第110章

Somehow it would come out all right when the war was over. If Ashley loved her so much, he’d find a way. She’d make him find a way. And with every day that passed, she became more sure in her own mind of his devotion, more certain he would arrange matters satisfactorily when the Yankees were finally beaten. Of course, he had said the Yankees “had” them. Scarlett thought that was just foolishness. He had been tired and upset when he said it. But she hardly cared whether the Yankees won or not. The thing that mattered was for the war to finish quickly and for Ashley to come home.

Then, when the sleets of March were keeping everyone indoors, the hideous blow fell. Melanie, her eyes shining with joy, her head ducked with embarrassed pride, told her she was going to have a baby.

“Dr. Meade says it will be here in late August or September,” she said. “I’ve thought—but I wasn’t sure till today. Oh, Scarlett, isn’t it wonderful? I’ve so envied you Wade and so wanted a baby. And I was so afraid that maybe I wasn’t ever going to have one and, darling, I want a dozen!”

Scarlett had been combing her hair, preparing for bed, when Melanie spoke and she stopped, the comb in mid-air.

“Dear God!” she said and, for a moment, realization did not come. Then there suddenly leaped to her mind the closed door of Melanie’s bedroom and a knifelike pain went through her, a pain as fierce as though Ashley had been her own husband and had been unfaithful to her. A baby. Ashley’s baby. Oh, how could he, when he loved her and not Melanie?

“I know you’re surprised,” Melanie rattled on, breathlessly. “And isn’t it too wonderful? Oh, Scarlett, I don’t know how I shall ever write Ashley! It wouldn’t be so embarrassing if I could tell him or—or—well, not say anything and just let him notice gradually, you know—”

“Dear God!” said Scarlett, almost sobbing, as she dropped the comb and caught at the marble top of the dresser for support.

“Darling, don’t look like that! You know having a baby isn’t so bad. You said so yourself. And you mustn’t worry about me, though you are sweet to be so upset. Of course, Dr. Meade said I was—was,” Melanie blushed, “quite narrow but that perhaps I shouldn’t have any trouble and— Scarlett, did you write Charlie and tell him when you found out about Wade, or did your mother do it or maybe Mr. O’Hara? Oh, dear, if I only had a mother to do it! I just don’t see how—”

“Hush!” said Scarlett, violently. “Hush!”

“Oh, Scarlett, I’m so stupid! I’m sorry. I guess all happy people are selfish. I forgot about Charlie, just for the moment—”

“Hush!” said Scarlett again, fighting to control her face and make her emotions quiet. Never, never must Melanie see or suspect how she felt.

Melanie, the most tactful of women, had tears in her eyes at her own cruelty. How could she have brought back to Scarlett the terrible memories of Wade being born months after poor Charlie was dead? How could she have been so thoughtless?

“Let me help you undress, dearest,” she said humbly. “And I’ll rub your head for you.”

“You leave me alone,” said Scarlett, her face like stone. And Melanie, bursting into tears of self-condemnation, fled the room, leaving Scarlett to a tearless bed, with wounded pride, disillusionment and jealousy for bedfellows.

She thought that she could not live any longer in the same house with the woman who was carrying Ashley’s child, thought that she would go home to Tara, home, where she belonged. She did not see how she could ever look at Melanie again and not have her secret read in her face. And she arose the next morning with the fixed intention of packing her trunk immediately after breakfast. But, as they sat at the table, Scarlett silent and gloomy, Pitty bewildered and Melanie miserable, a telegram came.

It was to Melanie from Ashley’s body servant, Mose.

“I have looked everywhere and I can’t find him. Must I come home?”

No one knew what it meant but the eyes of the three women went to one another, wide with terror, and Scarlett forgot all thoughts of going home. Without finishing their breakfasts they drove down to telegraph Ashley’s colonel, but even as they entered the office, there was a telegram from him.

“Regret to inform you Major Wilkes missing since scouting expedition three days ago. Will keep you informed.”

It was a ghastly trip home, with Aunt Pitty crying into her handkerchief, Melanie sitting erect and white and Scarlett slumped, stunned in the corner of the carriage. Once in the house, Scarlett stumbled up the stairs to her bedroom and, clutching her Rosary from the table, dropped to her knees and tried to pray. But the prayers would not come. There only fell on her an abysmal fear, a certain knowledge that God had turned His face from her for her sin. She had loved a married man and tried to take him from his wife, and God had punished her by killing him. She wanted to pray but she could not raise her eyes to Heaven. She wanted to cry but the tears would not come. They seemed to flood her chest, and they were hot tears that burned under her bosom, but they would not flow.

Her door opened and Melanie entered. Her face was like a heart cut from white paper, framed against black hair, and her eyes were wide, like those of a frightened child lost in the dark.

“Scarlett,” she said, putting out her hands. “You must forgive me for what I said yesterday, for you’re—all I’ve got now. Oh, Scarlett, I know my darling is dead!”

Somehow, she was in Scarlett’s arms, her small breasts heaving with sobs, and somehow they were lying on the bed, holding each other close, and Scarlett was crying too, crying with her face pressed close against Melanie’s, the tears of one wetting the cheeks of the other. It hurt so terribly to cry, but not so much as not being able to cry. Ashley is dead—dead, she thought, and I have killed him by loving him! Fresh sobs broke from her, and Melanie somehow feeling comfort in her tears tightened her arms about her neck.

“At least,” she whispered, “at least—I’ve got his baby.”