第192章

“Oh, hush! You know how I hate people who bawl all the time. You know perfectly well old Ginger Whiskers isn’t dead and that he’ll come back and marry you. He hasn’t any better sense. But personally, I’d rather be an old maid than marry him.”

There was silence from the back of the wagon for a while and Carreen comforted her sister with absent-minded pats, for her mind was a long way off, riding paths three years old with Brent Tarleton beside her. There was a glow, an exaltation in her eyes.

“Ah,” said Melanie, sadly, “what will the South be like without all our fine boys? What would the South have been if they had lived? We could use their courage and their energy and their brains. Scarlett, all of us with little boys must raise them to take the places of the men who are gone, to be brave men like them.”

“There will never again be men like them,” said Carreen softly. “No one can take their places.”

They drove home the rest of the way in silence.

One day not long after this, Cathleen Calvert rode up to Tara at sunset. Her sidesaddle was strapped on as sorry a mule as Scarlett had ever seen, a flop-eared lame brute, and Cathleen was almost as sorry looking as the animal she rode. Her dress was of faded gingham of the type once worn only by house servants, and her sunbonnet was secured under her chin by a piece of twine. She rode up to the front porch but did not dismount, and Scarlett and Melanie, who had been watching the sunset, went down the steps to meet her. Cathleen was as white as Cade had been the day Scarlett called, white and hard and brittle, as if her face would shatter if she spoke. But her back was erect and her head was high as she nodded to them.

Scarlett suddenly remembered the day of the Wilkes barbecue when she and Cathleen had whispered together about Rhett Butler. How pretty and fresh Cathleen had been that day in a swirl of blue organdie with fragrant roses at her sash and little black velvet slippers laced about her small ankles. And now there was not a trace of that girl in the stiff figure sitting on the mule.

“I won’t get down, thank you,” she said. “I just came to tell you that I’m going to be married.”

“What!”

“Who to?”

“Cathy, how grand!”

“When?”

“Tomorrow,” said Cathleen quietly and there was something in her voice which took the eager smiles from their faces. “I came to tell you that I’m going to be married tomorrow, in Jonesboro—and I’m not inviting you all to come.”

They digested this in silence, looking up at her, puzzled. Then Melanie spoke.

“Is it someone we know, dear?”

“Yes,” said Cathleen, shortly. “It’s Mr. Hilton.”

“Mr. Hilton?”

“Yes, Mr. Hilton, our overseer,”

Scarlett could not even find voice to say “Oh!” but Cathleen, peering down suddenly at Melanie, said in a low savage voice: “If you cry, Melly, I can’t stand it. I shall die!”

Melanie said nothing but patted the foot in its awkward home-made shoe which hung from the stirrup. Her bead was low.

“And don’t pat me! I can’t stand that either.”

Melanie dropped her hand but still did not look up.

“Well, I must go. I only came to tell you.” The white brittle mask was back again and she picked up the reins.

“How is Cade?” asked Scarlett, utterly at a loss but fumbling for some words to break the awkward silence.

“He is dying,” said Cathleen shortly. There seemed to be no feeling in her voice. “And he is going to die in some comfort and peace if I can manage it, without worry about who will take care of me when he’s gone. You see, my stepmother and the children are going North for good, tomorrow. Well, I must be going.”

Melanie looked up and met Cathleen’s hard eyes. There were bright tears on Melanie’s lashes and understanding in her eyes, and before them, Cathleen’s lips curved into the crooked smile of a brave child who tries not to cry. It was all very bewildering to Scarlett who was still trying to grasp the idea that Cathleen Calvert was going to marry an overseer—Cathleen, daughter of a rich planter, Cathleen who, next to Scarlett, had had more beaux than any girl in the County.

Cathleen bent down and Melanie tiptoed. They kissed. Then Cathleen flapped the bridle reins sharply and the old mule moved off.

Melanie looked after her, the tears streaming down her face. Scarlett stared, still dazed.

“Melly, is she crazy? You know she can’t be in love with him.”

“In love? Oh, Scarlett, don’t even suggest such a horrid thing! Oh, poor Cathleen! Poor Cade!”

“Fiddle-dee-dee!” cried Scarlett, beginning to be irritated. It was annoying that Melanie always seemed to grasp more of situations than she herself did. Cathleen’s plight seemed to her more startling than catastrophic. Of course it was no pleasant thought, marrying Yankee white trash, but after all a girl couldn’t live alone on a plantation; she had to have a husband to help her run it“Melly, it’s like I said the other day. There isn’t anybody for girls to marry and they’ve got to marry someone.”

“Oh, they don’t have to marry! There’s nothing shameful in being a spinster. Look at Aunt Pitty. Oh, I’d rather see Cathleen dead! I know Cade would rather see her dead. It’s the end of the Calverts. Just think what her—what their children will be. Oh, Scarlett, have Pork saddle the horse quickly and you ride after her and tell her to come live with us!”

“Good Lord!” cried Scarlett, shocked at the matter-of-fact way in which Melanie was offering Tara. Scarlett certainly had no intention of feeding another mouth. She started to say this but something in Melanie’s stricken face halted the words.

“She wouldn’t come, Melly,” she amended. “You know she wouldn’t. She’s so proud and she’d think it was charity.”

“That’s true, that’s true!” said Melanie distractedly, watching the small cloud of red dust disappear down the road.