Chapter 1 Scarlett's Jealousy

SCARLETT O'HARA was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father. But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were pale green without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted at the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward, cutting a startling oblique line in her magnolia-white skin—that skin so prized by Southern women and so carefully guarded with bonnet, veils and mittens against hot Georgia suns.

Seated with Stuart and Brent Tarleton in the cool shade of the porch of Tara, her father's plantation, that bright April afternoon of 1861, she made a pretty picture.

On either side of her, the twins lounged easily in their chairs, they were as much alike as two bolls of cotton. They had just been expelled from the University of Georgia, the fourth university that had thrown them out in two years; and their older brothers, Tom and Boyd, had come home with them, because they refused to remain at an institution where the twins were not welcome.

“I know you two don't care about being expelled, or Tom either,” she said,“But what about Boyd?”

“Oh, he can read law in Judge Parmalee's office over in Fayetteville,” answered Brent carelessly.“Besides, it doesn't matter much. We'd have had to come home before the term was out anyway.”

“Why?”

“The war, goose! The war's going to start any day, and you don't suppose any of us would stay in college with a war going on, do you?”

“You know there isn't going to be any war,” said Scarlett, bored. “It's all just talk. There won't be any war,and I'm tired of hearing about it.”

“Why, honey, of course there's going to be a war,” said Stuart.

Scarlett made a mouth of bored impatience.

“ If you say ‘war’ again, I'll go in the house.”

She meant what she said, for she could never long endure any conversation of which she was not the chief subject. But she smiled when she spoke, consciously deepening her dimple and fluttering her bristly black lashes as swiftly as butterflies' wings. The boys were enchanted , as she had intended them to be, and they hastened to apologize for boring her. They thought none the less of her for her lack of interest. Indeed, they thought more. War was men's business, not ladies', and they took her attitude as evidence of her femininity .

Having maneuvered them away from the boring subject of war, she went back with interest to their immediate situation.

“What did your mother say about you two being expelled again?”

The boys looked uncomfortable, recalling their mother's conduct three months ago when they had come home, by request, from the University of Virginia.

“Well,” said Stuart, “she hasn't had a chance to say anything yet. Tom and us left home early this morning before she got up, and Tom's laying out over at the Fontaines' while we came over here.”

“Didn't she say anything when you got home last night?”

“We were in luck last night. Just before we got home that new stallion Ma got in Kentucky last month was brought in, and the place was in a stew. When we got home , Ma was out in the stable with a sackful of sugar smoothing him down and doing it mighty well, too. So we went to bed, and this morning we got away before she could catch us. and left Boyd to handle her.”

“Do you suppose she'll hit Boyd?”

“Of course she won't hit Boyd. She never did beat Boyd much because he's the oldest and besides he's the runt of the litter,” said Stuart, proud of his six feet two. “That's why we left him at home to explain things to her.

“I hope it doesn't rain tomorrow,” said Scarlett. “It's rained nearly every day for a week. There's nothing worse than a barbecue turned into an indoor picnic.”

“Oh, it'll be clear tomorrow and hot as June,” said Stuart. “Look at Oat sunset I never saw one redder. You can always tell weather by sunsets.”

They looked out across the endless acres of Gerald O'Hara's newly plowed cotton fields toward the red horizon.

There was the click of china and the rattle of silver as Pork, the valet-butler of Tara, laid the table of supper.At these last sounds, the twins realized it was time they were starting home. But they were loath to face their mother and they lingered on the porch of Tara, momentarily expecting Scarlett to give them an invitation to supper.

“Look, honey. You've got to give me the first waltz and Stu the last one and you've got to eat supper with us.”

“If you'll promise, we'll tell you a secret,” said Stuart.

“What?” cried Scarlett, alert as a child at the word.

“Is it what we heard yesterday in Atlanta, Stu? If it is, you know we promised not to tell.”

“Well, Miss Pitty told us.”

“Miss Who?”

“You know, Ashley Wilkes' cousin who lives in Atlanta, Miss Pittypat Hamilton—Charles and Melanie Hamilton's aunt.”

“I do, and a sillier old lady I never met in all my life.”

“Well, when we were in Atlanta yesterday, waiting for the home train, her carriage went by the depot and she stopped and talked to us, and she told us there was going to be an engagement announced tomorrow night at the Wilkes ball.”

