第144章

It was all over. Melanie was not dead and the small baby boy who made noises like a young kitten was receiving his first bath at Prissy’s hands. Melanie was asleep. How could she sleep after that nightmare of screaming pain and ignorant midwifery that hurt more than it helped? Why wasn’t she dead? Scarlett knew that she herself would have died under such handling. But when it was over, Melanie had even whispered, so weakly she had to bend over her to hear: “Thank you.” And then she had gone to sleep. How could she go to sleep? Scarlett forgot that she too had gone to sleep after Wade was born. She forgot everything. Her mind was a vacuum; the world was a vacuum; there had been no life before this endless day and there would be none hereafter—only a heavily hot night, only the sound of her hoarse tired breathing, only the sweat trickling coldly from armpit to waist, from hip to knee, clammy, sticky, chilling.

She heard her own breath pass from loud evenness to spasmodic sobbing but her eyes were dry and burning as though there would never be tears in them again. Slowly, laboriously, she heaved herself over and pulled her heavy skirts up to her thighs. She was warm and cold and sticky all at the same time and the feel of the night air on her limbs was refreshing. She thought dully what Aunt Pitty would say, if she could see her sprawled here on the front porch with her skirts up and her drawers showing, but she did not care. She did not care about anything. Time had stood still. It might be just after twilight and it might be midnight. She didn’t know or care.

She heard sounds of moving feet upstairs and thought “May the Lord damn Prissy,” before her eyes closed and something like sleep descended upon her. Then after an indeterminate dark interval, Prissy was beside her, chattering on in a pleased way.

“We done right good, Miss Scarlett. Ah specs Maw couldn’ a did no better.”

From the shadows, Scarlett glared at her, too tired to rail, too tired to upbraid, too tired to enumerate Prissy’s offenses—her boastful assumption of experience she didn’t possess, her fright, her blundering awkwardness, her utter inefficiency when the emergency was hot, the misplacing of the scissors, the spilling of the basin of water on the bed, the dropping of the new born baby. And now she bragged about how good she had been.

And the Yankees wanted to free the negroes! Well, the Yankees were welcome to them.

She lay back against the pillar in silence and Prissy, aware of her mood, tiptoed away into the darkness of the porch. After a long interval in which her breathing finally quieted and her mind steadied, Scarlett heard the sound of faint voices from up the road, the tramping of many feet coming from the north. Soldiers! She sat up slowly, pulling down her skirts, although she knew no one could see her in the darkness. As they came abreast the house, an indeterminate number, passing like shadows, she called to them.

“Oh, please!”

A shadow disengaged itself from the mass and came to the gate.

“Are you going? Are you leaving us?”

The shadow seemed to take off a hat and a quiet voice came from the darkness.

“Yes, Ma’m. That’s what we’re doing. We’re the last of the men from the breastworks, ‘bout a mile north from here.”

“Are you—is the army really retreating?”

“Yes, Ma’m. You see, the Yankees are coming.”

The Yankees are coming! She had forgotten that. Her throat suddenly contracted and she could say nothing more. The shadow moved away, merged itself with the other shadows and the feet tramped off into the darkness. “The Yankees are coming! The Yankees are coming!” That was what the rhythm of their feet said, that was what her suddenly bumping heart thudded out with each beat The Yankees are coming!

“De Yankees is comin’!” bawled Prissy, shrinking close to her. “Oh, Miss Scarlett, dey’ll kill us all! Dey’ll run dey baynits in our stummicks! Dey’ll—”

“Oh, hush!” It was terrifying enough to think these things without hearing them put into trembling words. Renewed fear swept her. What could she do? How could she escape? Where could she turn for help? Every friend had failed her.

Suddenly she thought of Rhett Butler and calm dispelled her fears. Why hadn’t she thought of him this morning when she had been tearing about like a chicken with its head off? She hated him, but he was strong and smart and he wasn’t afraid of the Yankees. And he was still in town. Of course, she was mad at him. But she could overlook such things at a time like this. And he had a horse and carriage, too. Oh, why hadn’t she thought of him before! He could take them all away from this doomed place, away from the Yankees, somewhere, anywhere.

She turned to Prissy and spoke with feverish urgency.

“You know where Captain Butler lives—at the Atlanta Hotel?”

“Yas’m, but—”

“Well, go there, now, as quick as you can run and tell him I want him. I want him to come quickly and bring his horse and carriage or an ambulance if he can get one. Tell him about the baby. Tell him I want him to take us out of here. Go, now. Hurry!”

She sat upright and gave Prissy a push to speed her feet.

“Gawdlmighty, Miss Scarlett! Ah’s sceered ter go runnin’ roun’ in de dahk by mahseff! Spose de Yankees gits me?”

“If you run fast you can catch up with those soldiers and they won’t let the Yankees get you. Hurry!”

“Ah’s sceered! Sposin’ Cap’n Butler ain’ at de hotel?”

“Then ask where he is. Haven’t you any gumption? If he isn’t at the hotel, go to the barrooms on Decatur Street and ask for him. Go to Belle Watling’s house. Hunt for him. You fool, don’t you see that if you don’t hurry and find him the Yankees will surely get us all?”

“Miss Scarlett, Maw would weah me out wid a cotton stalk, did Ah go in a bahroom or a ho’ house.”

Scarlett pulled herself to her feet.

“Well, I’ll wear you out if you don’t. You can stand outside in the street and yell for him, can’t you? Or ask somebody if he’s inside. Get going.”

When Prissy still lingered, shuffling her feet and mouthing, Scarlett gave her another push which nearly sent her headlong down the front steps.