"Is Dimity Munroe all right?" asked Alex, eagerly but a little embarrassed, and Scarlett recalled vaguely that he had been sweet on Sally's younger sister.
"Oh, yes. She's living with her aunt over in Fayetteville now. You know their house in Lovejoy was burned. And the rest of her folks are in Macon."
"What he means is--has Dimity married some brave colonel in the Home Guard?" jeered Tony, and Alex turned furious eyes upon him.
"Of course, she isn't married," said Scarlett, amused.
"Maybe it would be better if she had," said Alex gloomily. "How the hell--I beg your pardon, Scarlett. But how can a man ask a girl to marry him when his darkies are all freed and his, stock gone and he hasn't got a cent in his pockets?"
"You know that wouldn't bother Dimity," said Scarlett. She could afford to be loyal to Dimity and say nice things about her, for Alex Fontaine had never been one of her own beaux.
"Hell's afire--Well, I beg your pardon again. I'll have to quit swearing or Grandma will sure tan my hide. I'm not asking any girl to marry a pauper. It mightn't bother her but it would bother me."
While Scarlett talked to the boys on the front porch, Melanie, Suellen and Carreen slipped silently into the house as soon as they heard the news of the surrender. After the boys had gone, cutting across the back fields of Tara toward home, Scarlett went inside and heard the girls sobbing together on the sofa in Ellen's little office. It was all over, the bright beautiful dream they had loved and hoped for, the Cause which had taken their friends, lovers, husbands and beggared their families. The Cause they had thought could never fall had fallen forever.
But for Scarlett, there were no tears. In the first moment when she heard the news she
thought: Thank God! Now the cow won't be stolen. Now the horse is safe. Now we can take the silver out of the well and everybody can have a knife and fork. Now I won't be afraid to drive round the country looking for something to eat.
What a relief! Never again would she start in fear at the sound of hooves. Never again
would she wake in the dark nights, holding her breath to listen, wondering if it were reality or only a dream that she heard in the yard the rattle of bits, the stamping of hooves and the harsh crying of orders by the Yankees. And, best of all, Tara was safe! Now her worst nightmare would never come true. Now she would never have to stand on the lawn and see smoke billowing from the beloved house and hear the roar of flames as the roof fell in.
Yes, the Cause was dead but war had always seemed foolish to her and peace was better.
She had never stood starry eyed when the Stars and Bars ran up a pole or felt cold chills when
"Dixie" sounded. She had not been sustained through privations, the sickening duties of nursing, the fears of the siege and the hunger of the last few months by the fanatic glow which made all these things endurable to others, if only the Cause prospered. It was all over and done with and she was not going to cry about it.
All over! The war which had seemed so endless, the war which, unbidden and unwanted,
had cut her life in two, had made so clean a cleavage that it was difficult to remember those other care-tree days. She could look back, unmoved, at the pretty Scarlett with her fragile green morocco slippers and her flounces fragrant with lavender but she wondered if she could be that same girl. Scarlett O'Hara, with the County at her feet, a hundred slaves to do her bidding, the wealth of Tara like a wall behind her and doting parents anxious to grant any desire of her heart.
Spoiled, careless Scarlett who had never known an ungratified wish except where Ashley was concerned.
Somewhere, on the long road that wound through those four years, the girl with her sachet and dancing slippers had slipped away and there was left a woman with sharp green eyes, who counted pennies and turned her hands to many menial tasks, a woman to whom nothing was left from the wreckage except the indestructible red earth on which she stood.
As she stood in the hall, listening to the girls sobbing, her mind was busy.
"We'll plant more cotton, lots more. I'll send Pork to Macon tomorrow to buy more seed.
Now the Yankees won't burn it and our troops won't need it Good Lord! Cotton ought to go sky high this fall!"
She went into the little office and, disregarding the weeping girls on the sofa, seated
herself at the secretary and picked up a quill to balance the cost of more cotton seed against her remaining cash.
"The war is over," she thought and suddenly she dropped the quill as a wild happiness flooded her. The war was over and Ashley--if Ashley was alive he'd be coming home! She