Archie nodded as if he understood perfectly and an unwilling gleam of respect shone in his cold eye. But understanding was far from Scarlett. The last half-hour had been so nightmarish that she felt nothing would ever be plain and clear again. However, Rhett seemed in perfect command of the bewildering situation and that was a small comfort.
Archie turned to go and then swung about and his one eye went questioningly to Rhett's face.
"Him?"
"Yes."
Archie grunted and spat on the floor.
"Hell to pay," he said as he stumped down the hall to the back door.
Something in the last low interchange of words made a new fear and suspicion rise up in Scarlett's breast like a chill ever-swelling bubble. When that bubble broke --
"Where's Frank?" she cried.
Rhett came swiftly across the room to the bed, his big body swinging as lightly and noiselessly as a cat's.
"All in good time," he said and smiled briefly. "Steady that lamp, Scarlett. You don't want to burn Mr. Wilkes up. Miss Melly --"
Melanie looked up like a good little soldier awaiting a command and so tense was the situation it did not occur to her that for the first time Rhett was calling her familiarly by the name which only family and old friends used.
"I beg your pardon, I mean, Mrs. Wilkes. ..."
"Oh, Captain Butler, do not ask my pardon! I should feel honored if you called me 'Melly' without the Miss! I feel as though you were my -- my brother or -- or my cousin. How kind you are and how clever! How can I ever thank you enough?"
"Thank you," said Rhett and for a moment he looked almost embarrassed. "I should never presume so far, but Miss Melly," and his voice was apologetic, "I'm sorry I had to say that Mr. Wilkes was in Belle Watling's house. I'm sorry to have involved him and the others in such a -- But I had to think fast when I rode away from here and that was the only plan that occurred to me. I knew my word would be accepted because I have so many friends among the Yankee officers. They do me the dubious honor of thinking me almost one of them because they know my -- shall we call it my 'unpopularity'? -- among my townsmen. And you see, I was playing poker in Belle's bar earlier in the evening. There are a dozen Yankee soldiers who can testify to that. And Belle and her girls will gladly lie themselves black in the face and say Mr. Wilkes and the others were -- upstairs all evening. And the Yankees will believe them. Yankees are queer that way. It won't occur to them that women of -- their profession are capable of intense loyalty or patriotism. The Yankees wouldn't take the word of a single nice Atlanta lady as to the whereabouts of the men who were supposed to be at the meeting tonight but they will take the word of -- fancy ladies. And I think that between the word of honor of a Scalawag and a dozen fancy ladies, we may have a chance of getting the men off."
There was a sardonic grin on his face at the last words but it faded as Melanie turned up to him a face that blazed with gratitude.
"Captain Butler, you are so smart! I wouldn't have cared if you'd said they were in hell itself tonight, if it saves them! For I know and every one else who matters knows that my husband was never in a dreadful place like that!"
"Well --" began Rhett awkwardly, "as a matter of fact, he was at Belle's tonight."
Melanie drew herself up coldly.
"You can never make me believe such a lie!"
"Please, Miss Melly! Let me explain! When I got out to the old Sullivan place tonight, I found Mr. Wilkes wounded and with him were Hugh Elsing and Dr. Meade and old man Merriwether --"
"Not the old gentleman!" cried Scarlett.
"Men are never too old to be fools. And your Uncle Henry --"
"Oh, mercy!" cried Aunt Pitty.
"The others had scattered after the brush with the troops and the crowd that stuck together had come to the Sullivan place to hide their robes in the chimney and to see how badly Mr. Wilkes was hurt. But for his wound, they'd be headed for Texas by now -- all of them -- but he couldn't ride far and they wouldn't leave him. It was necessary to prove that they had been somewhere instead of where they had been, and so I took them by back ways to Belle Watling's."
"Oh -- I see. I do beg your pardon for my rudeness, Captain Butler. I see now it was necessary to take them there but -- Oh, Captain Butler, people must have seen you going in!"
"No one saw us. We went in through a private back entrance that opens on the railroad tracks. It's always dark and locked."
"Then how -- ?"
