第21章

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. And he did not intend to have it gossiped about over supper tables that this, that or the other father had regretfully refused to let Gerald O’Hara pay court to his daughter. This knowledge did not make Gerald feel inferior to his neighbors: Nothing could ever make Gerald feel that he was inferior in any way to anyone. It was merely a quaint custom of the County that daughters only married into families who had lived in the South much longer than twenty-two years, had owned land and slaves and been addicted only to the fashionable vices during that time.

“Pack up. We’re going to Savannah,” he told Pork. “And if I hear you say ‘Whist!’ or ‘Faith!’ but once, it’s selling you I’ll be doing, for they are words I seldom say meself.”

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.

“You’re not a rich man and you haven’t a great family,” said James.

“I’ve made me money and I can make a great family. And I won’t be marrying just anyone.”

“You fly high,” observed Andrew, dryly.

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. Despite a mystifying listlessness of manner, so strange in a girl of fifteen, she charmed him. Moreover, there was a haunting look of despair about her that went to his heart and made him more gentle with her than he had ever been with any person in all the world.

“And you old enough to be her father!”

“And me in me prime!” cried Gerald stung.

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,” interposed Andrew. “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.

“And how do you know?”

“I know,” answered Gerald, who did not care to disclose that Pork had supplied this valuable bit of information, or that Philippe had departed for the West at the express desire of his family. “And I do not think she’s been so much in love with him that she won’t forget him. Fifteen is too young to know much about love.”

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

So, James and Andrew were as startled as anyone when the news came out that the daughter of Pierre Robillard was to marry the little Irishman from up the country. Savannah buzzed behind its doors and speculated about Philippe Robillard, who had gone West, but the gossiping brought no answer. Why the loveliest of the Robillard daughters should marry a loud-voiced, red-faced little man who came hardly up to her ears remained a mystery to all.

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.

With foreboding, Mammy had brought her young mistress a small package, addressed in a strange hand from New Orleans, a package containing a miniature of Ellen, which she flung to the floor with a cry, four letters in her own handwriting to Philippe Robillard, and a brief letter from a New Orleans priest, announcing the death of her cousin in a barroom brawl.

“They drove him away. Father and Pauline and Eulalie. They drove him away. I hate them. I hate them all. I never want to see them again. I want to get away. I will go away where I’ll never see them again, or this town, or anyone who reminds me of—of—him.”

And when the night was nearly spent, Mammy, who had cried herself out over her mistress’ dark head, protested, “But, honey, you kain do dat!”

“I will do it. He is a kind man. I will do it or go into the convent at Charleston.”