MRS. ELSING cocked her ear toward the hall. Hearing Melanie’s steps die away into the kitchenwhere rattling dishes and clinking silverware gave promise of refreshments, she turned and spokesoftly to the ladies who sat in a circle in the parlor, their sewing baskets in their laps.
Personally, I do not intend to call on Scarlett now or ever,” she said, the chill elegance of herface colder than usual.
The other members of the Ladies’ Sewing Circle for the Widows and Orphans of theConfederacy eagerly laid down their needles and edged their rocking chairs closer. All the ladieshad been bursting to discuss Scarlett and Rhett but Melanie’s presence prevented it. Just the daybefore, the couple had returned from New Orleans and they were occupying the bridal suite at theNational Hotel.
Hugh says that I must call out of courtesy for the way Captain Butler saved his life,” Mrs. Elsing continued. “And poor Fanny sides with him and says she will call too. I said to her ‘Fanny
I said, ‘if it wasn’t for Scarlett, Tommy would be alive this minute. It is an insult to his memory tocall.’ And Fanny had no better sense than to say ‘Mother, I’m not calling on Scarlett. I’m calling onCaptain Butler. He tried his best to save Tommy and it wasn’t his fault if he failed.
How silly young people are!” said Mrs. Merriwether. “Call, indeed!” Her stout bosom swelledindignantly as she remembered Scarlett’s rude reception of her advice on marrying Rhett. “MyMaybelle is just as silly as your Fanny. She says she and René will call, because Captain Butlerkept René from getting hanged. And I said if it hadn’t been for Scarlett exposing herself, Renéwould never have been in any danger. And Father Merriwether intends to call and he talks like hewas in his dotage and says he’s grateful to that scoundrel, even if I’m not. I vow, since FatherMerriwether was in that Watling creature’s house he has acted in a disgraceful way. Call, indeed! Icertainly shan’t call. Scarlett has outlawed herself by marrying such a man. He was bad enoughwhen he was a speculator during the war and making money out of our hunger but now that he ishand in glove with the Carpetbaggers and Scalawags and a friend—actually a friend of that odiouswretch, Governor Bullock— Call, indeed
Mrs. Bonnell sighed. She was a plump brown wren of a woman with a cheerful face.
They’ll only call once, for courtesy, Dolly. I don’t know that I blame them. I’ve heard that allthe men who were out that night intend to call, and I think they should. Somehow, it’s hard for meto think that Scarlett is her mother’s child. I went to school with Ellen Robillard in Savannah andthere was never a lovelier girl than she was and she was very dear to me. If only her father had notopposed her match with her cousin, Philippe Robillard! There was nothing really wrong with theboy—boys must sow their wild oats. But Ellen must run off and marry old man O’Hara and have adaughter like Scarlett. But really, I feel that I must call once out of memory to Ellen.
Sentimental nonsense!” snorted Mrs. Merriwether with vigor. “Kitty Bonnell, are you going tocall on a woman who married a bare year after her husband’s death? A woman
And she really killed Mr. Kennedy,” interrupted India. Her voice was cool but acid. Whenevershe thought of Scarlett it was hard for her even to be polite, remembering, always rememberingStuart Tarleton. “And I have always thought there was more between her and that Butler manbefore Mr. Kennedy was killed than most people suspected.
Before the ladies could recover from their shocked astonishment at her statement and at aspinster mentioning such a matter, Melanie was standing in the doorway. So engrossed had theybeen in their gossip that they had not heard her light tread and now, confronted by their hostess,they looked like whispering schoolgirls caught by a teacher. Alarm was added to consternation atthe change in Melanie’s face. She was pink with righteous anger, her gentle eyes snapping fire, hernostrils quivering. No one had ever seen Melanie angry before. Not a lady present thought hercapable of wrath. They all loved her but they thought her the sweetest, most pliable of youngwomen, deferential to her elders and without any opinions of her own.
How dare you, India?” she questioned in a low voice that shook. “Where will your jealousylead you? For shame
India’s face went white but her head was high.
I retract nothing,” she said briefly. But her mind was seething.
Jealous, am I?” she thought. With the memory of Stuart Tarleton and of Honey and Charles,didn’t she have good reason to be jealous of Scarlett? Didn’t she have good reason to hate her,especially now that she had a suspicion that Scarlett had somehow entangled Ashley in her web
She thought: “There’s plenty I could tell you about Ashley and your precious Scarlett.” India wastorn between the desire to shield Ashley by her silence and to extricate him by telling all hersuspicions to Melanie and the whole world. That would force Scarlett to release whatever hold shehad on Ashley. But this was not the time. She had nothing definite, only suspicions.
I retract nothing,” she repeated.
Then it is fortunate that you are no longer living under my roof,” said Melanie and her wordswere cold.
India leaped to her feet, red flooding her sallow face.
