She saw his swarthy face change suddenly, anger and something she could not analyze
making it twitch as though stung.
"There!" she thought in a hot rage of pleasure. "There! I've hurt him now!"
But the old impassive mask was back across his face and he stroked one side of his mustache.
"Cheer up," he said, turning from her and starting up the stairs, "maybe you'll have a miscarriage."
For a dizzy moment she thought what childbearing meant, the nausea that tore her, the
tedious waiting, the thickening of her figure, the hours of pain. Things no man could ever realize.
And he dared to joke. She would claw him. Nothing but the sight of blood upon his dark face would ease this pain in her heart. She lunged for him, swift as a cat, but with, a light startled movement, he sidestepped, throwing up his arm to ward her off. She was standing on the edge of the freshly waxed top step, and as her arm with the whole weight of her body behind it, struck his out-thrust arm, she lost her balance. She made a wild clutch for the newel post and missed it. She went down the stairs backwards, feeling a sickening dart of pain in her ribs as she landed. And, too dazed to catch herself, she rolled over and over to the bottom of the flight.
It was the first time Scarlett had ever been ill, except when she had her babies, and
somehow those times did not count. She had not been forlorn and frightened then, as she was now, weak and pain racked and bewildered. She knew she was sicker than they dared tell her, feebly realized that she might die. The broken rib stabbed when she breathed, her bruised face and head ached and her whole body was given over to demons who plucked at her with hot
pinchers and sawed on her with dull knives and left her, for short intervals, so drained of strength that she could not regain grip on herself before they returned. No, childbirth had not been like this. She had been able to eat hearty meals two hours after Wade and Ella and Bonnie had been born, but now the thought of anything but cool water brought on feeble nausea.
How easy it was to have a child and how painful not to have one! Strange, what a pang it
had been even in her pain, to know that she would not have this child. Stranger still that it should have been the first child she really wanted. She tried to think why she wanted it but her mind was too tired. Her mind was too tired to think of anything except fear of death. Death was in the room and she had no strength to confront it, to fight it back and she was frightened. She wanted someone strong to stand by her and hold her hand and fight off death until enough strength came back for her to do her own fighting.
Rage had been swallowed up in pain and she wanted Rhett. But he was not there and she
could not bring herself to ask for him.
Her last memory of him was how he looked as he picked her up in the dark hall at the
bottom of the steps, his face white and wiped clean of all save hideous fear, his voice hoarsely calling for Mammy. And then there was a faint memory of being carried upstairs, before darkness came over her mind. And then pain and more pain and the room full of buzzing voices and Aunt Pittypat's sobs and Dr. Meade's brusque orders and feet that hurried on the stairs and tiptoes in the upper hall. And then like a blinding ray of lightning, the knowledge of death and fear that suddenly made her try to scream a name and the scream was only a whisper.
But that forlorn whisper brought instant response from somewhere in the darkness beside
the bed and the soft voice of the one she called made answer in lullaby tones: "I'm here, dear. I've been right here all the time."
Death and fear receded gently as Melanie took her hand and laid it quietly against her
cool cheek. Scarlett tried to turn to see her face and could not. Melly was having a baby and the Yankees were coming. The town was afire and she must hurry, hurry. But Melly was having a baby and she couldn't hurry. She must stay with her till the baby came and be strong because
Melly needed her strength. Melly was hurting so bad--there were hot pinchers at her and dull knives and recurrent waves of pain. She must hold Melly's hand.
But Dr. Meade was there after all, he had come, even if the soldiers at the depot did need him for she heard him say: "Delirious. Where's Captain Butler?"
The night was dark and then light and sometimes she was having a baby and sometimes it
was Melanie who cried out, but through it all Melly was there and her hands were cool and she did not make futile anxious gestures or sob like Aunt Pitty. Whenever Scarlett opened her eyes, she said "Melly?" and the voice answered. And usually she started to whisper: "Rhett--I want Rhett" and remembered, as from a dream, that Rhett didn't want her, that Rhett's face was dark as an Indian's and his teeth were white in a jeer. She wanted him and he didn't want her.