Gone With the Wind, Page 48

  "Miss Scarlett" whispered Prissy, clutching her mistress' arm, "doan le's go ter Tara. Dey's not dar. Dey's all done gone. Maybe dey daid-- Maw an' all'm."

  The echo of her own thoughts infuriated her and Scarlett shook off the pinching fingers.

  "Then give me Wade's hand. You can sit right down here and stay."

  "No'm! No'm!"

  Then hush!"

  How slowly the horse moved! The moisture from his slobbering mouth dripped down upon her hand. Through her mind ran a few words of the song she had once sung with Rhett-- she could not recall the rest:

  "Just a few more days for to tote the weary load--"

  "Just a few more steps," hummed her brain, over and over, "just a few more steps for to tote the weary load."

  Then they topped the rise and before them lay the oaks of Tara, a towering dark mass against the darkening sky. Scarlett looked hastily to see if there was a light anywhere. There was none.

  "They are gone!" said her heart, like cold lead in her breast. "Gone!"

  She turned the horse's head into the driveway, and the cedars, meeting over their heads, cast them into midnight blackness. Peering up the long tunnel of darkness, straining her eyes, she saw ahead-- or did she see? Were her tired eyes playing her tricks? -- the white bricks of Tara blurred and indistinct Home! Home! The dear white walls, the windows with the fluttering curtains, the wide verandas -- were they all there ahead of her, in the gloom? Or did the darkness mercifully conceal such a horror as the Macintosh house?

  The avenue seemed miles long and the horse, pulling stubbornly at her hand, plopped slower and slower. Eagerly her eyes searched the darkness. The roof seemed to be intact Could it be-- could it be -- ? No, it wasn't possible. War stopped for nothing, not even Tara, built to last five hundred years. It could not have passed over Tara.

  Then the shadowy outline did take form. She pulled the horse forward faster. The white walls did show there through the darkness. And untarnished by smoke. Tara had escaped! Home! She dropped the bridle and ran the last few steps, leaped forward with an urge to clutch the walls themselves in her arms. Then she saw a form, shadowy in the dimness, emerging from the blackness of the front veranda and standing at the top of the steps. Tara was not deserted. Someone was home!

  A cry of joy rose to her throat and died there. The house was so dark and still and the figure did not move or call to her. What was wrong? What was wrong? Tara stood intact, yet shrouded with the same eerie quiet that hung over the whole stricken countryside. Then the figure moved. Stiffly and slowly, it came down the steps.

  "Pa?" she whispered huskily, doubting almost that it was he. "It's me-- Katie Scarlett. I've come home."

  Gerald moved toward her, silent as a sleepwalker, his stiff leg dragging. He came close to her, looking at her in a dazed way as if he believed she was part of a dream. Putting out his hand, he laid it on her shoulder. Scarlett felt it tremble, tremble as if he had been awakened from a nightmare into a half-sense of reality.

  "Daughter," he said with an effort "Daughter."

  Then he was silent

  Why-- he's an old man! thought Scarlett

  Gerald's shoulders sagged. In the face which she could only see dimly, there was none of the virility, the restless vitality of Gerald, and the eyes that looked into hers had almost the same fear-stunned look that lay in little Wade's eyes. He was only a little old man and broken.

  And now, fear of unknown things seized her, leaped swiftly out of the darkness at her and she could only stand and stare at him, all the flood of questioning dammed up at her lips.

  From the wagon the faint wailing sounded again and Gerald seemed to rouse himself with an effort

  "It's Melanie and her baby," whispered Scarlett rapidly. "She's very ill-- I brought her home."

  Gerald dropped his hand from her arm and straightened his shoulders. As he moved slowly to the side of the wagon, there was a ghostly semblance of the old host of Tara welcoming guests, as if Gerald spoke words from out of shadowy memory.

  "Cousin Melanie!"

  Melanie's voice murmured indistinctly.

  "Cousin Melanie, this is your home. Twelve Oaks is burned. You must stay with us."

  Thoughts of Melanie's prolonged suffering spurred Scarlett to action. The present was with her again, the necessity of laying Melanie and her child on a soft bed and doing those small things for her that could be done.

  "She must be carried. She can't walk."

  There was a scuffle of feet and a dark figure emerged from the cave of the front hall. Pork ran down the steps.

  "Miss Scarlett! Miss Scarlett!" he cried.