Melanie, you—my sister-in-law—you aren’t going to quarrel with me over that fast piece
Scarlett is my sister-in-law, too,” said Melanie, meeting India’s eyes squarely as though theywere strangers. “And dearer to me than any blood sister could ever be. If you are so forgetful ofmy favors at her hands, I am not. She stayed with me through the whole siege when she could havegone home, when even Aunt Pitty had run away to Macon. She brought my baby for me when theYankees were almost in Atlanta and she burdened herself with me and Beau all that dreadful trip toTara when she could have left me here in a hospital for the Yankees to get me. And she nursed andfed me, even if she was tired and even if she went hungry. Because I was sick and weak, I had thebest mattress at Tara. When I could walk, I had the only whole pair of shoes. You can forget thosethings she did for me, India, but I cannot. And when Ashley came home, sick, discouraged, withouta home, without a cent in his pockets, she took him in like a sister. And when we thought we wouldhave to go North and it was breaking our hearts to leave Georgia, Scarlett stepped in and gave himthe mill to run. And Captain Butler saved Ashley’s life out of the kindness of his heart. CertainlyAshley had no claim on him! And I am grateful, grateful to Scarlett and to Captain Butler. But you,India! How can you forget the favors Scarlett has done me and Ashley? How can you hold yourbrother’s life so cheap as to cast slurs on the man who saved him? If you went down on your kneesto Captain Butler and Scarlett, it would not be enough.
Now, Melly,” began Mrs. Merriwether briskly, for she had recovered her composure, “that’s noway to talk to India.
I heard what you said about Scarlett too,” cried Melanie, swinging on the stout old lady withthe air of a duelist who, having withdrawn a blade from one prostrate opponent, turns hungrilytoward another. “And you too, Mrs. Elsing. What you think of her in your own petty minds, I donot care, for that is your business. But what you say about her in my own house or in my ownhearing, ever, is my business. But how can you even think such dreadful things, much less saythem? Are your men so cheap to you that you would rather see them dead than alive? Have you nogratitude to the man who saved them and saved them at risk of his own life? The Yankees mighteasily have thought him a member of the Klan if the whole truth had come out! They might havehanged him. But he risked himself for your men. For your father-in-law, Mrs. Merriwether, and your son-in-law and your two nephews, too. And your brother, Mrs. Bonnell, and your son andson-in-law, Mrs. Elsing. Ingrates, that’s what you are! I ask an apology from all of you.
Mrs. Elsing was on her feet cramming her sewing into her box, her mouth set.
If anyone had ever told me that you could be so ill bred, Melly— No, I will not apologize.
India is right Scarlett is a flighty, fast bit of baggage. I can’t forget how she acted during the war.
And I can’t forget how poor white trashy she’s acted since she got a little money
What you can’t forget” cut in Melanie, clenching her small fists against her sides, “is that shedemoted Hugh because he wasn’t smart enough to run her mill.
Melly!” moaned a chorus of voices.
Mrs. Elsing’s head jerked up and she started toward the door. With her hand on the knob of thefront door, she stopped and turned.
Melly,” she said and her voice softened, “honey, this breaks my heart. I was your mother’s bestfriend and I helped Dr. Meade bring you into this world and I’ve loved you like you were mine. Ifit were something that mattered it wouldn’t be so hard to hear you talk like this. But about awoman like Scarlett O’Hara who’d just as soon do you a dirty turn as the next of us
Tears had started in Melanie’s eyes at the first words Mrs. Elsing spoke, but her face hardenedwhen the old lady had finished.
I want it understood,” she said, “that any of you who do not call on Scarlett need never, nevercall on me.
There was a loud murmur of voices, confusion as the ladies got to their feet Mrs. Elsing droppedher sewing box on the floor and came back into the room, her false fringe jerking awry.
I won’t have it!” she cried. “I won’t have it! You are beside yourself, Melly, and I don’t holdyou responsible. You shall be my friend and I shall be yours. I refuse to let this come between us.
She was crying and somehow, Melanie was in her arms, crying too, but declaring between sobsthat she meant every word she said. Several of the other ladies burst into tears and Mrs.
Merriwether, trumpeting loudly into her handkerchief, embraced both Mrs. Elsing and Melanie.
Aunt Pitty, who had been a petrified witness to the whole scene, suddenly slid to the floor in whatwas one of the few real fainting spells she had ever had. Amid the tears and confusion and kissingand scurrying for smelling salts and brandy, there was only one calm face, one dry pair of eyes.
India Wilkes took her departure unnoticed by anyone.
Grandpa Merriwether, meeting Uncle Henry Hamilton in the Girl of the Period Saloon severalhours later, related the happenings of the morning which he had heard from Mrs. Merriwether. Hetold it was relish for he was delighted that someone had the courage to face down his redoubtabledaughter-in-law. Certainly, he had never had such courage.
Well, what did the pack of silly fools finally decide to do?” asked Uncle Henry irritably.
I dunno for sure,” said Grandpa, “but it looks to me like Melly won hands down on this go-round. I’ll bet they’ll all call, at least once. Folks set a store by that niece of yours, Henry.
