Road to Tara

by Anne Edwards

  The new apartment, at Two East Seventeenth Street, was on the third floor and had a lovely bay window in the living room. The second bedroom was turned into an office for John, who often brought home extra work at night, and Peggy once again set her sewing table up in the living room and did her typing there. Since John was the breadwinner, his work was considered by both of them to take top priority and to warrant the privacy of an office. The neighborhood was a considerable step up from Tight Squeeze, although, since it was right downtown, it was quite commercial. Next door was the Northwood Hotel, a residential hotel, and there were shops up and down the road. Peggy particularly liked the apartment because light streamed in even on overcast days. The fact that her bay window overlooked the street, with its traffic, streetcars, and a constant flow of people, did not seem to disturb her.

  According to Peggy, the main theme of her book was survival, or what she called gumption, and the second theme was the security found in the land. But Peggy never had any desire to own a house and land herself, preferring to live right in the heart of Atlanta. She felt a part of the city and loved it with all its blemishes.

  Not long after they had moved, Red Upshaw appeared with no warning at Marshes’ door — at an hour of the morning when he could be fairly certain that John would have left for the office. It was Monday, October 24, 1932, a date that might not have been recorded were it not the same day that presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Atlanta. Medora Perkerson had invited Peggy to a reception in his honor. While she was dressing for this occasion, the doorbell rang and Bessie answered it. The sound of Bessie’s agitated voice carried into the bedroom, and Peggy hurried to the living room just as Bessie was preparing to close the door in Upshaw’s face. Red made the best of the moment and stepped past Bessie and into the room. The indignant black woman stood guard, refusing to leave “Miss Peggy” alone.

  Reconstructing this incident later for Medora, Peggy intimated that she could never have stood the shock of Upshaw’s sudden appearance if Bessie had not been close at hand. He was much thinner than when she had last seen him, but he was as brash and handsome as ever. He told her he had a new job with another coal company in North Carolina and was just passing through, but she did not believe him because in the next breath he asked for a loan. It took her about ten minutes to convince him to leave, and she never revealed whether she gave him any money. Medora said that he refused to leave town before he had sufficient money to do so, and Lethea Turman seems to have heard a similar story.

  A short while later, someone told Peggy that Red had married a rich socialite from the North; and not long after that, a rumor reached her that he had taken this woman for a large sum of money and that she was divorcing him. Again, neither of these stories was ever confirmed. His appearance in Atlanta, however, shook Peggy up considerably and renewed her fear that if her book ever was published, Red might well see fit to pay her another visit. Peggy’s feelings toward Red were always confused. She hated, feared, and felt threatened by him. At the same time, his brief appearance in her living room once again made her question her own complicity in the violent end of their marriage. She discussed her doubts with John and Medora, but neither of them could dispel her nagging sense of guilt.

  Every summer, John represented Georgia Power at the annual Georgia Press Association meeting, a convention to which large public companies came to advertise their products to the media. In the Depression summer of 1933, Peggy’s spirits were as low as the rest of the nation’s. Hoping it would do her good to get out of the city and away from her stacks of envelopes for a couple of days, John took Peggy with him to the meeting, being held that summer in the small town of Louisville, Georgia, near Augusta.

  “Tobacco Road district and Erskine Caldwell to the contrary,” Peggy wrote Lois, who had recently moved back to New York to become associate editor in Macmillan’s home office, “the most charming people in the state inhabit these regions.” Peggy welcomed the opportunity to attend the gathering, and especially enjoyed playing hostess for her husband’s company, for this meant late-night gatherings in their room, where booze was dispensed to their guests in Dixie cups. Newspaper people sat on beds and on the floor, drinking corn and discussing job printing and the future of literature, and exchanging gossip and off-color jokes. Peggy loved it, downing as much corn as the most hardened of newspapermen. She was, in fact, right in her element, and press men and women alike found her an especially “grand fellow” and one of the best storytellers.

