After these visits,Scarlett had no desire to see the Tarletons.Now that the four boys were gone,the house burned and the family cramped in the overseer's cottage,she could not bring herself to go.But Suellen and Carreen begged and Melanie said it would be unneighborly not to call and welcome Mr.Tarleton back from the war,so one Sunday they went.
This was the worst of all.
As they drove up by the ruins of the house,they saw Beatrice Tarleton dressed in a worn riding habit,a crop under her arm,sitting on the top rail of the fence about the paddock,staring moodily at nothing.Beside her perched the bow-legged little negro who had trained her horses and he looked as glum as his mistress.The paddock,once full of frolicking colts and placid brood mares,was empty now except for one mule,the mule Mr.Tarleton had ridden home from the surrender.
“I swear I don't know what to do with myself now that my darlings are gone,”said Mrs.Tarleton,climbing down from the fence.A stranger might have thought she spoke of her four dead sons,but the girls from Tara knew her horses were in her mind.“All my beautiful horses dead.And oh,my poor Nellie!If I just had Nellie!And nothing but a damned mule on the place.A damned mule,”she repeated,looking indignantly at the scrawny beast.“It's an insult to the memory of my blooded darlings to have a mule in their paddock.Mules are misbegotten,unnatural critters and it ought to be illegal to breed them.”
Jim Tarleton,completely disguised by a bushy beard,came out of the overseer's house to welcome and kiss the girls and his four red-haired daughters in mended dresses streamed out behind him,tripping over the dozen black and tan hounds which ran barking to the door at the sound of strange voices.There was an air of studied and determined cheerfulness about the whole family which brought a colder chill to Scarlett's bones than the bitterness of Mimosa or the deathly brooding of Pine Bloom.
The Tarletons insisted that the girls stay for dinner,saying they had so few guests these days and wanted to hear all the news.Scarlett did not want to linger,for the atmosphere oppressed her,but Melanie and her two sisters were anxious for a longer visit,so the four stayed for dinner and ate sparingly of the side meat and dried peas which were served them.
There was laughter about the skimpy fare and the Tarleton girls giggled as they told of makeshifts for clothes,as if they were telling the most amusing of jokes.Melanie met them halfway,surprising Scarlett with her unexpected vivacity as she told of trials at Tara,making light of hardships.Scarlett could hardly speak at all.The room seemed so empty without the four great Tarleton boys,lounging and smoking and teasing.And if it seemed empty to her,what must it seem to the Tarletons who were offering a smiling front to their neighbors?
Carreen had said little during the meal but when it was over she slipped over to Mrs.Tarleton's side and whispered something.Mrs.Tarleton's face changed and the brittle smile left her lips as she put her arm around Carreen's slender waist.They left the room,and Scarlett,who felt she could not endure the house another minute,followed them.They went down the path through the garden and Scarlett saw they were going toward the burying ground.Well,she couldn't go back to the house now.It would seem too rude.But what on earth did Carreen mean dragging Mrs.Tarleton out to the boys'graves when Beatrice was trying so hard to be brave?
There were two new marble markers in the brick-inclosed lot under the funereal cedars—so new that no rain had splashed them with red dust.
“We got them last week,”said Mrs.Tarleton proudly.“Mr.Tarleton went to Macon and brought them home in the wagon.”
Tombstones!And what they must have cost!Suddenly Scarlett did not feel as sorry for the Tarletons as she had at first.Anybody who would waste precious money on tombstones when food was so dear,so almost unattainable,didn't deserve sympathy.And there were several lines carved on each of the stones.The more carving,the more money.The whole family must be crazy!And it had cost money,too,to bring the three boys'bodies home.They had never found Boyd or any trace of him.
Between the graves of Brent and Stuart was a stone which read:“They were lovely and pleasant in their lives,and in their death they were not divided.”
On the other stone were the names of Boyd and Tom with something in Latin which began “Dulce et—”but it meant nothing to Scarlett who had managed to evade Latin at the Fayetteville Academy.
All that money for tombstones!Why,they were fools!She felt as indignant as if her own money had been squandered.
Carreen's eyes were shining oddly.
“I think it's lovely,”she whispered pointing to the first stone.
Carreen would think it lovely.Anything sentimental stirred her.
“Yes,”said Mrs.Tarleton and her voice was soft,“we thought it very fitting—they died almost at the same time.Stuart first and then Brent who caught up the flag he dropped.”
As the girls drove back to Tara,Scarlett was silent for a while,thinking of what she had seen in the various homes,remembering against her will the County in its glory,with visitors at all the big houses and money plentiful,negroes crowding the quarters and the well-tended fields glorious with cotton.
“In another year,there'll be little pines all over these fields,”she thought and looking toward the encircling forest she shuddered.“Without the darkies,it will be all we can do to keep body and soul together.Nobody can run a big plantation without the darkies,and lots of the fields won't be cultivated at all and the woods will take over the fields again.Nobody can plant much cotton,and what will we do then?What'll become of country folks?Town folks can manage somehow.They've always managed.But we country folks will go back a hundred years like the pioneers who had little cabins and just scratched a few acres—and barely existed.