Melly’s a fool and the ladies are right. Scarlett is a slick piece of baggage and I don’t see why Charlie ever married her,” said Uncle Henry gloomily. “But Melly was right too, in a way. It’s onlydecent that the families of the men Captain Butler saved should call. When you come right down toit, I haven’t got so much against Butler. He showed himself a fine man that night he saved ourhides. It’s Scarlett who sticks under my tail like a cocklebur. She’s a sight too smart for her owngood. Well, I’ve got to call. Scalawag or not Scarlett is my niece by marriage, after all. I wasaiming to call this afternoon.
I’ll go with you, Henry. Dolly will be fit to be tied when she hears I’ve gone. Wait till I get onemore drink.
No, we’ll get a drink off Captain Butler. I’ll say this for him, he always has good licker.
Rhett had said that the Old Guard would never surrender and he was right. He knew how littlesignificance there was to the few calls made upon them, and he knew why the calls were made.
The families of the men who had been in the ill-starred Klan foray did call first, but called withobvious infrequency thereafter. And they did not invite the Rhett Butlers to their homes.
Rhett said they would not have come at all, except for fear of violence at the hands of Melanie,Where he got this idea, Scarlett did not know but she dismissed it with the contempt it deserved.
For what possible influence could Melanie have on people like Mrs. Elsing and Mrs. Merriwether
That they did not call again worried her very little; in fact, their absence was hardly noticed, forher suite was crowded with guests of another type. “New people,” established Atlantians calledthem, when they were not calling them something less polite.
There were many “new people” staying at the National Hotel who, like Rhett and Scarlett, werewaiting for their houses to be completed. They were gay, wealthy people, very much like Rhett’sNew Orleans friends, elegant of dress, free with their money, vague as to their antecedents. All themen were Republicans and were “in Atlanta on business connected with the state government.
Just what the business was, Scarlett did not know and did not trouble to learn.
Rhett could have told her exactly what it was—the same business that buzzards have with dyinganimals. They smelted death from afar and were drawn unerringly to it, to gorge themselves.
Government of Georgia by its own citizens was dead, the state was helpless and the adventurerswere swarming in.
The wives of Rhett’s Scalawag and Carpetbagger friends called in droves and so did the “newpeople” she had met when she sold lumber for their homes. Rhett said that, having done businesswith them, she should receive them and, having received them, she found them pleasant company.
They lovely clothes and talked about the or hard times, but confined the conversatio(wore) ntofashions,scandalsand(never) whist.Scarletthadneve(war) r played cards before and she tookto whist with joy, becoming a good player in a short time.
Whenever she was at the hotel there was a crowd of whist players in her suite. But she was notoften in her suite these days, for she was too busy with the building of her new house to bebothered with callers. These days she did not much care whether she had callers or not. She wantedto delay her social activities until the day when the house was finished and she could emerge as themistress of Atlanta’s largest mansion, the hostess of the town’s most elaborate entertainments.
Through the long warm days she watched her red stone and gray shingle house rise grandly, totower above any other house on Peachtree Street. Forgetful of the store and the mills, she spent hertime on the lot, arguing with carpenters, bickering with masons, harrying the contractor. As the.
walls went swiftly up she thought with satisfaction that, when finished, it would be larger and finerlooking than any other house in town. It would be even more imposing than the near-by Jamesresidence which had just been purchased for the official mansion of Governor Bullock.
The governor’s mansion was brave with jigsaw work on banisters and eaves, but the intricatescrollwork on Scarlett’s house put the mansion to shame. The mansion had a ballroom, but itlooked like a billiard table compared with the enormous room that covered the entire third floor ofScarlett’s house. In fact, her house had more of everything than the mansion, or any other house intown for that matter, more cupolas and turrets and towers and balconies and lightning rods and farmore windows with colored panes.
A veranda encircled the entire house, and four flights of steps on the four sides of the buildingled up to it. The yard was wide and green and scattered about it were rustic iron benches, an ironsummerhouse, fashionably called a “gazebo” which, Scarlett had been assured, was of pure Gothicdesign, and two large iron statues, one a stag and the other a mastiff as large as a Shetland pony. ToWade and Ella, a little dazzled by the size, splendor and fashionable dark gloom of their newhome, these two metal animals were the only cheerful notes.
Within, the house was furnished as Scarlett had desired, with thick red carpeting which ran fromwall to wall, red velvet portieres and the newest of highly varnished black-walnut furniture, carvedwherever there was an inch for carving and upholstered in such slick horsehair that ladies had todeposit themselves thereon with great care for fear of sliding off. Everywhere on the walls weregilt-framed mirrors and long pier glasses—as many, Rhett said idly, there were in Belle Watling’sestablishment.Interspreadweresteelengravingsinheavyframes(as) , some of them eightfeet long, which Scarlett had ordered especially from New York. The walls were covered with richdark paper, the ceilings high and the house was always dim, for the windows were overdraped with plum-colored p(were) lush hangings that shut out most of the sunlight.
All in all it was an establishment to take one’s breath away and Scarlett, stepping on the softcarpets and sinking into the embrace of the deep feather beds, remembered the cold floors and thestraw-stuffed bedticks of Tara and was satisfied. She thought it the most beautiful and mostelegantly furnished house she had ever seen, but Rhett said it was a nightmare. However, if it madeher happy, she was welcome to it.
