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Chapter 15

THE ARMY, driven back into Virginia, went into winter quarters on the Rapidan—a tired,depleted army since the defeat at Gettysburg—and as the Christmas season approached, Ashleycame home on furlough. Scarlett, seeing him for the first time in more than two years, was frightenedby the violence of her feelings. When she had stood in the parlor at Twelve Oaks and seenhim married to Melanie, she had thought she could never love him with a more heartbreakingintensity than she did at that moment. But now she knew her feelings of that long-past night werethose of a spoiled child thwarted of a toy. Now, her emotions were sharpened by her long dreamsof him, heightened by the repression she had been forced to put on her tongue.

  This Ashley Wilkes in his faded, patched uniform, his blond hair bleached tow by summer suns,was a different man from the easy-going, drowsy-eyed boy she had loved to desperation before thewar. And he was a thousand times more thrilling. He was bronzed and lean now, where he hadonce been fair and slender, and the long golden mustache drooping about his mouth, cavalry style,was the last touch needed to make him the perfect picture of a soldier.

  He stood with military straightness in his old uniform, his pistol in its worn holster, his batteredscabbard smartly slapping his high boots, his tarnished spurs dully gleaming—Major AshleyWilkes, C.S.A. The habit of command sat upon him now, a quiet air of self-reliance and authority,and grim lines were beginning to emerge about his mouth. There was something new and strangeabout the square set of his shoulders and the cool bright gleam of his eyes. Where he had oncebeen lounging and indolent, he was now as alert as a prowling cat, with the tense alertness of onewhose nerves are perpetually drawn as tight as the strings of a violin. In his eyes, there was afagged, haunted look, and the sunburned skin was tight across the fine bones of his face—her same handsome Ashley, yet so very different.

  Scarlett had made her plans to spend Christmas at Tara, but after Ashley’s telegram came nopower on earth, not even a direct command from the disappointed Ellen, could drag her away fromAtlanta. Had Ashley intended going to Twelve Oaks, she would have hastened to Tara to be nearhim; but he had written his family to join him in Atlanta, and Mr. Wilkes and Honey and Indiawere already in town. Go home to Tara and miss seeing him, after two long years? Miss the heart-quickening sound of his voice, miss reading in his eyes that he had not forgotten her? Never! Notfor all the mothers in the world.

  Ashley came home four days before Christmas, with a group of the County boys also onfurlough, a sadly diminished group since Gettysburg. Cade Calvert was among them, a thin, gauntCade, who coughed continually, two of the Munroe boys, bubbling with the excitement of theirfirst leave since 1861, and Alex and Tony Fontaine, splendidly drunk, boisterous and quarrelsome.

  The group had two hours to wait between trains and, as it was taxing the diplomacy of the sobermembers of the party to keep the Fontaines from fighting each other and perfect strangers in thedepot, Ashley brought them all home to Aunt Pittypat’s.

  “You’d think they’d had enough fighting in Virginia,” said Cade bitterly, as he watched the twobristle like game-cocks over who should be the first to kiss the fluttering and flattered Aunt Pitty.

  “But no. They’ve been drunk and picking fights ever since we got to Richmond. The provost guardtook them up there and if it hadn’t been for Ashley’s slick tongue, they’d have spent Christmas injail.”

  But Scarlett hardly heard a word he said, so enraptured was she at being in the same room withAshley again. How could she have thought during these two years that other men were nice orhandsome or exciting? How could she have even endured hearing them make love to her whenAshley was in the world? He was home again, separated from her only by the width of the parlorrug, and it took all her strength not to dissolve in happy tears every time she looked at him sittingthere on the sofa with Melly on one side and India on the other and Honey hanging over hisshoulder. If only she had the right to sit there beside him, her arm through his! If only she could pathis sleeve every few minutes to make sure he was really there, hold his hand and use hishandkerchief to wipe away her tears of joy. For Melanie was doing all these things, unashamedly.

  Too happy to be shy and reserved, she hung on her husband’s arm and adored him openly with hereyes, with her smiles, her tears. And Scarlett was too happy to resent this, too glad to be jealous.

  Ashley was home at last!

  Now and then she put her hand up to her cheek where he had kissed her and felt again the thrillof his lips and smiled at him. He had not kissed her first, of course. Melly had hurled herself intohis arms crying incoherently, holding him as though she would never let him go. And then, Indiaand Honey had hugged him, fairly tearing him from Melanie’s arms. Then he had kissed his father,with a dignified affectionate embrace that showed the strong quiet feeling that lay between them.

  And then Aunt Pitty, who was jumping up and down on her inadequate little feet with excitement.

  Finally he turned to her, surrounded by all the boys who were claiming their kisses, and said: “Oh,Scarlett! You pretty, pretty thing!” and kissed her on the cheek.

