CHAPTER 2

WHEN THE TWINS LEFT SCARLETT standing on the porch of Tara and the last
sound of flying hooves had died away, she went back to her chair like a
sleepwalker. Her face felt stiff as from pain and her mouth actually hurt
from having stretched it, unwillingly, in smiles to prevent the twins from
learning her secret. She sat down wearily, tucking one foot under her, and
her heart swelled up with misery, until it felt too large for her bosom. It
beat with odd little jerks; her hands were cold, and a feeling of disaster
oppressed her. There were pain and bewilderment in her face, the
bewilderment of a pampered child who has always had her own way for the
asking and who now, for the first time, was in contact with the
unpleasantness of life.
Ashley to marry Melanie Hamilton!
Oh, it couldn’t be true! The twins were mistaken. They were playing
one of their jokes on her. Ashley couldn’t, couldn’t be in love with her.
Nobody could, not with a mousy little person like Melanie. Scarlett
recalled with contempt Melanie’s thin childish figure, her serious heart-
shaped face that was plain almost to homeliness. And Ashley couldn’t have
seen her in months. He hadn’t been in Atlanta more than twice since the
house party he gave last year at Twelve Oaks. No, Ashley couldn’t be in
love with Melanie, because—oh, she couldn’t be mistaken!—because he
was in love with her! She, Scarlett, was the one he loved—she knew it!
Scarlett heard Mammy’s lumbering tread shaking the floor of the hall
and she hastily untucked her foot and tried to rearrange her face in more
placid lines. It would never do for Mammy to suspect that anything was
wrong. Mammy felt that she owned the O’Haras, body and soul, and their
secrets were her secrets; and even a hint of a mystery was enough to set her
upon the trail as relentlessly as a bloodhound. Scarlett knew from
experience that, if Mammy’s curiosity were not immediately satisfied, she

would take up the matter with Ellen, and then Scarlett would be forced to
reveal everything to her mother, or think up some plausible lie.
Mammy emerged from the hall, a huge old woman with the small,
shrewd eyes of an elephant. She was shining black, pure African, devoted
to her last drop of blood to the O’Haras, Ellen’s mainstay, the despair of her
three daughters, the terror of the other house servants. Mammy was black,
but her code of conduct and her sense of pride were as high as or higher
than those of her owners. She had been raised in the bedroom of Solange
Robillard, Ellen O’Hara’s mother, a dainty, cold, high-nosed Frenchwoman,
who spared neither her children nor her servants their just punishment for
any infringement of decorum. She had been Ellen’s mammy and had come
with her from Savannah to the up-country when she married. Whom
Mammy loved, she chastened. And, as her love for Scarlett and her pride
in her were enormous, the chastening process was practically continuous.
“Is de gempmum gone? Huccome you din’ ast dem ter stay fer supper,
Miss Scarlett? Ah done tole Poke ter lay two extry plates fer dem. Whar’s
yo’ manners?”
“Oh, I was so tired of hearing them talk about the war that I couldn’t
have endured it through supper, especially with Pa joining in and shouting
about Mr. Lincoln.”
“You ain’ got no mo’ manners dan a fe’el han’, an’ affer Miss Ellen an’
me done labored wid you. An’ hyah you is widout yo’ shawl! An’ de night
nir fixin’ ter set in! Ah done tole you an’ tole you ’bout gittin’ fever frum
settin’ in de night air wid nuthin’ on yo’ shoulders. Come on in de house,
Miss Scarlett.”
Scarlett turned away from Mammy with studied nonchalance, thankful
that her face had been unnoticed in Mammy’s preoccupation with the
matter of the shawl.
“No, I want to sit here and watch the sunset. It’s so pretty. You run get
my shawl. Please, Mammy, and I’ll sit here till Pa comes home.”
“Yo’ voice soun’ lak you catchin’ a cole,” said Mammy suspiciously.
“Well, I’m not,” said Scarlett impatiently. “You fetch me my shawl.”
Mammy waddled back into the hall and Scarlett heard her call softly up
the stairwell to the upstairs maid.
“You, Rosa! Drap me Miss Scarlett’s shawl.” Then, more loudly:
“Wuthless nigger! She ain’ never whar she does nobody no good. Now, Ah

