“Will!” He walked toward her, in his special swinging gait. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him fiercely.
“Oh, Will, I’m so glad to see you that I’m practically crying for joy.”
Will accepted her embrace without emotion. “I’m glad to see you, too, Scarlett. It’s been a long time.”
“Too long. It’s shameful. Almost a year.”
“More like two.”
Scarlett was dumbfounded. Had it been that long? No wonder her life had come to such a sorry state. Tara had always given her new life, new strength when she needed it. How could she have gone so long without it?
Will gestured to Pansy and walked toward the wagon outside the station. “We’d better get moving if we’re going to beat the dark,” he said. “Hope you don’t mind riding rough, Scarlett. As long as I was coming to town, I figured I might as well get some supplies.” The wagon was piled high with sacks and parcels.
“I don’t mind at all,” said Scarlett truthfully. She was going home, and anything that would take her there was fine. “Climb up on those feed sacks, Pansy.”
She was as silent as Will on the long drive to Tara, drinking in the remembered quiet of the countryside, refreshing herself with it. The air was new-washed, and the afternoon sun was warm on her shoulders. She’d been right to come home. Tara would give her the sanctuary she needed, and with Mammy she’d be able to find a way to repair her ruined world. She leaned forward as they turned onto the familiar drive, smiling in anticipation.
But when the house came in sight, she let out a cry of despair. “Will, what happened?” The front of Tara was covered by vines, ugly cords hung with dead leaves; four windows had sagging shutters, two had no shutters at all.
“Nothing happened except summer, Scarlett. I do the fixing up for the house in winter when there’s no crops to tend. I’ll be starting on those shutters in a few more weeks. It’s not October yet.”
“Oh, Will, why on earth won’t you let me give you some money? You could hire some help. Why, you can see the brick through the whitewash. It looks downright trashy.”
Will’s reply was patient. “There’s no help to be had for love nor money. Those that wants work has plenty of it, and those that don’t wouldn’t do me no good. We make out all right, Big Sam and me. Your money ain’t needed.”
Scarlett bit her lip and swallowed the words she wanted to say. She had run up against Will’s pride often before, and she knew that he was unbendable. He was right that the crops and the stock had to come first. Their demands couldn’t be put off; a fresh coat of whitewash could. She could see the fields now, stretching out behind the house. They were weedless, newly harrowed, and there was a faint, rich smell of the manure tilled in to prepare them for the next planting. The red earth looked warm and fertile, and she relaxed. This was the heart of Tara, the soul.
“You’re right,” she said to Will.
The door to the house flew open, and the porch filled with people. Suellen stood in front, holding her youngest child in her arms above the swollen belly that strained the seams of her faded cotton dress. Her shawl had fallen down over one arm. Scarlett forced a gaiety she didn’t feel. “Good Lord, Will, is Suellen having another baby? You’re going to have to build on some more rooms.”
Will chuckled. “We’re still trying for a boy.” He lifted a hand in greeting to his wife and three daughters.
Scarlett waved too, wishing she’d thought to buy some toys to bring the children. Oh, Lord, look at all of them. Suellen was scowling. Scarlett’s eyes ran over the other faces, searching out the black ones . . . Prissy was there; Wade and Ella were hiding behind her skirts . . . and Big Sam’s wife, Delilah, holding the spoon she must have been stirring with . . . There was—what was her name?—oh, yes, Lutie, the Tara children’s mammy. But where was Mammy? Scarlett called out to her children. “Hello, darlings, Mother’s here.” Then she turned back to Will, put a hand on his arm.
“Where’s Mammy, Will? She’s not so old that she can’t come to meet me.” Fear pinched the words in Scarlett’s throat.
“She’s sick in bed, Scarlett.”
Scarlett jumped down from the still-moving wagon, stumbled, caught herself and ran to the house. “Where’s Mammy?” she said to Suellen, deaf to the excited greetings of the children.
“A fine hello that is, Scarlett, but no worse than I’d expect from you. What did you think you were doing, sending Prissy and your children here without so much as a by your leave, when you know that I’ve got my hands full and then some?”
Scarlett raised her hand, ready to slap her sister. “Suellen, if you don’t tell me where Mammy is, I’ll scream.”