  But once back in Atlanta, Peggy’s restlessness returned. John prodded her to get back to work on the novel, but she made no headway. And when, in 1934, Stark Young’s So Red the Rose, about life on a Mississippi plantation during the Civil War, was published, he refused to let her read it, fearing that if she did she might give up on the book altogether.

  On February 17, 1934, Grandmother Stephens died, leaving Peggy a small inheritance. That April, Peggy was at the wheel of their green Chevrolet, John beside her, when a drunken driver careened into them, sending their car off the road. John was unscathed, but Peggy’s back and foot were irtiured. Her doctor prescribed an elasticized girdle brace that she would wear underneath her clothes for a year. Sitting at her typewriter was now too painful to contemplate, she claimed, so she threw the old bath sheet over the sewing table and gave herself up fully to chauffeuring and tending relatives and friends.

  The morning that Harold Strong Latham arrived in Atlanta, in April 1935, Peggy had just been told that she could stop wearing her brace in a week’s time. It was Medora’s opinion that, not only was Peggy accident prone, but she had turned into a hypochondriac since her marriage. Yet, although Peggy’s various physical complaints gave her an uncontestable excuse for staying away from her typewriter, she loathed the itchy girdle she had to wear and detested even more the low-heeled orthopedic shoes her injuries had demanded. Having always played the flirt and belle, Peggy sorely missed the swains who had once kept her feeling young and desirable, and who had long since ceased to pay her court. She was thirty-five, childless, the glamour of her newspaper days a decade past, and, with her brace and heavy shoes, she thought she walked “like a crotchety old woman.”

  But the doctor’s good news had put Peggy in high spirits, and as she chatted with Latham later that day, at the luncheon and during their afternoon drive to Stone Mountain, she was the animated and entertaining Peggy Mitchell of old.

  The next evening, after Harold Latham had left Atlanta with Peggy’s manuscript in his possession, she and John discussed her impetuous act. John, who had always hoped Peggy would someday submit her novel for publication, did not at all approve of the way she had finally gone about it. Quite apart from the slovenliness of its pages, the missing chapters and transitional material, the sketchiness of some chapters and the multiple versions of others, the manuscript had been handed over with no title and no author’s credit. At least six months were needed to pull the book into shape, and to give a publisher such a manuscript was unprofessional.

  John agreed that Peggy should telegraph Latham to send back the manuscript. Latham wrote back from New Orleans that he would like to have the opportunity to finish reading it first. Judging by the sections he had read, he said, the book had great potential.

  Peggy wrote him a curious letter the next day, spending an entire page touting an author named Emanuel Snellgrove, who was the city editor at the Macon News and Telegraph and a friend of a friend, before getting around to her own manuscript, in which, she told him, she was shocked he could find anything to commend. In a revealing admission she confessed, “I would not be at all surprised if my actions made you feel that there was something lacking in me that other authors real and fancied possessed — that passionate belief in the good quality of their work.” So far, no one but Latham and John, who, she joked, “after all did promise for better or worse,” had read the manuscript, and she was “more than a little frightened” that he was taking it to New York for a careful reading for m
any reasons.

  Peggy then went on to warn Latham about the missing first chapter, and to explain that the second and third chapters were “not even satisfactory first drafts,” and that a brief page and a half of explanatory material at the end of part one was missing, which shot “all of part one to hell and gone!”

  Parts two and three, she admitted, stood up pretty well as an outline but lacked short explanatory sections. What most concerned her was a “terrible sag of interest and action” somewhere between parts three and four, as well as the confusion caused by the two versions of Frank Kennedy’s death.

  She then enumerated all the lapses in the manuscript in part four, concluding that there was a vast lack of political and social background in this section, which caused the story to be “appallingly thin” toward the end. Peggy was also fearful that she had presented a false picture of Southern men of the Reconstruction period by making it appear that only the ladies were valiant during those difficult times — an error she intended to rectify.

  Finally, she apologized for having inserted three or four versions of the same chapters into the envelopes. They had been put there, she explained, for her husband’s “convenience in comparing and throwing away.”