  Scarlett caught him by the arms. Pork, part and parcel of Tara, as dear as the bricks and the cool corridors! She felt his tears stream down on her hands as he patted her clumsily, crying: "Sho is glad you back! Sho is--"

  Prissy burst into tears and incoherent mumblings: "Poke! Poke, honey!" And little Wade, encouraged by the weakness of his elders, began sniffling: "Wade thirsty!"

  Scarlett caught them all in hand.

  "Miss Melanie is in the wagon and her baby too. Pork, you must carry her upstairs very carefully and put her in the back company room. Prissy, take the baby and Wade inside and give Wade a drink of water. Is Mammy here, Pork? Tell her I want her."

  Galvanized by the authority in her voice, Pork approached the wagon and fumbled at the backboard. A moan was wrenched from Melanie as he half-lifted, half-dragged her from the feather tick on which she had lain so many hours. And then she was in Pork's strong arms, her head drooping like a child's across his shoulder. Prissy, holding the baby and dragging Wade by the hand, followed them up the wide steps and disappeared into the blackness of the hall.

  Scarlett's bleeding fingers sought her father's hand urgently.

  "Did they get well, Pa?"

  "The girls are recovering."

  Silence fell and in the silence an idea too monstrous for words took form. She could not, could not force it to her lips. She swallowed and swallowed but a sudden dryness seemed to have stuck the sides of her throat together. Was this the answer to the frightening riddle of Tara's silence? As if answering the question in her mind Gerald spoke.

  "Your mother--" he said and stopped.

  "And-- Mother?"

  "Your mother died yesterday."

  Her father's arm held tightly in her own, Scarlett felt her way down the wide dark hall which, even in its blackness, was as familiar as her own mind. She avoided the high-backed chairs, the empty gun rack, the old sideboard with its protruding claw feet, and she felt herself drawn by instinct to the tiny office at the back of the house where Ellen always sat, keeping her endless accounts. Surely, when she entered that room, Mother would again be sitting there before the secretary and would look up, quill poised, and rise with sweet fragrance and rustling hoops to meet her tired daughter. Ellen could not be dead, not even though Pa had said it, said it over and over like a parrot that knows only one phrase: "She died yesterday-- she died yesterday -- she died yesterday."

  Queer that she should feel nothing now, nothing except a weariness that shackled her limbs with heavy iron chains and a hunger that made her knees tremble. She would think of Mother later. She must put her mother out of her mind now, else she would stumble stupidly like Gerald or sob monotonously like Wade.

  Pork came down the wide dark steps toward them, hurrying to press close to Scarlett like a cold animal toward a fire.

  "Lights?" she questioned. "Why is the house so dark, Pork? Bring candles."

  "Dey tuck all de candles, Miss Scarlett, all 'cept one we been usin' ter fine things in de dahk wid, an' it's 'bout gone. Mammy been usin' a rag in a dish of hawg fat fer a light fer nussin' Miss Careen an' Miss Suellen."

  "Bring what's left of the candle," she ordered. "Bring it into Mother's-- into the office."

  Pork pattered into the dining room and Scarlett groped her way into the inky small room and sank down on the sofa. Her father's arm still lay in the crook of hers, he
lpless, appealing, trusting, as only the hands of the very young and the very old can be.

  "He's an old man, an old tired man," she thought again and vaguely wondered why she could not care.

  Light wavered into the room as Pork entered carrying high a half-burned candle stuck in a saucer. The dark cave came to life, the sagging old sofa on which they sat, the tall secretary reaching toward the ceiling with Mother's fragile carved chair before it, the racks of pigeonholes, still stuffed with papers written in her fine hand, the worn carpet-- all, all were the same, except that Ellen was not there, Ellen with the faint scent of lemon verbena sachet and the sweet look in her tip-tilted eyes. Scarlett felt a small pain in her heart as of nerves numbed by a deep wound, struggling to make themselves felt again. She must not let them come to life now; there was all the rest of her life ahead of her in which they could ache. But, not now! Please, God, not now!

  She looked into Gerald's putty-colored face and, for the first time in her life, she saw him unshaven, his once florid face covered with silvery bristles. Pork placed the candle on the candle stand and came to her side. Scarlett felt that if he had been a dog he would have laid his muzzle in her lap and whined for a kind hand upon his head.

  "Pork, how many darkies are here?"

