“Good-by. I’ll be over this afternoon,” called Mrs. Meade. “And you tell Pitty for me that if you aren’t on my committee, she’s going to be in a worse state.”
The houses were farther apart now, and leaning out Scarlett saw the red brick and slate roof of Miss Pittypat’s house. It was almost the last house on the north side of town. On the front steps stood two women in black. They were Miss Pittypat and Melanie. And Scarlett realized that the fly in the ointment [29]of Atlanta would be this slight little person in black dress and a loving smile of welcome and happiness on her heart-shaped face.
When a Southerner packed a trunk and traveled twenty miles for a visit, the visit was seldom of shorter duration than a month, usually much longer. Southerners were as enthusiastic visitors as they were hosts, and there was nothing unusual in relatives coming to spend the Christmas holidays and remaining until July. Visitors added excitement and variety to the slow-moving Southern life and they were always welcome.
So Scarlett had come to Atlanta with no idea as to how long she would remain. If her stay was pleasant, she would remain indefinitely. But as soon as she had arrived, Aunt Pitty and Melanie began a campaign to make her home permanently with them. They brought up every possible argument. They were lonely and often frightened at night in the big house, and she was so brave she gave them courage. She was so charming that she cheered them in their sorrow. Now that Charles was dead, her place was with his relatives. Besides, half the house now belonged to her, through Charles’ will. Last, the Confederacy needed every pair of hands for sewing, knitting, bandage rolling and nursing the wounded.
Charles’ Uncle Henry Hamilton, who lived in bachelor state at the Atlanta Hotel near the depot, also talked seriously to her on this subject. He liked Scarlett immediately because, he said, he could see that she had sense. He was trustee, not only of Pitty’s and Melanie’s estates, but also of that left Scarlett by Charles. It came to Scarlett as a pleasant surprise that she was now a well-to-do young woman, for Charles had not only left her half of Aunt Pitty’s house but farm lands and town property as well. And the stores and warehouses along the railroad track near the depot, which were part of her inheritance, had tripled in value since the war began.
As for Uncle Peter, he took it for granted[30] that Scarlett had come to stay. To all these arguments, Scarlett smiled but said nothing, as now that she was away from Tara, she missed it very much. For the first time, she realized what Gerald had meant when he said that the love of the land was in her blood.
Gradually, Scarlett came back to herself, and almost before she realized it her spirits rose to normal. She was only seventeen, she had superb health and energy, and Charles’ people did their best to make her happy. They not only admired her high-spirits, her figure, her tiny hands and feet, her white skin, but they said so frequently, petting, hugging and kissing her to emphasize their loving words.
Scarlett basked in the compliments. No one at Tara had ever said so many charming things about her.
All in all, life went on as happily as was possible under the circumstances. Atlanta was more interesting than Savannah or Charleston or Tara and it offered so many strange war-time occupations she had little time to think or mope. But, sometimes, when she blew out the candle, she sighed and thought: “If only Ashley wasn’t married! If only I didn’t have to nurse in that hospital! Oh, if only I could have some beaux!”
She had immediately hated nursing but she could not escape this duty because she was on both Mrs. Meade’s and Mrs. Merriwether’s committees. And they would have been shocked to know how slight an interest in the war she had. Four mornings a week she spent in the sweltering, stinking hospital. Except for the ever-present worry that Ashley might be killed, the war interested her not at all, and nursing was something she did simply because she didn’t know how to get out of it.
Certainly there was nothing romantic about nursing. To her, it meant groans, delirium, death and smells.
Melanie, however, did not seem to mind the smells or the wounds. And where the wounded could see her, she was gentle, sympathetic and cheerful, and the men in the hospitals called her an angel of mercy[31].
On three afternoons a week Scarlett had to attend sewing circles and bandage-rolling committees of Melanie’s friends. The girls who had all known Charles were very kind to her at these gatherings but treated her, as if she were old and finished. How unfair that everyone should think her heart was in the grave when it wasn’t at all! It was in Virginia with Ashley!
But in spite of these discomforts, Atlanta pleased her very well. And her visit lengthened as the weeks went by.
Chapter IX
Scarlett sat in the window of her bedroom that midsummer morning and watched the wagons and carriages full of girls, soldiers and chaperons ride gaily out Peachtree road in search of decorations for the bazaar which was to be held that evening for the benefit of the hospitals. Girls in flowered cotton dresses, elderly ladies smiling in carriages, convalescents from the hospitals, officers on horseback – everybody was going to have a picnic. Everybody, thought Scarlett, sadly, except me.
It simply wasn’t fair. She had worked twice as hard as any girl in town, getting things ready for the bazaar. She had knitted socks and afghans and mufflers. And she had embroidered half a dozen sofa-pillow cases with the Confederate flag on them. Yesterday she had worked until she was worn out. Under the supervision of the Committee, this was hard work and no fun at all. Oh, it wasn’t fair that she should have a dead husband and be out of everything that was pleasant. She tried not to smile and wave too enthusiastically to the men she knew best, but it was hard to hide her dimples, hard to look as though her heart were in the grave – when it wasn’t.
Pittypat entered the room and jerked her away from the window unceremoniously.
“Have you lost your mind, honey, waving at men out of your bedroom window? I declare, Scarlett, I’m shocked! What would your mother say?”
“Well, they didn’t know it was my bedroom.”
“Honey, you mustn’t do things like that. Everybody will be talking about you and saying you are fast.”
“Well, I’m sorry, Auntie! I forgot it was my bedroom window.
I won’t do it again – I – I just wanted to see them go by. I wish I was going.”
“Honey!”
“Well, I do. I’m so tired of sitting at home.”
“Scarlett, promise me you won’t say things like that. People would talk so. They’d say you didn’t have the proper respect for poor Charlie —”
“Oh, Auntie, don’t cry!” And Scarlett wailed out loud – not, as Pittypat thought, for poor Charlie but because the last sounds of the wheels and the laughter were dying away.
“Oh, now I’ve made you cry, too,” sobbed Pittypat, in a pleased way, fumbling for her handkerchief.
Melanie came running from her room: “Darlings! What is the matter?”
“Charlie!” sobbed Pittypat.
“Oh,” said Melly, “Be brave, dear. Don’t cry. Oh, Scarlett!”
Scarlett had thrown herself on the bed and was sobbing at the top of her voice, sobbing for her lost youth and the pleasures of youth.
“I might as well be dead!” she sobbed passionately.
“Dear, don’t cry! Try to think how much Charlie loved you and let that comfort you!”
“Oh, do go away and leave me alone!”
She sank her face into the pillow, and the two standing over her tiptoed out. She heard Melanie say to Pittypat:
“Aunt Pitty, I wish you wouldn’t speak of Charles to her. You know how it always affects her. We mustn’t make it harder for her.”
Scarlett kicked the coverlet in impotent rage.
She