A stranger without being told a word about us would know this house was built with ill-gottengains,” he said. “You know, Scarlett, money ill come by never comes to good and this house isproof of the axiom. It’s just the kind of house a profiteer would build.
But Scarlett, abrim with pride and happiness and full of plans for the entertainments she wouldgive when they were thoroughly settled in the house, only pinched his ear playfully and said
Fiddle-dee-dee! How you do run on
She knew, by now, that Rhett loved to take her down a peg, and would spoil her fun wheneverhe could, if she lent an attentive ear to his jibes. Should she take him seriously, she would beforced to quarrel with him and she did not care to match swords, for she always came off second best. So she hardly ever listened to anything he said, and what she was forced to hear she tried toturn off as a joke. At least, she tried for a while.
During their honeymoon and for the greater part of their stay at the National Hotel, they hadlived together with amiability. But scarcely had they moved into the new house and Scarlettgathered her new friends about her, when sudden sharp quarrels sprang up between them. Theywere brief quarrels, short lived because it was impossible to keep a quarrel going with Rhett, whoremained coolly indifferent to her hot words and waited his chance to pink her in an unguardedspot. She quarreled; Rhett did not. He only stated his unequivocal opinion of herself, her actions,her house and her new friends. And some of his opinions were of such a nature that she could nolonger ignore them and treat them as jokes.
For instance when she decided to change the name of “Kennedy’s General Store” to somethingmore edifying, she asked him to think of a title that would include the word “emporium.” Rhettsuggested “Caveat Emptorium,” assuring her that it would be a title most in keeping with the typeof goods sold in the store. She thought it had an imposing sound and even went so far as to havethe sign painted, when Ashley Wilkes, embarrassed, translated the real meaning. And Rhett hadroared at her rage.
And there was the way he treated Mammy. Mammy had never yielded an inch from her standthat Rhett was a mule in horse harness. She was polite but cold to Rhett. She always called him“Cap’n Butler,” never “Mist’ Rhett.” She never even dropped a curtsy when Rhett presented herwith the red petticoat and she never wore it either. She kept Ella and Wade out of Rhett’s waywhenever she could, despite the fact that Wade adored Uncle Rhett and Rhett was obviously fondof the boy. But instead of discharging Mammy or being short and stern with her, Rhett treated herwith the utmost deference, with far more courtesy than he treated any of the ladies of Scarlett’srecent acquaintance. In fact, with more courtesy than he treated Scarlett herself. He always askedMammy’s permission, to take Wade riding and consulted with her before he bought Ella dolls. AndMammy was hardly polite to him.
Scarlett felt that Rhett should be firm with Mammy, as became the head of the house, but Rhettonly laughed and said that Mammy was the real head of the house.
He infuriated Scarlett by saying coolly that he was preparing to be very sorry for her some yearshence, when the Republican rule was gone from Georgia and the Democrats back in power.
When the Democrats get a governor and a legislature of their own, all your new vulgarRepublican friends will be wiped off the chess board and sent back to minding bars and emptyingslops where they belong. And you’ll be left out on the end of a limb, with never a Democraticfriend or a Republican either. Well, take no thought of the morrow.
Scarlett laughed, and with some justice, for at that time, Bullock was safe in the governor’schair, twenty-seven negroes were in the legislature and thousands of the Democratic voters ofGeorgia were disfranchised.
The Democrats will never get back. All they do is make Yankees madder and put off the daywhen they could get back. All they do is talk big and run around at night Ku Kluxing.
They will get back. I know Southerners. I know Georgians. They are a tough and bullheaded lot. If they’ve got to fight another war to get back, they’ll fight another war. If they’ve got to buyblack votes like the Yankees have done, then they will buy black votes. If they’ve got to vote tenthousand dead men like the Yankees did, every corpse in every cemetery in Georgia will be at thepolls. Things are going to get so bad under the benign rule of our good friend Rufus Bullock thatGeorgia is going to vomit him up.
Rhett, don’t use such vulgar words!” cried Scarlett. “You talk like I wouldn’t be glad to see theDemocrats come back! And you know that isn’t so! I’d be very glad to see them back. Do youthink I like to see these soldiers hanging around, reminding me of—do you think I like— why, I’ma Georgian, too! I’d like to see the Democrats get back. But they won’t. Not ever. And even if theydid, how would that affect my friends? They’d still have their money, wouldn’t they
If they kept their money. But I doubt the ability of any of them to keep money more than fiveyears at the rate they’re spending. Easy come, easy go. Their money won’t do them any good. Anymore than my money has done you any good. It certainly hasn’t made a horse out of you yet, hasit, my pretty mule
The quarrel which sprang from this last remark lasted for days. After the fourth day of Scarlett’ssulks and obvious silent demands for an apology, Rhett went to New Orleans, taking Wade withhim, over Mammy’s protests, and he stayed away until Scarlett’s tantrum had passed. But the stingof not humbling him remained with her.
