"I can get through?"
"Yes, you." His voice was rough.
"But Rhett--You--Aren't going to take us?"
"No. I'm leaving you here."
She looked around wildly, at the livid sky behind them, at the dark trees on either hand
hemming them in like a prison wall, at the frightened figures in the back of the wagon--and finally at him. Had she gone crazy? Was she not hearing right?
He was grinning now. She could just see his white teeth in the faint light and the old
mockery was back in his eyes.
"Leaving us? Where--where are you going?"
"I am going, dear girl, with the army."
She sighed with relief and irritation. Why did he joke at this time of all times? Rhett in the army! After all he'd said about stupid fools who were enticed into losing their lives by a roll of drums and brave words from orators--fools who killed themselves that wise men might make
money!
"Oh, I could choke you for scaring me so! Let's get on."
I'm not joking, my dear. And I am hurt, Scarlett that you do not take my gallant sacrifice with better spirit. Where is your patriotism, your love for Our Glorious Cause? Now is your chance to tell me to return with my shield or on it. But, talk fast, for I want time to make a brave speech before departing for the wars."
His drawling voice gibed in her ears. He was jeering at her and, somehow, she knew he
was jeering at himself too. What was he talking about? Patriotism, shields, brave speeches? It wasn't possible that he meant what he was saying. It just wasn't believable that he could talk so blithely of leaving her here on this dark road with a woman who might be dying, a new-born infant, a foolish black wench and a frightened child, leaving her to pilot them through miles of battle fields and stragglers and Yankees and fire and God knows what.
Once, when she was six years old, she had fallen from a tree, flat on her stomach. She could still recall that sickening interval before breath came back into her body. Now, as she looked at Rhett, she felt the same way she had felt then, breathless, stunned, nauseated.
"Rhett, you are joking!"
She grabbed his arm and felt her tears of fright splash down her wrist. He raised her hand and kissed it arily.
"Selfish to the end, aren't you, my dear? Thinking only of your own precious hide and not of the gallant Confederacy. Think how our troops will be heartened by my eleventh-hour
appearance." There was a malicious tenderness in his voice.
"Oh, Rhett," she wailed, "how can you do this to me? Why are you leaving me?"
"Why?" he laughed jauntily. "Because, perhaps, of the betraying sentimentality that lurks in all of us Southerners. Perhaps--perhaps because I am ashamed. Who knows?"
"Ashamed? You should die of shame. To desert us here, alone, helpless--"
"Dear Scarlett! You aren't helpless. Anyone as selfish and determined as you are is never helpless. God help the Yankees if they should get you."
He stepped abruptly down from the wagon and, as she watched him, stunned with
bewilderment, he came around to her side of the wagon.
"Get out," he ordered.
She stared at him. He reached up roughly, caught her under the arms and swung her to the
ground beside him. With a tight grip on her he dragged her several paces away from the wagon.
She felt the dust and gravel in her slippers hurting her feet. The still hot darkness wrapped her like a dream.
"I'm not asking you to understand or forgive. I don't give a damn whether you do either, for I shall never understand or forgive myself for this idiocy. I am annoyed at myself to find that so much quixoticism still lingers in me. But our fair Southland needs every man. Didn't our brave Governor Brown say just that? Not matter. I'm off to the wars." He laughed suddenly, a ringing, free laugh that startled the echoes in the dark woods.
" 'I could not love thee, Dear, so much, loved I not Honour more.' That's a pat speech, isn't it? Certainly better than anything I can think up myself, at the present moment. For I do love you, Scarlett, in spite of what I said that night on the porch last month."
His drawl was caressing and his hands slid tip her bare arms, warm strong hands. I love
you, Scarlett, because we are so much alike, renegades, both of us, dear, and selfish rascals.
Neither of us cares a rap if the whole world goes to pot so long as we are safe and comfortable."
His voice went on in the darkness and she heard words, but they made no sense to her.
Her mind was tiredly trying to take in the harsh truth that he was leaving her here to face the Yankees alone. Her mind said: "He's leaving me. He's leaving me." But no emotion stirred.