“Oh, I know about that,” said Scarlett in disappointment.That silly nephew of hers, Charlie Hamilton, and Honey Wilkes.”

“Do you think he's silly?” questioned Brent，“Last Christmas you sure let him buzz round you plenty.”

“I couldn't help him buzzing,” Scarlett shrugged negligently，“I think he's an awful sissy.”

“Besides, it isn't his engagement that's going to be announced,” said Stuart triumphantly . “It's Ashley's to Charlie's sister, Miss Melanie!”

Scarlett's face did not change but her lips went white—like a person who has received a stunning blow without warning and who, in the first moments of shock, does not realize what has happened. So still was her face as she stared at Stuart that he, never analytic, took it for granted that she was merely surprised and very interested.

“Miss Pitty told us they hadn't intended announcing it till next year, because Miss Melly hasn't been very well; but with all the war talk going around, everybody in both families thought it would be better to get married soon. So it's to be announced tomorrow night at the supper intermission. Now, Scarlett,we've told you the secret, so you've got to promise to eat supper with us.”

“Of course I will,” Scarlett said automatically .

“And all the waltzes?”

“All.”

“You're sweet! I'll bet the other boys will be hopping mad.”

“Le ‘t em be mad,” said Brent “. We two can handle’em. Look, Scarlett. Sit with us at the barbecue in the morning.”

“What?”

Stuart repeated his request.

“Of course.” The twins looked at each other jubilantly but with some surprise.

Filled with new enthusiasm by their success, they lingered on , talking about the barbecue and the ball and Ashley Wilkes and Melanie Hamilton, interrupting each other, making jokes and laughing at them, hinting broadly for invitations to supper. Some time had passed before they realized that Scarlett was having very little to say.The atmosphere had somehow changed. Sensing something they could not understand, battfled and annoyed by it, the twins struggled along for a while, and then rose reluctantly , looking at their watches.

⋯

When the twins left Scarlett standing on the porch of Tara and the last sound of flying hooves had died away, she went back to her chair like a sleepwalker.

Ashley to marry Melanie Hamilton! Oh, it couldn't be true! The twins were mistaken. No, Ashley couldn't be in love with Melanie, because—oh, she couldn't be mistaken!—because he was in love with her! She, Scarlett, was the one he loved—she knew it!

Mammy emerged from the hall, a huge old woman with the small, shrewd eyes of an elephant.

“Come on in de house, Miss Scarlett.”

“No, I want to sit here and watch the sunset. It's so pretty. You run get my shawl. Please, Mammy, and I'll sit here till Pa comes home.”Scarlett heard the stairs groan and she got softly to her feet. As she stood, hesitant , wondering where she could hide until the ache in her breast subsided a little, a thought came to her, bringing a small ray of hope. Her father had ridden over to Twelve Oaks, the Wilkes plantation, that afternoon to offer to buy Dilcey, the broad wife of his valet, Pork.

Surely, thought Scarlett, Pa will know whether this awful story is true.

Soon she was at the end of the driveway and out on the main road, but she did not stop until she had rounded a cu Flushed and breathing hard, she sat down on a stump to wait for her father.

“Oh, it can't be true!” she thought. “Oh, Ashley! Ashley!” True, he never made love to her, nor did the clear gray eyes ever glow with that hot light Scarlett knew so well in other men. And yet—and yet—she knew he loved her. She could not be mistaken about it.

She loved him and she wanted him and she did not understand him.

Why, only last week, when they were riding home at twilight from Fairhill, he had said: “Scarlett, I have something so important to tell you that I hardly know how to say it.”

She had cast down her eyes demurely, her heart beating with wild pleasure, thinking the happy moment had come. Then he had said: “Not now! We're nearly home and there isn't time. Oh, Scarlett, what a coward I am!” And putting spurs to his horse, he had raced her up the hill to Tara.

Scarlett, sitting on the stump, thought of those words which had made her so happy, and suddenly they took on another meaning, a hideous meaning. Suppose it was the news of his engagement he had intended to tell her! Oh, if Pa would only come home! She could not endure the suspense another moment. She had to wait much longer, Mammy would certainly come in search of her and bully her into the house.