When he came back from New Orleans, cool and bland, she swallowed her anger as best shecould, pushing it into the back of her mind to be thought of at some later date. She did not want tobother with anything unpleasant now. She wanted to be happy for her mind was full of the firstparty she would give in the new house. It would be an enormous night reception with palms and anorchestra and all the porches shrouded in canvas, and a collation that made her mouth water inanticipation. To it she intended to invite everyone she had ever known in Atlanta, all the old friendsand all the new and charming ones she had met since returning from her honeymoon. Theexcitement of the party banished, for the most part, the memory of Rhett’s barbs and she washappy, happier than she had been in years as she planned her reception.
Oh, what fun it was to be rich! To give parties and never count the cost! To buy the mostexpensive furniture and dresses and food and never think about the bills! How marvelous to beable to send tidy checks to Aunt Pauline and Aunt Eulalie in Charleston, and to Will at Tara! Oh,the jealous fools who said money wasn’t everything! How perverse of Rhett to say that it had donenothing for her
Scarlett issued cards of invitation to all her friends and acquaintances, old and new, even thoseshe did not like. She did not except even Mrs. Merriwether who had been almost rude when shecalled on her at the National Hotel or Mrs. Elsing who had been cool to frigidness. She invitedMrs. Meade and Mrs. Whiting who she knew disliked her and who she knew would beembarrassed because they did not have the proper clothes to wear to so elegant a function. ForScarlett’s housewarming, or “crush,” as it was fashionable to call such evening parties, half-reception, half-ball, was by far the most elaborate affair Atlanta had ever seen.
That night the house and canvas-covered veranda were filled with guests who drank herchampagne punch and ate her patties and creamed oysters and danced to the music of the orchestrathat was carefully screened by a wall of palms and rubber plants. But none of those whom Rhetthad termed the “Old Guard” were present except Melanie and Ashley, Aunt Pitty and Uncle Henry,Dr. and Mrs. Meade and Grandpa Merriwether.
Many of the Old Guard had reluctantly decided to attend the “crush.” Some had acceptedbecause of Melanie’s attitude, others because they felt they owed Rhett a debt for saving their livesand those of their relatives. But, two days before the function, a rumor went about Atlanta thatGovernor Bullock had been invited. The Old Guard signified their disapproval by a sheaf of cards,regretting their inability to accept Scarlett’s kind invitation. And the small group of old friends whodid attend took their departure, embarrassed but firm, as soon as the governor entered Scarlett’shouse.
Scarlett was so bewildered and infuriated at these slights that the party was utterly ruined forher. Her elegant “crush”! She had planned it so lovingly and so few old friends and no old enemieshad been there to see how wonderful it was! After the last guest had gone home at dawn, shewould have cried and stormed had she not been afraid that Rhett would roar with laughter, afraidthat she would read “I told you so” in his dancing black eyes, even if he did not speak the words.
So she swallowed her wrath with poor grace and pretended indifference.
Only to Melanie, the next morning, did she permit herself the luxury of exploding.
You insulted me, Melly Wilkes, and you made Ashley and the others insult me! You knowthey’d have never gone home so soon if you hadn’t dragged them. Oh, I saw you! Just when Istarted to bring Governor Bullock over to present him to you, you ran like a rabbit
I did not believe—I could not believe that he would really be present,” answered Melanieunhappily. “Even though everybody said
Everybody? So everybody’s been clacking and blabbing about me, have they?” cried Scarlettfuriously. “Do you mean to tell me if you’d known the governor was going to be present, youwouldn’t have come either
No,” said Melanie in a low voice, her eyes on the floor. “Darling, I just wouldn’t have come.
Great balls of fire! So you’d have insulted me like everybody else did
Oh, mercy!” cried Melly, in real distress. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. You’re my own sister,darling, my own Charlie’s widow and I
She put a timid hand on Scarlett’s arm. But Scarlett flung it off, wishing fervently that she couldroar as loudly as Gerald used to roar when in a temper. But Melanie faced her wrath. And as shelooked into Scarlett’s stormy green eyes, her slight shoulders straightened and a mantle of dignity,strangely at variance with her childish face and figure, fell upon her.
I’m sorry you’re hurt, my dear, but I cannot meet Governor Bullock or any Republican or anyScalawag. I will not meet them, in your house or any other house. No, not even if I have to—if Ihave to—” Melanie cast about her for the worst thing she could think of—“Not even if I have to berude.
Are you criticizing my friends
No, dear. But they are your friends and not mine.
Are you criticizing me for having the governor at my house
Cornered, Melanie still met Scarlett’s eyes unwaveringly.