got ter climb up an’ git it mahseff.”
Scarlett heard the stairs groan and she got softly to her feet. When
Mammy returned she would resume her lecture on Scarlett’s breach of
hospitality, and Scarlett felt that she could not endure prating about such a
trivial matter when her heart was breaking. As she stood, hesitant,
wondering where she could hide until the ache in her breast subsided a
little, a thought came to her, bringing a small ray of hope. Her father had
ridden over to Twelve Oaks, the Wilkes plantation, that afternoon to offer
to buy Dilcey, the broad wife of his valet, Pork. Dilcey was head woman
and midwife at Twelve Oaks, and, since the marriage six months ago, Pork
had deviled his master night and day to buy Dilcey, so the two could live
on the same plantation. That afternoon, Gerald, his resistance worn thin,
had set out to make an offer for Dilcey.
Surely, thought Scarlett, Pa will know whether this awful story is true.
Even if he hasn’t actually heard anything this afternoon, perhaps he’s
noticed something, sensed some excitement in the Wilkes family. If I can
just see him privately before supper, perhaps I’ll find out the truth—that it’s
just one of the twins’ nasty practical jokes.
It was time for Gerald’s return and, if she expected to see him alone,
there was nothing for her to do except meet him where the driveway
entered the road. She went quietly down the front steps, looking carefully
over her shoulder to make sure Mammy was not observing her from the
upstairs windows. Seeing no broad black face, turbaned in snowy white,
peering disapprovingly from between fluttering curtains, she boldly
snatched up her green flowered skirts and sped down the path toward the
driveway as fast as her small ribbon-laced slippers would carry her.
The dark cedars on either side of the graveled drive met in an arch
overhead, turning the long avenue into a dim tunnel. As soon as she was
beneath the gnarled arms of the cedars, she knew she was safe from
observation from the house and she slowed her swift pace. She was panting,
for her stays were laced too tightly to permit much running, but she walked
on as rapidly as she could. Soon she was at the end of the driveway and out
on the main road, but she did not stop until she had rounded a curve that
put a large clump of trees between her and the house.
Flushed and breathing hard, she sat down on a stump to wait for her
father. It was past time for him to come home, but she was glad that he was

late. The delay would give her time to quiet her breathing and calm her
face so that his suspicions would not be aroused. Every moment she
expected to hear the pounding of his horse’s hooves and see him come
charging up the hill at his usual breakneck speed. But the minutes slipped
by and Gerald did not come. She looked down the road for him, the pain
in her heart swelling up again.
“Oh, it can’t be true!” she thought. “Why doesn’t he come?”
Her eyes followed the winding road, blood-red now after the morning
rain. In her thought she traced its course as it ran down the hill to the
sluggish Flint River, through the tangled swampy bottoms and up the next
hill to Twelve Oaks where Ashley lived. That was all the road meant now
—a road to Ashley and the beautiful white-columned house that crowned
the hill like a Greek temple.
“Oh, Ashley! Ashley!” she thought, and her heart beat faster.
Some of the cold sense of bewilderment and disaster that had weighted
her down since the Tarleton boys told her their gossip was pushed into the
background of her mind, and in its place crept the fever that had possessed
her for two years.
It seemed strange now that when she was growing up Ashley had never
seemed so very attractive to her. In childhood days, she had seen him come
and go and never given him a thought. But since that day two years ago
when Ashley, newly home from his three years’ Grand Tour in Europe, had
called to pay his respects, she had loved him. It was as simple as that.
She had been on the front porch and he had ridden up the long avenue,
dressed in gray broadcloth with a wide black cravat setting off his frilled
shirt to perfection. Even now, she could recall each detail of his dress, how
brightly his boots shone, the head of a Medusa in cameo on his cravat pin,
the wide Panama hat that was instantly in his hand when he saw her. He
had alighted and tossed his bridle reins to a pickaninny and stood looking
up at her, his drowsy gray eyes wide with a smile and the sun so bright on
his blond hair that it seemed like a cap of shining silver. And he said, “So
you’ve grown up, Scarlett.” And, coming lightly up the steps, he had kissed
her hand. And his voice! She would never forget the leap of her heart as
she heard it, as if for the first time, drawling, resonant, musical.
She had wanted him, in that first instant, wanted him as simply and
unreasoningly as she wanted food to eat, horses to ride and a soft bed on