Still there was no sign of Gerald on the quiet winding road. If But even as she strained her eyes down the darkening road, she heard a pounding of hooves at the bottom of the pasture hill and saw the horses and cows scatter in fright. Gerald O'Hara was coming home across country and at top speed.

Gerald did not see his daughter in the shadow of the trees, and he drew rein in the road, patting his horse's neck with approbation .

She laughed aloud. As she had intended, Gerald was startled by the sound; then he recognized her, and a look both sheepish and defiant came over his florid face.

Scarlett looked at her father in the fading light, and, without knowing why, she found it comforting to be in his presence.

“How are they all over at Twelve Oaks?”

“About as usual.”

“Did they say anything about the barbecue tomorrow?”

“Now that I think of it they did. Miss Melanie Hamilton, that's the name—she and her brother Charles have already come from Atlanta and—”

“Oh, so she did come?”

“She did, Come now, daughter, don't lag. Your mother will be hunting for us.”

Scarlett's heart sank at the news.

“Was Ashley there, too?”

“He was there and he asked most kindly after you, as did his sisters, and said they hoped nothing would keep you from the barbecue tomorrow. I'll warrant nothing will,” he said shrewdly. “And now, daughter, what's all this about you and Ashley?”

“There is nothing,” she said shortly, tugging at his arm.“Let's go in, Pa.”

“So now ’tis you wanting to go in,” he observed. “But here I'm going to stand till I'm understanding you. Now that I think of it ’tis strange you've been recently. Has he been trifling with you? Has he asked to marry you?”

“No,” she said shortly.

“Nor will he,” said Gerald.

Fury flamed in her, but Gerald waved her quiet with a hand.

“Hold your tongue, Miss! I had it from John Wilkes this afternoon in the strictest confidence that Ashley's to marry Miss Melanie. It's to be announced tomorrow.”

“Now, don't be jerking your chin at me,” warned Gerald.“If you had any sense you'd have married Stuart or Brent Tarleton long ago.”

“Will you stop treating me like a child!” cried Scarlett “. I don't want to go to Charleston or have a house or marry the twins. I only want—” She caught herself but not in time.

“It's only Ashley you're wanting, and you'll not be having him. And if he wanted to marry you,’twould be with misgivings that I'd say Yes, for the fine friendship that's between me and John Wilkes.” And, seeing her startled look, he continued: “I want my girl to be happy and you wouldn't be happy with him.”

“Oh, I would! I would!”

“That you would not, daughter. Only when like marries like can there be any happiness.”

Scarlett was silent and her heart sank.

Rightly interpreting her silence, Gerald patted her arm and said triumphantly: “There now, Scarlett! You admit ’tis true. What would you be doing with a husband like Ashley?‘Tis moonstruck they all are, all the Wilkes.” And then, in a wheedling tone: “When I was mentioning the Tarletons the while ago, I wasn't pushing them. They're fine lads, but if it's Cade Calvert you're setting your cap after, why, ’tis the same with me. The Calverts are good folk, all of them, for all the old man marrying a Yankee. And when I'm gone—Whist, darlin', listen to me! I'll leave Tara to you and Cade—”“I wouldn't have Cade on a silver tray,” cried Scarlett in fury. “And I wish you'd quit pushing him at me! I don't want Tara or any old plantation. Plantations don't amount to anything when—”

She was going to say “when you haven't the man you want” ,but Gerald, incensed by the cavalier way in which she treated his proffered gift, the thing which, next to Ellen, he loved best in the whole world uttered a roar.

“Do you stand there, Scarlett O'Hara, and tell me that Tara—that land—doesn't amount to anything?”Scarlett nodded obstinately. Her heart was too sore to care whether or not she put her father in a temper.

“Land is the only thing in the world that amounts to anything,” he shouted, his thick, short arms making wide gestures of indignation, “for it's the only thing in this world that lasts, and don't you be forgetting it! ’It's the only thing worth working for, worth fighting for—worth dying for.”

Gerald had begun to work himself up into a pleasurable shouting rage when something in Scarlett's woebegone face stopped him.

“Oh, Pa!”“It's not crying you are?” he questioned, fumbling clumsily at her chin, trying to turn her face upward, his own face furrowed with pity.

