Melanie's soft voice, tinged with indignation, went on and on as she told of the recent outburst of temperament on the part of the Lady Harpists. Unable to agree with the Gentlemen's Glee Club as to the program for their next recital, the ladies had waited on Melanie that afternoon and announced their intention of withdrawing completely from the Musical Circle. It had taken all of Melanie's diplomacy to persuade them to defer their decision.
Scarlett, overwrought, could have screamed: "Oh, damn the Lady Harpists!" She wanted to talk about her dreadful experience. She was bursting to relate it in detail, so she could ease her own fright by frightening the others. She wanted to tell how brave she had been, just to assure herself by the sound of her own words that she had, indeed, been brave. But every time she brought up the subject, Melanie deftly steered the conversation into other and innocuous channels. This irritated Scarlett almost beyond endurance. They were as mean as Frank.
How could they be so calm and placid when she had just escaped so terrible a fate? They weren't even displaying common courtesy in denying her the relief of talking about it.
The events of the afternoon had shaken her more than she cared to admit, even to herself. Every time she thought of that malignant black face peering at her from the shadows of the twilight forest road, she fell to trembling. When she thought of the black hand at her bosom and what would have happened if Big Sam had not appeared, she bent her head lower and squeezed her eyes tightly shut. The longer she sat silent in the peaceful room, trying to sew, listening to Melanie's voice, the tighter her nerves stretched. She felt that at any moment she would actually hear them break with the same pinging sound a banjo string makes when it snaps.
Archie's whittling annoyed her and she frowned at him. Suddenly it seemed odd that he should be sitting there occupying himself with a piece of wood. Usually he lay flat on the sofa, during the evenings when he was on guard, and slept and snored so violently that his long beard leaped into the air with each rumbling breath. It was odder still that neither Melanie nor India hinted to him that he should spread a paper on the floor to catch his litter of shavings. He had already made a perfect mess on the hearth rug but they did not seem to have noticed it.
While she watched him, Archie turned suddenly toward the fire and spat a stream of tobacco juice on it with such vehemence that India, Melanie and Pitty leaped as though a bomb had exploded.
"Need you expectorate so loudly?" cried India in a voice that cracked with nervous annoyance. Scarlett looked at her in surprise for India was always so self-contained.
Archie gave her look for look.
"I reckon I do," he answered coldly and spat again. Melanie gave a little frowning glance at India.
"I was always so glad dear Papa didn't chew," began Pitty, and Melanie, her frown creasing deeper, swung on her and spoke sharper words than Scarlett had ever heard her speak.
"Oh, do hush, Auntie! You're so tactless."
"Oh, dear!" Pitty dropped her sewing in her lap and her mouth pressed up in hurt. "I declare, I don't know What ails you all tonight You and India are just as jumpy and cross as two old sticks."
No one answered her. Melanie did not even apologize for her crossness but went back to her sewing with small violence.
"You're taking stitches an inch long," declared Pitty with some satisfaction. "You'll have to take every one of them out. What's the matter with you?"
But Melanie still did not answer.
Was there anything the matter with them, Scarlett wondered? Had she been too absorbed with her own fears to notice? Yes, despite Melanie's attempts to make the evening appear like any one of fifty they had all spent together, there was a difference due to their alarm and shock at what had happened that afternoon. Scarlett stole glances at her companions and intercepted a look from India. It discomforted her because it was a long, measuring glance that carried in its cold depths something stronger than hate, something more insulting than contempt.
"As though she thought I was to blame for what happened," Scarlett thought indignantly.
India turned from her to Archie and, all annoyance at him gone from her face, gave him a look of veiled anxious inquiry. But he did not meet her eyes. He did however look at Scarlett, staring at her in the same cold hard way India had done.
Silence fell dully in the room as Melanie did not take up the conversation again and, in the silence, Scarlett heard the rising wind outside. It suddenly began to be a most unpleasant evening. Now she began to feel the tension in the air and she wondered if it had been present all during the evening -- and she too upset to notice it. About Archie's face there was an alert waiting look and his tufted, hairy old ears seemed pricked up like a lynx's. There was a severely repressed uneasiness about Melanie and India that made them raise their heads from their sewing at each sound of hooves in the road, at each groan of bare branches under the wailing wind, at each scuffing sound of dry leaves tumbling across the lawn. They started at each soft snap of burning logs on the hearth as if they were stealthy footsteps.
