Melanie joined them on the veranda, the baby in her arms, and spreading an old blanket on the floor, set little Beau down to crawl. Since Ashley’s letter Melanie had divided her time between glowing, singing happiness and anxious longing. But happy or depressed, she was too thin, too white. She did her share of the work uncomplainingly but she was always ailing. Old Dr. Fontaine diagnosed her trouble as female complaint and concurred with Dr. Meade in saying she should never have had Beau. And he said frankly that another baby would kill her.
“When I was over to Fayetteville today,” said Will, “I found somethin’ right cute that I thought would interest you ladies and I brought it home.” He fumbled in his back pants pocket and brought out the wallet of calico, stiffened with bark, which Carreen had made him. From it, he drew a Confederate bill.
“If you think Confederate money is cute, Will, I certainly don’t,” said Scarlett shortly, for the very sight of Confederate money made her mad. “We’ve got three thousand dollars of it in Pa’s trunk this minute, and Mammy’s after me to let her paste it over the holes in the attic walls so the draft won’t get her. And I think I’ll do it. Then it’ll be good for something.”
“ ‘Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,’ ” said Melanie with a sad smile. “Don’t do that, Scarlett. Keep it for Wade. He’ll be proud of it some day.”
“Well, I don’t know nothin’ about imperious Caesar,” said Will, patiently, “but what I’ve got is in line with what you’ve just said about Wade, Miss Melly. It’s a poem, pasted on the back of this bill. I know Miss Scarlett ain’t much on poems but I thought this might interest her.”
He turned the bill over. On its back was pasted a strip of coarse brown wrapping paper, inscribed in pale homemade ink. Will cleared his throat and read slowly and with difficulty.
“The name is ‘Lines on the Back of a Confederate Note,’ ” he said.
“Representing nothing on God’s earth now
And naught in the waters below it—
As the pledge of nation that’s passed away
Keep it, dear friend, and show it.
Show it to those who will lend an ear
To the tale this trifle will tell
Of Liberty, born of patriots’ dream,
Of a storm-cradled nation that fell.”
“Oh, how beautiful! How touching!” cried Melanie. “Scarlett, you mustn’t give the money to Mammy to paste in the attic. It’s more than paper—just like this poem said: ‘The pledge of a nation that’s passed away!’ ”
“Oh, Melly, don’t be sentimental! Paper is paper and we’ve got little enough of it and I’m tired of hearing Mammy grumble about the cracks in the attic. I hope when Wade grows up I’ll have plenty of greenbacks to give him instead of Confederate trash.”
Will, who had been enticing little Beau across the blanket with the bill during this argument, looked up and, shading his eyes, glanced down the driveway.
“More company,” he said, squinting in the sun. “Another soldier.”
Scarlett followed his gaze and saw a familiar sight, a bearded man coming slowly up the avenue under the cedars, a man clad in a ragged mixture of blue and gray uniforms, head bowed tiredly, feet dragging slowly.
“I thought we were about through with soldiers,” she said. “I hope this one isn’t very hungry.”
“He’ll be hungry,” said Will briefly.
Melanie rose.
“I’d better tell Dilcey to set an extra plate,” she said, “and warn Mammy not to get the poor thing’s clothes off his back too abruptly and—”
She stopped so suddenly that Scarlett turned to look at her. Melanie’s thin hand was at her throat, clutching it as if it was torn with pain, and Scarlett could see the veins beneath the white skin throbbing swiftly. Her face went whiter and her brown eyes dilated enormously.
She’s going to faint, thought Scarlett, leaping to her feet and catching her arm.
But, in an instant, Melanie threw off her hand and was down the steps. Down the graveled path she flew, skimming lightly as a bird, her faded skirts streaming behind her, her arms outstretched. Then, Scarlett knew the truth, with the impact of a blow. She reeled back against an upright of the porch as the man lifted a face covered with a dirty blond beard and stopped still, looking toward the house as if he was too weary to take another step. Her heart leaped and stopped and then began racing, as Melly with incoherent cries threw herself into the dirty soldier’s arms and his head bent down toward hers. With rapture, Scarlett took two running steps forward but was checked when Will’s hand closed upon her skirt.
“Don’t spoil it,” he said quietly.
“Turn me loose, you fool! Turn me loose! It’s Ashley!”
He did not relax his grip.
“After all, he’s her husband, ain’t he?” Will asked calmly and, looking down at him in a confusion of joy and impotent fury, Scarlett saw in the quiet depths of his eyes understanding and pity.
Part Four
CHAPTER XXXI
ON A COLD January afternoon in 1866, Scarlett sat in the office writing a letter to Aunt Pitty, explaining in detail for the tenth time why neither she, Melanie nor Ashley could come back to Atlanta to live with her. She wrote impatiently because she knew Aunt Pitty would read no farther than the opening lines and then write her again, wailing: “But I’m afraid to live by myself!”
Her hands were chilled and she paused to rub them together and to scuff her feet deeper into the strip of old quilting wrapped about them. The soles of her slippers were practically gone and were reinforced with pieces of carpet. The carpet kept her feet off the floor but did little to keep them warm. That morning Will had taken the horse to Jonesboro to get him shod. Scarlett thought grimly that things were indeed at a pretty pass when horses had shoes and people’s feet were as bare as yard dogs’.
She picked up her quill to resume her writing but laid it down when she heard Will coming in at the back door. She heard the thump-thump of his wooden leg in the hall outside the office and then he stopped. She waited for a moment for him to enter and when he made no move she called to him. He came in, his ears red from the cold, his pinkish hair awry, and stood looking down at her, a faintly humorous smile on his lips.
“Miss Scarlett,” he questioned, “just how much cash money have you got?”
“Are you going to try to marry me for my money, Will?” she asked somewhat crossly.
“No, Ma’m. But I just wanted to know.”
She stared at him inquiringly. Will didn’t look serious, but then he never looked serious. However, she felt that something was wrong.
“I’ve got ten dollars in gold,” she said. “The last of that Yankee’s money.”
“Well, Ma’m, that won’t be enough.”
“Enough for what?”
“Enough for the taxes,” he answered and, stumping over to the fireplace, he leaned down and held his red hands to the blaze.
“Taxes?” she repeated. “Name of God, Will! We’ve already paid the taxes.”
“Yes’m. But they say you didn’t pay enough. I heard about it today over to Jonesboro.”