“No,” she cried vehemently , jerking away.

“It's lying you are, and I'm proud of it. I'm glad there's pride in you, Puss. And I want to see pride in you tomorrow at the barbecue.

Gerald took her arm and passed it through his.

“We'll be going in to supper now, and all this is between us. I'll not be worrying your mother with this—nor do you do it either. Blow your nose, daughter.”

ELLEN O'HARA was thirty-two years old, and, according to the standards of her day, she was a middle-aged woman, one who had borne six children and buried three. She was a tall woman, standing a head higher than her fiery little husband, but she moved with such quiet grace in her swaying hoops that the height attracted no attention to itself. Her neck, rising from the black taffeta sheath of her basque, was creamy-skinned, rounded and slender, and it seemed always tilted slightly backward by the weight of her luxuriant hair in its net at the back of her head. From her French mother, whose parents had fled Haiti in the Revolution of 1791, had come her slanting dark eyes, shadowed by inky lashes, and her black hair; and from her father, a soldier of Napoleon, she had her long straight nose and her square-cut jaw that was softened by the gentle curving of her cheeks. But only from life could Ellen's face have acquired its look of pride that had no haughtiness, its graciousness, its melancholy and its utter lack of humor.

She would have been a strikingly beautiful woman had there been any glow in her eyes, any responsive warmth in her smile or any spontaneity in her voice that fell with gentle melody on the ears of her family and her servants. She spoke in the soft slurring voice of the coastal Georgian, liquid of vowels, kind to consonants and with the barest trace of French accent. It was a voice never raised in command to a servant or reproof to a child but a voice that was obeyed instantly at Tara, where her husband's blustering and roaring were quietly disregarded.

As far back as Scarlett could remember, her mother had always been the same, her voice soft and sweet whether in praising or in reproving, her manner efficient and unruffled despite the daily emergencies of Gerald's turbulent household, her spirit always calm and her back unbowed, even in the deaths of her three baby sons.

⋯

Mother had always been just as she was, a pillar of strength, a fount of wisdom, the one person who knew the answers to everything.

Gerald had come to America from Ireland when he was twenty-one. He had come hastily, as many a better and worse Irishman before and since, with the clothes he had on his back, two shillings above his passage money and a price on his head that he felt was larger than his misdeed warranted. His two oldest brothers, James and Andrew, he hardly remembered, had come to America years before, after the discovery of a small arsenal of rifles buried under the O'Hara pigsty. Now they were successful merchants in Savannah, and it was to them that young Gerald was sent.

He liked the South, and he soon became, in his own opinion, a Southerner. There was much about the South—and Southerners Southerners—that he would never comprehend; but, with the wholeheartedness that was his nature, he adopted its ideas and customs, as he understood them, for his own—poker and horse racing, red-hot politics and the code duello, States' Rights and damnation to all Yankees, slavery and King Cotton, contempt for white trash and exaggerated courtesy to women. He even learned to chew tobacco. There was no need for him to acquire a good head for whisky, he had been born with one.But Gterald remained Gerald His habits of living and his ideas changed, but his manners he would not change, even had he been able to change them.

Gerald wanted to be a planter. With the deep hunger of an Irishman who has been a tenant on the lands his people once had owned and hunted, he wanted to see his own acres stretching green before his eyes. With a ruthless singleness of purpose, he desired his own house, his own plantation, his own horse, his own slaves. And here in this new country, safe from the twin perils of the land he had left—taxation that ate up crops and barns and the ever-present threat of sudden confiscation—he intended to have them. But having that ambition and bringing it to realization were two different matters, he discovered as time went by. Coastal Georgia was too firmly held by an entrenched aristocracy for him ever to hope to win the place he intended to have.

Then the hand of Fate and a hand of poker combinedto give him the plantation which he afterwards called Tara, and at the same time moved him out of the Coast into the upland country of north Georgia.

⋯

Gerald closed his eyes and, in the stillness of the unworked acres, he felt that he had come home. Here under his feet would rise a house of whitewashed brick. Across the road would be new rail fences, inclosing fat cattle and blooded horses, and the red earth that rolled down the hillside to the rich river bottom land would gleam white as eiderdown in the sun—cotton; acres and acres of cotton! The fortunes of the O'Haras would rise again.

