THE WAR went on, successfully for the most part, but people had stopped saying “One morevictory and the war is over,” just as they had stopped saying the Yankees were cowards. It wasobvious to all now that the Yankees were far from cowardly and that it would take more than onevictory to conquer them. However, there were the Confederate victories in Tennessee scored byGeneral Morgan and General Forrest and the triumph at the Second Battle of Bull Run hung uplike visible Yankee scalps to gloat over. But there was a heavy price on these scalps. The hospitalsand homes of Atlanta were overflowing with the sick and wounded, and more and more womenwere appearing in black. The monotonous rows of soldiers’ graves at Oakland Cemetery stretchedlonger every day.
Confederate money had dropped alarmingly and the price of food and clothing had risenaccordingly. The commissary was laying such heavy levies on foodstuffs that the tables of Atlantawere beginning to suffer. White flour was scarce and so expensive that corn bread was universalinstead of biscuits, rolls and waffles. The butcher shops carried almost no beef and very littlemutton, and that mutton cost so much only the rich could afford it. However there was still plentyof hog meat, as well as chickens and vegetables.
The Yankee blockade about the Confederate ports had tightened, and luxuries such as tea,coffee, silks, whalebone stays, colognes, fashion magazines and books were scarce and dear. Eventhe cheapest cotton goods had skyrocketed in price and ladies were regretfully making their olddresses do another season. Looms that had gathered dust for years had been brought down fromattics, and there were webs of homespun to be found in nearly every parlor. Everyone, soldiers,civilians, women, children and negroes, began to wear homespun. Gray, as the color of theConfederate uniform, practically disappeared and homespun of a butternut shade took its place.
Already the hospitals were worrying about the scarcity of quinine, calomel, opium, chloroformand iodine. Linen and cotton bandages were too precious now to be thrown away when used, andevery lady who nursed at the hospitals brought home baskets of bloody strips to be washed andironed and returned for use on other sufferers.
But to Scarlett, newly emerged from the chrysalis of widowhood, all the war meant was a timeof gaiety and excitement. Even the small privations of clothing and food did not annoy her, sohappy was she to be in the world again.
When she thought of the dull times of the past year, with the days going by one very much likeanother, life seemed to have quickened to an incredible speed. Every day dawned as an excitingadventure, a day in which she would meet new men who would ask to call on her, tell her howpretty she was, and how it was a privilege to fight and, perhaps, to die for her. She could and didlove Ashley with the last breath in her body, but that did not prevent her from inveigling other meninto asking to marry her.
The ever-present war in the background lent a pleasant informality to social relations, aninformality which older people viewed with alarm. Mothers found strange men calling on their daughters, men who came without letters of introduction and whose antecedents were unknown.
To their horror, mothers found their daughters holding hands with these men. Mrs. Merriwether,who had never kissed her husband until after the wedding ceremony, could scarcely believe hereyes when she caught Maybelle kissing the little Zouave, René Picard, and her consternation waseven greater when Maybelle refused to be ashamed. Even the fact that René immediately asked forher hand did not improve matters. Mrs. Merriwether felt that the South was heading for a completemoral collapse and frequently said so. Other mothers concurred heartily with her and blamed it onthe war.
But men who expected to die within a week or a month could not wait a year before they beggedto call a girl by her first name, with “Miss,” of course, preceding it. Nor would they go through theformal and protracted courtships which good manners had prescribed before the war. They werelikely to propose in three or four months. And girls who knew very well that a lady always refuseda gentleman the first three times he proposed rushed headlong to accept the first time.
This informality made the war a lot of fun for Scarlett. Except for the messy business of nursingand the bore of bandage rolling, she did not care if the war lasted forever. In fact, she could endurethe hospital with equanimity now because it was a perfect happy hunting ground. The helplesswounded succumbed to her charms without a struggle. Renew their bandages, wash their faces, patup their pillows and fan them, and they fell in love. Oh, it was Heaven after the last dreary year!
Scarlett was back again where she had been before she married Charles and it was as if she hadnever married him, never felt the shock of his death, never borne Wade. War and marriage andchildbirth had passed over her without touching any deep chord within her and she was unchanged.
She had a child but he was cared for so well by the others in the red brick house she could almostforget him. In her mind and heart, she was Scarlett O’Hara again, the belle of the County. Herthoughts and activities were the same as they had been in the old days, but the field of heractivities had widened immensely. Careless of the disapproval of Aunt Pitty’s friends, she behavedas she had behaved before her marriage, went to parties, danced, went riding with soldiers, flirted,did everything she had done as a girl, except stop wearing mourning. This she knew would be astraw that would break the backs of Pittypat and Melanie. She was as charming a widow as she hadbeen a girl, pleasant when she had her own way, obliging as long as it did not discommode her,vain of her looks and her popularity.
