She heard his uncertain footsteps leaving the door and his helpless voice saying- her name over and over above her head. There was a swift pattering of feet racing up the hall from the kitchen and Melanie burst into the room, her eyes wide with alarm.
“Scarlett ... the baby isn’t ... ?”
Scarlett burrowed her head in the dusty upholstery and screamed again.
“Ashley—he’s so mean! So doggoned mean—so hateful!”
“Oh, Ashley, what have you done to her?” Melanie threw herself on the floor beside the sofa and gathered Scarlett into her arms. “What have you said? How could you! You might bring on the baby! There, my darling, put your head on Melanie’s shoulder! What is wrong?”
“Ashley—he’s so—so bullheaded and hateful!”
“Ashley, I’m surprised at you! Upsetting her so much and in her condition and Mr. O’Hara hardly in his grave!”
“Don’t you fuss at him!” cried Scarlett illogically, raising her head abruptly from Melanie’s shoulder, her coarse black hair tumbling out from its net and her face streaked with tears. “He’s got a right to do as he pleases!”
“Melanie,” said Ashley, his face white, “let me explain. Scarlett was kind enough to offer me a position in Atlanta as manager of one of her mills—”
“Manager!” cried Scarlett indignantly. I offered him a half-interest and he—”
“And I told her I had already made arrangements for us to go North and she—”
“Oh,” cried Scarlett, beginning to sob again, “I told him and told him how much I needed him—how I couldn’t get anybody to manage the mill—how I was going to have this baby—and he refused to come! And now—now, I’ll have to sell the mill and I know I can’t get anything like a good price for it and I’ll lose money and I guess maybe we’ll starve, but he won’t care. He’s so mean!”
She burrowed her head back into Melanie’s thin shoulder and some of the real anguish went from her as a flicker of hope woke in her. She could sense that in Melanie’s devoted heart she had an ally, feel Melanie’s indignation that anyone, even her beloved husband, should make Scarlett cry. Melanie flew at Ashley like a small determined dove and pecked him for the first time in her life.
“Ashley, how could you refuse her? And after all she’s done for us! How ungrateful you make us appear! And she so helpless now with the bab— How unchivalrous of you! She helped us when we needed help and now you deny her when she needs you!”
Scarlett peeped slyly at Ashley and saw surprise and uncertainty plain in his face as he looked into Melanie’s dark indignant eyes. Scarlett was surprised, too, at the vigor of Melanie’s attack, for she knew Melanie considered her husband beyond wifely reproaches and thought his decisions second only to God’s.
“Melanie ...” he began and then threw out his hands helplessly.
“Ashley, how can you hesitate? Think what she’s done for us—for me! I’d have died in Atlanta when Beau came if it hadn’t been for her! And she—yes, she killed a Yankee, defending us. Did you know that? She killed a man for us. And she worked and slaved before you and Will came home, just to keep food in our mouths. And when I think of her plowing and picking cotton, I could just— Oh, my darling!” And she swooped her head and kissed Scarlett’s tumbled hair in fierce loyalty. “And now the first time she asks us to do something for her—”
“You don’t need to tell me what she has done for us.”
“And Ashley, just think! Besides helping her, just think what it’ll mean for us to live in Atlanta among our own people and not have to live with Yankees! There’ll be Auntie and Uncle Henry and all our friends, and Beau can have lots of playmates and go to school. If we went North, we couldn’t let him go to school and associate with Yankee children and have pickaninnies in his class! We’d have to have a governess and I don’t see how we’d afford—”
“Melanie,” said Ashley and his voice was deadly quiet, “do you really want to go to Atlanta so badly? You never said so when we talked about going to New York. You never intimated—”
“Oh, but when we talked about going to New York, I thought there was nothing for you in Atlanta and, besides, it wasn’t my place to say anything. It’s a wife’s duty to go where her husband goes. But now that Scarlett needs us so and has a position that only you can fill we can go home! Home!” Her voice was rapturous as she squeezed Scarlett. “And I’ll see Five Points again and Peachtree road and— and— Oh, how I’ve missed them all! And maybe we could have a little home of our own! I wouldn’t care how little and tacky it was but—a home of our own!”
Her eyes blazed with enthusiasm and happiness and the two stared at her, Ashley with a queer stunned look, Scarlett with surprise mingled with shame. It had never occurred to her that Melanie missed Atlanta so much and longed to be back, longed for a home of her own. She had seemed so contented at Tara it came to Scarlett as a shock that she was homesick.
“Oh Scarlett, how good of you to plan all this for us! You knew how I longed for home!”
As usual when confronted by Melanie’s habit of attributing worthy motives where no worth existed, Scarlett was ashamed and irritated, and suddenly she could not meet either Ashley’s or Melanie’s eyes.
“We could get a little house of our own. Do you realize that we’ve been married five years and never had a home?”
“You can stay with us at Aunt Pitty’s. That’s your home,” mumbled Scarlett, toying with a pillow and keeping her eyes down to hide dawning triumph in them as she felt the tide turning her way.
“No, but thank you just the same, darling. That would crowd us so. We’ll get a house— Oh, Ashley, do say Yes!”
“Scarlett,” said Ashley and his voice was toneless, “look at me.”
Startled, she looked up and met gray eyes that were bitter and full of tired futility.
“Scarlett, I will come to Atlanta. ... I cannot fight you both.”
He turned and walked out of the room. Some of the triumph in her heart was dulled by a nagging fear. The look in his eyes when he spoke had been the same as when he said he would be lost forever if he came to Atlanta.