Prissy pulled on Scarlett’s sleeve. “I knows where Mammy is, Miss Scarlett, I knows. She’s powerful sick, so we fixed up that little room next the kitchen for her, the one what used to be where all the hams was hung when there was a lot of hams. It’s nice and warm there, next to the chimney. She was already there when I come, so I can’t exactly say we fixed up the room altogether, but I brung in a chair so as there’d be a place to sit if she wanted to get up or if there was a visitor . . .”
Prissy was talking to air. Scarlett was at the door to Mammy’s sickroom, holding on to the framework for support.
That . . . that . . . thing in the bed wasn’t her Mammy. Mammy was a big woman, strong and fleshy, with warm brown skin. It had been hardly more than six months since Mammy left Atlanta, not long enough to have wasted away like this. It couldn’t be. Scarlett couldn’t bear it. This wasn’t Mammy, she wouldn’t believe it. This creature was gray and shrivelled, hardly making a rise under the faded patchwork quilts that covered it, twisted fingers moving weakly across the folds. Scarlett’s skin crawled.
Then she heard Mammy’s voice. Thin and halting, but Mammy’s beloved, loving voice. “Now, Missy, ain’t I done tole you and tole you not to set foot outside without you wears a bonnet and carries a sunshade . . . Tole you and tole you . . .”
“Mammy!” Scarlett fell to her knees beside the bed. “Mammy, it’s Scarlett. Your Scarlett. Please don’t be sick, Mammy, I can’t bear it, not you.” She put her head down on the bed beside the bony thin shoulders and wept stormily, like a child.
A weightless hand smoothed her bent head. “Don’t cry, chile. Ain’t nothing so bad that it can’t be fixed.”
“Everything,” Scarlett wailed. “Everything’s gone wrong, Mammy.”
“Hush, now, it’s only one cup. And you got another tea set anyhow, just as pretty. You kin still have your tea party just like Mammy promised you.”
Scarlett drew back, horrified. She stared at Mammy’s face and saw the shining love in the sunken eyes, eyes that did not see her.
“No,” she whispered. She couldn’t stand it. First Melanie, then Rhett, and now Mammy; everyone she loved had left her. It was too cruel. It couldn’t be.
“Mammy,” she said loudly, “Mammy, listen to me. It’s Scarlett.” She grabbed the edge of the mattress and tried to shake it. “Look at me,” she sobbed, “me, my face. You’ve got to know me, Mammy. It’s me, Scarlett.”
Will’s big hands closed around her wrists. “You don’t want to do that,” he said. His voice was soft, but his grip was like iron. “She’s happy when she’s like that, Scarlett. She’s back in Savannah taking care of your mother when she was a little girl. Those were happy times for her. She was young; she was strong; she wasn’t in pain. Let her be.”
Scarlett struggled to get free. “But I want her to know me, Will. I never told her how much she means to me. I have to tell her.”
“You’ll have your chance. Lots of times she’s different, knows everybody. Knows she’s dying, too. These times are better. Now you come on with me. Everybody’s waiting for you. Delilah listens out for Mammy from the kitchen.”
Scarlett allowed Will to help her to her feet. She was numb all over, even her heart. She followed him silently to the living room. Suellen started immediately to berate her, taking up her
complaints where she had left off, but Will hushed her. “Scarlett’s suffered a deep blow, Sue, leave her alone.” He poured whiskey into a glass and placed it in Scarlett’s hand.
The whiskey helped. It burned the familiar path through her body, dulling her pain. She held out her empty glass to Will, and he poured some more whiskey into it.
“Hello, darlings,” she said to her children, “come give Mother a hug.” Scarlett heard her own voice; it sounded as if it belonged to someone else, but at least it was saying the right thing.
She spent all the time she could in Mammy’s room, at Mammy’s side. She had fastened all her hopes on the comfort of Mammy’s arms around her, but now it was her strong young arms that held the dying old black woman. Scarlett lifted the wasted form to bathe Mammy, to change Mammy’s linen, to help her when breathing was too hard, to coax a few spoonfuls of broth between her lips. She sang the lullabies Mammy had so often sung to her, and when Mammy talked in delirium to Scarlett’s dead mother, Scarlett answered with the words she thought her mother might have said.