which to lay herself.
For two years he had squired her about the County, to balls, fish fries,
picnics and court days, never so often as the Tarleton twins or Cade
Calvert, never so importunate as the younger Fontaine boys, but, still,
never the week went by that Ashley did not come calling at Tara.
True, he never made love to her, nor did the clear gray eyes ever glow
with that hot light Scarlett knew so well in other men. And yet—and yet
—she knew he loved her. She could not be mistaken about it. Instinct
stronger than reason and knowledge born of experience told her that he
loved her. Too often she had surprised him when his eyes were neither
drowsy nor remote, when he looked at her with a yearning and a sadness
which puzzled her. She knew he loved her. Why did he not tell her so? That
she could not understand. But there were so many things about him that
she did not understand.
He was courteous always, but aloof, remote. No one could ever tell what
he was thinking about, Scarlett least of all. In a neighborhood where
everyone said exactly what he thought as soon as he thought it, Ashley’s
quality of reserve was exasperating. He was as proficient as any of the other
young men in the usual County diversions, hunting, gambling, dancing and
politics, and was the best rider of them all; but he differed from all the rest
in that these pleasant activities were not the end and aim of life to him.
And he stood alone in his interest in books and music and his fondness for
writing poetry.
Oh, why was he so handsomely blond, so courteously aloof, so
maddeningly boring with his talk about Europe and books and music and
poetry and things that interested her not at all—and yet so desirable?
Night after night, when Scarlett went to bed after sitting on the front
porch in the semidarkness with him, she tossed restlessly for hours and
comforted herself only with the thought that the very next time he saw her
he certainly would propose. But the next time came and went, and the
result was nothing—nothing except that the fever possessing her rose
higher and hotter.
She loved him and she wanted him and she did not understand him.
She was as forthright and simple as the winds that blew over Tara and the
yellow river that wound about it, and to the end of her days she would

never be able to understand a complexity. And now, for the first time in her
life, she was facing a complex nature.
For Ashley was born of a line of men who used their leisure for thinking,
not doing, for spinning brightly colored dreams that had in them no touch
of reality. He moved in an inner world that was more beautiful than
Georgia and came back to reality with reluctance. He looked on people,
and he neither liked nor disliked them. He looked on life and was neither
heartened nor saddened. He accepted the universe and his place in it for
what they were and, shrugging, turned to his music and books and his
better world.
Why he should have captivated Scarlett when his mind was a stranger
to hers she did not know. The very mystery of him excited her curiosity like
a door that had neither lock nor key. The things about him which she
could not understand only made her love him more, and his odd, restrained
courtship only served to increase her determination to have him for her
own. That he would propose some day she had never doubted, for she was
too young and too spoiled ever to have known defeat. And now, like a
thunderclap, had come this horrible news. Ashley to marry Melanie! It
couldn’t be true!
Why, only last week, when they were riding home at twilight from
Fairhill, he had said: “Scarlett, I have something so important to tell you
that I hardly know how to say it.”
She had cast down her eyes demurely, her heart beating with wild
pleasure, thinking the happy moment had come. Then he had said: “Not
now! We’re nearly home and there isn’t time. Oh, Scarlett, what a coward I
am!” And putting spurs to his horse, he had raced her up the hill to Tara.
Scarlett, sitting on the stump, thought of those words which had made
her so happy, and suddenly they took on another meaning, a hideous
meaning. Suppose it was the news of his engagement he had intended to
tell her!
Oh, if Pa would only come home! She could not endure the suspense
another moment. She looked impatiently down the road again, and again
she was disappointed.
The sun was now below the horizon and the red glow at the rim of the
world faded into pink. The sky above turned slowly from azure to the
delicate blue-green of a robin’s egg, and the unearthly stillness of rural

twilight came stealthily down about her. Shadowy dimness crept over the
countryside. The red furrows and the gashed red road lost their magical
blood color and became plain brown earth. Across the road, in the pasture,
the horses, mules and cows stood quietly with heads over the split-rail
fence, waiting to be driven to the stables and supper. They did not like the
dark shade of the thickets hedging the pasture creek, and they twitched
their ears at Scarlett as if appreciative of human companionship.
In the strange half-light, the tall pines of the river swamp, so warmly
green in the sunshine, were black against the pastel sky, an impenetrable
row of black giants hiding the slow yellow water at their feet. On the hill
across the river, the tall white chimneys of the Wilkes home faded
gradually into the darkness of the thick oaks surrounding them, and only
far-off pin points of supper lamps showed that a house was here. The warm
damp balminess of spring encompassed her sweetly with the moist smells of
new-plowed earth and all the fresh green things pushing up to the air.
Sunset and spring and new-fledged greenery were no miracle to Scarlett.
Their beauty she accepted as casually as the air she breathed and the water
she drank, for she had never consciously seen beauty in anything but
women’s faces, horses, silk dresses and like tangible things. Yet the serene
half-light over Tara’s well-kept acres brought a measure of quiet to her
disturbed mind. She loved this land so much, without even knowing she
loved it, loved it as she loved her mother’s face under the lamp at prayer
time.
Still there was no sign of Gerald on the quiet winding road. If she had to
wait much longer, Mammy would certainly come in search of her and bully
her into the house. But even as she strained her eyes down the darkening
road, she heard a pounding of hooves at the bottom of the pasture hill and
saw the horses and cows scatter in fright. Gerald O’Hara was coming home
across country and at top speed.
He came up the hill at a gallop on his thick-barreled, long-legged
hunter, appearing in the distance like a boy on a too large horse. His long
white hair standing out behind him, he urged the horse forward with crop
and loud cries.
Filled with her own anxieties, she nevertheless watched him with
affectionate pride, for Gerald was an excellent horseman.