  With that kiss, everything she had intended to say in welcome took wings. Not until hours later did she recall that he had not kissed her on the lips. Then she wondered feverishly if he would havedone it had she met him alone, bending his tall body over hers, pulling her up on tiptoe, holdingher for a long, long time. And because it made her happy to think so, she believed that he would.

  But there would be time for all things, a whole week! Surely she could maneuver to get him aloneand say: “Do you remember those rides we used to take down our secret bridle paths?” “Do youremember how the moon looked that night when we sat on the steps at Tara and you quoted thatpoem?” (Good Heavens! What was the name of that poem, anyway?) “Do you remember thatafternoon when I sprained my ankle and you carried me home in your arms in the twilight?”

  Oh, there were so many things she would preface with “Do you remember?” So many dearmemories that would bring back to him those lovely days when they roamed the County like carefreechildren, so many things that would call to mind the days before Melanie Hamilton entered onthe scene. And while they talked she could perhaps read in his eyes some quickening of emotion,some hint that behind the barrier of husbandly affection for Melanie he still cared, cared aspassionately as on that day of the barbecue when he burst forth with the truth. It did not occur toher to plan just what they would do if Ashley should declare his love for her in unmistakablewords. It would be enough to know that he did care. ... Yes, she could wait, could let Melanie haveher happy hour of squeezing his arm and crying. Her time would come. After all, what did a girllike Melanie know of love?

  “Darling, you look like a ragamuffin,” said Melanie when the first excitement of homecomingwas over. “Who did mend your uniform and why did they use blue patches?”

  “I thought I looked perfectly dashing,” said Ashley, considering his appearance. “Just compareme with those rag-tags over there and you’ll appreciate me more. Mose mended the uniform and Ithought he did very well, considering that he’d never had a needle in his hand before the war.

  About the blue cloth, when it comes to a choice between having holes in your britches or patchingthem with pieces of a captured Yankee uniform—well, there just isn’t any choice. And as forlooking like a ragamuffin, you should thank your stars your husband didn’t come home barefooted.

  Last week my old boots wore completely out, and I would have come home with sacks tied on myfeet if we hadn’t had the good luck to shoot two Yankee scouts. The boots of one of them fitted meperfectly.”

  He stretched out his long legs in their scarred high boots for them to admire.

  “And the boots of the other scout didn’t fit me,” said Cade. “They’re two sizes too small andthey’re killing me this minute. But I’m going home in style just the same.”

  “And the selfish swine won’t give them to either of us,” said Tony. “And they’d fit our small,aristocratic Fontaine feet perfectly. Hell’s afire, I’m ashamed to face Mother in these brogans.

  Before the war she wouldn’t have let one of our darkies wear them.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Alex, eyeing Cade’s boots. “We’ll take them off of him on the train goinghome. I don’t mind facing Mother but I’m da—I mean I don’t intend for Dimity Munroe to see mytoes sticking out.”

  “Why, they’re my boots. I claimed them first,” said Tony, beginning to scowl at his brother; andMelanie, fluttering with fear at the possibility of one of the famous Fontaine quarrels, interposed and made peace.

  “I had a full beard to show you girls,” said Ashley, ruefully rubbing his face where half-healedrazor nicks still showed. “It was a beautiful beard and if I do say it myself, neither Jeb Stuart norNathan Bedford Forrest had handsomer one. But when we got to Richmond, those two scoundrels,”indicatingthe Fonta(a) ines, “decided that as they were shaving their beards, mine shouldcome off too. They got me down and shaved me, and it’s a wonder my head didn’t come off alongwith the beard. It was only by the intervention of Evan and Cade that my mustache was saved.”

  “Snakes, Mrs. Wilkes! You ought to thank me. You’d never have recognized him and wouldn’thave let him in the door,” said Alex. “We did it to show our appreciation of his talking the provostguard out of putting us in jail. If you say the word, we’ll take the mustache off for you, right now.”

  “Oh, no, thank you!” said Melanie hastily, clutching Ashley in a frightened way, for the twoswarthy little men looked capable of any violence. “I think it’s perfectly lovely.”

  That’s love,” said the Fontaines, nodding gravely at each other.

  When Ashley went into the cold to see the boys off to the depot in Aunt Pitty’s carriage, Melaniecaught Scarlett’s arm.

  “Isn’t his uniform dreadful? Won’t my coat be a surprise? Oh, if only I had enough cloth forbritches too!”