Something was wrong and Scarlett wondered what it was. Something was afoot and she did not know about it. A glance at Aunt Pitty's plump guileless face, screwed up in a pout, told her that the old lady was as ignorant as she. But Archie and Melanie and India knew. In the silence she could almost feel the thoughts of India and Melanie whirling as madly as squirrels in a cage. They knew something, were waiting for something, despite their efforts to make things appear as usual. And their inner unease communicated itself to Scarlett, making her more nervous than before. Handling her needle awkwardly, she jabbed it into her thumb and with a little scream of pain and annoyance that made them all jump, she squeezed it until a bright red drop appeared.
"I'm just too nervous to sew," she declared, throwing her mending to the floor. "I'm nervous enough to scream. I want to go home and go to bed. And Frank knew it and he oughtn't to have gone out. He talks, talks, talks about protecting women against darkies and Carpetbaggers and when the time comes for him to do some protecting, where is he? At home, taking care of me? No, indeed, he's gallivanting around with a lot of other men who don't do anything but talk and --"
Her snapping eyes came to rest on India's face and she paused. India was breathing fast and her pale lashless eyes were fastened on Scarlett's face with a deadly coldness.
"If it won't pain you too much, India," she broke off sarcastically, "I'd be much obliged if you'd tell me why you've been staring at me all evening. Has my face turned green or something?"
"It won't pain me to tell you. I'll do it with pleasure," said India and her eyes glittered. "I hate to see you underrate a fine man like Mr. Kennedy when, if you knew --"
"India!" said Melanie warningly, her hands clenching on her sewing.
"I think I know my husband better than you do," said Scarlett, the prospect of a quarrel, the first open quarrel she had ever had with India, making her spirits rise and her nervousness depart. Melanie's eyes caught India's and reluctantly India closed her lips. But almost instantly she spoke again and her voice was cold with hate.
"You make me sick, Scarlett O'Hara, talking about being protected! You don't care about being protected! If you did you'd never have exposed yourself as you have done all these months, prissing yourself about this town, showing yourself off to strange men, hoping they'll admire you! What happened to you this afternoon was just what you deserved and if there was any justice you'd have gotten worse."
"Oh, India, hush!" cried Melanie.
"Let her talk," cried Scarlett "I'm enjoying it. I always knew she hated me and she was too much of a hypocrite to admit it. If she thought anyone would admire her, she'd be walking the streets naked from dawn till dark."
India was on her feet her lean body quivering with insult.
"I do hate you," she said in a clear but trembling voice. "But it hasn't been hypocrisy that's kept me quiet It's something you can't understand, not possessing any -- any common courtesy, common good breeding. It's the realization that if
all of us don't hang together and submerge our own small hates, we can't expect to beat the Yankees. But you -- you -- you've done all you could to lower the prestige of decent people -- working and bringing shame on a good husband, giving Yankees and riffraff the right to laugh at us and make insulting remarks about our lack of gentility. Yankees don't know that you aren't one of us and have never been. Yankees haven't sense enough to know that you haven't any gentility. And when you've ridden about the woods exposing yourself to attack, you've exposed every well-behaved woman in town to attack by putting temptation in the ways of darkies and mean white trash. And you've put our men folks' lives in danger because they've got to --"
"My God, India!" cried Melanie and even in her wrath, Scarlett was stunned to hear Melanie take the Lord's name in vain. "You must hush! She doesn't know and she -- you must hush! You promised --"
"Oh, girls!" pleaded Miss Pittypat, her lips trembling.
"What don't I know?" Scarlett was on her feet, furious, facing the coldly blazing India and the imploring Melanie.
"Guinea hens," said Archie suddenly and his voice was contemptuous. Before anyone could rebuke him, his grizzled head went up sharply and he rose swiftly. "Somebody comin' up the walk. 'Tain't Mr. Wilkes neither. Cease your cackle."
