She thought that she could not live any longer in the same house with the woman who
was carrying Ashley's child, thought that she would go home to Tara, home, where she belonged.
She did not see how she could ever look at Melanie again and not have her secret read in her face.
And she arose the next morning with the fixed intention of packing her trunk immediately after breakfast. But, as they sat at the table, Scarlett silent and gloomy, Pitty bewildered and Melanie miserable, a telegram came.
It was to Melanie from Ashley's body servant, Mose.
"I have looked everywhere and I can't find him. Must I come home?"
No one knew what it meant but the eyes of the three women went to one another, wide
with terror, and Scarlett forgot all thoughts of going home. Without finishing their breakfasts they drove down to telegraph Ashley's colonel, but even as they entered the office, there was a telegram from him.
"Regret to inform you Major Wilkes missing since scouting expedition three days ago.
Will keep you informed."
It was a ghastly trip home, with Aunt Pitty crying into her handkerchief, Melanie sitting erect and white and Scarlett slumped, stunned in the corner of the carriage. Once in the house, Scarlett stumbled up the stairs to her bedroom and, clutching her Rosary from the table, dropped to her knees and tried to pray. But the prayers would not come. There only fell on her an abysmal fear, a certain knowledge that God had turned His face from her for her sin. She had loved a married man and tried to take him from his wife, and God had punished her by killing him. She wanted to pray but she could not raise her eyes to Heaven. She wanted to cry but the tears would not come. They seemed to flood her chest, and they were hot tears that burned under her bosom, but they would not flow.
Her door opened and Melanie entered. Her face was like a heart cut from white paper,
framed against black hair, and her eyes were wide, like those of a frightened child lost in the dark.
"Scarlett," she said, putting out her hands. "You must forgive me for what I said yesterday, for you're--all I've got now. Oh, Scarlett, I know my darling is dead!"
Somehow, she was in Scarlett's arms, her small breasts heaving with sobs, and somehow
they were lying on the bed, holding each other close, and Scarlett was crying too, crying with her face pressed close against Melanie's, the tears of one wetting the cheeks of the other. It hurt so terribly to cry, but not so much as not being able to cry. Ashley is dead--dead, she thought, and I have killed him by loving him! Fresh sobs broke from her, and Melanie somehow feeling comfort in her tears tightened her arms about her neck.
"At least," she whispered, "at least--I've got his baby."
"And I," thought Scarlett, too stricken now for anything so petty as jealousy, I've got nothing--nothing--nothing except the look on his face when he told me good-by."
The first reports were "Missing--believed killed" and so they appeared on the casualty list.
Melanie telegraphed Colonel Sloan a dozen times and finally a letter arrived, full of sympathy, explaining that Ashley and a squad had ridden out on a scouting expedition and had not returned.
There had been reports of a slight skirmish within the Yankee lines and Mose, frantic with grief, had risked his own life to search for Ashley's body but had found nothing. Melanie, strangely calm now, telegraphed him money and instructions to come home.
When "Missing--believed captured" appeared on the casualty lists, joy and hope
reanimated the sad household. Melanie could hardly be dragged away from the telegraph office and she met every train hoping for letters. She was sick now, her pregnancy making itself felt in many unpleasant ways, but she refused to obey Dr. Meade's commands and stay in bed. A
feverish energy possessed her and would not let her be still; and at night, long after Scarlett had gone to bed, she could hear her walking the floor in the next room.
One afternoon, she came home from town, driven by the frightened Uncle Peter and
supported by Rhett Butler. She had fainted at the telegraph office and Rhett, passing by and observing the excitement, had escorted her home. He carried her up the stairs to her bedroom and while the alarmed household fled hither and you for hot bricks, blankets and whisky, he propped her on the pillows of her bed.
"Mrs. Wilkes," he questioned abruptly, "you are going to have a baby, are you not?"
Had Melanie not been so faint, so sick, so heartsore, she would have collapsed at his
question. Even with women friends she was embarrassed by any mention of her condition, while visits to Dr. Meade were agonizing experiences. And for a man, especially Rhett Butler, to ask such a question was unthinkable. But lying weak and forlorn in the bed, she could only nod. After she had nodded, it did not seem so dreadful, for he looked so kind and so concerned.