“Well, you saw how she was carrying on with every man she could get hold of—even Mr. Kennedy and he’s her own sister’s beau. I never saw the like! And she certainly was going after Charles.” Honey giggled self-consciously. “And you know, Charles and I—”
“Are you really?” whispered voices excitedly.
“Well, don’t tell anybody, girls—not yet!”
There were more gigglings and the bed springs creaked as someone squeezed Honey. Melanie murmured something about how happy she was that Honey would be her sister.
“Well, I won’t be happy to have Scarlett for my sister, because she’s a fast piece if ever I saw one,” came the aggrieved voice of Hetty Tarleton. “But she’s as good as engaged to Stuart. Brent says she doesn’t give a rap about him, but, of course, Brent’s crazy about her, too.”
“If you should ask me,” said Honey with mysterious importance, “there’s only one person she does give a rap about. And that’s Ashley!”
As the whisperings merged together violently, questioning, interrupting, Scarlett felt herself go cold with fear and humiliation. Honey was a fool, a silly, a simpleton about men, but she had a feminine instinct about other women that Scarlett had underestimated. The mortification and hurt pride that she had suffered in the library with Ashley and with Rhett Butler were pin pricks to this. Men could be trusted to keep their mouths shut, even men like Mr. Butler, but with Honey Wilkes giving tongue like a hound in the field, the entire County would know about it before six o’clock. And Gerald had said only last night that he wouldn’t be having the County laughing at his daughter. And how they would all laugh now! Clammy perspiration, starting under her armpits, began to creep down her ribs.
Melanie’s voice, measured and peaceful, a little reproving, rose above the others.
“Honey, you know that isn’t so. And it’s so unkind.”
“It is too, Melly, and if you weren’t always so busy looking for the good in people that haven’t got any good in them, you’d see it. And I’m glad it’s so. It serves her right. All Scarlett O’Hara has ever done has been to stir up trouble and try to get other girls’ beaux. You know mighty well she took Stuart from India and she didn’t want him. And today she tried to take Mr. Kennedy and Ashley and Charles—”
“I must get home!” thought Scarlett “I must get home!”
If she could only be transferred by magic to Tara and to safety. If she could only be with Ellen, just to see her, to hold onto her skirt, to cry and pour out the whole story in her lap. If she had to listen to another word, she’d rush in and pull out Honey’s straggly pale hair in big handfuls and spit on Melanie Hamilton to show her just what she thought of her charity. But she’d already acted common enough today, enough like white trash—that was where all her trouble lay.
She pressed her hands hard against her skirts, so they would not rustle and backed out as stealthily as an animal. Home, she thought, as she sped down the hall, past the closed doors and still rooms, I must go home.
She was already on the front porch when a new thought brought her up sharply—she couldn’t go home! She couldn’t run away! She would have to see it through, bear all the malice of the girls and her own humiliation and heartbreak. To run away would only give them more ammunition.
She pounded her clenched fist against the tall white pillar beside her, and she wished that she were Samson, so that she could pull down all of Twelve Oaks and destroy every person in it. She’d make them sorry. She’d show them. She didn’t quite see how she’d show them, but she’d do it all the same. She’d hurt them worse than they hurt her.
For the moment, Ashley as Ashley was forgotten. He was not the tall drowsy boy she loved but part and parcel of the Wilkeses, Twelve Oaks, the County—and she hated them all because they laughed. Vanity was stronger than love at sixteen and there was no room in her hot heart now for anything but hate.
“I won’t go home,” she thought. “I’ll stay here and I’ll make them sorry. And I’ll never tell Mother. No, I’ll never tell anybody.” She braced herself to go back into the house, to reclimb the stairs and go into another bedroom.
As she turned, she saw Charles coming into the house from the other end of the long hall. When he saw her, he hurried toward her. His hair was tousled and his face near geranium with excitement.
“Do you know what’s happened?” he cried, even before he reached her. “Have you heard? Paul Wilson just rode over from Jonesboro with the news!”
He paused, breathless, as he came up to her. She said nothing and only stared at him.
“Mr. Lincoln has called for men, soldiers—I mean volunteers—seventy-five thousand of them!”
Mr. Lincoln again! Didn’t men ever think about anything that really mattered? Here was this fool expecting her to be excited about Mr. Lincoln’s didoes when her heart was broken and her reputation as good as ruined.
Charles stared at her. Her face was paper white and her narrow eyes blazing like emeralds. He had never seen such fire in any girl’s face, such a glow in anyone’s eyes.
“I’m so clumsy,” he said. “I should have told you more gently. I forgot how delicate ladies are. I’m sorry I’ve upset you so. You don’t feel faint, do you? Can I get you a glass of water?”
“No,” she said, and managed a crooked smile.
“Shall we go sit on the bench?” he asked, taking her arm.
