companion stepped out after him. “This is Liam Ryan, Scarlett darling, Jim Ryan’s brother.” Liam was a big man, as big as the O’Hara men—Colum excepted—and he was dressed in the green uniform of the Royal Irish Constabulary. How on earth could Colum befriend one of them? she thought. The Constabulary were even more despised than the English militia, because they policed and arrested and punished their own people, under orders from the English.

Did Colum have the gold, Scarlett wanted to know. He did, and Liam Ryan with his rifle to guard it. “I’ve escorted many a package in my day,” Colum said, “but never a time have I been nervous until now.”

“I’ve got men from the bank to take it,” said Scarlett. “I’m using Mullingar for safety, it’s got the biggest garrison of military.”. She’d learned to loathe the soldiers, but where the safety of her gold was involved she was glad to use them. She could use the bank in Trim for convenience—for small sums.

As soon as she saw the gold stored in the security of the vault and signed the papers for the purchase of Ballyhara, Scarlett took Colum’s arm and hurried him out onto the street.

“I’ve a pony trap, we can get going right away. There’s so much to do, Colum. I’ve got to find a blacksmith right away and get the smithy going. O’Gorman’s no good, he’s too lazy. Will you help me find one? He’ll be well paid to move to Ballyhara and well paid after he gets there, for there’ll be all the work he can handle. I’ve bought scythes and axes and shovels, but they’ll need sharpening. Oh! I need workmen too, to clear the fields, and carpenters to mend the houses, and glaziers and roofers and painters—everything imaginable!” Her cheeks were pink with excitement, her eyes shining. She was incredibly beautiful in her peasant black clothing.

Colum extricated himself from her grasp, then took her arm in his firm hand. “All will be done, Scarlett darling, and almost as quickly as you’d like. But not on an empty stomach. We’ll be going now to Jim Ryan’s. It’s seldom he gets to see his Galway brother, and it’s rare to find as grand a cook as Mrs. Ryan.”

Scarlett made an impatient gesture. Then she forced herself to calm down. Colum’s authority was quietly impressive. Also, she did try to remember to eat properly and drink quantities of milk for the baby’s sake. The subtle movements could be felt many times every day now.

But after dinner she couldn’t contain her anger when Colum said he wouldn’t come with her at once. She had so much to show him, to talk about, to plan, and she wanted it all now!

“I’ve things to do in Mullingar,” he said with placid, unshakable firmness. “I’ll be home in three days, you’ve my word on it. I’ll even set the time. Two in the afternoon we’ll meet at Daniel’s.”

“We’ll meet at Ballyhara,” said Scarlett. “I’ve already moved in. It’s the yellow house halfway down the street.” She turned her back on him then and strode angrily away to get her trap.

Late that evening, after Jim Ryan’s bar was closed for the night, its door was left on the latch for the men who quietly slipped in one by one to meet in a room upstairs. Colum laid out in detail the things they had to do. “It’s a God-sent opportunity,” he said with incandescent fervor, “an entire town of our own. All Fenian men, all their skills concentrated in one place, where the English would never think to look. The whole world already thinks my cousin’s daft for paying such a price for property she might have bought for nothing just to spare the owner paying the taxes on it. She’s American, too, a race known to be peculiar. The English are too busy laughing at her to be suspicious of what goes on in her property. We’ve long needed a secure headquarters. Scarlett’s begging us to take it, though she doesn’t know it.”

Colum rode into Ballyhara’s weed-grown street at 2:43. Scarlett was standing in front of her house, arms akimbo. “You’re late,” she accused.

“Ah, but sure and you’ll forgive me, Scarlett darling, when I tell you that following me on the road comes your smith and his wagon with forge and bellows and all that.”

Scarlett’s house was a perfect portrait of her, work first and comfort later, if at all. Colum observed everything with deceptively lazy eyes. The parlor’s broken windows were neatly covered with squares of oiled paper glued over the panes. Farm implements of new shiny steel were stacked in the corners of the room. The floors were swept clean but not polished. The kitchen had a plain narrow wooden bedstead with a thick straw mattress covered by linen sheets and a woolen blanket. There was a small turf fire in the big stone fireplace. The only cooking implements were an iron kettle and small pot. Above, on the mantelshelf, were tins of tea and oatmeal, two cups, saucers, spoons, and a box of matches. The only chair in the room was placed by a big table under the window. The table held a large account book, open, with entries in Scarlett’s neat hand. Two large oil lamps, a pot of ink, a box of pens and pen wipes, and a stack of paper were at the back of the table. A larger stack of paper was near the front. The sheets were covered with notes and calculations, held down with a large washed stone. The surveyor’s map of Ballyhara was nailed to the wall nearby. So was a mirror, above a shelf that held Scarlett’s silver-backed comb and brushes, and silver-topped jars of hairpins, powder, rouge, and rosewater-glycerine cream. Colum restrained a smile when he saw them. But when he saw the pistol next to them, he turned angrily. “You could get jailed for owning that weapon,” he said, too loudly.