第369章

They were home again, without warning. The first intimation of their return was the sound of luggage being thumped on the front-hall floor and Bonnie’s voice crying, “Mother!”

Scarlett hurried from her room to the top of the stairs and saw her daughter stretching her short plump legs in an effort to climb the steps. A resigned striped kitten was clutched to her breast.

“Gran’ma gave him to me,” she cried excitedly, holding the kitten out by the scruff.

Scarlett swept her up into her arms and kissed her, thankful that the child’s presence spared her her first meeting alone with Rhett Looking over Bonnie’s head, she saw him in the hall below, paying the cab driver. He looked up, saw her and swept off his hat in a wide gesture, bowing as he did. When she met his dark eyes, her heart leaped. No matter what he was, no matter what he had done, he was home and she was glad.

“Where’s Mammy?” asked Bonnie, wriggling in Scarlett’s grasp and she reluctantly set the child on her feetIt was going to be more difficult than she anticipated, greeting Rhett with just the proper degree of casualness and, as for telling him about the new baby! She looked at his face as he came up the steps, that dark nonchalant face, so impervious, so blank. No, she’d wait to tell him. She couldn’t tell him right away. And yet, such tidings as these belonged first to a husband, for a husband was always happy to hear them. But she did not think he would be happy about it.

She stood on the landing, leaning against the banisters and wondered if he would kiss her. But he did not. He said only: “You are looking pale, Mrs. Butler. Is there a rouge shortage?”

No word of missing her, even if he didn’t mean it. And he might have at least kissed her in front of Mammy who, after bobbing a curtsy, was leading Bonnie away down the hall to the nursery. He stood beside her on the landing, his eyes appraising her carelessly.

“Can this wanness mean that you’ve been missing me?” he questioned and though his lips smiled, his eyes did not.

So that was going to be his attitude. He was going to be as hateful as ever. Suddenly the child she was carrying became a nauseating burden instead of something she had gladly carried, and this man before her, standing carelessly with his wide Panama hat upon his hip, her bitterest foe, the cause of all her troubles. There was venom in her eyes as she answered, venom that was too unmistakable to be missed, and the smile went from his face.

“If I’m pale it’s your fault and not because I’ve missed you, you conceited thing. It’s because—” Oh, she hadn’t intended to tell him like this but the hot words rushed to her lips and she flung them at him, careless of the servants who might hear. “It’s because I’m going to have a baby!”

He sucked in his breath suddenly and his eyes went rapidly over her. He took a quick step toward her as though to put a hand on her arm but she twisted away from him, and before the hate in her eyes his face hardened.

“Indeed!” he said coolly. “Well, who’s the happy father? Ashley?”

She clutched the newel post until the ears of the carved lion dug with sudden pain into her palm. Even she who knew him so well had not anticipated this insult. Of course, he was joking but there were some jokes too monstrous to be borne. She wanted to rake her sharp nails across his eyes and blot out that queer light in them.

“Damn you!” she began, her voice shaking with sick rage. “You—you know it’s yours. And I don’t want it any more than you do. No—no woman would want the children of a cad like you. I wish— Oh, God, I wish it was anybody’s baby but yours!”

She saw his swarthy face change suddenly, anger and something she could not analyze making it twitch as though stung.

“There!” she thought in a hot rage of pleasure. “There! I’ve hurt him now!”

But the old impassive mask was back across his face and he stroked one side of his mustache.

“Cheer up,” he said, turning from her and starting up the stairs, “maybe you’ll have a miscarriage.”

For a dizzy moment she thought what childbearing meant, the nausea that tore her, the tedious waiting, the thickening of her figure, the hours of pain. Things no man could ever realize. And he dared to joke. She would claw him. Nothing but the sight of blood upon his dark face would ease this pain in her heart. She lunged for him, swift as a cat, but with, a light startled movement, he sidestepped, throwing up his arm to ward her off. She was standing on the edge of the freshly waxed top step, and as her arm with the whole weight of her body behind it, struck his out-thrust arm, she lost her balance. She made a wild clutch for the newel post and missed it. She went down the stairs backwards, feeling a sickening dart of pain in her ribs as she landed. And, too dazed to catch herself, she rolled over and over to the bottom of the flight.

It was the first time Scarlett had ever been ill, except when she had her babies, and somehow those times did not count. She had not been forlorn and frightened then, as she was now, weak and pain racked and bewildered. She knew she was sicker than they dared tell her, feebly realized that she might die. The broken rib stabbed when she breathed, her bruised face and head ached and her whole body was given over to demons who plucked at her with hot pinchers and sawed on her with dull knives and left her, for short intervals, so drained of strength that she could not regain grip on herself before they returned. No, childbirth had not been like this. She had been able to eat hearty meals two hours after Wade and Ella and Bonnie had been born, but now the thought of anything but cool water brought on feeble nausea.