She quickly brought order, dignity and grace into Gerald’s household, and she gave Tara a beauty it had never had before.
Ellen’s life was not easy, nor was it happy, but she did not expect life to be easy, and, if it was not happy, that was woman’s lot. It was a man’s world, and she accepted it as such. The man owned the property, and the woman managed it. The man took the credit for the management, and the woman praised his cleverness. Men were rough of speech and often drunk. Women put the drunkards to bed without bitter words. Men were rude and outspoken, women were always kind, gracious and forgiving.
She intended that her three daughters should be great ladies also. With her younger daughters, she had success. But Scarlett, child of Gerald, found the road to ladyhood hard.
To Mammy’s indignation, her preferred playmates were not her sisters or the well-brought-up Wilkes girls but the negro children on the plantation and the boys of the neighborhood, and she could climb a tree or throw a rock as well as any of them. But Ellen was more tolerant. She knew that from childhood playmates grew beaux in later years, and the first duty of a girl was to get married. She told herself that the child was merely full of life and there was still time in which to teach her the airs and graces of being attractive to men.
Despite several governesses and two years at the Fayetteville Female Academy, Scarlett’s education was sketchy, but no girl in the County danced more gracefully than she. She knew how to smile so that her dimples leaped, how to look up into a man’s face and then drop her eyes. Most of all she learned how to conceal from men a sharp intelligence beneath a face as sweet and bland as a baby’s.
Ellen tried to teach her the qualities that would make her truly desirable as a wife.
“You must be more gentle, dear,” Ellen told her daughter. “You must not interrupt gentlemen when they are speaking, even if you do think you know more about matters than they do. Gentlemen do not like forward girls.”
At sixteen, thanks to Mammy and Ellen, Scarlett looked sweet and charming, but she was, in reality, self-willed, vain and obstinate. She had the passions of her Irish father. And Mammy and Ellen sometimes feared they would not be able to conceal her wrong qualities until she had made a good match. But Scarlett intended to marry – and marry Ashley – and she was willing to appear shy and meek, if those were the qualities that attracted men. She knew only that if she did or said thus- and-so, men would immediately respond with the thus-and-so. It was like a mathematical formula and no more difficult, for mathematics was the one subject that had come easy to Scarlett in her schooldays.
If she knew little about men’s minds, she knew even less about the minds of women, for they interested her less. She had never had a girl friend, and she never felt any lack on that account. To her, all women, including her two sisters, were natural enemies hunting for the same prey – man.
All women with the one exception of her mother.
To her, Ellen represented the complete security. She knew that her mother was the source of justice, truth, loving tenderness and profound wisdom – a great lady.
Scarlett wanted very much to be like her mother. The only difficulty was that by being just and truthful and tender and unselfish, one missed most of the joys of life, and certainly many beaux. And life was too short to miss such pleasant things. Some day when she was married to Ashley and old, some day when she had time for it, she intended to be like Ellen. But, until then…
Chapter IV
That night at supper, Scarlett presided over the table in her mother’s absence, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the dreadful news she had heard about Ashley and Melanie. She wanted her mother to return from the Slatterys’, for, without her, she felt lost and alone.
Of course, she did not intend to tell her mother what was so heavy on her heart, for Ellen would be shocked to know that her daughter wanted a man who was engaged to another girl.
She rose suddenly from her chair at the sound of creaking wheels. Then there were excited negro voices and laughter in the darkness of the yard. There was some whispering, and Pork entered, his eyes rolling and his teeth showing.
“Mist’ Gerald,” he announced, the pride of a bridegroom all over his shining face, “you’ new ’oman done come.”
“New woman? I didn’t buy any new woman,” declared Gerald, pretending to glare.
“Yassah, you did, Mist’ Gerald!” answered Pork, giggling in excitement.
“Well, bring in the bride,” said Gerald, and Pork, turning, beckoned into the hall to his wife, newly arrived from the Wilkes plantation to become part of the household of Tara. She entered, and behind her, almost hidden by her skirts, came her twelveyear-old daughter.
Dilcey was tall and held herself straight. She might have been any age from thirty to sixty, so unlined was her immobile bronze face. Indian blood was seen in her features which showed the mixture of two races. When she spoke, she chose her words carefully.
“Good evenin’, young Misses. Mist’ Gerald, I is sorry to ’sturb you, but I wanted to come here and thank you agin fo’ buyin’ me and my chile.”
Dilcey turned to Scarlett and smiled. “Miss Scarlett, and I’m gwine give you my Prissy fo’ yo’ own maid.”
She pushed the little girl forward. She was a brown little creature, with skinny legs and a myriad of pigtails sticking out from her head. She had sharp eyes that missed nothing and a stupid look on her face.
“Thank you, Dilcey,” Scarlett replied, “but I’m afraid Mammy will have something to say about that. She’s been my maid ever since I was born.”
“Mammy getting ole,” said Dilcey. “She a good mammy, but you a young lady now and needs a good maid.”
“A little wench,” she thought, and said aloud: “Thank you, Dilcey, we’ll see about it when Mother comes home.”
The supper things cleared away, Gerald started his speech again predicting war with the Yankees. And Scarlett was in her thoughts about Ashley.
How could Pa talk on and on about Fort Sumter and the Yankees when he knew her heart was breaking? Wouldn’t Mother ever come home?
Then, wheels went sharply on the graveled driveway, and Ellen’s voice floated into the room. The whole group looked up eagerly as she entered, her face tired and sad.
“I am sorry I am so late,” said Ellen, slipping her shawl from the shoulders and handing it to Scarlett, whose cheek she patted in passing.
Gerald’s face had brightened as if by magic at her entrance.
“Is the brat baptized?” he questioned.
“Yes, and dead, poor thing,” said Ellen. “I feared Emmie would die too, but I think she will live.”
“Well, ’tis better so that the brat is dead, no doubt, poor fatherle ”
“It is late. We had better have prayers now,” interrupted Ellen.
It would be interesting to know who was the father of Emmie Slattery’s baby, but Scarlett knew she would never learn the truth of the matter if she waited to hear it from her mother. Scarlett suspected Jonas Wilkerson, for she had often seen him walking down the road with Emmie at nightfall. Jonas was a Yankee and a bachelor, and the fact that he was an overseer excluded any contact with the County social life. There was no family into which he could marry, no people with whom he could associate except the Slatterys and riff raff like them.
Scarlett sighed, for her curiosity was sharp.
Pork entered the room, bearing a plate, silver and a napkin. Ellen sat down in the chair which Gerald pulled out for her and four voices attacked her.
“Mother, the lace is loose on my new ball dress and I want to wear it tomorrow night at Twelve Oaks. Won’t you please