He cleared the fields and planted cotton and borrowed more money from James and Andrew to buy more slaves. The O'Haras were a clannish tribe, clinging to one another in prosperity as well as in adversity, not for any overweening family affection but because they had learned through grim years that to survive a family must present an unbroken front to the world. They lent Gerald the money and, in the years that followed, the money came back to them with interest. Gradually the plantation widened out, as Gerald bought more acres lying near him, and in time the white house became a reality instead of a dream.

⋯

He had done it all, little, hard-headed , blustering Gerald.

Gerald, was on excellent terms with all his neighbors in the County, except the MacIntoshs whose land adjoined his on the left and the Slatterys whose meager three acres stretched on his right along the swamp bottoms between the river and John Wilkes' plantation. With all the rest of the County, Gerald was on terms of amity and some intimacy.

⋯

When Gerald was forty-three, so thickset of body and florid of face that he looked like a hunting squire out of a sporting print, it came to him that Tara, dear though it was, and the County folk, with their open hearts and open houses, were not enough. He wanted a wife.

He wanted a wife and he wanted children and, if he did not acquire them soon, it would be too late. But he was not going to marry just anyone, as Mr. Calvert had done, taking to wife the Yankee governess of his motherless children. His wife must be a lady and a lady of blood, with as many airs and graces as Mrs. Wilkes and the ability to manage Tara as well as Mrs. Wilkes ordered her own domain.

But there were two difficulties in the way of marriage into the County families. The first was the scarcity of girls of marriageable age. The second, and more serious one, was that Gerald was a “new man”, despite his nearly ten years residence, and a foreigner. No one knew anything about his family. While the society of up-country Georgia was not so impregnable as that of the Coast aristocrats, no family wanted a daughter to wed a man about whose grandfather nothing was known. Gerald knew that despite the genuine liking of the County men with whom he hunted, drank and talked politics there was hardly one whose daughter he could marry.

James and Andrew might have some advice to offer on this subject of marriage, and there might be daughters among their old friends who would both meet his requirements and find him acceptable as a husband. James and Andrew listened to his story patiently but they gave him little encouragement. They had no Savannah relatives to whom they might look for assistance , for they had been married when they came to America. And the daughters of their old friends had long since married and were raising small children of their own.

But they did their best for Gerald. James and Andrew were old men and they stood well in Savannah. They had many friends, and for a month they carried Gerald from home to home, to suppers, dances and picnics.

“There's only one who takes me eye,” Gerald said finally.“And she not even born when I landed here.”

“And who is it takes your eye?”

“Miss Ellen Robillard,” said Gerald, trying to speak casually, for the slightly tilting dark eyes of Ellen Robillard had taken more than his eye.

James spoke gently:

“Jerry, there's no girl in Savannah you'd have less chance of marrying. Her father is a Robillard, and those French are proud as Lucifer. And her mother—God rest her soul—was a very great lady.”

“I care not,” said Gerald heatedly. “Besides, her mother is dead, and old man Robillard likes me.”

“As a man, yes, but as a son-in-law, no.”

“The girl wouldn't have you anyway,” interposedAndrew，“She's been in love with that wild buck of a cousin of hers, Philippe Robillard, for a year now, despite her family being at her morning and night to give him up.”

“He's been gone to Louisiana this month now,” said Gerald.

“They'd rather have that breakneck cousin for her than you.”

Gerald himself never quite knew how it all came about. He only knew that a miracle had happened. And, for once in his life, he was utterly humble when Ellen, very white but very calm, put a light hand on his arm and said: “I will marry you, Mr. O'Hara.”

The thunderstruck Robillards knew the answer in part, but only Ellen and her mammy ever knew the whole story of the night when the girl sobbed till the dawn like a broken-hearted child and rose up in the morning a woman with her mind made up.

“I will do it. He is a kind man. I will do it or go into the convent at Charleston.” It was the threat of the conventthat finally won the assent of bewildered and heart-stricken Pierre Robillard. He was staunchly Presbyterian, even though his family were Catholic, and the thought of his daughter becoming a nun was even worse than that of her marrying Gerald O'Hara. After all, the man had nothing against him but a lack of family. So, Ellen, no longer Robillard, turned her back on Savannah, never to see it again, and with a middle-aged husband, Mammy, and twenty “house niggers”journeyed toward Tara.

