Happiness flooded her until her eyes were liquid with tears.
"How sweet of you to say that! For I was so ashamed to let you see me --"
"You ashamed? Why should you be ashamed? I'm the one to feel shame and I do. If it hadn't been for my stupidity you wouldn't be in this fix. You'd never have married Frank. I should never have let you leave Tara last winter. Oh, fool that I was! I should have known you -- known you were desperate, so desperate that you'd -- I should have -- I should have --" His face went haggard.
Scarlett's heart beat wildly. He was regretting that he had not run away with her!
"The least I could have done was go out and commit highway robbery or murder to get the tax money for you when you had taken us in as beggars. Oh, I messed it up all the way around!"
Her heart contracted with disappointment and some of the happiness went from her, for these were not the words she hoped to hear.
"I would have gone anyway," she said tiredly. "I couldn't have let you do anything like that. And anyway, it's done now."
"Yes, it's done now," he said with slow bitterness. "You wouldn't have let me do anything dishonorable but you would sell yourself to a man you didn't love -- and bear his child, so that my family and I wouldn't starve. It was kind of you to shelter my helplessness."
The edge in his voice spoke of a raw, unhealed wound that ached within him and his words brought shame to her eyes. He was swift to see it and his face changed to gentleness.
"You didn't think I was blaming you? Dear God, Scarlett! No. You are the bravest woman I've ever known. It's myself I'm blaming."
He turned and looked out of the window again and the shoulders presented to her gaze did not look quite so square. Scarlett waited a long moment in silence, hoping that Ashley would return to the mood in which he spoke of her beauty, hoping he would say more words that she could treasure. It had been so long since she had seen him and she had lived on memories until they were worn thin. She knew he still loved her. That fact was evident, in every line of him, in every bitter, self-condemnatory word, in his resentment at her bearing Frank's child. She so longed to hear him say it in words, longed to speak words herself that would provoke a confession, but she dared not. She remembered her promise given last winter in the orchard, that she would never again throw herself at his head. Sadly she knew that promise must be kept if Ashley were to remain near her. One cry from her of love and longing, one look that pleaded for his arms, and the matter would be settled forever. Ashley would surely go to New York. And he must not go away.
"Oh, Ashley, don't blame yourself! How could it be your fault? You will come to Atlanta and help me, won't you?"
"No."
"But, Ashley," her voice was beginning to break with anguish and disappointment, "But I'd counted on you. I do need you so. Frank can't help me. He's so busy with the store and if you don't come I don't know where I can get a man! Everybody in Atlanta who is smart is busy with his own affairs and the others are so incompetent and --"
"It's no use, Scarlett."
"You mean you'd rather go to New York and live among Yankees than come to Atlanta?"
"Who told you that?" He turned and faced her, faint annoyance wrinkling his forehead.
"Will."
"Yes, I've decided to go North. An old friend who made the Grand Tour with me before the war has offered me a position in his father's bank. It's better so, Scarlett. I'd be no good to you. I know nothing of the lumber business."
"But you know less about banking and it's much harder! And I know I'd make far more allowances for your inexperience than Yankees would!"
He winced and she knew she had said the wrong thing. He turned and looked out of the window again.
"I don't want allowances made for me. I want to stand on my own feet for what I'm worth. What have I done with my life, up till now? It's time I made something of myself -- or went down through my own fault. I've been your pensioner too long already."
"But I'm offering you a half-interest in the mill, Ashley! You would be standing on your own feet because -- you see, it would be your own business."
"It would amount to the same thing. I'd not be buying the half-interest I'd be taking it as a gift And I've taken too many gifts from you already, Scarlett -- food and shelter and even clothes for myself and Melanie and the baby. And I've given you nothing in return."
"Oh, but you have! Will couldn't have --"
"I can split kindling very nicely now."
"Oh, Ashley!" she cried despairingly, tears in her eyes at the jeering note in his voice. "What has happened to you since I've been gone? You sound so hard and bitter! You didn't used to be this way."
