Scarlett entered her room, set the candle on the tall chest of drawers and fumbled in the dark closet for the dancing dress that needed stitching. Throwing it across her arm, she crossed the hall quietly. The door of her parents' bedroom was slightly ajar and, before she could knock, Ellen's voice, low but stern, came to her ears.
"Mr. O'Hara, you must dismiss Jonas Wilkerson."
Gerald exploded, "And where will I be getting another overseer who wouldn't be cheating me out of my eyeteeth?"
"He must be dismissed, immediately, tomorrow morning. Big Sam is a good foreman and
he can take over the duties until you can hire another overseer."
"Ah, ha!" came Gerald's voice. "So, I understand! Then the worthy Jonas sired the--"
"He must be dismissed."
"So, he is the father of Emmie Slattery's baby," thought Scarlett "Oh, well. What else can you expect from a Yankee man and a white-trash girl?"
Then, after a discreet pause which gave Gerald's splutterings time to die away, she
knocked on the door and handed the dress to her mother.
By the time Scarlett had undressed and blown out the candle, her plan for tomorrow had
worked itself out in every detail. It was a simple plan, for, with Gerald's single-mindedness of purpose, her eyes were centered on the goal and she thought only of the most direct steps by which to reach it.
First, she would be "prideful," as Gerald had commanded. From the moment she arrived at Twelve Oaks, she would be her gayest, most spirited self. No one would suspect that she had ever been downhearted because of Ashley and Melanie. And she would flirt with every man
there. That would be cruel to Ashley, but it would make him yearn for her all the more. She wouldn't overlook a man of marriageable age, from ginger-whiskered old Frank Kennedy, who was Suellen's beau, on down to shy, quiet, blushing Charles Hamilton, Melanie's brother. They
would swarm around her like bees around a hive, and certainly Ashley would be drawn from Melanie to join the circle of her admirers. Then somehow she would maneuver to get a few
minutes alone with him, away from the crowd. She hoped everything would work out that way, because it would be more difficult otherwise. But if Ashley didn't make the first move, she would simply have to do it herself.
When they were finally alone, he would have fresh in his mind the picture of the other
men thronging about her, he would be newly impressed with the fact that every one of them wanted her, and that look of sadness and despair would be in his eyes. Then she would make him happy again by letting him discover that popular though she was, she preferred him above any other man in all the world. And when she admitted it, modestly and sweetly, she would look a thousand things more. Of course, she would do it all in a ladylike way. She wouldn't even dream of saying to him boldly that she loved him--that would never do. But the manner of telling him was a detail that troubled her not at all. She had managed such situations before and she could do it again.
Lying in the bed with the moonlight streaming dimly over her, she pictured the whole
scene in her mind. She saw the look of surprise and happiness that would come over his face when he realized that she really loved him, and she heard the words he would say asking her to be his wife.
Naturally, she would have to say then that she simply couldn't think of marrying a man
when he was engaged to another girl, but he would insist and finally she would let herself be persuaded. Then they would decide to run off to Jonesboro that very afternoon and--
Why, by this time tomorrow night, she might be Mrs. Ashley Wilkes!
She sat up in bed, hugging her knees, and for a long happy moment she was Mrs.
Ashley Wilkes--Ashley's bride! Then a slight chill entered her heart. Suppose it didn't work out this way? Suppose Ashley didn't beg her to run away with him? Resolutely she pushed the
thought from her mind.
"I won't think of that now," she said firmly. "If I think of it now, it will upset me. There's no reason why things won't come out the way I want them--if he loves me. And I know he does!"
She raised her chin and her pale, black-fringed eyes sparkled in the moonlight. Ellen had never told her that desire and attainment were two different matters; life had not taught her that the race was not to the swift. She lay in the silvery shadows with courage rising and made the plans that a sixteen-year-old makes when life has been so pleasant that defeat is an impossibility and a pretty dress and a clear complexion are weapons to vanquish fate.
CHAPTER V
IT WAS TEN O'CLOCK in the morning. The day was warm for April and the golden sunlight