Darling, what you do, you always do for a good reason and I love you and trust you and it isnot for me to criticize. And I will not permit anyone to criticize you in my hearing. But, oh,Scarlett!” Suddenly words began to bubble out, swift hot words and there was inflexible hate in thelow voice. “Can you forget what these people did to us? Can you forget darling Charlie dead andAshley’s health ruined and Twelve Oaks burned? Oh, Scarlett, you can’t forget that terrible manyou shot with your mother’s sewing box in his hands! You can’t forget Sherman’s men at Tara andhow they even stole our underwear! And tried to burn the place down and actually handled myfather’s sword! Oh, Scarlett, it was these same people who robbed us and tortured us and left us tostarve that you invited to your party! The same people who have set the darkies up to lord it overus, who are robbing us and keeping out men from voting! I can’t forget. I won’t forget. I won’t letmy Beau forget and I’ll teach my grandchildren to hate these people—and my grandchildren’sgrandchildren if God lets me live that long! Scarlett, how can you forget
Melanie paused for breath and Scarlett stared at her, startled out of her own anger by thequivering note of violence in Melanie’s voice.
Do you think I’m a fool?” she questioned impatiently. “Of course, I remember! But all that’spast, Melly. It’s up to us to make the best of things and I’m trying to do it. Governor Bullock andsome of the nicer Republicans can help us a lot if we handle them right.
There are no nice Republicans,” said Melanie flatly. “And I don’t want their help. And I don’tintend to make the best of things—if they are Yankee things.
Good Heaven, Melly, why get in such a pet
Oh!” cried Melanie, looking conscience stricken. “How I have run on! Scarlett I didn’t mean tohurt your feelings or to criticize. Everybody thinks differently and everybody’s got a right to theirown opinion. Now, dear, I love you and you know I love you and nothing you could ever do wouldmake me change. And you still love me, don’t you? I haven’t made you hate me, have I? Scarlett, Icouldn’t stand it if anything ever came between us—after all we’ve been through together! Say it’sall right.
Fiddle-dee-dee, Melly, what a tempest you make in a teapot,” said Scarlett grudgingly, but shedid not throw off the hand that stole around her waist.
Now, we’re all right again,” said Melanie pleasedly but she added softly, “I want us to visiteach other just like we always did, darling. Just you let me know what days Republicans andScalawags are coming to see you and I’ll stay at home on those days.
It’s a matter of supreme indifference to me whether you come or not,” said Scarlett, putting onher bonnet and going home in a huff. There was some satisfaction to her wounded vanity in thehurt look on Melanie’s face.
In the weeks that followed her first party, Scarlett was hard put to keep up her pretense ofsupreme indifference to public opinion. When she did not receive calls from old friends, exceptMelanie and Pitty and Uncle Henry and Ashley, and did not get cards to their modest entertainments,she was genuinely puzzled and hurt. Had she not gone out of her way to bury old hatchetsand show these people that she bore them no ill will for their gossiping and backbiting? Surelythey must know that she didn’t like Governor Bullock any more than they did but that it wasexpedient to be nice to him. The idiots! If everybody would be nice to the Republicans, Georgiawould get out of the fix she was in very quickly.
She did not realize then that with one stroke she had cut forever any fragile tie that still boundher to the old days, to old friends. Not even Melanie’s influence could repair the break of thatgossamer thread. And Melanie, bewildered, broken hearted but still loyal, did not try to repair it.
Even had Scarlett wanted to turn back to old ways, old friends, there was no turning back possiblenow. The face of the town was set against her as stonily as granite. The hate that enveloped theBullock regime enveloped her too, a hate that had little fire and fury in it but much coldimplacability. Scarlett had cast her lot with the enemy and, whatever her birth and familyconnections, she was now in the category of a turncoat, a nigger lover, a traitor, a Republican—anda Scalawag.
After a miserable while, Scarlett’s pretended indifference gave way to the real thing. She hadnever been one to worry long over the vagaries of human conduct or to be cast down for long ifone line of action failed. Soon she did not care what the Merriwethers, the Elsings, the Whitings,the Bonnells, the Meades and others thought of her. At least, Melanie called, bringing Ashley, andAshley was the one who mattered the most. And there were other people in Atlanta who wouldcome to her parties, other people far more congenial than those hide-bound old hens. Any time shewanted to fill her house with guests, she could do so and these guests would be far more entertaining,far more handsomely dressed than those prissy, strait-laced old fools who disapproved of her.
These people were newcomers to Atlanta. Some of them were acquaintances of Rhett, someassociated with him in those mysterious affairs which he referred to as “mere business, my pet.
Some were couples Scarlett had met when she was living at the National Hotel and some wereGovernor Bullock’s appointees.
The set with which she was now moving was a motley crew. Among them were the Gelerts whohad lived in a dozen different states and who apparently had left each one hastily upon detection oftheir swindling schemes; the Conningtons whose connection with the Freedmen’s Bureau in adistant state had been highly lucrative at the expense of the ignorant blacks they were supposed toprotect; the Deals who had sold “cardboard” shoes to the Confederate government until it becamenecessary for them to spend the last year of the war in Europe; the Hundons who had policerecords in many cities but nevertheless were often successful bidders on state contracts; theCarahans who had gotten their start in a gambling house and now were gambling for bigger stakesin the building of nonexistent railroads with the state’s money; the Flahertys who had bought saltat one cent a pound in 1861 and made a fortune when salt went to fifty cents in 1863, and the Bartswho had owned the largest brothel in a Northern metropolis during the war and now were movingin the best circles of Carpetbagger society.
