“Why, Charles Hamilton, you handsome old thing, you! I’ll bet you came all the way down here from Atlanta just to break my poor heart!”
Charles almost stuttered, holding her warm little hands in his and looking into the dancing green eyes. This was the way girls talked to other boys but never to him. They always treated him like a younger brother. Even with Honey, who he was going to marry when he came into his property next fall, he was shy and silent. And here was Scarlett O’Hara teasing him about breaking her heart!
“Now, you wait right here till I come back, for I want to eat barbecue with you. And don’t you go off flirting with other girls, because I’m mighty jealous,” came the incredible words from red lips with a dimple on each side.
Tapping him lightly on the arm with her folded fan, she turned to start up the stairs and her eyes again fell on the man called Rhett Butler who stood alone a few feet away from Charles. Evidently he had overheard the whole conversation, for he grinned up at her.
In the bedroom, she found Cathleen Calvert standing before the mirror and biting her lips to make them look redder.
“Cathleen,” said Scarlett, “who is that nasty man downstairs named Butler?”
“My dear, he isn’t received!”
Scarlett digested this in silence, for she had never before been under the same roof with anyone who was not received. It was very exciting.
“What did he do?”
“Oh, Scarlett, he has the most terrible reputation. His name is Rhett Butler and he’s from Charleston and his folks are some of the nicest people there, but they won’t even speak to him. He was expelled from West Point. Imagine! And then there was that business about the girl he didn’t marry.”
“Do tell me!”
“Darling, don’t you know anything? Well, this Mr. Butler took a Charleston girl out buggy riding. And, my dear, they stayed out nearly all night and walked home finally, saying the horse had run away and they had gotten lost in the woods. And he refused to marry her the next day!”
“Oh,” said Scarlett.
“He said he hadn’t – er – done anything to her and he didn’t see why he should marry her. And, of course, her brother called him out, and Mr. Butler said he’d rather be shot than marry a stupid fool. And so they fought a duel and Mr. Butler shot the girl’s brother and he died, and Mr. Butler had to leave Charleston and now nobody receives him,” finished Cathleen triumphantly.
Scarlett sat on a high ottoman, under the shade of a huge oak in the back of the house. She had chosen to sit apart so she could gather about her as many men as possible.
She had never been more miserable in her life, for her plans of last night had failed utterly so far as Ashley was concerned. He had made no attempt to join the circle about her, in fact she had not had a word alone with him since arriving, or even spoken to him since their first greeting. He welcomed her when she came into the back garden, but Melanie had been on his arm then, Melanie who hardly came up to his shoulder.
She had smiled when she greeted Scarlett and told her how pretty her green dress was. Since then, Ashley had sat on a stool at Melanie’s feet and talked quietly with her, smiling the slow smile that Scarlett loved.
Scarlett tried to keep her eyes from these two but could not, and after each glance she redoubled her flirting with her cavaliers. But Ashley did not seem to notice her at all. He only looked up at Melanie and talked on, and Melanie looked down at him with an expression that she belonged to him.
So, Scarlett was miserable.
As her eyes wandered from Melanie, she caught the gaze of Rhett Butler, who was not mixing with the crowd but standing apart talking to John Wilkes. He had been watching her and when she looked at him he laughed outright. Scarlett had an uneasy feeling that this man who was not received was the only one present who knew what lay behind her wild gaiety and found that amusing. She could have clawed him with pleasure.
“If I can just live through this barbecue till this afternoon,” she thought, “all the girls will go upstairs to take naps to be fresh for tonight and I’ll stay downstairs and get to talk to Ashley. Surely he must have noticed how popular I am.” She had another hope: “Of course, he has to be attentive to Melanie because, after all, she is his cousin and she isn’t popular at all, and if he didn’t look out for her she’d just be a wallflower.”
Charles Hamilton was now firmly planted on her right. He held her fan in one hand and his untouched plate of barbecue in the other and stubbornly refused to meet the eyes of Honey. Scarlett took new courage and redoubled her efforts in the direction of Charles. It was a wonderful day for Charles, a dream day, and he had fallen in love with Scarlett with no effort at all.
When the last forkful of pork and chicken and mutton had been eaten, Scarlett hoped the time had come when India would rise and suggest that the ladies retire to the house. The barbecue was over and all were glad to have a rest while sun was at its height.
Conversation was dying out when everyone heard Gerald’s voice. Standing some little distance away from the barbecue tables, he was at the peak of an argument with John Wilkes.
“Pray for a peaceable settlement with the Yankees after we’ve fired on them at Fort Sumter? The South should show by arms that she cannot be insulted and that she is not leaving the Union by the Union’s kindness but by her own strength!”
“Oh, my God!” thought Scarlett. “He’s done it! Now, we’ll all sit here till midnight.”
In an instant, something electric went through the air. The men sprang from benches and chairs, voices raised to be heard above other voices. There had been no talk of politics or war all during the morning, because of Mr. Wilkes’ request that the ladies should not be bored. But now Gerald had bawled the words “Fort Sumter,” and every man forgot his host’s request.
“Of course we’ll fight —”
“Yankee thieves —”
“We could lick them in a month —”
“Why, one Southerner can lick twenty Yankees —”
“Teach them a lesson they won’t soon forget —”
“No, look how Mr. Lincoln insulted our Commissioners!”
“They want war; we’ll make them sick of war —”
And above all the voices, Gerald’s boomed. All Scarlett could hear was “States’ rights, by God!” shouted over and over. Gerald was having an excellent time, but not his daughter.
Secession, war – these words had become boring to Scarlett, but now she hated the sound of them, for they meant that the men would stand there for hours and she would have no chance to corner Ashley. Of course there would be no war and the men all knew it. They just loved to talk and hear themselves talk.
Charles Hamilton, finding himself alone with Scarlett, leaned closer and whispered a confession.
“Miss O’Hara – I – I had already decided that if we did fight, I’d go over to South Carolina and join a troop there.”
She could think of nothing to say and so merely looked at him, wondering why men were such fools as to think women interested in such matters.
“If I went – would – would you be sorry, Miss O’Hara?”
“I should cry into my pillow every night,” said Scarlett, meaning to be joking, but he took the statement at face value[19] and went red with pleasure.
“Would you pray for me?”
“What a fool!” thought Scarlett.
“Would you?”
“Oh – yes, indeed, Mr. Hamilton. Three Rosaries a night, at least!”
“Miss