“I wonder why he always wants to jump fences when he’s had a few
drinks,” she thought. “And after that fall he had right here last year when
he broke his knee. You’d think he’d learn. Especially when he promised
Mother on oath he’d never jump again.”
Scarlett had no awe of her father and felt him more her contemporary
than her sisters, for jumping fences and keeping it a secret from his wife
gave him a boyish pride and guilty glee that matched her own pleasure in
outwitting Mammy. She rose from her seat to watch him.
The big horse reached the fence, gathered himself and soared over as
effortlessly as a bird, his rider yelling enthusiastically, his crop beating the
air, his white curls jerking out behind him. Gerald did not see his daughter
in the shadow of the trees, and he drew rein in the road, patting his horse’s
neck with approbation.
“There’s none in the County can touch you, nor in the state,” he
informed his mount, with pride, the brogue of County Meath still heavy on
his tongue in spite of thirty-nine years in America. Then he hastily set
about smoothing his hair and settling his ruffled shirt and his cravat which
had slipped away behind one ear. Scarlett knew these hurried preenings
were being made with an eye toward meeting his wife with the appearance
of a gentleman who had ridden sedately home from a call on a neighbor.
She knew also that he was presenting her with just the opportunity she
wanted for opening the conversation without revealing her true purpose.
She laughed aloud. As she had intended, Gerald was startled by the
sound; then he recognized her, and a look both sheepish and defiant came
over his florid face. He dismounted with difficulty, because his knee was
stiff, and, slipping the reins over his arm, stumped toward her.
“Well, Missy,” he said, pinching her cheek, “so, you’ve been spying on
me and, like your sister Suellen last week, you’ll be telling your mother on
me?”
There was indignation in his hoarse bass voice but also a wheedling
note, and Scarlett teasingly clicked her tongue against her teeth as she
reached out to pull his cravat into place. His breath in her face was strong
with Bourbon whisky mingled with a faint fragrance of mint.
Accompanying him also were the smells of chewing tobacco, well-oiled
leather and horses—a combination of odors that she always associated with
her father and instinctively liked in other men.

“No, Pa, I’m no tattletale like Suellen,” she assured him, standing off to
view his rearranged attire with a judicious air.
Gerald was a small man, little more than five feet tall, but so heavy of
barrel and thick of neck that his appearance, when seated, led strangers to
think him a larger man. His thickset torso was supported by short sturdy
legs, always incased in the finest leather boots procurable and always
planted wide apart like a swaggering small boy’s. Most small people who
take themselves seriously are a little ridiculous; but the bantam cock is
respected in the barnyard, and so it was with Gerald. No one would ever
have the temerity to think of Gerald O’Hara as a ridiculous little figure.
He was sixty years old and his crisp curly hair was silver-white, but his
shrewd face was unlined and his hard little blue eyes were young with the
unworried youthfulness of one who has never taxed his brain with problems
more abstract than how many cards to draw in a poker game. His was as
Irish a face as could be found in the length and breadth of the homeland he
had left so long ago—round, high colored, short nosed, wide mouthed and
belligerent.
Beneath his choleric exterior Gerald O’Hara had the tenderest of hearts.
He could not bear to see a slave pouting under a reprimand, no matter how
well deserved, or hear a kitten mewing or a child crying; but he had a
horror of having this weakness discovered. That everyone who met him did
discover his kindly heart within five minutes was unknown to him; and his
vanity would have suffered tremendously if he had found it out, for he liked
to think that when he bawled orders at the top of his voice everyone
trembled and obeyed. It had never occurred to him that only one voice was
obeyed on the plantation—the soft voice of his wife Ellen. It was a secret
he would never learn, for everyone from Ellen down to the stupidest field
hand was in a tacit and kindly conspiracy to keep him believing that his
word was law.
Scarlett was impressed less than anyone else by his tempers and his
roarings. She was his oldest child and, now that Gerald knew there would
be no more sons to follow the three who lay in the family burying ground,
he had drifted into a habit of treating her in a man-to-man manner which
she found most pleasant. She was more like her father than her younger
sisters, for Carreen, who had been born Caroline Irene, was delicate and