  She was certain, then, that the manuscript would give Macmillan a “dreadfully difficult time,” and added, “If after you have read more you find that you can get some continuity out of the story then take it on to New York with my approval and thanks. But if on further reading you find it too scrambled to be intelligible, send it back to me and I will remove the extra versions and where chapters are missing put in a brief summary of what is contained in those missing chapters.”

  These words cannot be misinterpreted. Contrary to all the statements she made later — saying she had given the manuscript to Latham on impulse and had not only asked him to return it but had insisted that he not take it to New York — Latham brought the manuscript to Macmillan with Peggy’s approval. It may well have been that her expectations for it were not high, but she could have requested that the manuscript be returned at this point — and she did not do that. Before Peggy had time to mail her letter agreeing to let Latham take the novel to New York, a second enthusiastic letter arrived from him, and she added a postscript to hers to tell him that his “encouraging words” had had a “more healthy affect on my back than all the braces, electric treatments and operations the doctors advise.”

  With Latham on his way to New York, the incredible journey of the untitled, unsigned manuscript that was to make publishing history had begun.

  Chapter Fourteen

  THE MARSHES told no one that Peggy’s novel was with a New York publisher; neither of them expected it to be accepted. For now, Peggy had little choice but to put the book out of her mind. She had given Latham her only complete copy. There were stacks of rewritten and rejected pages that Bessie had stored away, but reconstructing any section of them would have been a difficult task. There was, however, no chance for her to enjoy her leisure, for just two weeks after Latham’s departure, her father had a gallstone operation and Peggy spent her days nursing him at the hospital and then at Peachtree Street, as Carrie Lou now had two small boys to care for.

  Then, in May, Peggy suffered her second car accident injust over a year’s time. She was alone, “as tired,” she said, “as a hound at the end of a hunt,” and her leg was giving her some discomfort. The late-afternoon sun turned the hood of the car into a dazzle of reflections and she was having to squint to see. Suddenly, as she described it, a car came “hurtling out of a side street” and into her limited line of vision. She swerved sharply to avoid a collision, her car jumped the curb and then came to an abrupt stop, throwing her against the steering wheel. Except for the impact of the sudden stop, which aggravated the old spine and leg injuries, she was unharmed.

  Peggy resisted wearing the brace again, but agreed to daily diathermy treatment. Then, one evening at home, just two weeks after the accident, a guest — carried away in the enthusiasm of conversation — waved a bottle of whiskey in the air as he was getting set to pour himself a drink. The bottle slipped from his grasp. Peggy, who was at least a foot shorter than the man, stood facing him as he spoke, and the bottle landed on her head, knocking her unconscious. She was rushed to the hospital, but the doctors diagnosed only a slight concussion and she returned home to rest and recuperate.

  Six weeks later, she was well enough to attend the annual meeting of the Georgia Press Association, held again in Louisville. It was the Fourth of July and the Marshes celebrated their tenth anniversary on the trip.

  They returned home with Peggy feeling well for the first time in a year and with a new surge of energy that made her want to work. It had been three months since Latham had written that he was taking the manuscript on to New York. On July 9, she wrote to ask him to return it, explaining that she was one of those “clumsy or unlucky people who are always being run into by drunken autoists, sat on by horses, struck playfully with bottles by guests,” or ill with influenza, battling arthritis, or in demand by friends at the births of their babies — the last being “far worse than the catastrophes listed above.” At the moment, she was able and very anxious to work. “However,” she wrote, “I realize that it is only a matter of time before I have an arm in a sling or my skull fractured again. With m[e], writing is sandwiched between broken bones and xrays and as I am all in one piece at present it looks like flying in the face of providence not to take advantage. So could I have my manuscript back please?”

  Peggy went on to tell Latham that she would still look for Georgia authors for him. In May she had written him about a historian by the name of Marmaduke Floyd, who was writing a book, but Latham had not asked her to follow this up, and she wondered if he wanted her to continue to scout for Macmillan.