There was male authority in his voice and the women stood suddenly silent anger fading swiftly from their faces as he stumped across the room to the door.
"Who's thar?" he questioned before the caller even knocked.
"Captain Butler. Let me in."
Melanie was across the floor so swiftly that her hoops swayed up violently, revealing her pantalets to the knees, and before Archie could put his hand on the knob she flung the door open. Rhett Butler stood in the doorway, his black slouch hat low over his eyes, the wild wind whipping his cape about him in snapping folds. For once his good manners had deserted him. He neither took off his hat nor spoke to the others in the room. He had eyes for no one but Melanie and he spoke abruptly without greeting.
"Where have they gone? Tell me quickly. It's life or death."
Scarlett and Pitty, startled and bewildered, looked at each other in wonderment and, like a lean old cat, India streaked across the room to Melanie's side.
"Don't tell him anything," she cried swiftly. "He's a spy, a Scalawag!"
Rhett did not even favor her with a glance.
"Quickly, Mrs. Wilkes! There may still be time."
Melanie seemed in a paralysis of terror and only stared into his face.
"What on earth --" began Scarlett.
"Shet yore mouth," directed Archie briefly. "You too, Miss Melly. Git the hell out of here, you damned Scalawag."
"No, Archie, no!" cried Melanie and she put a shaking hand on Rhett's arm as though to protect him from Archie. "What has happened? How did -- how did you know?"
On Rhett's dark face impatience fought with courtesy.
"Good God, Mrs. Wilkes, they've all been under suspicion since the beginning -- only they've been too clever -- until tonight! How do I know? I was playing poker tonight with two drunken Yankee captains and they let it out. The Yankees knew there'd be trouble tonight and they've prepared for it. The fools have walked into a trap."
For a moment it was as though Melanie swayed under the impact of a heavy blow and Rhett's arm went around her waist to steady her.
"Don't tell him! He's trying to trap you!" cried India, glaring at Rhett. "Didn't you hear him say he'd been with Yankee officers tonight?"
Still Rhett did not look at her. His eyes were bent insistently on Melanie's white face.
"Tell me. Where did they go? Have they a meeting place?"
Despite her fear and incomprehension, Scarlett thought she had never seen a blanker, more expressionless face than Rhett's but evidently Melanie saw something else, something that made her give her trust. She straightened her small body away from the steadying arm and said quietly but with a voice that shook:
"Out the Decatur road near Shantytown. They meet in the cellar of the old Sullivan plantation -- the one that's half-burned."
"Thank you. I'll ride fast. When the Yankees come here, none of you know anything."
He was gone so swiftly, his black cape melting into the night, that they could hardly realize he had been there at all until they heard the spattering of gravel and the mad pounding of a horse going off at full gallop.
"The Yankees coming here?" cried Pitty and, her small feet turning under her, she collapsed on the sofa, too frightened for tears.
"What's it all about? What did he mean? If you don't tell me I'll go crazy!" Scarlett laid hands on Melanie and shook her violently as if by force she could shake an answer from her.
"Mean? It means you've probably been the cause of Ashley's and Mr. Kennedy's death!" In spite of the agony of fear there was a note of triumph in India's voice. "Stop shaking Melly. She's going to faint."
"No, I'm not," whispered Melanie, clutching the back of a chair.
"My God, my God! I don't understand! Kill Ashley? Please, somebody tell me --"
Archie's voice, like a rusty hinge, cut through Scarlett's words.
"Set down," he ordered briefly. "Pick up yore sewin'. Sew like nothin' had happened. For all we know, the Yankees might have been spyin' on this house since sundown. Set down, I say, and sew."
Trembling they obeyed, even Pitty picking up a sock and holding it in shaking fingers while her eyes, wide as a frightened child's went around the circle for an explanation.
"Where is Ashley? What has happened to him, Melly?" cried Scarlett.
"Where's your husband? Aren't you interested in him?" India's pale eyes blazed with insane malice as she crumpled and straightened the torn towel she had been mending.