dreamy, and Suellen, christened Susan Elinor, prided herself on her
elegance and lady-like deportment.
Moreover, Scarlett and her father were bound together by a mutual
suppression agreement. If Gerald caught her climbing a fence instead of
walking half a mile to a gate, or sitting too late on the front steps with a
beau, he castigated her personally and with vehemence, but he did not
mention the fact to Ellen or to Mammy. And when Scarlett discovered him
jumping fences after his solemn promise to his wife, or learned the exact
amount of his losses at poker, as she always did from County gossip, she
refrained from mentioning the fact at the supper table in the artfully artless
manner Suellen had. Scarlett and her father each assured the other
solemnly that to bring such matters to the ears of Ellen would only hurt
her, and nothing would induce them to wound her gentleness.
Scarlett looked at her father in the fading light, and, without knowing
why, she found it comforting to be in his presence. There was something
vital and earthy and coarse about him that appealed to her. Being the least
analytic of people, she did not realize that this was because she possessed in
some degree these same qualities, despite sixteen years of effort on the part
of Ellen and Mammy to obliterate them.
“You look very presentable now,” she said, “and I don’t think anyone
will suspect you’ve been up to your tricks unless you brag about them. But
it does seem to me that after you broke your knee last year, jumping that
same fence—”
“Well, may I be damned if I’ll have me own daughter telling me what I
shall jump and not jump,” he shouted, giving her cheek another pinch. “It’s
me own neck, so it is. And besides, Missy, what are you doing out here
without your shawl?”
Seeing that he was employing familiar maneuvers to extricate himself
from unpleasant conversation, she slipped her arm through his and said: “I
was waiting for you. I didn’t know you would be so late. I just wondered if
you had bought Dilcey.”
“Bought her I did, and the price has ruined me. Bought her and her little
wench, Prissy. John Wilkes was for almost giving them away, but never will
I have it said that Gerald O’Hara used friendship in a trade. I made him
take three thousand for the two of them.”

“In the name of Heaven, Pa, three thousand! And you didn’t need to
buy Prissy!”
“Has the time come when me own daughters sit in judgment on me?”
shouted Gerald rhetorically. “Prissy is a likely little wench and so—”
“I know her. She’s a sly, stupid creature,” Scarlett rejoined calmly,
unimpressed by his uproar. “And the only reason you bought her was
because Dilcey asked you to buy her.”
Gerald looked crestfallen and embarrassed, as always when caught in a
kind deed, and Scarlett laughed outright at his transparency.
“Well, what if I did? Was there any use buying Dilcey if she was going to
mope about the child? Well, never again will I let a darky on this place
marry off it. It’s too expensive. Well, come on, Puss, let’s go in to supper.”
The shadows were falling thicker now, the last greenish tinge had left
the sky and a slight chill was displacing the balminess of spring. But
Scarlett loitered, wondering how to bring up the subject of Ashley without
permitting Gerald to suspect her motive. This was difficult, for Scarlett had
not a subtle bone in her body; and Gerald was so much like her he never
failed to penetrate her weak subterfuges, even as she penetrated his. And
he was seldom tactful in doing it.
“How are they all over at Twelve Oaks?”
“About as usual. Cade Calvert was there and, after I settled about
Dilcey, we all set on the gallery and had several toddies. Cade has just
come from Atlanta, and it’s all upset they are there and talking war and—”
Scarlett sighed. If Gerald once got on the subject of war and secession, it
would be hours before he relinquished it. She broke in with another line.
“Did they say anything about the barbecue tomorrow?”
“Now that I think of it they did. Miss—what’s-her-name—the sweet
little thing who was here last year, you know, Ashley’s cousin—oh, yes,
Miss Melanie Hamilton, that’s the name—she and her brother Charles
have already come from Atlanta and—”
“Oh, so she did come?”
“She did, and a sweet quiet thing she is, with never a word to say for
herself, like a woman should be. Come now, daughter, don’t lag. Your
mother will be hunting for us.”
Scarlett’s heart sank at the news. She had hoped against hope that
something would keep Melanie Hamilton in Atlanta where she belonged,