Sometimes Mammy’s rheumy eyes recognized her, and the old woman’s cracked lips smiled at the sight of her favorite. Then her quavering voice would scold Scarlett, as she had scolded her since Scarlett was a baby. “Your hair looks purely a mess, Miss Scarlett, now you go brush a hundred strokes like Mammy taught you.” Or, “You ain’t got no call to be wearing a frock all crumpled up like that. Go put on something fresh before folks see you.” Or, “You looks pale as a ghost, Miss Scarlett. Is you putting powder on your face? Wash it off this minute.”
Whatever Mammy commanded, Scarlett promised to do. There was never time enough to obey before Mammy slid back into unconsciousness, or that other world where Scarlett did not exist.
During the day and evening Suellen or Lutie or even Will would share the work of the sickroom, and Scarlett could snatch a half hour’s sleep, curled in the sagging rocking chair. But at night Scarlett kept solitary vigil. She lowered the flame in the oil lamp and held Mammy’s thin dry hand in hers. While the house slept and Mammy slept, she was able at last to cry, and her heartbroken tears eased her pain a little.
Once, in the small quiet hour before dawn, Mammy woke. “What for is you weeping, honey?” she whispered. “Old Mammy is ready to lay down her load and rest in the arms of the Lord. There ain’t no call to take on so.” Her hand stirred in Scarlett’s, freed itself, stroked Scarlett’s bent head. “Hush, now. Nothing’s so bad as you think.”
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, “I just can’t stop crying.”
Mammy’s bent fingers pushed Scarlett’s tangled hair away from her face. “Tell old Mammy what’s troubling her lamb.”
Scarlett looked into the old, wise, loving eyes and felt the most profound pain she had ever known. “I’ve done everything wrong, Mammy. I don’t know how I could have made so many mistakes. I don’t understand.”
“Miss Scarlett, you done what you had to do. Can’t nobody do more than that. The good Lord sent you some heavy burdens, and you carried them. No sense asking why they was laid on you or what it took out of you to tote them. What’s done is done. Don’t fret yourself now.” Mammy’s heavy eyelids closed over tears that glistened in the dim light, and her ragged breathing slowed in sleep.
How can I not fret? Scarlett wanted to shout. My life is ruined, and I don’t know what to do. I need Rhett, and he’s gone. I need you, and you’re leaving me, too.
She lifted her head, wiped her tears away on her sleeve and straightened her aching shoulders. The coals in the pot-bellied stove were nearly used up, and the bucket was empty. She had to refill it, she had to feed the fire. The room was beginning to chill, and Mammy must be kept warm. Scarlett pulled the faded patchwork quilts up over Mammy’s frail form, then she took the bucket out into the cold darkness of the yard. She hurried toward the coal bin, wishing she’d thought to put on a shawl.
There was no moon, only a crescent sliver lost behind a cloud. The air was heavy with night’s moisture, and the few stars not hidden by clouds looked very far away and icy-brilliant. Scarlett shivered. The blackness around her seemed formless, infinite. She had rushed blindly into the center of the yard, and now she couldn’t make out the familiar shapes of smoke-house and barn that should be nearby. She turned in sudden panic, looking for the white bulk of the house she’d just left. But it, too, was dark and formless. No light showed anywhere. It was as if she were lost in a bleak and unknown and silent world. Nothing was stirring in the night, not a leaf not a feather on a bird’s wing. Terror plucked at her taut nerves, and she wanted to run. But where to? Everywhere was alien darkness.
Scarlett clenched her teeth. What kind of foolishness was this? I’m at home, at Tara, and the dark cold will be gone as soon as the sun’s up. She forced a laugh; the shrill unnatural sound made her jump.
They do say it’s always darkest before the dawn, she thought. I reckon this is proof of it. I’ve got the megrims, that’s all. I just won’t give in to them, there’s no time for that, the stove needs feeding. She put a hand out before her into the blackness and walked toward where the coal bin should be, next to the woodpile. A sunken spot made her stumble, and she fell. The bucket clattered loudly, then was lost.
Every exhausted, frightened part of her body cried out that she should give up, stay where she was, hugging the safety of the unseen ground beneath her until day came and she could see. But Mammy needed warmth. And the cheering yellow light of the flames through the isinglass windows of the stove.