  "Miss Scarlett, dem trashy niggers done runned away an' some of dem went off wid de Yankees an'--"

  "How many are left?"

  "Dey's me, Miss Scarlett, an' Mammy. She been nussin' de young Misses all day. An' Dilcey, she settin' up wid de young Misses now. Us three, Miss Scarlett."

  "Us three" where there had been a hundred. Scarlett with an effort lifted her head on her aching neck. She knew she must keep her voice steady. To her surprise, words came out as coolly and naturally as if there had never been a war and she could, by waving her hand, call ten house servants to her.

  "Pork, I'm starving. Is there anything to eat?"

  "No'm. Dey tuck it all."

  "But the garden?"

  "Dey tuhned dey hawses loose in it."

  "Even the sweet potato hills?"

  Something almost like a pleased smile broke his thick lips.

  "Miss Scarlett, Ah done fergit de yams. Ah specs dey's right dar. Dem Yankee folks ain' never seed no yams an' dey thinks dey's jes' roots an'--"

  "The moon will be up soon. You go out and dig us some and roast them. There's no corn meal? No dried peas? No chickens?"

  "No'm. No'm. Whut chickens dey din' eat right hyah dey cah'ied off 'cross dey saddles."

  They-- They -- They -- Was there no end to what "They" had done? Was it not enough to burn and kill? Must they also leave women and children and helpless negroes to starve in a country which they had desolated?

  "Miss Scarlett, Ah got some apples Mammy buhied unner de house. We been eatin' on dem today."

  "Bring them before you dig the potatoes. And, Pork-- I -- I feel so faint. Is there any wine in the cellar, even blackberry?"

  "Oh, Miss Scarlett, de cellar wuz de fust place dey went."

  A swimming nausea compounded of hunger, sleeplessness, exhaustion and stunning blows came on suddenly and she gripped the carved roses under her hand.

  "No wine," she said dully, remembering the endless rows of bottles in the cellar. A memory stirred.

  "Pork, what of the corn whisky Pa buried in the oak barrel under the scuppernong arbor?"

  Another ghost of a smile lit the black face, a smile of pleasure and respect.

  "Miss Scarlett, you sho is de beatenes' chile! Ah done plum fergit dat bahn." But, Miss Scarlett, dat whisky ain' no good. Ain' been dar but 'bout a year an' whisky ain' no good fer ladies nohow."

  How stupid negroes were! They never thought of anything unless they were told. And the Yankees wanted to free them.

  "It'll be good enough for this lady and for Pa. Hurry, Pork, and dig it up and bring us two glasses and some mint and sugar and I'll mix a julep."

  "Miss Scarlett, you knows dey ain' been no sugar at Tara fer de longes'. An' dey hawses done et up all de mint an' dey done broke all de glasses."

  If he says "They" once more, I'll scream. I can't help it, she thought, and then, aloud: "Well, hurry and get the whisky, quickly. We'll take it neat." And, as he turned: "Wait, Pork. There's so many things to do that I can't seem to think. ... Oh, yes. I brought home a horse and a cow and the cow needs milking, badly, and unharness the horse and water him. Go tell Mammy to look after the cow. Tell her she's got to fix the cow up somehow. Miss Melanie's baby will die if he doesn't get something to eat and--"

  "Miss Melly ain'-- kain --?" Pork paused delicately.

  "Miss Melanie has no milk." Dear God, but Mother would faint at that!

  "Well, Miss Scarlett, mah Dilcey ten' ter Miss Melly's chile. Mah Dilcey got a new chile herself an' she got mo'n nuff fer both."

  "You've got a new baby, Pork?"

  Babies, babies, babies. Why did God make so many babies? But no, God didn't make them. Stupid people made them.

  "Yas'm, big fat black boy. He--"

  "Go tell Dilcey to leave the girls. I'll look after them. Tell her to nurse Miss Melanie's baby and do what she can for Miss Melanie. Tell Mammy to look after the cow and put that poor horse in the stable."

  "Dey ain' no stable, Miss Scarlett. Dey use it fer fiah wood."

  "Don't tell me any more what 'They' did. Tell Dilcey to look after them. And you, Pork, go dig up that whisky and then some potatoes."

  "But, Miss Scarlett, Ah ain' got no light ter dig by."

  "You can use a stick of firewood, can't you?"