and the knowledge that even her father approved of her sweet quiet nature,
so different from her own, forced her into the open.
“Was Ashley there, too?”
“He was.” Gerald let go of his daughter’s arm and turned, peering sharply
into her face. “And if that’s why you came out here to wait for me, why
didn’t you say so without beating around the bush?”
Scarlett could think of nothing to say, and she felt her face growing red
with annoyance.
“Well, speak up.”
Still she said nothing, wishing that it was permissible to shake one’s
father and tell him to hush his mouth.
“He was there and he asked most kindly after you, as did his sisters, and
said they hoped nothing would keep you from the barbecue tomorrow. I’ll
warrant nothing will,” he said shrewdly. “And now, daughter, what’s all this
about you and Ashley?”
“There is nothing,” she said shortly, tugging at his arm. “Let’s go in, Pa.”
“So now ’tis you wanting to go in,” he observed. “But here I’m going to
stand till I’m understanding you. Now that I think of it, ’tis strange you’ve
been recently. Has he been trifling with you? Has he asked to marry you?”
“No,” she said shortly.
“Nor will he,” said Gerald.
Fury flamed in her, but Gerald waved her quiet with a hand.
“Hold your tongue, Miss! I had it from John Wilkes this afternoon in
the strictest confidence that Ashley’s to marry Miss Melanie. It’s to be
announced tomorrow.”
Scarlett’s hand fell from his arm. So it was true!
A pain slashed at her heart as savagely as a wild animal’s fangs. Through
it all, she felt her father’s eyes on her, a little pitying, a little annoyed at
being faced with a problem for which he knew no answer. He loved
Scarlett, but it made him uncomfortable to have her forcing her childish
problems on him for a solution. Ellen knew all the answers. Scarlett should
have taken her troubles to her.
“Is it a spectacle you’ve been making of yourself—of all of us?” he
bawled, his voice rising as always in moments of excitement. “Have you
been running after a man who’s not in love with you, when you could have
any of the bucks in the County?”

Anger and hurt pride drove out some of the pain.
“I haven’t been running after him. It—it just surprised me.”
“It’s lying you are!” said Gerald, and then, peering at her stricken face,
he added in a burst of kindliness: “I’m sorry, daughter. But after all, you are
nothing but a child and there’s lots of other beaux.”
“Mother was only fifteen when she married you, and I’m sixteen,” said
Scarlett, her voice muffled.
“Your mother was different,” said Gerald. “She was never flighty like
you. Now come, daughter, cheer up, and I’ll take you to Charleston next
week to visit your Aunt Eulalie and, what with all the hullabaloo they are
having over there about Fort Sumter, you’ll be forgetting about Ashley in a
week.”
“He thinks I’m a child,” thought Scarlett, grief and rage choking
utterance, “and he’s only got to dangle a new toy and I’ll forget my bumps.”
“Now, don’t be jerking your chin at me,” warned Gerald. “If you had any
sense you’d have married Stuart or Brent Tarleton long ago. Think it over,
daughter. Marry one of the twins and then the plantations will run together
and Jim Tarleton and I will build you a fine house, right where they join, in
that big pine grove and—”
“Will you stop treating me like a child!” cried Scarlett. “I don’t want to
go to Charleston or have a house or marry the twins. I only want—” She
caught herself but not in time.
Gerald’s voice was strangely quiet and he spoke slowly as if drawing his
words from a store of thought seldom used.
“It’s only Ashley you’re wanting, and you’ll not be having him. And if
he wanted to marry you, ’twould be with misgivings that I’d say Yes, for all
the fine friendship that’s between me and John Wilkes.” And, seeing her
startled look, he continued: “I want my girl to be happy and you wouldn’t
be happy with him.”
“Oh, I would! I would!”
“That you would not, daughter. Only when like marries like can there
be any happiness.”
Scarlett had a sudden treacherous desire to cry out, “But you’ve been
happy, and you and Mother aren’t alike,” but she repressed it, fearing that
he would box her ears for her impertinence.