"I have a key," said Rhett laconically, and his eyes met Melanie's evenly.
As the full impact of the meaning smote her, Melanie became so embarrassed that she fumbled with the bandage until it slid off the wound entirely.
"I did not mean to pry --" she said in a muffled voice, her white face reddening, as she hastily pressed the towel back into place.
"I regret having to tell a lady such a thing."
"Then it's true!" thought Scarlett with an odd pang. Then he does live with that dreadful Watling creature! He does own her house!"
"I saw Belle and explained to her. We gave her a list of the men who were out tonight and she and her girls will testify that they were all in her house tonight. Then to make our exit more conspicuous, she called the two desperadoes who keep order at her place and had us dragged downstairs, fighting, and through the barroom and thrown out into the street as brawling drunks who were disturbing the place."
He grinned reminiscently. "Dr. Meade did not make a very convincing drunk. It hurt his dignity to even be in such a place. But your Uncle Henry and old man Merriwether were excellent. The stage lost two great actors when they did not take up the drama. They seemed to enjoy the affair. I'm afraid your Uncle Henry has a black eye due to Mr. Merriwether's zeal for his part. He --"
The back door swung open and India entered, followed by old Dr. Dean, his long white hair tumbled, his worn leather bag bulging under his cape. He nodded briefly but without words to those present and quickly lifted the bandage from Ashley's shoulder.
Too high for the lung," he said. "If it hasn't splintered his collar bone it's not so serious. Get me plenty of towels, ladies, and cotton if you have it, and some brandy."
Rhett took the lamp from Scarlett and set it on the table as Melanie and India sped about, obeying the doctor's orders.
"You can't do anything here. Come into the parlor by the fire." He took her arm and propelled her from the room. There was a gentleness foreign to him in both hand and voice. "You've had a rotten day, haven't you?"
She allowed herself to be led into the front room and though she stood on the hearth rug in front of the fire she began to shiver. The bubble of suspicion in her breast was swelling larger now. It was more than a suspicion. It was almost a certainty and a terrible certainty. She looked up into Rhett's immobile face and for a moment she could not speak. Then:
"Was Frank at -- Belle Watling's?"
"No."
Rhett's voice was blunt.
"Archie's carrying him to the vacant lot near Belle's. He's dead. Shot through the head."
CHAPTER XLVI
FEW FAMILIES in the north end of town slept that night for the news of the disaster to the Klan, and Rhett's stratagem spread swiftly on silent feet as the shadowy form of India Wilkes slipped through back yards, whispered urgently through kitchen doors and slipped away into the windy darkness. And in her path, she left fear and desperate hope.
From without, houses looked black and silent and wrapped in sleep but, within, voices whispered vehemently into the dawn. Not only those involved in the night's raid but every member of the Klan was ready for flight and in almost every stable along Peachtree Street, horses stood saddled in the darkness, pistols in holsters and food in saddlebags. All that prevented a wholesale exodus was India's whispered message: "Captain Butler says not to run. The roads will be watched. He has arranged with that Watling creature --" In dark rooms men whispered: "But why should I trust that damned Scalawag Butler? It may be a trap!" And women's voices implored: "Don't go! If he sav
ed Ashley and Hugh, he may save everybody. If India and Melanie trust him --" And they half trusted and stayed because there was no other course open to them.
Earlier in the night, the soldiers had knocked at a dozen doors and those who could not or would not tell where they had been that night were marched off under arrest. Rene Picard and one of Mrs. Merriwether's nephews and the Simmons boys and Andy Bonnell were among those who spent the night in jail. They had been in the ill-starred foray but had separated from the others after the shooting. Riding hard for home they were arrested before they learned of Rhett's plan. Fortunately they all replied, to questions, that where they had been that night was their own business and not that of any damned Yankees. They had been locked up for further questioning in the morning. Old man Merriwether and Uncle Henry Hamilton declared shamelessly that they had spent the evening at Belle Watling's sporting house and when Captain Jaffery remarked irritably that they were too old for such goings on, they wanted to fight him.
