SHE HEARD whispering voices outside, and going to the door she saw the frightened negroesstanding in the back hall, Dilcey with her arms sagging under the heavy weight of the sleepingBeau, Uncle Peter crying, and Cookie wiping her wide wet face on her apron. All three looked ather, dumbly asking what they were to do now. She looked up the hall toward the sitting room andsaw India and Aunt Pitty standing speechless, holding each other’s hands and, for once, India hadlost her stiff-necked look. Like the negroes, they looked imploringly at her, expecting her to giveinstructions. She walked into the sitting room and the two women closed about her.
Oh, Scarlett, what—” began Aunt Pitty, her fat, child’s mouth shaking.
Don’t speak to me or I’ll scream,” said Scarlett. Overwrought nerves brought sharpness to hervoice and her hands clenched at her sides. The thought of speaking of Melanie now, of making theinevitable arrangements that follow a death made her throat tighten. “I don’t want a word out ofeither of you.
At the authoritative note in her voice, they fell back, helpless hurt looks on their faces. “Imustn’t cry in front of them,” she thought. “I mustn’t break now or they’ll begin crying too, andthen the darkies will begin screaming and we’ll all go mad. I must pull myself together. There’s somuch I’ll have to do. See the undertaker and arrange the funeral and see that the house is clean andbe here to talk to people who’ll cry on my neck. Ashley can’t do them. I’ve got to do them. Oh,what a weary load! It’s always been a weary load and always some one else’s load
She looked at the dazed hurt faces of India and Pitty and contrition swept her. Melanie wouldnot like her to be so sharp with those who loved her.
I’m sorry I was cross,” she said, speaking with difficulty. “It’s just that I—I’m sorry I was cross, Auntie. I’m going out on the porch for a minute. I’ve got to be alone. Then I’ll come backand well
She patted Aunt Pitty and went swiftly by her to the front door, knowing if she stayed in thisroom another minute her control would crack. She had to be alone. And she had to cry or her heartwould break.
She stepped onto the dark porch and closed the door behind her and the moist night air was coolupon her face. The rain had ceased and there was no sound except for the occasional drip of waterfrom the eaves. The world was wrapped in a thick mist, a faintly chill mist that bore on its breaththe smell of the dying year. All the houses across the street were dark except one, and the lightfrom a lamp in the window, falling into the street, struggled feebly with the fog, golden particlesfloating in its rays. It was as if the whole world were enveloped in an unmoving blanket of graysmoke. And the whole world was still.
She leaned her head against one of the uprights of the porch and prepared to cry but no tearscame. This was a calamity too deep for tears. Her body shook. There still reverberated in her mindthe crashes of the two impregnable citadels of her life, thundering to dust about her ears. She stoodfor a while, trying to summon up her old charm: “I’ll think of all this tomorrow when I can stand itbetter.” But the charm had lost its potency. She had to think of two things, now—Melanie and howmuch she loved and needed her; Ashley and the obstinate blindness that had made her refuse to seehim as he really was. And she knew that thoughts of them would hurt just as much tomorrow andall the tomorrows of her life.
I can’t go back in there and talk to them now,” she thought. “I can’t face Ashley tonight andcomfort him. Not tonight! Tomorrow morning I’ll come early and do the things I must do, say thecomforting things I must say. But not tonight. I can’t. I’m going home.
Home was only five blocks away. She would not wait for the sobbing Peter to harness thebuggy, would not wait for Dr. Meade to drive her home. She could not endure the tears of the one,the silent condemnation of the other. She went swiftly down the dark front steps without her coator bonnet and into the misty night. She rounded the corner and started up the long hill towardPeachtree Street, walking in a still wet world, and even her footsteps were as noiseless as a dream.
As she went up the hill, her chest tight with tears that would not come, there crept over her anunreal feeling, a feeling that she had been in this same dim chill place before, under a like set ofcircumstances—not once but many times before. How silly, she thought uneasily, quickening hersteps. Her nerves were playing her tricks. But the feeling persisted, stealthily pervading her mind.
She peered about her uncertainly and the feeling grew, eerie but familiar, and her head went upsharply like an animal scenting danger. It’s just that I’m worn out, she tried to soothe herself. Andthe night’s so queer, so misty. I never saw such thick mist before except—except
And then she knew and fear squeezed her heart. She knew now. In a hundred nightmares, shehad fled through fog like this, through a haunted country without landmarks, thick with coldcloaking mist, peopled with clutching ghosts and shadows. Was she dreaming again or was this herdream come true
For an instant, reality went out of her and she was lost. The old nightmare feeling was sweeping her, stronger than ever, and her heart began to race. She was standing again amid death andstillness, even as she had once stood at Tara. All that mattered in the world had gone out of it, lifewas in ruins and panic howled through her heart like a cold wind. The horror that was in the mistand was the mist laid hands upon her. And she began to run. As she had run a hundred times indreams, she ran now, flying blindly she knew not where, driven by a nameless dread, seeking inthe gray mist for the safety that lay somewhere.