“Our people and the Wilkes are different,” he went on slowly, fumbling
for words. “The Wilkes are different from any of our neighbors—different
from any family I ever knew. They are queer folk, and it’s best that they
marry their cousins and keep their queerness to themselves.”
“Why, Pa, Ashley is not—”
“Hold your whist, Puss! I said nothing against the lad, for I like him.
And when I say queer, it’s not crazy I’m meaning. He’s not queer like the
Calverts who’d gamble everything they have on a horse, or the Tarletons
who turn out a drunkard or two in every litter, or the Fontaines who are
hot-headed little brutes and after murdering a man for a fancied slight.
That kind of queerness is easy to understand for sure, and but for the grace
of God Gerald O’Hara would be having all those faults! And I don’t mean
that Ashley would run off with another woman, if you were his wife, or
beat you. You’d be happier if he did, for at least you’d be understanding
that. But he’s queer in other ways, and there’s no understanding him at all.
I like him, but it’s neither heads nor tails I can make of most he says. Now,
Puss, tell me true, do you understand his folderol about books and poetry
and music and oil paintings and such foolishness?”
“Oh, Pa,” cried Scarlett impatiently, “if I married him, I’d change all
that!”
“Oh, you would, would you now?” said Gerald testily, shooting a sharp
look at her. “Then it’s little enough you are knowing of any man living, let
alone Ashley. No wife has ever changed a husband one whit, and don’t you
be forgetting that. And as for changing a Wilkes—God’s nightgown,
daughter! The whole family is that way, and they’ve always been that way.
And probably always will. I tell you they’re born queer. Look at the way
they go tearing up to New York and Boston to hear operas and see oil
paintings. And ordering French and German books by the crate from the
Yankees! And there they sit reading and dreaming the dear God knows
what, when they’d be better spending their time hunting and playing poker
as proper men should.”
“There’s nobody in the County sits a horse better than Ashley,” said
Scarlett, furious at the slur of effeminacy flung on Ashley, “nobody except
maybe his father. And as for poker, didn’t Ashley take two hundred dollars
away from you just last week in Jonesboro?”

“The Calvert boys have been blabbing again,” Gerald said resignedly,
“else you’d not be knowing the amount. Ashley can ride with the best and
play poker with the best—that’s me, Puss! And I’m not denying that when
he sets out to drink he can put even the Tarletons under the table. He can
do all those things, but his heart’s not in it. That’s why I say he’s queer.”
Scarlett was silent and her heart sank. She could think of no defense for
this last, for she knew Gerald was right. Ashley’s heart was in none of the
pleasant things he did so well. He was never more than politely interested
in any of the things that vitally interested every one else.
Rightly interpreting her silence, Gerald patted her arm and said
triumphantly: “There now, Scarlett! You admit ’tis true. What would you
be doing with a husband like Ashley? ’Tis moonstruck they all are, all the
Wilkes.” And then, in a wheedling tone: “When I was mentioning the
Tarletons the while ago, I wasn’t pushing them. They’re fine lads, but if it’s
Cade Calvert you’re setting your cap after, why, ’tis the same with me. The
Calverts are good folk, all of them, for all the old man marrying a Yankee.
And when I’m gone— Whist, darlin’, listen to me! I’ll leave Tara to you
and Cade—”
“I wouldn’t have Cade on a silver tray,” cried Scarlett in fury. “And I
wish you’d quit pushing him at me! I don’t want Tara or any old plantation.
Plantations don’t amount to anything when—”
She was going to say “when you haven’t the man you want,” but Gerald,
incensed by the cavalier way in which she treated his proffered gift, the
thing which, next to Ellen, he loved best in the whole world, uttered a
roar.
“Do you stand there, Scarlett O’Hara, and tell me that Tara—that land
—doesn’t amount to anything?”
Scarlett nodded obstinately. Her heart was too sore to care whether or
not she put her father in a temper.
“Land is the only thing in the world that amounts to anything,” he
shouted, his thick, short arms making wide gestures of indignation, “for ’tis
the only thing in this world that lasts, and don’t you be forgetting it! ’Tis
the only thing worth working for, worth fighting for—worth dying for.”
“Oh, Pa,” she said disgustedly, “you talk like an Irishman!”
“Have I ever been ashamed of it? No, ’tis proud I am. And don’t be
forgetting that you are half Irish, Miss! And to anyone with a drop of Irish

blood in them the land they live on is like their mother. ’Tis ashamed of
you I am this minute. I offer you the most beautiful land in the world—
saving County Meath in the Old Country—and what do you do? You
sniff!”
Gerald had begun to work himself up into a pleasurable shouting rage
when something in Scarlett’s woebegone face stopped him.
“But there, you’re young. ’Twill come to you, this love of land. There’s
no getting away from it, if you’re Irish. You’re just a child and bothered
about your beaux. When you’re older, you’ll be seeing how ’tis…. Now, do
you be making up your mind about Cade or the twins or one of Evan
Munroe’s young bucks, and see how fine I turn you out!”
“Oh, Pa!”
By this time, Gerald was thoroughly tired of the conversation and
thoroughly annoyed that the problem should be upon his shoulders. He felt
aggrieved, moreover, that Scarlett should still look desolate after being
offered the best of the County boys and Tara, too. Gerald liked his gifts to
be received with clapping of hands and kisses.
“Now, none of your pouts, Miss. It doesn’t matter who you marry, as long
as he thinks like you and is a gentleman and a Southerner and prideful. For
a woman, love comes after marriage.”
“Oh, Pa, that’s such an Old Country notion!”
“And a good notion it is! All this American business of running around
marrying for love, like servants, like Yankees! The best marriages are when
the parents choose for the girl. For how can a silly piece like yourself tell a
good man from a scoundrel? Now, look at the Wilkes. What’s kept them
prideful and strong all these generations? Why, marrying the likes of
themselves, marrying the cousins their family always expects them to
marry.”
“Oh,” cried Scarlett, fresh pain striking her as Gerald’s words brought
home the terrible inevitability of the truth. Gerald looked at her bowed
head and shuffled his feet uneasily.
“It’s not crying you are?” he questioned, fumbling clumsily at her chin,
trying to turn her face upward, his own face furrowed with pity.
“No,” she cried vehemently, jerking away.
“It’s lying you are, and I’m proud of it. I’m glad there’s pride in you, Puss.
And I want to see pride in you tomorrow at the barbecue. I’ll not be having