She was happy now where a few weeks before she had been miserable, happy with her beauxand their reassurances of her charm, as happy as she could be with Ashley married to Melanie andin danger. But somehow it was easier to bear the thought of Ashley belonging to some one elsewhen he was far away. With the hundreds of miles stretching between Atlanta and Virginia, hesometimes seemed as much hers as Melanie’s.
So the autumn months of 1862 went swiftly by with nursing, dancing, driving and bandagerolling taking up all the time she did not spend brief visits to Tara. These visits were disappointing,forshehadlittleopportunityforthelong(on) quiet talks with her mother to which shelooked forward while in Atlanta, no time to sit by Ellen while she sewed, smelling the faintfragrance of lemon verbena sachet as her skirts rustled, feeling her soft hands on her cheek in agentle caress.
Ellen was thin and preoccupied now and on her feet from morning until long after the plantationwas asleep. The demands of the Confederate commissary were growing heavier by the month, andhers was the task of making Tara produce. Even Gerald was busy, for the first time in many years,for he could get no overseer to take Jonas Wilkerson’s place and he was riding his own acres. WithEllen too busy for more than a goodnight kiss and Gerald in the fields all day, Scarlett found Taraboring. Even her sisters were taken up with their own concerns. Suellen had now come to an“understanding” with Frank Kennedy and sang “When This Cruel War Is Over” with an archmeaning Scarlett found well-nigh unendurable, and Carreen was too wrapped up in dreams ofBrent Tarleton to be interesting company.
Though Scarlett always went home to Tara with a happy heart, she was never sorry when theinevitable letters came from Pitty and Melanie, begging her to return. Ellen always sighed at thesetimes, saddened by the thought of her oldest daughter and her only grandchild leaving her.
“But I mustn’t be selfish and keep you here when you are needed to nurse in Atlanta,” she said.
“Only—only, my darling, it seems that I never get the time to talk to you and to feel that you aremy own little girl again before you are gone from me.”
“I’m always your little girl,” Scarlett would say and bury her head upon Ellen’s breast, her guiltrising up to accuse her. She did not tell her mother that it was the dancing and the beaux whichdrew her back to Atlanta and not the service of the Confederacy. There were many things she keptfrom her mother these days. But, most of all, she kept secret the fact that Rhett Butler called frequentlyat Aunt Pittypat’s house.
During the months that followed the bazaar, Rhett called whenever he was in town, takingScarlett riding in his carriage, escorting her to danceables and bazaars and waiting outside thehospital to drive her home. She lost her fear of his betraying her secret, but there always lurked inthe back of her mind the disquieting memory that he had seen her at her worst and knew the truthabout Ashley. It was this knowledge that checked her tongue when he annoyed her. And heannoyed her frequently.
He was in his mid-thirties, older than any beau she had ever had, and she was as helpless as achild to control and handle him as she had handled beaux nearer her own age. He always looked asif nothing had ever surprised him and much had amused him and, when he had gotten her into aspeechless temper, she felt that she amused him more than anything in the world. Frequently sheflared into open wrath under his expert baiting, for she had Gerald’s Irish temper along with thedeceptive sweetness of face she had inherited from Ellen. Heretofore she had never bothered tocontrol her temper except in Ellen’s presence. Now it was painful to have to choke back words forfear of his amused grin. If only he would ever lose his temper too, then she would not feel at such adisadvantage.
After tilts with him from which she seldom emerged the victor she vowed he was impossible,ill-bred and no gentleman and she would have nothing more to do with him. But sooner or later, hereturned to Atlanta, called, presumably on Aunt Pitty, and presented Scarlett, with overdonegallantry, a box of bonbons he had brought her from Nassau. Or preempted a seat by her at amusicale or claimed her at a dance, and she was usually so amused by his bland impudence that she laughed and overlooked his past misdeeds until the next occurred.
For all his exasperating qualities, she grew to look forward to his calls. There was somethingexciting about him that she could not analyze, something different from any man she had everknown. There was something breathtaking in the grace of his big body which made his veryentrance into a room like an abrupt physical impact, something in the impertinence and blandmockery of his dark eyes that challenged her spirit to subdue him.
“It’s almost like I was in love with him!” she thought, bewildered. “But I’m not and I just can’tunderstand it.”
But the exciting feeling persisted. When he came to call, his complete masculinity made AuntPitty’s well-bred and ladylike house seem small, pale and a trifle fusty. Scarlett was not the onlymember of the household who reacted strangely and unwillingly to his presence, for her kept AuntPitty in a flutter and a ferment.