Up the dim street she fled, her head down, her heart hammering, the night air wet on her lips, thetrees overhead menacing. Somewhere, somewhere in this wild land of moist stillness, there was arefuge! She sped gasping up the long hill, her wet skirts wrapping coldly about her ankles, herlungs bursting, the tight-laced stays pressing her ribs into her heart.
Then before her eyes there loomed a light, a row of lights, dim and flickering but none the lessreal. In her nightmare, there had never been any lights, only gray fog. Her mind seized on thoselights. Lights meant safety, people, reality. Suddenly she stopped running, her hands clenching,struggling to pull herself out of her panic, staring intently at the row of gas lamps which hadsignaled to her brain that this was Peachtree Street, Atlanta, and not the gray world of sleep andghosts.
She sank down panting on a carriage block, clutching at her nerves as though they were ropesslipping swiftly through her hands.
I was running—running like a crazy person!” she thought, her body shaking with lesseningfear, her thudding heart making her sick. “But where was I running
Her breath came more easily now and she sat with her hand pressed to her side and looked upPeachtree Street. There, at the top of the hill, was her own house. It looked as though everywindow bore lights, lights defying the mist to dim their brilliance. Home! It was real! She lookedat the dim far-off bulk of the house thankfully, longingly, and something like calm fell on herspirit.
Home! That was where she wanted to go. That was where she was running. Home to Rhett
At this realization it was as though chains fell away from her and with them the fear which hadhaunted her dreams since the night she stumbled to Tara to find the world ended. At the end of theroad to Tara she had found security gone, all strength, all wisdom, all loving tenderness, allunderstanding gone—all those things which, embodied in Ellen, had been the bulwark of hergirlhood. And, though she had won material safety since that night, in her dreams she was still afrightened child, searching for the lost security of that lost world.
Now she knew the haven she had sought in dreams, the place of warm safety which had alwaysbeen bidden from her in the mist. It was not Ashley—oh, never Ashley! There was no morewarmth in him than in a marsh light, no more security than in quicksand. It was Rhett—Rhett whohad strong arms to hold her, a broad chest to pillow her tired head, jeering laughter to pull heraffairs into proper perspective. And complete understanding, because he, like her, saw truth astruth, unobstructed by impractical notions of honor, sacrifice, or high belief in human nature. Heloved her! Why hadn’t she realized that he loved her, for all his taunting remarks to the contrary
Melanie had seen it and with her last breath had said, “Be kind to him.
Oh,” she thought, “Ashley’s not the only stupidly blind person. I should have seen.
For years she had had her back against the stone wall of Rhett’s love and had taken it as muchfor granted as she had taken Melanie’s love, flattering herself that she drew her strength fromherself alone. And even as she had realized earlier in the evening that Melanie had been beside herin her bitter campaigns against life, now she knew that silent in the background, Rhett had stood,loving her, understanding her, ready to help. Rhett at the bazaar, reading her impatience in her eyesand leading her out in the reel, Rhett helping her out of the bondage of mourning, Rhett convoyingher through the fire and explosions the night Atlanta fell, Rhett lending her the money that gaveher her start, Rhett who comforted her when she woke in the nights crying with fright from herdreams—why, no man did such things without loving a woman to distraction
The trees dripped dampness upon her but she did not feel it The mist swirled about her and shepaid it no heed. For when she thought of Rhett, with his swarthy face, flashing teeth and dark alerteyes, a trembling came over her.
I love him,” she thought and, as always, she accepted the truth with little wonder, as a childaccepting a gift. “I don’t know how long I’ve loved him but it’s true. And if it hadn’t been forAshley, I’d have realized it long ago. I’ve never been able to see the world at all, because Ashleystood in the way.
She loved him, scamp, blackguard, without scruple or honor—at least honor as Ashley saw it“Damn Ashley’s honor!” she thought. “Ashley’s honor has always let me down. Yes, from the verybeginning when he kept on coming to see me, even though he knew his family expected him tomarry Melanie. Rhett has never let me down, even that dreadful night of Melly’s reception whenhe ought to have wrung my neck. Even when he left me on the road the night Atlanta fell, he knewI’d be safe. He knew I’d get through somehow. Even when he acted like he was going to make mepay to get that money from him at the Yankee camp. He wouldn’t have taken me. He was justtesting me. He’s loved me all along and I’ve been so mean to him. Time and again, I’ve hurt himand he was too proud to show it. And when Bonnie died— Oh, how could I
She stood up straight and looked at the house on the hill. She had thought, half an hour ago, thatshe had lost everything in the world, except money, everything that made life desirable, Ellen,Gerald, Bonnie, Mammy, Melanie and Ashley. She had to lose them all to realize that she lovedRhett—loved him because he was strong and unscrupulous, passionate and earthy, like herself.
I’ll tell him everything,” she thought. “He’ll understand. He’s always understood. I’ll tell himwhat a fool I’ve been and how much I love him and I’ll make it up to him.
Suddenly she felt strong and happy. She was not afraid of the darkness or the fog and she knewwith a singing in her heart that she would never fear them again. No matter what mists might curlaround her in the future, she knew her refuge. She started briskly up the street toward home andthe blocks seemed very long. Far, far too long. She caught up her skirts to her knees and began torun lightly. But this time she was not running from fear. She was running because Rhett’s armswere at the end of the street.