"Honey or India?" questioned Melly excitedly, while Scarlett stared almost indignantly.
"Oh, Miss India, to be sure. Didn't she have him fast till this baggage of mine winked at him?"
"Oh," said Melly, somewhat embarrassed at Gerald's outspokenness.
"And more than that, young Brent has taken to hanging about Tara. Now!"
Scarlett could not speak. The defection of her beaux was almost insulting. Especially
when she recalled how wildly both the twins had acted when she told them she was going to marry Charles. Stuart had even threatened to shoot Charles, or Scarlett, or himself, or all three. It had been most exciting.
"Suellen?" questioned Melly, breaking into a pleased smile. "But I thought Mr.
Kennedy--"
"Oh, him?" said Gerald. "Frank Kennedy still pussyfoots about, afraid of his shadow, and I'll be asking him his intentions soon if he doesn't speak up. No, 'tis me baby."
"Carreen?"
"She's nothing but a child!" said Scarlett sharply, finding her tongue.
"She's little more than a year younger than you were, Miss, when you were married,"
retorted Gerald. "Is it you're grudging your old beau to your sister?"
Melly blushed, unaccustomed to such frankness, and signaled Peter to bring in the sweet
potato pie. Frantically she cast about in her mind for some other topic of conversation which would not be so personal but which would divert Mr. O'Hara from the purpose of his trip. She could think of nothing but, once started, Gerald needed no stimulus other than an audience. He talked on about the thievery of the commissary department which every month increased its demands, the knavish stupidity of Jefferson Davis and the blackguardery of the Irish who were being enticed into the Yankee army by bounty money.
When the wine was on the table and the two girls rose to leave him, Gerald cocked a
severe eye at his daughter from under frowning brows and commanded her presence alone for a few minutes. Scarlett cast a despairing glance at Melly, who twisted her handkerchief helplessly and went out, softly pulling the sliding doors together.
"How now, Missy!" bawled Gerald, pouring himself a glass of port. " 'Tis a fine way to act! Is it another husband you're trying to catch and you so fresh a widow?"
"Not so loud, Pa, the servants--"
"They know already, to be sure, and everybody knows of our disgrace. And your poor
mother taking to her bed with it and me not able to hold up me head. 'Tis shameful. No, Puss, you need not think to get around me with tears this time," he said hastily and with some panic in his voice as Scarlett's lids began to bat and her mouth to screw up. "I know you. You'd be flirting at the wake of your husband. Don't cry. There, I'll be saying no more tonight, for I'm going to see this fine Captain Butler who makes so light of me daughter's reputation. But in the morning--
There now, don't cry. 'Twill do you no good at all, at all. 'Tis firm that I am and back to Tara you'll be going tomorrow before you're disgracing the lot of us again. Don't cry, pet. Look what I've brought you! Isn't that a pretty present? See, look! How could you be putting so much trouble on me, bringing me all the way up here when 'tis a busy man I am? Don't cry!"
Melanie and Pittypat had gone to sleep hours before, but Scarlett lay awake in the warm
darkness, her heart heavy and frightened in her breast. To leave Atlanta when life had just begun again and go home and face Ellen! She would rather die than face her mother. She wished she were dead, this very minute, then everyone would be sorry they had been so hateful. She turned and tossed on the hot pillow until a noise far up the quiet street reached her ears. It was an oddly familiar noise, blurred and indistinct though it was. She slipped out of bed and went to the window. The street with its over-arching trees was softly, deeply black under a dim star-studded sky. The noise came closer, the sound of wheels, the plod of a horse's hooves and voices. And
suddenly she grinned for, as a voice thick with brogue and whisky came to her, raised in "Peg in a Low-backed Car," she knew. This might not be Jonesboro on Court Day, but Gerald was coming home in the same condition.
She saw the dark bulk of a buggy stop in front of the house and indistinct figures alight.
Someone was with him. Two figures paused at the gate and she heard the click of the latch and Gerald's voice came plain.
"Now I'll be giving you the 'Lament for Robert Emmet.' Tis a song you should be
knowing, me lad. I'll teach It to you."
"I'd like to learn it," replied his companion, a hint of buried laughter in his flat drawling voice. "But not now, Mr. O'Hara."