While Pitty knew Ellen would disapprove of his calls on her daughter, and knew also that theedict of Charleston banning him from polite society was not one to be lightly disregarded, shecould no more resist his elaborate compliments and hand kissing than a fly can resist a honey pot.
Moreover, he usually brought her some little gift from Nassau which he assured her he hadpurchased especially for her and blockaded in at risk of his life—papers of pins and needles,buttons, spools of silk thread and hairpins. It was almost impossible to obtain these small luxuriesnow—ladies were wearing hand-whittled wooden hairpins and covering acrons with cloth forbuttons—and Pitty lacked the moral stamina to refuse them. Besides, she had a childish love ofsurprise packages and could not resist opening his gifts. And, having once opened them, she didnot feel that she could refuse them. Then, having accepted his gifts, she could not summon courageenough to tell him his reputation made it improper for him to call on three lone women who had nomale protector. Aunt Pitty always felt that she needed a male protector when Rhett Butler was inthe house.
“I don’t know what it is about him,” she would sigh helplessly. “But—well, I think he’d be anice, attractive man if I could just feel that—well, that deep down in his heart he respectedwomen.”
Since the return of her wedding ring, Melanie had felt that Rhett was a gentleman of rarerefinement and delicacy and she was shocked at this remark. He was unfailingly courteous to her,but she was a little timid with him, largely because she was shy with any man she had not knownfrom childhood. Secretly she was very sorry for him, a feeling which would have amused him hadhe been aware of it. She was certain that some romantic sorrow had blighted his life and made himhard and bitter, and she felt that what he needed was the love of a good woman. In all her shelteredlife she had never seen evil and could scarcely credit its existence, and when gossip whisperedthings about Rhett and the girl in Charleston she was shocked and unbelieving. And, instead ofturning her against him, it only made her more timidly gracious toward him because of herindignation at what she fancied was a gross injustice done him.
Scarlett silently agreed with Aunt Pitty. She, too, felt that he had no respect for any woman,unless perhaps for Melanie. She still felt unclothed every time his eyes ran up and down her figure.
It was not that he ever said anything. Then she could have scorched him with hot words. It was the bold way his eyes looked out of his swarthy face with a displeasing air of insolence, as if allwomen were his property to be enjoyed in his own good time. Only with Melanie was this lookabsent. There was never that cool look of appraisal, never mockery in his eyes, when he looked atMelanie; and there was an especial note in his voice when he spoke to her, courteous, respectful,anxious to be of service.
“I don’t see why you’re so much nicer to her than to me,” said Scarlett petulantly, one afternoonwhen Melanie and Pitty had retired to take their naps and she was alone with him.
For an hour she had watched Rhett hold the yarn Melanie was winding for knitting, had notedthe blank inscrutable expression when Melanie talked at length and with pride of Ashley and hispromotion. Scarlett knew Rhett had no exalted opinion of Ashley and cared nothing at all about thefact that he had been made a major. Yet he made polite replies and murmured the correct thingsabout Ashley’s gallantry.
And if I so much as mention Ashley’s name, she had thought irritably, he cocks his eyebrow upand smiles that nasty, knowing smile!
“I’m much prettier than she is,” she continued, “and I don’t see why you’re nicer to her.”
“Dare I hope that you are jealous?”
“Oh, don’t presume!”
“Another hope crushed. If I am ‘nicer’ to Mrs. Wilkes, it is because she deserves it. She is one ofthe very few kind, sincere and unselfish persons I have ever known. But perhaps you have failed tonote these qualities. And moreover, for all her youth, she is one of the few great ladies I have everbeen privileged to know.”
“Do you mean to say you don’t think I’m a great lady, too?”
“I think we agreed on the occasion of our first meeting that you were no lady at all.”
“Oh, if you are going to be hateful and rude enough to bring that up again! How can you holdthat bit of childish temper against me? That was so long ago and I’ve grown up since then and I’dforget all about it if you weren’t always harping and hinting about it.”
“I don’t think it was childish temper and I don’t believe you’ve changed. You are just as capablenow as then of throwing vases if you don’t get your own way. But you usually get your way now.
And so there’s no necessity for broken bric-a-brac.”
“Oh, you are—I wish I was a man! I’d call you out and—”
“And get killed for your pains. I can drill a dime at fifty yards. Better stick to your own weapons—dimples, vases and the like.”
“You are just a rascal.”
“Do you expect me to fly into a rage at that? I am sorry to disappoint you. You can’t make memad by calling me names that are true. Certainly I’m a rascal, and why not? It’s a free country anda man may be a rascal if he chooses. It’s only hypocrites like you, my dear lady, just as black atheart but trying to hide it, who become enraged when called by their right names.”