Such people were Scarlett’s intimates now, but those who attended her larger receptions included others of some culture and refinement, many of excellent families. In addition to theCarpetbag gentry, substantial people from the North were moving into Atlanta, attracted by thenever ceasing business activity of the town in this period of rebuilding and expansion. Yankeefamilies of wealth sent young sons to the South to pioneer on the new frontier, and Yankee officersafter their discharge took up permanent residence in the town they had fought so hard to capture.
At first, strangers in strange town, they were glad to accept invitations to the lavishentertainmentsof the wea(a) lthy and hospitable Mrs. Butler, but they soon drifted out of her set. Theywere good people and they needed only a short acquaintance with Carpetbaggers and Carpetbagrule to become as resentful of them as the native Georgians were. Many became Democrats andmore Southern than the Southerners.
Other misfits in Scarlett’s circle remained there only be-cause they were not welcomeelsewhere. They would have much preferred the quiet parlors of the Old Guard, but the Old Guardwould have none of them. Among these were the Yankee schoolmarms who had come South imbuedwith the desire to uplift the Negro and the Scalawags who had been born good Democrats buthad turned Republican after the surrender.
It was hard to say which class was more cordially hated by the settled citizenry, the impracticalYankee schoolmarms or the Scalawags, but the balance probably fell with the latter, Theschoolmarms could be dismissed with, “Well, what can you expect of nigger-loving Yankees? Ofcourse they think the nigger is just as good as they are!” But for those Georgians who had turnedRepublican for personal gain, there was no excuse.
Starving is good enough for us. It ought to be good enough for you,” was the way the OldGuard felt. Many ex-Confederate soldiers, knowing the frantic fear of men who saw their familiesin want, were more tolerant of former comrades who had changed political colors in order thattheir families might eat. But not the women of the Old Guard, and the women were the implacableand inflexible power behind the social throne. The Lost Cause was stronger, dearer now in theirhearts than it had ever been at the height of its glory. It was a fetish now. Everything about it wassacred, the graves of the men who had died for it, the battle fields, the torn flags, the crossed sabresin their halls, the fading letters from the front, the veterans. These women gave no aid, comfort orquarter to the late enemy, and now Scarlett was numbered among the enemy.
In this mongrel society thrown together by the exigencies of the political situation, there was butone thing in common. That was money. As most of them had never had twenty-five dollars at onetime in their whole lives, previous to the war, they were now embarked on an orgy of spendingsuch as Atlanta had never seen before.
With the Republicans in the political saddle the town entered into era of waste and ostentation,withthetrappingsofrefinementthinlyveneeringtheviceand(an) vulgarity beneath.
Never before had the cleavage of the very rich and the very poor been so marked. Those on toptook no thought for those less fortunate. Except for the negroes, of course. They must have thevery best. The best of schools and lodgings and clothes and amusements, for they were the powerin politics and every negro vote counted. But as for the recently impoverished Atlanta people, theycould starve and drop in the streets for all the newly rich Republicans cared.
On the crest of this wave of vulgarity, Scarlett rode triumphantly, newly a bride, dashingly pretty in her fine clothes, with Rhett’s money solidly behind her. It was an era that suited her, crude,garish, showy, full of overdressed women, overfurnished houses, too many jewels, too manyhorses, too much food, too much whisky. When Scarlett infrequently stopped to think about thematter she knew that none of her new associates could be called ladies by Ellen’s strict standards.
But she had broken with Ellen’s standards too many times since that far-away day when she stoodin the parlor at Tara and decided to be Rhett’s mistress, and she did not often feel the bite of consciencenow.
Perhaps these new friends were not, strictly speaking, ladies and gentlemen but like Rhett’s NewOrleans friends, they were so much fun! So very much more fun than the subdued, churchgoing,Shakespeare-reading friends of her earlier Atlanta days. And, except for her brief honeymooninterlude, she had not had fun in so long. Nor had she had any sense of security. Now secure, shewanted to dance, to play, to riot, to gorge on foods and fine wine, to deck herself in silks andsatins, to wallow on soft feather beds and fine upholstery. And she did all these things. Encouragedby Rhett’s amused tolerance, freed now from the restraints of her childhood, freed even from thatlast fear of poverty, she was permitting herself the luxury she had often dreamed—of doing exactlywhat she pleased and telling people who didn’t like it to go to hell.
To her had come that pleasant intoxication peculiar to those whose lives are a deliberate slap inthe face of organized society—the gambler, the confidence man, the polite adventuress, an thosewho succeed by their wits. She said and did exactly what she pleased and, in practically no time,her insolence knew no bounds.