"India, please!" Melanie had mastered her voice but her white, shaken face and tortured eyes showed the strain under which she was laboring. "Scarlett, perhaps we should have told you but -- but -- you had been through so much this afternoon that we -- that Frank didn't think -- and you were always so outspoken against the Klan--"
"The Klan --"
At first, Scarlett spoke the word as if she had never heard it before and had no comprehension of its meaning and then:
"The Klan!" she almost screamed it. "Ashley isn't in the Klan! Frank can't be! Oh, he promised me!"
"Of course, Mr. Kennedy is in the Klan and Ashley, too, and all the men we know," cried India. "They are men, aren't they? And white men and Southerners. You should have been proud of him instead of making him sneak out as though it were something shameful and --"
"You all have known all along and I didn't --"
"We were afraid it would upset you," said Melanie sorrowfully.
"Then that's where they go when they're supposed to be at the political meetings? Oh, he promised me! Now, the Yankees will come and take my mills and the store and put him in jail -- oh, what did Rhett Butler mean?"
India's eyes met Melanie's in wild fear. Scarlett rose, flinging her sewing down.
"If you don't tell me, I'm going downtown and find out. I'll ask everybody I see until I find --"
"Set," said Archie, fixing her with his eye. "I'll tell you. Because you went gallivantin' this afternoon and got yoreself into trouble through yore own fault, Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Kennedy and the other men are out tonight to kill that thar nigger and that thar white man, if they can catch them, and wipe out that whole Shantytown settlement. And if what that Scalawag said is true, the Yankees suspected sumpin' or got wind somehow and they've sont out troops to lay for them. And our men have walked into a trap. And if what Butler said warn't true, then he's a spy and he is goin' to turn them up to the Yankees and they'll git kilt just the same. And if he does turn them up, then I'll kill him, if it's the last deed of m' life. And if they ain't kilt, then they'll all have to light out of here for Texas and lay low and maybe never come back. It's all yore fault and thar's blood on yore hands."
Anger wiped out the fear from Melanie's face as she saw comprehension come slowly across Sc
arlett's face and then horror follow swiftly. She rose and put her hand on Scarlett's shoulder.
"Another such word and you go out of this house, Archie," she said sternly. "It's not her fault She only did -- did what she felt she had to do. And our men did what they felt they had to do. People must do what they must do. We don't all think alike or act alike and it's wrong to -- to judge others by ourselves. How can you and India say such cruel things when her husband as well as mine may be -- may be --"
"Hark!" interrupted Archie softly. "Set, Ma'm. Thar's horses."
Melanie sank into a chair, picked up one of Ashley's shirts and, bowing her head over it, unconsciously began to tear the frills into small ribbons.
The sound of hooves grew louder as horses trotted up to the house. There was the jangling of bits and the strain of leather and the sound of voices. As the hooves stopped in front of the house, one voice rose above the others in a command and the listeners heard feet going through the side yard toward the back porch. They felt that a thousand inimical eyes looked at them through the unshaded front window and the four women, with fear in their hearts, bent their heads and plied their needles. Scarlett's heart screamed in her breast: "I've killed Ashley! I've killed him!" And in that wild moment she did not even think that she might have killed Frank too. She had no room in her mind for any picture save that of Ashley, lying at the feet of Yankee cavalrymen, his fair hair dappled with blood.
As the harsh rapid knocking sounded at the door, she looked at Melanie and saw come over the small, strained face a new expression, an expression as blank as she had just seen on Rhett Butler's face, the bland blank look of a poker player bluffing a game with only two deuces.
"Archie, open the door," she said quietly.
Slipping his knife into his boot top and loosening the pistol in his trouser band, Archie stumped over to the door and flung it open. Pitty gave a little squeak, like a mouse who feels the trap snap down, as she saw massed in the doorway, a Yankee captain and a squad of bluecoats. But the others said nothing. Scarlett saw with the faintest feeling of relief that she knew this officer. He was Captain Tom Jaffery, one of Rhett's friends. She had sold him lumber to build his house. She knew him to be a gentleman. Perhaps, as he was a gentleman, he wouldn't drag them away to prison. He recognized her instantly and, taking off his hat, bowed, somewhat embarrassed.
Gone With the Wind Page 94
