"What a fool I've been," she thought bitterly. "And now I've got to pay for it What I've wished for so often has happened. I've wished Melly was dead so I could have him. And now she's dead and I've got him and I don't want him. His damned honor will make him ask me if I want to divorce Rhett and marry him. Marry him? I wouldn't have him on a silver platter! But, just the same I've got him round my neck for the rest of my life. As long as I live I'll have to look after him and see that he doesn't starve and that people don't hurt his feelings. He'll be just another child, clinging to my skirts. I've lost my lover and I've got another child. And if I hadn't promised Melly, I'd--I wouldn't care if I never saw him again."
CHAPTER LXII
SHE HEARD whispering voices outside, and going to the door she saw the frightened negroes standing in the back hall, Dilcey with her arms sagging under the heavy weight of the sleeping Beau, Uncle Peter crying, and Cookie wiping her wide wet face on her apron. All three looked at her, dumbly asking what they were to do now. She looked up the hall toward the sitting room and saw India and Aunt Pitty standing speechless, holding each other's hands and, for once, India had lost her stiff-necked look. Like the negroes, they looked imploringly at her, expecting her to give instructions. She walked into the sitting room and the two women closed about her.
Oh, Scarlett, what--"began Aunt Pitty, her fat, child's mouth shaking.
"Don't speak to me or I'll scream," said Scarlett. Overwrought nerves brought sharpness to her voice and her hands clenched at her sides. The thought of speaking of Melanie now, of making the inevitable arrangements that follow a death made her throat tighten. "I don't want a word out of either of you."
At the authoritative note in her voice, they fell back, helpless hurt looks on their faces. "I mustn't cry in front of them," she thought. "I mustn't break now or they'll begin crying too, and then the darkies will begin screaming and we'll all go mad. I must pull myself together. There's so much I'll have to do. See the undertaker and arrange the funeral and see that the house is clean and be here to talk to people who'll cry on my neck. Ashley can't do them. I've got to do them.
Oh, what a weary load! It's always been a weary load and always some one else's load!"
She looked at the dazed hurt faces of India and Pitty and contrition swept her. Melanie
would not like her to be so sharp with those who loved her.
"I'm sorry I was cross," she said, speaking with difficulty. "It's just that I--I'm sorry I was cross, Auntie. I'm going out on the porch for a minute. I've got to be alone. Then I'll come back and well--"
She patted Aunt Pitty and went swiftly by her to the front door, knowing if she stayed in this room another minute her control would crack. She had to be alone. And she had to cry or her heart would break.
She stepped onto the dark porch and closed the door behind her and the moist night air
was cool upon her face. The rain had ceased and there was no sound except for the occasional drip of water from the eaves. The world was wrapped in a thick mist, a faintly chill mist that bore on its breath the smell of the dying year. All the houses across the street were dark except one, and the light from a lamp in the window, falling into the street, struggled feebly with the fog, golden particles floating in its rays. It was as if the whole world were enveloped in an unmoving blanket of gray smoke. And the whole world was still.
She leaned her head against one of the uprights of the porch and prepared to cry but no
tears came. This was a calamity too deep for tears. Her body shook. There still reverberated in her mind the crashes of the two impregnable citadels of her life, thundering to dust about her ears.
She stood for a while, trying to summon up her old charm: "I'll think of all this tomorrow when I can stand it better." But the charm had lost its potency. She had to think of two things, now--
Melanie and how much she loved and needed her; Ashley and the obstinate blindness that had
made her refuse to see him as he really was. And she knew that thoughts of them would hurt just as much tomorrow and all the tomorrows of her life.
"I can't go back in there and talk to them now," she thought. "I can't face Ashley tonight and comfort him. Not tonight! Tomorrow morning I'll come early and do the things I must do, say the comforting things I must say. But not tonight. I can't. I'm going home."
Home was only five blocks away. She would not wait for the sobbing Peter to harness the
buggy, would not wait for Dr. Meade to drive her home. She could not endure the tears of the one, the silent condemnation of the other. She went swiftly down the dark front steps without her coat or bonnet and into the misty night. She rounded the corner and started up the long hill toward Peachtree Street, walking in a still wet world, and even her footsteps were as noiseless as a dream.