She did not hesitate to display arrogance to her new Republican and Scalawag friends but to noclass was she ruder or more insolent than the Yankee officers of the garrison and their families. Ofall the heterogeneous mass of people who had poured into Atlanta, the army people alone sherefused to receive or tolerate. She even went out of her way to be bad mannered to them. Melaniewas not alone in being unable to forget what a blue uniform meant. To Scarlett, that uniform andthose gold buttons would always mean the fears of the siege, the terror of flight, the looting andburning, the desperate poverty and the grinding work at Tara. Now that she was rich and secure inthe friendship of the governor and many prominent Republicans, she could be insulting to everyblue uniform she saw. And she was insulting.
Rhett once lazily pointed out to her that most of the male guests who assembled under their roofhad worn that same blue uniform not so long ago, but she retorted that a Yankee didn’t seem like aYankee unless he had on a blue uniform. To which Rhett replied: “Consistency, thou art a jewel
and shrugged.
Scarlett, hating the bright hard blue they wore, enjoyed snubbing them all the more because it sobewildered them. The garrison families had a right to be bewildered for most of them were quiet,well-bred folk, lonely in a hostile land, anxious to go home to the North, a little ashamed of theriffraff whose rule they were forced to uphold—an infinitely better class than that of Scarlett’sassociates. Naturally, the officers’ wives were puzzled that the dashing Mrs. Butler took to herbosom such women as the common red-haired Bridget Flaherty and went out of her way to slightthem.
But even the ladies whom Scarlett took to her bosom had to endure much from her. However, they did it gladly. To them, she not only represented wealth and elegance but the old regime, withits old names, old families, old traditions with which they wished ardently to identify themselves.
The old families they yearned after might have cast Scarlett out but the ladies of the newaristocracy did not know it. They only knew that Scarlett’s father had been a great slave owner, hermother a Robillard of Savannah and her husband was Rhett Butler of Charleston. And this wasenough for them. She was their opening wedge into the old society they wished to enter, the societywhich scorned them, would not return calls and bowed frigidly in churches. In fact, she wasmore than their wedge into society. To them, fresh from obscure beginnings, she was society.
Pinchbeck ladies themselves, they no more saw through Scarlett’s pinchbeck pretensions than sheherself did. They took her at her own valuation and endured much at her hands, her airs, hergraces, her tempers, her arrogance, her downright rudeness and her frankness about theirshortcomings.
They were so lately come from nothing and so uncertain of themselves they were doublyanxious to appear refined and feared to show their temper or make retorts in kind, lest they beconsidered unladylike. At all costs they must be ladies. They pretended to great delicacy, modestyand innocence. To hear them talk one would have thought they had no legs, natural functions orknowledge of the wicked world. No one would have thought that red-haired Bridget Flaherty, whohad a sun-defying white skin and a brogue that could be cut with a butter knife, had stolen herfather’s hidden hoard to come to America to be chambermaid in a New York hotel. And to observethe delicate vapors of Sylvia (formerly Sadie Belle) Connington and Mamie Bart, no one wouldhave suspected that the first grew up above her father’s saloon in the Bowery and waited on the barat rush times, and that the latter, so it was said, had come out of one of her husband’s own brothels.
No, they were delicate sheltered creatures now.
The men, though they had made money, learned new ways less easily or were, perhaps, lesspatient with the demands of the new gentility. They drank heavily at Scarlett’s parties, far tooheavily, and usually after a reception there were one or more unexpected guests who stayed thenight. They did not drink like the men of Scarlett’s girlhood. They became sodden, stupid, ugly orobscene. Moreover, no matter how many spittoons she might put out in view, the rugs alwaysshowed signs of tobacco juice on the mornings after.
She had a contempt for these people but she enjoyed them. Because she enjoyed them, she filledthe house with them. And because of her contempt, she told them to go to hell as often as theyannoyed her. But they stood it.
They even stood Rhett, a more difficult matter, for Rhett saw through them and they knew it. Hehad no hesitation about stripping them verbally, even under his own roof, always in a manner thatleft them no reply. Unashamed of how he came by his fortune, he pretended that they, too, wereunashamed of their beginnings and he seldom missed an opportunity to remark upon matterswhich, by common consent, everyone felt were better left in polite obscurity.
There was never any knowing when be would remark affably, over a punch cup: “Ralph, if I’dhad any sense I’d have made my money selling gold-mine stocks to widows and orphans, like you,instead of blockading. It’s so much safer.” “Well, Bill, I see you have a new span of horses. Beenselling a few thousand more bonds for nonexistent railroads? Good work, boy!” “Congratulations,Amos, on landing that state contract. Too bad you had to grease so many palms to get it.
The ladies felt that he was odiously, unendurably vulgar. The men said, behind his back, that hewas a swine and a bastard. New Atlanta liked Rhett no better than old Atlanta had done and hemade as little attempt to conciliate the one as he had the other. He went his way, amused,contemptuous, impervious to the opinions of those about him, so courteous that his courtesy wasan affront in itself. To Scarlett, he was still an enigma but an enigma about which she no longerbothered her head. She was convinced that nothing ever pleased him or ever would please him thathe either wanted something badly and didn’t have it, or never had wanted anything and so didn’tcare about anything. He laughed at everything she did, encouraged her extravagances andinsolences, jeered at her pretenses—and paid the bills.