第159章

He paused again, as if too tired to go on. His stubbly chin sank heavily in loose folds of flesh on his chest With an effort he spoke again.

They camped all round the house, everywhere, in the cotton, in the corn. The pasture was blue with them. That night there were a thousand campfires. They tore down the fences and burned them to cook with and the barns and the stables and the smokehouse. They killed the cows and the hogs and the chickens—even my turkeys.” Gerald’s precious turkeys. So they were gone. They took things, even the pictures—some of the furniture, the china—”

“The silver?”

“Pork and Mammy did something with the silver—put it in the well—but I’m not remembering now,” Gerald’s voice was fretful. “Then they fought the battle from here—from Tara—there was so much noise, people galloping up and stamping about. And later the cannon at Jonesboro—it sounded like thunder—even the girls could hear it, sick as they were, and they kept saying over and over: ‘Papa, make it stop thundering.’ ”

“And—and Mother? Did she know Yankees were in the house?”

“She—never knew anything.”

“Thank God,” said Scarlett. Mother was spared that. Mother never knew, never heard the enemy in the rooms below, never heard the guns at Jonesboro, never learned that the land which was part of her heart was under Yankee feet.

“I saw few of them for I stayed upstairs with the girls and your mother. I saw the young surgeon mostly. He was kind, so kind, Scarlett. After he’d worked all day with the wounded, he came and sat with them. He even left some medicine. He told me when they moved on that the girls would recover but your mother— She was so frail, he said—too frail to stand it all. He said she had undermined her strength. …”

In the silence that fell. Scarlett saw her mother as she must have been in those last days, a thin power of strength in Tara, nursing, working, doing without sleep and food that the others might rest and eat.

“And then, they moved on. Then, they moved on.”

He was silent for a long time and then fumbled at her hand.

“It’s glad I am you are home,” he said simply.

There was a scraping noise on the back porch. Poor Pork, trained for forty years to clean his shoes before entering the house, did not forget, even in a time like this. He came in, carefully carrying two gourds, and the strong smell of dripping spirits entered before him.

“Ah spilt a plen’y, Miss Scarlett. It’s pow’ful hard ter po’ outer a bung hole inter a go’de.”

“That’s quite all right, Pork, and thank you.” She took the wet gourd dipper from him, her nostrils wrinkling in distaste at the reek.

“Drink this, Father,” she said, pushing the whisky in its strange receptacle into his hand and taking the second gourd of water from Pork. Gerald raised it, obedient as a child, and gulped noisily. She handed the water to him but he shook his head.

As she took the whisky from him and held it to her mouth, she saw his eyes follow her, a vague stirring of disapproval in them.

“I know no lady drinks spirits,” she said briefly. “But today I’m no lady, Pa, and there is work to do tonight.”

She tilted the dipper, drew a deep breath and drank swiftly. The hot liquid burned down her throat to her stomach, choking her and bringing tears to her eyes. She drew another breath and raised it again.

“Katie Scarlett,” said Gerald, the first note of authority she had heard in his voice since her return, “that is enough. You’re not knowing spirits and they will be making you tipsy.”

“Tipsy?” She laughed an ugly laugh. “Tipsy? I hope it makes me drunk. I would like to be drunk and forget all of this.”

She drank again, a slow train of warmth lighting in her veins and stealing through her body until even her finger tips tingled. What a blessed feeling, this kindly fire. It seemed to penetrate even her ice-locked heart and strength came coursing back into her body.’ Seeing Gerald’s puzzled hurt face, she patted his knee again and managed an imitation of the pert smile he used to love.

“How could it make me tipsy, Pa? I’m your daughter. Haven’t I inherited the steadiest head in Clayton County?”

He almost smiled into her tired face. The whisky was bracing him too. She handed it back to him.

“Now you’re going to take another drink and then I am going to take you upstairs and put you to bed.”

She caught herself. Why, this was the way she talked to Wade—she should not address her father like this. It was disrespectful. But he hung on her words.

“Yes, put you to bed,” she added lightly, “and give you another drink—maybe all the dipper and make you go to sleep. You need sleep and Katie Scarlett is here, so you need not worry about anything. Drink.”

He drank again obediently and, slipping her arm through his, she pulled him to his feet“Pork. …”

Pork took the gourd in one hand and Gerald’s arm in the other. Scarlett picked up the flaring candle and the three walked slowly into the dark hall and up the winding steps toward Gerald’s room.

The room where Suellen and Carreen lay mumbling and tossing on the same bed stank vilely with the smell of the twisted rag burning in a saucer of bacon fat, which provided the only light. When Scarlett first opened the door the thick atmosphere of the room, with all windows closed and the air reeking with sick-room odors, medicine smells and stinking grease, almost made her faint. Doctors might say that fresh air was fatal in a sick room but if she were to sit here, she must have air or die. She opened the three windows, bringing in the smell of oak leaves and earth, but the fresh air could do little toward dispelling the sickening odors which had accumulated for weeks in this close room.

Carreen and Suellen, emaciated and white, slept brokenly and awoke to mumble with wide, staring eyes in the tall four-poster bed where they had whispered together in better, happier days. In the corner of the room was an empty bed, a narrow French Empire bed with curling head and foot, a bed which Ellen had brought from Savannah. This was where Ellen had lain.