Belle Watling herself answered Captain Jaffery's summons, and before he could make known his mission she shouted that the house was closed for the night. A passel of quarrelsome drunks had called in the early part of the evening and had fought one another, torn the place up, broken her finest mirrors and so alarmed the young ladies that all business had been suspended for the night. But if Captain Jaffery wanted a drink, the bar was still open --
Captain Jaffery, acutely conscious of the grins of his men and feeling helplessly that he was fighting a mist, declared angrily that he wanted neither the young ladies nor a drink and demanded if Belle knew the names of her destructive customers. Oh, yes, Belle knew them. They were her regulars. They came every Wednesday night and called themselves the Wednesday Democrats, though what they meant by that she neither knew or cared. And if they didn't pay for the damage to the mirrors in the upper hall, she was going to have the law on them. She kept a respectable house and -- Oh, their names? Belle unhesitatingly reeled off the names of twelve under suspicion, Captain Jaffery smiled sourly.
"These damned Rebels are as efficiently organized as our Secret Service," he said. "You and your girls will have to appear before the provost marshal tomorrow."
"Will the provost make them pay for my mirrors?"
"To hell with your mirrors! Make Rhett Butler pay for them. He owns the place, doesn't he?"
Before dawn, every ex-Confederate family in town knew everything. And their negroes, who had been told nothing, knew everything too, by that black grapevine telegraph system which defies white understanding. Everyone knew the details of the raid, the killing of Frank Kennedy and crippled Tommy Wellburn and how Ashley was wounded in carrying Frank's body away.
Some of the feeling of bitter hatred the women bore Scarlett for her share in the tragedy was mitigated by the knowledge that her husband was dead and she knew it and could not admit it and have the poor comfort of claiming his body. Until morning light disclosed the bodies and the authorities notified her, she must know nothing. Frank and Tommy, pistols in cold hands, lay stiffening among the dead weeds in a vacant lot. And the Yankees would say they killed each other in a common drunken brawl over a girl in Belle's house. Sympathy ran high for Fanny, Tommy's wife, who had just had a baby, but no one could slip through the darkness to see her and comfort her because a squad of Yankees surrounded the house, waiting for Tommy to return. And there was another squad about Aunt Pitty's house, waiting for Frank.
Before dawn the news had trickled about that the military inquiry would take place that day. The townspeople, heavy eyed from sleeplessness and anxious waiting, knew that the safety of some of their most prominent citizens rested on three things -- the ability of Ashley Wilkes to stand on his feet and appear before the military board, as though he suffered nothing more serious than a morning-after headache, the word of Belle Watling that these men had been in her house all evening and the word of Rhett Butler that he had been with them.
The town writhed at these last two! Belle Watling! To owe their men's lives to her! It was intolerable! Women who had ostentatiously crossed the street when they saw Belle coming, wondered if she remembered and trembled for fear she did. The men felt less humiliation at taking their lives from Belle than the women did, for many of them thought her a good sort. But they were stung that they must owe lives and freedom to Rhett Butler, a speculator and a Scalawag. Belle and Rhett, the town's best-known fancy woman and the town's most hated man. And they must be under obligation to them.
Another thought that stung them to impotent wrath was the knowledge that the Yankees and Carpetbaggers would laugh. Oh, how they would laugh! Twelve of the town's most prominent citizens revealed as habitual frequenters of Belle Watling's sporting house! Two of them killed in a fight over a cheap little girl, others ejected from the place as too drunk to be tolerated even by Belle and some under arrest, refusing to admit they were there when everyone knew they were there!
Atlanta was right in fearing that the Yankees would laugh. They had squirmed too long beneath Southern coldness and contempt and now they exploded with hilarity. Officers woke comrades and retailed the news. Husbands roused wives at dawn and told them as much as could be decently told to women. And the women, dressing hastily, knocked on their neighbors' doors and spread the story. The Yankee ladies were charmed with it all and laughed until tears ran down their faces. This was Southern chivalry and gallantry for you! Maybe those women who carried their heads so high and snubbed all attempts at friendliness wouldn't be so uppity, now that everyone knew where their husbands spent their time when they were supposed to be at political meetings. Political meetings! Well, that was funny!