Scarlett brought herself slowly to her knees and felt around her for the coal bucket. Surely there’d never been such pitch darkness before in the world. Or such wet cold night air. She was gasping for breath. Where was the bucket? Where was the dawn?
Her fingers brushed across cold metal. Scarlett scrabbled along on her knees toward it, then both hands were clasping the ridged sides of the tin coal scuttle. She sat back on her heels, holding it to her breast in a desperate embrace.
Oh Lord, I’m all turned around now. I don’t even know where the house is, much less the coal bin. I’m lost in the night. She looked up frantically, searching for any light at all, but the sky was black. Even the cold distant stars had disappeared.
For a moment she wanted to cry out, to scream and scream until she woke someone in the house, someone who would light a lamp, who’d come find her and lead her home.
Her pride forbid it. Lost in her own backyard, only a few steps from the kitchen door! She’d never live down the shame of it.
She looped the bail of the scuttle over her arm and began to crawl clumsily on hands and knees across the dark earth. Sooner or later she’d run into something—the house, the woodpile, the barn, the well—and she’d get her bearings. It would be quicker to get up and walk. She wouldn’t feel like such a fool, either. But she might fall again, and this time twist her ankle or something. Then she’d be helpless until someone found her. No matter what she had to do, anything was better than lying alone and helpless and lost.
Where was a wall? There had to be one here someplace, she felt as if she’d crawled halfway to Jonesboro. Panic brushed past her. Suppose the darkness never lifted, suppose she just kept on crawling and crawling forever without reaching anything?
Stop it! she told herself, stop it right now. Her throat was making strangled noises.
She struggled to her feet, made herself breathe slowly, made her mind take command of her racing heart. She was Scarlett O’Hara, she told herself. She was at Tara, and she knew every foot of the place better than she knew her own hand. So what if she couldn’t see four inches in front of her? She knew what was there; all she had to do was find it.
And she’d do it on her feet, not on all fours like a baby or a dog. She lifted her chin and squared her thin shoulders. Thank God no one had seen her sprawled in the dirt or inching along over it, afraid to get up. Never in all her life had she been beaten, not by old Sherman’s army, not by the worst the carpetbaggers could do. Nobody, nothing
could beat her unless she let them, and then she’d deserve it. The very idea of being afraid of the dark, like some cowardly cry-baby!
I guess I let things get me down as far as a person can go, she thought with disgust, and her own scorn warmed her. I won’t let it happen again, ever, no matter what comes. Once you get down all the way, the road can only go up. If I messed up my life, I’ll clean up the mess. I won’t lie in it.
With the coal scuttle held in front of her Scarlett walked forward with firm steps. Almost at once the tin bucket clanged against something. She laughed aloud when she smelled the sharp resinous odor of fresh cut pine. She was at the woodpile, with the coal bin immediately beside it. It was exactly where she’d set out to go.
The iron door of the stove closed on the renewed flames with a loud noise that made Mammy stir in her bed. Scarlett hurried across to pull the quilts up again. The room was cold.
Mammy squinted through her pain at Scarlett. “You got a dirty face—and hands, too,” she grumbled in a weak voice.
“I know,” said Scarlett, “I’ll wash them right this minute.” Before the old woman drifted away, Scarlett kissed her forehead. “I love you, Mammy.”
“No need to tell me what I knows already.” Mammy slid into sleep, escaping from pain.
“Yes, there is a need,” Scarlett told her. She knew Mammy couldn’t hear her, but she spoke aloud anyhow, half to herself. “There’s all kinds of need. I never told Melanie, and I didn’t tell Rhett until it was too late. I never took the time to know I loved them, or you either. At least with you I won’t make the mistake I did with them.”
Scarlett stared down at the skull-like face of the dying old woman. “I love you, Mammy,” she whispered. “What’s going to become of me when I don’t have you to love me?”
2
Prissy’s head poked sideways around the cracked-open door to the sickroom. “Miss Scarlett, Mister Will he say for me to come sit with Mammy whilst you eat some breakfast. Delilah say you going wear yourself out with all the nursing, and she done fix you a fine big slice of ham with gravy for your grits.”
Scarlett Page 2