  That coat for Ashley was a sore subject with Scarlett, for she wished so ardently that she and notMelanie were bestowing it as a Christmas gift. Gray wool for uniforms was now almost literallymore priceless than rubies, and Ashley was wearing the familiar homespun. Even butternut wasnow none too plentiful, and many of the soldiers were dressed in captured Yankee uniforms whichhad been turned a dark-brown color with walnut-shell dye. But Melanie, by rare luck, had comeinto possession of enough gray broadcloth to make a coat—a rather short coat but a coat just thesame. She had nursed a Charleston boy in the hospital and when he died had clipped a lock of hishair and sent it to his mother, along with the scant contents of his pockets and a comfortingaccount of his last hours which made no mention of the torment in which he died. Acorrespondence had sprung up between them and, learning that Melanie had a husband at the front,the mother had sent her the length of gray cloth and brass buttons which she had bought for herdead son. It was a beautiful piece of material, thick and warm and with a dull sheen to itundoubtedly blockade goods and undoubtedly very expensive. It was now in the hands of the tailorand Melanie was hurrying him to have it ready by Christmas morning. Scarlett would have givenanything to be able to provide the rest of the uniform, but the necessary materials were simply notto be had in Atlanta.

  She had a Christmas present for Ashley, but it paled in insignificance beside the glory ofMelanie’s gray coat. It was a small “housewife,” made of flannel, containing the whole preciouspack of needles Rhett had brought her from Nassau, three of her linen handkerchiefs, obtainedfrom the same source, two spools of thread and a small pair of scissors. But she wanted to give himsomething more personal, something a wife could give a husband, a shirt, a pair of gauntlets, a hat.

  Oh, yes, a hat by all means. That little flat-topped forage cap Ashley was wearing lookedridiculous. Scarlett had always hated them. What if Stonewall Jackson had worn one in preference to a slouch felt? That didn’t make them any more dignified looking. But the only hats obtainable inAtlanta were crudely made wool hats, and they were tackier than the monkey-hat forage caps.

  When she thought of hats, she thought of Rhett Butler. He had so many hats, wide Panamas forsummer, tall beavers for formal occasions, hunting hats, slouch hats of tan and black and blue.

  What need had he for so many when her darling Ashley rode in the rain with moisture drippingdown his collar from the back of his cap?

  “I’ll make Rhett give me that new black felt of his,” she decided. “And I’ll put a gray ribbonaround the brim and sew Ashley’s wreath on it and it will look lovely.”

  She paused and thought it might be difficult to get the hat without some explanation. She simplycould not tell Rhett she wanted it for Ashley. He would raise his brows in that nasty way he alwayshad when she even mentioned Ashley’s name and, like as not, would refuse to give her the hat.

  Well, she’d make up some pitiful story about a soldier in the hospital who needed it and Rhett neednever know the truth.

  All that afternoon, she maneuvered to be alone with Ashley, even for a few minutes, but Melaniewas beside him constantly, and India and Honey, their pale lashless eyes glowing, followed himabout the house. Even John Wilkes, visibly proud of his son, had no opportunity for quietconversation with him.

  It was the same at supper where they all plied him with questions about the war. The war! Whocared about the war? Scarlett didn’t think Ashley cared very much for that subject either. He talkedat length, laughed frequently and dominated the conversation more completely than she had everseen him do before, but he seemed to say very little. He told them jokes and funny stories aboutfriends, talked gaily about makeshifts, making light of hunger and long marches in the rain, anddescribed in detail how General Lee had looked when he rode by on the retreat from Gettysburgand questioned: “Gentlemen, are you Georgia troops? Well, we can’t get along without youGeorgians!”

  It seemed to Scarlett that he was talking fervishly to keep them from asking questions he did notwant to answer. When she saw his eyes falter and drop before the long, troubled gaze of his father,a faint worry and bewilderment rose in her as to what was hidden in Ashley’s heart. But it soonpassed, for there was no room in her mind for anything except a radiant happiness and a drivingdesire to be alone with him.

  That radiance lasted until everyone in the circle about the open fire began to yawn, and Mr.

  Wilkes and the girls took their departure for the hotel. Then as Ashley and Melanie and Pittypatand Scarlett mounted the stairs, lighted by Uncle Peter, a chill fell on her spirit. Until that momentwhen they stood in the upstairs hall, Ashley had been hers, only hers, even if she had not had aprivate word with him that whole afternoon. But now, as she said good night she saw thatMelanie’s cheeks were suddenly crimson and she was trembling. Her eyes were on the carpet and,though she seemed overcome with some frightening emotion, she seemed shyly happy. Melaniedid not even look up when Ashley opened the bedroom door, but sped inside. Ashley said goodnight abruptly, and he did not meet Scarlett’s eyes either.

  The door closed behind them, leaving Scarlett open mouthed and suddenly desolate. Ashley was no longer hers. He was Melanie’s. And as long as Melanie lived, she could go into rooms withAshley and close the door—and close out the rest of the world.

  Now Ashley was going away, back to Virginia, ............

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