Of a sudden,the oft-told family tales to which she had listened since babyhood,listened half-bored,impatient and but partly comprehending,were crystal clear.Gerald,penniless,had raised Tara;Ellen had risen above some mysterious sorrow;Grandfather Robillard,surviving the wreck of Napoleon's throne,had founded his fortunes anew on the fertile Georgia coast;Great-grandfather Prudhomme had carved a small kingdom out of the dark jungles of Haiti,lost it,and lived to see his name honored in Savannah.There were the Scarletts who had fought with the Irish Volunteers for a free Ireland and been hanged for their pains and the O'Haras who died at the Boyne,battling to the end for what was theirs.
All had suffered crushing misfortunes and had not been crushed.They had not been broken by the crash of empires,the machetes of revolting slaves,war,rebellion,proion,confiscation.Malign fate had broken their necks,perhaps,but never their hearts.They had not whined,they had fought.And when they died,they died spent but unquenched.All of those shadowy folks whose blood flowed in her veins seemed to move quietly in the moonlit room.And Scarlett was not surprised to see them,these kinsmen who had taken the worst that fate could send and hammered it into the best.Tara was her fate,her fight,and she must conquer it.
She turned drowsily on her side,a slow creeping blackness enveloping her mind.Were they really there,whispering wordless encouragement to her,or was this part of her dream?
“Whether you are there or not,”she murmured sleepily,“good night—and thank you.”
Chapter 25
The next morning Scarlett's body was so stiff and sore from the long miles of walking and jolting in the wagon that every movement was agony.Her face was crimson with sunburn and her blistered palms raw.Her tongue was furred and her throat parched as if flames had scorched it and no amount of water could assuage her thirst.Her head felt swollen and she winced even when she turned her eyes.A queasiness of the stomach reminiscent of the early days of her pregnancy made the smoking yams on the breakfast table unendurable,even to the smell.Gerald could have told her she was suffering the normal aftermath of her first experience with hard drinking but Gerald noticed nothing.He sat at the head of the table,a gray old man with absent,faded eyes fastened on the door and head cocked slightly to hear the rustle of Ellen's petticoats,to smell the lemon verbena sachet.
As Scarlett sat down,he mumbled:“We will wait for Mrs.O'Hara.She is late.”She raised an aching head,looked at him with startled incredulity and met the pleading eyes of Mammy,who stood behind Gerald's chair.She rose unsteadily,her hand at her throat and looked down at her father in the morning sunlight.He peered up at her vaguely and she saw that his hands were shaking,that his head trembled a little.
Until this moment she had not realized how much she had counted on Gerald to take command,to tell her what she must do,and now—Why,last night he had seemed almost himself.There had been none of his usual bluster and vitality,but at least he had told a connected story and now—now,he did not even remember Ellen was dead.The combined shock of the coming of the Yankees and her death had stunned him.She started to speak,but Mammy shook her head vehemently and raising her apron dabbed at her red eyes.
“Oh,can Pa have lost his mind?”thought Scarlett and her throbbing head felt as if it would crack with this added strain.“No,no.He's just dazed by it all.It's like he was sick.He'll get over it.He must get over it.What will I do if he doesn't?—I won't think about it now.I won't think of him or Mother or any of these awful things now.No,not till I can stand it.There are too many other things to think about—things that can be helped without my thinking of those I can't help.”
She left the dining room without eating,and went out onto the back porch where she found Pork,barefooted and in the ragged remains of his best livery,sitting on the steps cracking peanuts.Her head was hammering and throbbing and the bright sunlight stabbed into her eyes.Merely holding herself erect required an effort of will power and she talked as briefly as possible,dispensing with the usual forms of courtesy her mother had always taught her to use with negroes.
She began asking questions so brusquely and giving orders so decisively Pork's eyebrows went up in mystification.Miss Ellen didn't never talk so short to nobody,not even when she caught them stealing pullets and watermelons.She asked again about the fields,the gardens,the stock,and her green eyes had a hard glaze which Pork had never seen in them before.
“Yas'm,dat hawse daid,layin'dar whar Ah tie him wid his nose in de water bucket he tuhned over.No'm,de cow ain'daid.Din'you know?She done have a calf las'night.Dat why she beller so.”
“A fine midwife your Prissy will make,”Scarlett remarked caustically.“She said she was bellowing because she needed milking.”
“Well'm,Prissy ain'fixing to be no cow midwife,Miss Scarlett,”Pork said tactfully.“An'ain'no use quarrelin'wid blessin's,cause dat calf gwine ter mean a full cow an'plen'y buttermilk fer de young Misses,lak dat Yankee doctah say dey'd need.”
“All right,go on.Any stock left?”
“No'm.Nuthin’'cept one ole sow an’her litter.Ah driv dem inter de swamp de day de Yankees come,but de Lawd knows how we gwine get dem.She mean,dat sow.”
“We'll get them all right.You and Prissy can start right now hunting for her.”
Pork was amazed and indignant.
“Miss Scarlett,dat a fe'el han's bizness.Ah's allus been a house nigger.”
A small fiend with a pair of hot tweezers plucked behind Scarlett's eyeballs.
“You two will catch the sow—or get out of here,like the field hands did.”
Tears trembled in Pork's hurt eyes.Oh,if only Miss Ellen were here!She understood such niceties and realized the wide gap between the duties of a field hand and those of a house nigger.