"What's happened? A very remarkable thing, Scarlett. I've been thinking. I don't believe I really thought from the time of the surrender until you went away from here. I was in a state of suspended animation and it was enough that I had something to eat and a bed to lie on. But when you went to Atlanta, shouldering a man's burden, I saw myself as much less than a man -- much less, indeed, than a woman. Such thoughts aren't pleasant to live with and I do not intend to live with them any longer. Other men came out of the war with less than I had, and look at them now. So I'm going to New York."
"But -- I don't understand! If it's work you want, why won't Atlanta do as well as New York? And my mill --"
"No, Scarlett This is my last chance. I'll go North. If I go to Atlanta and work for you, I'm lost forever."
The word "lost -- lost -- lost" dinged frighteningly in her heart like a death bell sounding. Her eyes went quickly to his but they were wide and crystal gray and they were looking through her and beyond her at some fate she could not see, could not understand.
"Lost? Do you mean -- have you done something the Atlanta Yankees can get you for? I mean, about helping Tony get away or -- or -- Oh, Ashley, you aren't in the Ku Klux, are you?"
His remote eyes came back to her swiftly and he smiled a brief smile that never reached his eyes.
"I had forgotten you were so literal. No, it's not the Yankees I'm afraid of. I mean if I go to Atlanta and take help from you again, I bury forever any hope of ever standing alone."
"Oh," she sighed in quick relief, "if it's only that!
"Yes," and he smiled again, the smile more wintry than before. "Only that. Only my masculine pride, my self-respect and, if you choose to so call it, my immortal soul."
"But," she swung around on another tack, "you could gradually buy the mill from me and it would be your own and then --"
"Scarlett," he interrupted fiercely, "I tell you, no! There are other reasons."
"What reasons?"
"You know my reasons better than anyone in the world."
"Oh -- that? But -- that'll be all right," she assured swiftly. "I promised, you know, out in the orchard, last winter and I'll keep my promise and --"
"Then you are surer of yourself than I am. I could not count on myself to keep such a promise. I should not have said that but I had to make you understand. Scarlett, I will not talk of this any more. It's finished. When Will and Suellen marry, I am going to New York."
His eyes, wide and stormy, met hers for an instant and then he went swiftly across the room. His hand was on the door knob. Scarlett stared at him in agony. The interview was ended and she had lost. Suddenly weak from the strain and sorrow of the last day and the present disappointment, her nerves broke abruptly and she screamed: "Oh, Ashley!" And, flinging herself down on the sagging sofa, she burst into wild crying.
She heard his uncertain footsteps leaving the door and his helpless voice saying-her name over and over above her head. There was a swift pattering of feet racing up the hall from the kitchen and Melanie burst into the room, her eyes wide with alarm.
"Scarlett ... the baby isn't ... ?"
Scarlett burrowed her head in the dusty upholstery and screamed again.
"Ashley -- he's so mean! So doggoned mean -- so hateful!"
"Oh, Ashley, what have you done to her?" Melanie threw he
rself on the floor beside the sofa and gathered Scarlett into her arms. "What have you said? How could you! You might bring on the baby! There, my darling, put your head on Melanie's shoulder! What is wrong?"
"Ashley -- he's so -- so bullheaded and hateful!"
"Ashley, I'm surprised at you! Upsetting her so much and in her condition and Mr. O'Hara hardly in his grave!"
"Don't you fuss at him!" cried Scarlett illogically, raising her head abruptly from Melanie's shoulder, her coarse black hair tumbling out from its net and her face streaked with tears. "He's got a right to do as he pleases!"
"Melanie," said Ashley, his face white, "let me explain. Scarlett was kind enough to offer me a position in Atlanta as manager of one of her mills --"
"Manager!" cried Scarlett indignantly. I offered him a half-interest and he --"
"And I told her I had already made arrangements for us to go North and she --"
"Oh," cried Scarlett, beginning to sob again, "I told him and told him how much I needed him -- how I couldn't get anybody to manage the mill -- how I was going to have this baby -- and he refused to come! And now -- now, I'll have to sell the mill and I know I can't get anything like a good price for it and I'll lose money and I guess maybe we'll starve, but he won't care. He's so mean!"