But even as they laughed, they expressed regret for Scarlett and her tragedy. After all, Scarlett was a lady and one of the few ladies in Atlanta who were nice to Yankees. She had already won their sympathy by the fact that she had to work because her husband couldn't or wouldn't support her properly. Even though her husband was a sorry one, it was dreadful that the poor thing should discover he had been untrue to her. And it was doubly dreadful that his death should occur simultaneously with the discovery of his infidelity. After all, a poor husband was better than no husband at all, and the Yankee ladies decided they'd be extra nice to Scarlett But the others, Mrs. Meade, Mrs. Merriwether, Mrs. Elsing, Tommy Wellburn's widow and most of all, Mrs. Ashley Wilkes, they'd laugh in their faces every time they saw them. That would teach them a little courtesy.
Much of the whispering that went on in the dark rooms on the north side of town that night was on this same subject. Atlanta ladies vehemently told their husbands that they did not care a rap what the Yankees thought. But inwardly they felt that running an Indian gantlet would be infinitely preferable to suffering the ordeal of Yankee grins and not being able to tell the truth about their husbands.
Dr. Meade, beside himself with outraged dignity at the position into which Rhett had jockeyed him and the others, told Mrs. Meade that, but for the fact that it would implicate the others, he would rather confess and be hanged than say he had been at Belle's house.
"It is an insult to you, Mrs. Meade," he fumed.
"But everyone will know you weren't there for -- for --"
"The Yankees won't know. They'll have to believe it if we save our necks. And they'll laugh. The very thought that anyone will believe it and laugh infuriates me. And it insults you because -- my dear, I have always been faithful to you."
"I know that," and in the darkness Mrs. Meade smiled and slipped a thin hand into the doctor's. "But I'd rather it were really true than have one hair of your head in danger."
"Mrs. Meade, do you know what you are saying?" cried the doctor, aghast at the unsuspected realism of his wife."
"Yes, I know. I've lost Darcy and I've lost Phil and you are all I have and, rather than lose you, I'd have you take up your permanent abode at that place."
"You are distrait! You cannot know what you are saying."
"You old fool," said Mrs. Meade tenderly and laid her head agai
nst his sleeve.
Dr. Meade fumed into silence and stroked her cheek and then exploded again. "And to be under obligation to that Butler man! Hanging would be easy compared to that. No, not even if I owe him my life, can I be polite to him. His insolence is monumental and his shamelessness about his profiteering makes me boil. To owe my life to a man who never went in the army --"
"Melly said he enlisted after Atlanta fell."
"It's a lie. Miss Melly will believe any plausible scoundrel. And what I can't understand is why he is doing all this -- going to all this trouble. I hate to say it but -- well, there's always been talk about him and Mrs. Kennedy. I've seen them coming in from rides together too often this last year. He must have done it because of her."
"If it was because of Scarlett, he wouldn't have lifted his hand. He'd have been glad to see Frank Kennedy hanged. I think it's because of Melly --"
"Mrs. Meade, you can't be insinuating that there's ever been anything between those two!"
"Oh, don't be silly! But she's always been unaccountably fond of him ever since he tried to get Ashley exchanged during the war. And I must say this for him, he never smiles in that nasty-nice way when he's with her. He's just as pleasant and thoughtful as can be -- really a different man. You can tell by the way he acts with Melly that he could be decent if he wanted to. Now, my idea of why he's doing all this is --" She paused. "Doctor, you won't like my idea."
"I don't like anything about this whole affair!"
"Well, I think he did it partly for Melly's sake but mostly because he thought it would be a huge joke on us all. We've hated him so much and showed it so plainly and now he's got us in a fix where all of you have your choice of saying you were at that Watling woman's house and shaming yourself and wives before the Yankees -- or telling the truth and getting hanged. And he knows we'll all be under obligation to him and his -- mistress and that we'd almost rather be hanged than be obliged to them. Oh, I'll wager he's enjoying it."
The doctor groaned. "He did look amused when he took us upstairs in that place."
"Doctor," Mrs. Meade hesitated, "what did it look like?"