She was helpless before his calm smile and his drawling remarks, for she had never before metanyone who was so completely impregnable. Her weapons of scorn, coldness and abuse blunted inher hands, for nothing she could say would shame him. It had been her experience that the liar wasthe hottest to defend his veracity, the coward his courage, the ill-bred his gentlemanliness, and thecad his honor. But not Rhett. He admitted everything and laughed and dared her to say more.
He came and went during these months, arriving unheralded and leaving without saying good-by. Scarlett never discovered just what business brought him to Atlanta, for few other blockadersfound it necessary to come so far away from the coast. They landed their cargoes at Wilmington orCharleston, where they were met by swarms of merchants and speculators from all over the Southwho assembled to buy blockaded goods at auction. It would have pleased her to think that he madethese trips to see her, but even her abnormal vanity refused to believe this. If he had ever oncemade love to her, seemed jealous of the other men who crowded about her, even tried to hold herhand or begged for a picture or a handkerchief to cherish, she would have thought triumphantly hehad been caught by her charms. But he remained annoyingly unloverlike and, worst of all, seemedto see through all her maneuverings to bring him to his knees.
Whenever he came to town, there was a feminine fluttering. Not only did the romantic aura ofthe dashing blockader hang about him but there was also the titillating element of the wicked andthe forbidden. He had such a bad reputation! And every time the matrons of Atlanta gatheredtogether to gossip, his reputation grew worse, which only made him all the more glamorous to theyoung girls. As most of them were quite innocent, they had heard little more than that he was“quite loose with women”—and exactly how a man went about the business of being “loose” theydid not know. They also heard whispers that no girt was safe with him. With such a reputation, itwas strange that he had never so much as kissed the hand of an unmarried girl since he firstappeared in Atlanta. But that only served to make him more mysterious and more exciting.
Outside of the army heroes, he was the most talked-about man in Atlanta. Everyone knew indetail how he had been expelled from West Point for drunkenness and “something about women.”
That terrific scandal concerning the Charleston girl he had compromised and the brother he hadkilled was public property. Correspondence with Charleston friends elicited the further informationthat his father, a charming old gentleman with an iron will and a ramrod for a backbone, had casthim out without a penny when he was twenty and even stricken his name from the family Bible.
After that he had wandered to California in the gold rush of 1849 and thence to South America andCuba, and the reports of his activities in these parts were none too savory. Scrapes about women,several shootings, gun running to the revolutionists in Central America and, worst of all,professional gambling were included in his career, as Atlanta heard it.
There was hardly a family in Georgia who could not own to their sorrow at least one malemember or relative who gambled, losing money, houses, land and slaves. But that was different. Aman could gamble himself to poverty and still be a gentleman, but a professional gambler couldnever be anything but an outcast.
Had it not been for the upset conditions due to the war and his own services to the Confederategovernment, Rhett Butler would never have been received in Atlanta. But now, even the most straitlaced felt that patriotism called upon them to be more broad minded. The more sentimental wereinclined to view that the black sheep of the Butler family had repented of his evil ways and was making an attempt to atone for his sins. So the ladies felt in duty bound to stretch a point,especially in the of intrepid blockader. Everyone knew now that the fate of the Confederacyrestedasm(case) uchu(so) pontheski(a) ll of the blockade boats in eluding the Yankee fleet as itdid upon the soldiers at the front.
Rumor had it that Captain Butler was one of the best pilots in the South and that he was recklessand utterly without nerves. Reared in Charleston, he knew every inlet, creek, shoal and rock of theCarolina coast near that port, and he was equally at home in the waters around Wilmington. He hadnever lost a boat or even been forced to dump a cargo. At the onset of the war, he had emergedfrom obscurity with enough money to buy a small swift boat and now, when blockaded goodsrealized two thousand per cent on each cargo, he owned four boats. He had good pilots and paidthem well, and they slid out of Charleston and Wilmington on dark nights, bearing cotton forNassau, England and Canada. The cotton mills of England were standing idle and the workerswere starving, and any blockader who could outwit the Yankee fleet could command his own pricein Liverpool. Rhett’s boats were singularly lucky both in taking out cotton for the Confederacy andbringing in the war materials for which the South was desperate. Yes, the ladies felt they couldforgive and forget a great many things for such a brave man.
He was a dashing figure and one that people turned to look at. He spent money freely, rode awild black stallion, and wore clothes which were always the height of style and tailoring. The latterin itself was enough to attract attention to him, for the uniforms of the soldiers were dingy andworn now and the civilians, even when turned out in their best, showed skil............