The next year, their first child was born and they named her Katie Scarlett, after Gerald's mother. Gerald was disappointed, for he had wanted a son, but he nevertheless was pleased enough over his small black-haired daughter to serve rum to every slave at Tara and to get roaringly, happily drunk himself.

If Ellen had ever regretted her sudden decision to marry him, no one ever knew it, certainly not Gerald, who almost burst with pride whenever he looked at her. She had put Savannah and its memories behind her when she left that gently mannered city by the sea, and, from the moment of her arrival in the County, north Georgia was her home.

She became the best-loved neighbor in the County. She was a thrifty and kind mistress, a good mother and a devoted wife.

When Scarlett was a year old, and more healthy and vigorous than a girl baby had any right to be, in Mammy's opinion, Ellen's second child, named Susan Elinor, but always called Suellen, was born, and in due time came Carreen, listed in the family Bible as Caroline Irene. Then followed three little boys, each of whom died before he had learned to walk—three little boys who now lay under the twisted cedars in the burying ground a hundred yards from the house, beneath three stones, each bearing the name of“Gerald O'Hara, Jr.”

From the day when Ellen first came to Tara, the place had been transformed. If she was only fifteen years old, she was nevertheless ready for the responsibilities of the mistress of a plantation. Before marriage, young girls must be, above all other things, sweet, gentle, beautiful and ornamental, but, after marriage, they were expected to manage households that numbered a hundred people or more, white and black, and they were trained with that in view.

Ellen had been given this preparation for marriage which any well-brought-up young lady received, and she also had Mammy, who could galvanize the most shiftless negro into energy. 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.

She had been reared in the tradition of great ladies, which had taught her how to carry her burden and still retain her charm, and she intended that her three daughters should be great ladies also. With her younger daughters, she had success, for Suellen was so anxious to be attractive she lent an attentive and obedient ear to her mother's teachings, and Carreen was shy and easily led. But Scarlett, child of Gerald, found the road to ladyhood hard.

Ellen, by soft-voiced admonition, and Mammy, by constant carping, labored to inculcate in her the qualities that would make her truly desirable as a wife.

Between them, they taught her all that a gentlewoman should know, but she learned only the outward signs of gentility. The inner grace from which these signs should spring, she never learned nor did she see any reason for learning it. Appearances were enough, for the appearances of ladyhood won her popularity and that was all she wanted.

At sixteen, thanks to Mammy and Ellen, she looked sweet, charming and giddy, but she was, in reality, self-willed, vain and obstinate .

Just why men should be this way, she did not know. She only knew that such methods worked. It never interested her enough to try to think out the reason for it, for she knew nothing of the inner workings of any human being's mind, not even her own. She knew only that if she did or said thus-and-so, men would unerringly respond with the complementary 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 in pursuit of the same prey—man.

All women with the one exception of her mother.

Ellen O'Hara was different, and Scarlett regarded her as something holy and apart from all the rest of humankind. When Scarlett was a child, she had confused her mother with the Virgin Mary, and now that she was older she saw no reason for changing her opinion. To her, Ellen represented the utter security that only Heaven or a mother can give. She knew that her mother was the embodiment 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 ⋯

That night at supper, Scarlett went through the motions of presiding over the table in her mother's absence , but her mind was in a ferment over the dreadful news she had heard about Ashley and Melanie. Desperately she longed for her mother's 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 and grieved to know that a daughter of hers wanted a man who was engaged to another girl. But, in the depths of the first tragedy she had ever known, she wanted the very comfort of her mother's presence. She always felt secure when Ellen was by her, for there was nothing so bad that Ellen could not better it, simply by being there.

⋯

Ellen closed her eyes and began praying, her voice rising and falling, lulling and soothing. Heads bowed in the circle of yellow light as Ellen thanked God for the health and happiness of her home, her family and her negroes.

“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death.”

Despite her heartache and the pain of unshed tears, a deep sense of quiet and peace fell upon Scarlett as it always did at this hour.

She dropped her head upon her folded hands so that her mother could not see her face, and her thoughts went sadly back to Ashley. How could he be planning to marry Melanie when he really loved her, Scarlett? And when he knew how much she loved him? How could he deliberately break her heart?