She burrowed her head back into Melanie's thin shoulder and some of the real anguish went from her as a flicker of hope woke in her. She could sense that in Melanie's devoted heart she had an ally, feel Melanie's indignation that anyone, even her beloved husband, should make Scarlett cry. Melanie flew at Ashley like a small determined dove and pecked him for the first time in her life.
"Ashley, how could you refuse her? And after all she's done for us! How ungrateful you make us appear! And she so helpless now with the bab -- How unchivalrous of you! She helped us when we needed help and now you deny her when she needs you!"
Scarlett peeped slyly at Ashley and saw surprise and uncertainty plain in his face as he looked into Melanie's dark indignant eyes. Scarlett was surprised, too, at the vigor of Melanie's attack, for she knew Melanie considered her husband beyond wifely reproaches and thought his decisions second only to God's.
"Melanie ..." he began and then threw out his hands helplessly.
"Ashley, how can you hesitate? Think what she's done for us -- for me! I'd have died in Atlanta when Beau came if it hadn't been for her! And she -- yes, she killed a Yankee, defending us. Did you know that? She killed a man for us. And she worked and slaved before you and Will came home, just to keep food in our mouths. And when I think of her plowing and picking cotton, I could just -- Oh, my darling!" And she swooped her head and kissed Scarlett's tumbled hair in fierce loyalty. "And now the first time she asks us to do something for her --"
"You don't need to tell me what she has done for us."
"And Ashley, just think! Besides helping her, just think what it'll mean for us to live in Atlanta among our own people and not have to live with Yankees! There'll be Auntie and Uncle Henry and all our friends, and Beau can have lots of playmates and go to school. If we went North, we couldn't let him go to school and associate with Yankee children and have pickaninnies in his class! We'd have to have a governess and I don't see how we'd afford --"
"Melanie," said Ashley and his voice was deadly quiet, "do you really want to go to Atlanta so badly? You never said so when we talked about going to New York. You never intimated --"
"Oh, but when we talked about going to New York, I thought there was nothing for you in Atlanta and, besides, it wasn't my place to say anything. It's a wife's duty to go where her husband goes. But now that Scarlett needs us so and has a position that only you can fill we can go home! Home!" Her voice was rapturous as she squeezed Scarlett. "And I'll see Five Points again and Peachtree road and -- and -- Oh, how I've missed them all! And maybe we could have a little home of our own! I wouldn't care how little and tacky it was but -- a home of our own!"
Her eyes blazed with enthusiasm and happiness and the two stared at her, Ashley with a queer stunned look, Scarlett with surprise mingled with shame. It had never occurred to her that Melanie missed Atlanta so much and longed to be back, longed for a home of her own. She had seemed so contented at Tara it came to Scarlett as a shock that she was homesick.
"Oh Scarlett, how good of you to plan all this for us! You knew how I longed for home!"
As usual when confronted by Melanie's habit of attributing worthy motives where no worth existed, Scarlett was ashamed and irritated, and suddenly she could not meet either Ashley's or Melanie's eyes.
"We could get a little house of our own. Do you realize that we've been married five years and never had a home?"
"You can stay with us at Aunt Pitty's. That's your home," mumbled Scarlett, toying with a pillow and keeping her eyes down to hide dawning triumph in them as she felt the tide turning her way.
"No, but thank you just the same, darling. That would crowd us so. We'll get a house -- Oh, Ashley, do say Yes!"
"Scarlett," said Ashley and his voice was toneless, "look at me."
Startled, she looked up and met gray eyes that were bitter and full of tired futility.
"Scarlett, I will come to Atlanta. ... I cannot fight you both."
He turned and walked out of the room. Some of the triumph in her heart was dulled by a nagging fear. The look in his eyes when he spoke had been the same as when he said he would be lost forever if he came to Atlanta.
After Suellen and Will married and Carreen went off to Charleston to the convent, Ashley, Melanie and Beau came to Atlanta, bringing Dilcey with them to cook and nurse. Prissy and Pork were left at Tara until such a time as Will could get other darkies to help him in the fields and then they, too, would come to town.