the County gossiping and laughing at you for mooning your heart out about
a man who never gave you a thought beyond friendship.”
“He did give me a thought,” thought Scarlett, sorrowfully in her heart.
“Oh, a lot of thoughts! I know he did. I could tell. If I’d just had a little
longer, I know I could have made him say— Oh, if it only wasn’t that the
Wilkes always feel that they have to marry their cousins!”
Gerald took her arm and passed it through his.
“We’ll be going in to supper now, and all this is between us. I’ll not be
worrying your mother with this—nor do you do it, either. Blow your nose,
daughter.”
Scarlett blew her nose on her torn handkerchief, and they started up the
dark drive arm in arm, the horse following slowly. Near the house, Scarlett
was at the point of speaking again when she saw her mother in the dim
shadows of the porch. She had on her bonnet, shawl and mittens, and
behind her was Mammy, her face like a thundercloud, holding in her hand
the black leather bag she used in doctoring the slaves. Mammy’s lips were
large and pendulous and, when indignant, she could push out her lower
one to twice its normal length. It was pushed out now, and Scarlett knew
that Mammy was seething over something of which she did not approve.
“Mr. O’Hara,” called Ellen as she saw the two coming up the driveway—
Ellen belonged to a generation that was formal even after seventeen years
of wedlock and the bearing of six children—“Mr. O’Hara, there is illness at
the Slattery house. Emmie’s baby has been born and is dying and must be
baptized. I am going there with Mammy to see what I can do.”
Her voice was raised questioningly, as though she hung on Gerald’s
assent to her plan, a mere formality but one dear to the heart of Gerald.
“In the name of God!” blustered Gerald. “Why should those white trash
take you away just at your supper hour and just when I’m wanting to tell
you about the war talk that’s going on in Atlanta! Go, Mrs. O’Hara. You’d
not rest easy on your pillow the night if there was trouble abroad and you
not there to help.”
“She doan never git no res’ on her piller fer hoppin’ up at night time
nursin’ niggers an’ po’ w’ite trash dat could ten’ to deyseff,” grumbled
Mammy in a monotone as she went down the stairs toward the carriage
which was waiting in the side drive.

“Take my place at the table, dear,” said Ellen, patting Scarlett’s cheek
softly with a mittened hand.
In spite of her choked-back tears, Scarlett thrilled to the never-failing
magic of her mother’s touch, to the faint fragrance of lemon verbena sachet
that came from her rustling silk dress. To Scarlett, there was something
breath-taking about Ellen O’Hara, a miracle that lived in the house with
her and awed her and charmed and soothed her.
Gerald helped his wife into the carriage and gave orders to the
coachman to drive carefully. Toby, who had handled Gerald’s horses for
twenty years, pushed out his lips in mute indignation at being told how to
conduct his own business. Driving off, with Mammy beside him, each was a
perfect picture of pouting African disapproval.
“If I didn’t do so much for those trashy Slatterys that they’d have to pay
money for elsewhere,” fumed Gerald, “they’d be willing to sell me their
miserable few acres of swamp bottom, and the County would be well rid of
them.” Then, brightening, in anticipation of one of his practical jokes:
“Come, daughter, let’s go tell Pork that instead of buying Dilcey, I’ve sold
him to John Wilkes.”
He tossed the reins of his horse to a small pickaninny standing near and
started up the steps. He had already forgotten Scarlett’s heartbreak and his
mind was only on plaguing his valet. Scarlett slowly climbed the steps after
him, her feet leaden. She thought that, after all, a mating between herself
and Ashley could be no queerer than that of her father and Ellen Robillard
O’Hara. As always, she wondered how her loud, insensitive father had
managed to marry a woman like her mother, for never were two people
further apart in birth, breeding and habits of mind.