  On the same day, Peggy also wrote to Lois that she wanted her manuscript back. Neither one of these letters gives the impression that Peggy was recalling the book because she had changed her mind about possible publication, but that she was afraid she might be spoiling her chances by allowing it to be judged in its disorganized state. She need not have worried, for a few days later she received this reply from Latham:

  Please hold off your request. I am very enthusiastic about the possibilities your book presents. I believe if it is finished properly it will have every chance of a very considerable success and for me you have created in Pansy a character who is vital and unforgettable. A number of your scenes have firmly fastened in my mind. As you have gathered I have taken a very keen interest in your book and I hope you will not insist on its return before our advisers are through with it.

  Latham questioned the name “Pansy,” which he thought had an “unpleasant connotation,” and informed Peggy that the manuscript had been given to a Professor C. W. Everett at Columbia University to read and make suggestions about how the novel could best be revised and completed.

  During the short time between Peggy’s letter of the ninth, requesting the return of the manuscript, and the arrival of Latham’s letter on the seventeenth of July, Bessie took seriously ill with meningitis and, in the first days of the disease, was on the critical list. Bessie was in the colored ward of Atlanta’s one charity hospital. It was not that she could not pay for a hospital bed, nor that the Marshes were not willing to pay for one for her, but that Atlanta had no paying hospital facilities for blacks, which literally meant there was no place for them to receive top medical care. Peggy spent much of her time trying to see to it that Bessie was being well treated, but as soon as Bessie had shown good signs toward recovery, Peggy wrote Latham that she should be free to work in a week or so.

  Macmillan already had the wheels in motion, however, and, on July 21, she received telegrams from both Lois Cole and Harold Latham in the same delivery. Lois wired: “MACMILLAN TERRIBLE [SIC] EXCITED YOUR BOOK I AM MOST EXCITED OF ALL STOP ALWAYS KNEW YOU HAD WORLD BEATER EVEN IF NO ONE COULD SEE IT STOP COMPANY PLANNING GREAT THINGS FOR THE BOOK HOW SOON CAN YOU FINISH IT
STOP ALLAN [Taylor] AND JIM [James Putnam, a Macmillan executive whom Peggy had met once in Atlanta through Lois] JOIN THEIR LOVE AND CONGRATULATIONS TO MINE.”

  Latham’s message confirmed the news: “MY ENTHUSIASM YOUR NOVEL SHARED BY OUR ADVISERS WE WOULD LIKE MAKE IMMEDIATE CONTRACT FOR ITS PUBLICATION $500 ADVANCE ½ ON SIGNING BALANCE ON DELIVERY MANUSCRIPT ACCOUNT 10% ROYALTY FIRST 10,000 THEN 15% STOP MY RENEWED CONGRATULATIONS AND ASSURANCE WE UNDERTAKE PUBLICATION WITH TREMENDOUS ENTHUSIASM AND LARGE HOPES STOP DO WIRE YOUR APPROVAL COLLECT THAT I MAY SEND CONTRACT IMMEDIATELY.”

  Receipt of these messages put Peggy into a state which, she wrote Latham, “necessitated a Luminal tablet, a cold towel on the forehead and a nice, quiet nap” — but not before she rang John at the office and told him the news. Her worst fears and highest hopes had become reality.

  It is apparent that if Peggy had been reluctant to publish the book, this was the opportunity to put off making a final decision. But when John came home that evening, she sent off two telegrams — one to Lois, the other to Latham — stating that her acceptance of Macmillan’s proposal to publish her book was contingent only on the receipt of the contract. Then she sat down and wrote Latham a letter, asking if she would be required by the contract to deliver the finished manuscript by a certain, certified date, a condition she feared because she was “especially subject to acts of God” and never knew from one day to the next whether she would have “a broken neck or the bubonic plague, afflictions which interfere with the job of writing.” She hurried to assure him that she did not anticipate any catastrophes and had actually gone as long as six months without anything happening to her. “But,” she wrote, “I feel, in all honesty that I should tell you the possibility.”

  She asked to see Professor Everett’s suggestions, “and the fuller the better,” and then, pleading ignorance of the publishing business, she wondered whether Macmillan would let such suggestions pass into the hands of authors before the signing of a contract, expressing her concern that Professor Everett might suggest changes that she would be unwilling to make.