The little brick house that Ashley took for his family was on Ivy Street directly behind Aunt Pitty's house and the two back yards ran together, divided only by a ragged overgrown privet hedge. Melanie had chosen it especially for this reason. She said, on the first morning of her return to Atlanta as she laughed and cried and embraced Scarlett and Aunt Pitty, she had been separated from her loved ones for so long that she could never be close enough to them again.
The house had originally been two stories high but the upper floor had been destroyed by shells during the siege and the owner, returning after the surrender, had lacked the money to replace it. He had contented himself with putting a flat roof on the remaining first floor which gave the building the squat, disproportionate look of a child's playhouse built of shoe boxes. The house was high from the ground, built over a large cellar, and the long sweeping flight of stairs which reached it made it look slightly ridiculous. But the flat, squashed look of the place was partly redeemed by the two fine old oaks which shaded it and a dusty-leaved magnolia, splotched with white blossoms, standing beside the front steps. The lawn was wide and green with thick clover and bordering it was a straggling, unkempt privet hedge, interlaced with sweet-smelling honeysuckle vines. Here and there in the grass, roses threw out sprangles from crushed old stems and pink and white crepe myrtle bloomed as valiantly as if war had not passed over their heads and Yankee horses gnawed their boughs.
Scarlett thought it quite the ugliest dwelling she had ever seen but, to Melanie, Twelve Oaks in all its grandeur had not been more beautiful. It was home and she and Ashley and Beau were at last together under their own roof.
India Wilkes came back from Macon, where she and Honey had lived since 1864, and took up her residence with her brother, crowding the occupants of the little house. But Ashley and Melanie welcomed her. Times had changed, money was scarce, but nothing had altered the rule of Southern life that families always made room gladly for indigent or unmarried female relatives.
Honey had married and, so India said, married beneath her, a coarse Westerner from Mississippi who had settled in Macon. He had a red face and a loud voice and jolly ways. India had not approved of the match and, not approving, had not been happy in her brother-in-law's home. She welcomed the news that A
shley now had a home of his own, so she could remove herself from uncongenial surroundings and also from the distressing sight of her sister so fatuously happy with a man unworthy of her.
The rest of the family privately thought that the giggling and simple-minded Honey had done far better than could be expected and they marveled that she had caught any man. Her husband was a gentleman and a man of some means; but to India, born in Georgia and reared in Virginia traditions, anyone not from the eastern seaboard was a boor and a barbarian. Probably Honey's husband was as happy to be relieved of her company as she was to leave him, for India was not easy to live with these days.
The mantle of spinsterhood was definitely on her shoulders now. She was twenty-five and looked it, and so there was no longer any need for her to try to be attractive. Her pale lashless eyes looked directly and uncompromisingly upon the world and her thin lips were ever set in haughty tightness. There was an air of dignity and pride about her now that, oddly enough, became her better than the determined girlish sweetness of her days at Twelve Oaks. The position she held was almost that of a widow. Everyone knew that Stuart Tarleton would have married her had he not been killed at Gettysburg, and so she was accorded the respect due a woman who had been wanted if not wed.
The six rooms of the little house on Ivy Street were soon scantily furnished with the cheapest pine and oak furniture in Frank's store for, as Ashley was penniless and forced to buy on credit, he refused anything except the least expensive and bought only the barest necessities. This embarrassed Frank who was fond of Ashley and it distressed Scarlett. Both she and Frank would willingly have given, without any charge, the finest mahogany and carved rosewood in the store, but the Wilkeses obstinately refused. Their house was painfully ugly and bare and Scarlett hated to see Ashley living in the uncarpeted, uncurtained rooms. But he did not seem to notice his surroundings and Melanie, having her own home for the first time since her marriage, was so happy she was actually proud of the place. Scarlett would have suffered agonies of humiliation at having friends find her without draperies and carpets and cushions and the proper number of chairs and teacups and spoons. But Melanie did the honors of her house as though plush curtains and brocade sofas were hers.