  "Dey ain' no fiah wood-- Dey --"

  "Do something. ... I don't care what. But dig those things and dig them fast. Now, hurry."

  Pork scurried from the room as her voice roughened and Scarlett was left alone with Gerald. She patted his leg gently. She noted how shrunken were the thighs that once bulged with saddle muscles. She must do something to drag him from his apathy-- but she could not ask about Mother. That must come later, when she could stand it.

  "Why didn't they burn Tara?"

  Gerald stared at her for a moment as if not hearing her and she repeated her question.

  "Why--" he fumbled, "they used the house as a headquarters."

  "Yankees-- in this house?"

  A feeling that the beloved walls had been defiled rose in her. This house, sacred because Ellen had lived in it, and those-- those -- in it.

  "So they were, Daughter. We saw the smoke from Twelve Oaks, across the river, before they came. But Miss Honey and Miss India and some of their darkies had refugeed to Macon, so we did not worry about them. But we couldn't be going to Macon. The girls were so sick-- your mother -- we couldn't be going. Our darkies ran -- I'm not knowing where. They stole the wagons and the mules. Mammy and Dilcey and Pork -- they didn't run. The girls -- your mother -- we couldn't be moving them.

  "Yes, yes." He mustn't talk about Mother. Anything else. Even that General Sherman himself had used this room, Mother's office, for his headquarters. Anything else.

  "The Yankees were moving on Jonesboro, to cut the railroad. And they came up the road from the river-- thousands and thousands -- and cannon and horses -- thousands. I met them on the front porch."

  "Oh, gallant little Gerald!" thought Scarlett, her heart swelling, Gerald meeting the enemy on the stairs of Tara as if an army stood behind him instead of in front of him.

  "They said for me to leave, that they would be burning the place. And I said that they would be burning it over my head. We could not leave-- the girls -- your mother were --"

  "And then?" Must he revert to Ellen always?

  "I told them there was sickness in the house, the typhoid, and it was death to move them. They could burn the roof over us. I did not want to leave anyway-- leave Tara --"

  His voice trailed off into silence as he looked absently about the walls and Scarlet! understood. There were too many Irish ancestors crowding behind Gerald's shoulders, men who had died on scant acres, fighting to the end rather than leave the h
omes where they had lived, plowed, loved, begotten sons.

  "I said that they would be burning the house over the heads of three dying women. But we would not leave. The young officer was-- was a gentleman."

  "A Yankee a gentleman? Why, Pa!"

  "A gentleman. He galloped away and soon he was back with a captain, a surgeon, and he looked at the girls-- and your mother."

  "You let a damned Yankee into their room?"

  "He had opium. We had none. He saved your sisters. Suellen was hemorrhaging. He was as kind as he knew how. And when he reported that they were-- ill --th ey did not burn the house. They moved in, some general, his staff, crowding in. They filled all the rooms except the sick room. And the soldiers --"

  He paused again, as if too tired to go on. His stubbly chin sank heavily in loose folds of flesh on his chest With an effort he spoke again.

  They camped all round the house, everywhere, in the cotton, in the corn. The pasture was blue with them. That night there were a thousand campfires. They tore down the fences and burned them to cook with and the barns and the stables and the smokehouse. They killed the cows and the hogs and the chickens-- even my turkeys." Gerald's precious turkeys. So they were gone. They took things, even the pictures -- some of the furniture, the china -- "

  "The silver?"

  "Pork and Mammy did something with the silver-- put it in the well -- but I'm not remembering now," Gerald's voice was fretful. "Then they fought the battle from here -- from Tara -- there was so much noise, people galloping up and stamping about. And later the cannon at Jonesboro -- it sounded like thunder -- even the girls could hear it, sick as they were, and they kept saying over and over: 'Papa, make it stop thundering.' "

  "And-- and Mother? Did she know Yankees were in the house?"

  "She-- never knew anything."

  "Thank God," said Scarlett. Mother was spared that. Mother never knew, never heard the enemy in the rooms below, never heard the guns at Jonesboro, never learned that the land which was part of her heart was under Yankee feet.

  "I saw few of them for I stayed upstairs with the girls and your mother. I saw the young surgeon mostly. He was kind, so kind, Scarlett. After he'd worked all day with the wounded, he came and sat with them. He even left some medicine. He told me when they moved on that the girls would recover but your mother-- She was so frail, he said -- too frail to stand it all. He said she had undermined her strength. ..."