Then, suddenly, an idea, shining and new, flashed like a comet through her brain.

“Why, Ashley hasn't an idea that I'm in love with him!”

She almost gasped aloud in the shock of its unexpectedness.

“How could he know? I've always acted so prissy and ladylike and touch-me-not around him he probably thinks I don't care a thing about him except as a friend. Yes, that's why he's never spoken! He thinks his love is hopeless. And that's why he's looked so—”

“He's been broken hearted because he thinks I'm in love with Brent or Stuart or Cade. And probably he thinks that if he can't have me, he might as well please his family and marry Melanie. But if he knew I did love him—”

Her volatile spirits shot up from deepest depression to excited happiness. If he knew she loved him, he would hasten to her side. She had only to—

“Oh!” she thought rapturously, digging her fingers into her lowered brow. “What a fool I've been not to think of this till now! I must think of some way to let him know. He wouldn't marry her if he knew I loved him! How could he?”

As she finished her prayers and Suellen, then Carreen, began their decades, her mind was still speeding onward with her entrancing new thought.

Even now, it wasn't too late! And Ashley's engagement had not even been announced yet! Yes, there was plenty of time!

If no love lay between Ashley and Melanie but only a promise given long ago, then why wasn't it possible for him to break that promise and marry her? Surely he would do it, if he knew that she, Scarlett loved him. She must find some way to let him know. She would find some way! And then—

Scarlett came abruptly out of her dream of delight, for she had neglected to make the responses and her mother was looking at her reprovingly.

⋯

Lying in the bed with the moonlight streaming dimly over her, she pictured the whole scene in her mind. She saw the look of surprise and happiness that would come over his face when he realized that she really loved him, and she heard the words he would say asking her to be his wife.

Naturally, she would have to say then that she simply couldn't think of marrying a man when he was engagedto another girl, but he would insist and finally she would let herself be persuaded. Then they would decide to run off to Jonesboro that very afternoon and—

Why, by this time tomorrow night, she might be Mrs. Ashley Wilkes!

Then a slight chill entered her heart. Suppose it didn't work out this way? Suppose Ashley didn't beg her to run away with him? Resolutely she pushed the thought from her mind.

“I won't think of that now,” she said firmly. “If I think of it now, it will upset me. There's no reason why things won't come out the way I want them—if he loves me. And I know he does!”

She raised her chin and her pale, black-fringed eyes sparkled in the moonlight.

佳句赏析

1. She meant what she said, for she could never long endure any conversation of which she was not the chief subject.

>她说到做到，因为她从来就忍受不了不以她为主题的谈话。

2. The boys looked uncomfortable, recalling their mother's conduct three months ago when they had come home, by request, from the University of Virginia.

>小伙子显得有点不自在，想起三个月前他们从弗吉尼亚大学被请回家时母亲的那番表现。

3. If she had to wait much longer, Mammy would certainly come in search of her and bully her into the house.

>如果她还要等候很久，嬷嬷就一定会来寻找她，并把她赶回家去。

4. There's nothing worse than a barbecue turned into an indoor picnic.

>要是把野宴改成家餐，那才是扫兴不过的事呢。

5. Ellen O'Hara was different, and Scarlett regarded her as something holy and apart from all the rest of humankind.

>爱伦·奥哈拉却不一样，斯嘉丽把她看做一种有别于人类中其他人的神圣人物。

名句大搜索

1.她爱他，她需要他，但是她不了解他。

2. 爱伦的生活既不舒适也不愉快，然而她并不期待过舒服的日子，而且如果不愉快，那也是女人的命运。她承认这个世界是男人的这一事实。男人占有财产，然后由女人来管理。

3. 如果说她不怎么懂得男人的心理，那么她对女人的心就知道得更少了，因为她对她们更加不感兴趣。她从来不曾有过一个女朋友，也从不为此感到遗憾。对她来说，所有的女人包括她的两个妹妹在内，在追共同的猎物——男人时，都是天然的仇敌。

4. 斯嘉丽·奥哈拉长得并不美，但是男人们像塔尔顿家那对孪生兄弟为她的魅力所迷住时，就不会这样想了。

5. 只有同一类型的人两相匹配，才有幸福可言。