“Help me to bed. I’m going to be ill,” moaned Pittypat. “Oh, Scarlett, how could you have brought this on me?”
Pittypat was ill and in her bed when Gerald arrived the next afternoon. She sent many messages of regret to him from behind her closed door and left the two frightened girls to preside over the supper table. Gerald was ominously silent although he kissed Scarlett and pinched Melanie’s cheek approvingly and called her “Cousin Melly.” Scarlett would have infinitely preferred bellowing oaths and accusations. True to her promise, Melanie clung to Scarlett’s skirts like a small rustling shadow and Gerald was too much of a gentleman to upbraid his daughter in front of her. Scarlett had to admit that Melanie carried off things very well, acting as if she knew nothing was amiss, and she actually succeeded in engaging Gerald in conversation, once the supper had been served.
“I want to know all about the County,” she said, beaming upon him. “India and Honey are such poor correspondents, and I know you know everything that goes on down there. Do tell us about Joe Fontaine’s wedding.”
Gerald warmed to the flattery and said that the wedding had been a quiet affair, “not like you girls had,” for Joe had only a few days’ furlough. Sally, the little Munroe chit, looked very pretty. No, he couldn’t recall what she wore but he did hear that she didn’t have a “second-day” dress.
“She didn’t!” exclaimed the girls, scandalized.
“Sure, because she didn’t have a second day,” Gerald explained and bawled with laughter before recalling that perhaps such remarks were not fit for female ears. Scarlett’s spirits soared at his laugh and she blessed Melanie’s tact.
“Back Joe went to Virginia the next day,” Gerald added hastily. “There was no visiting about and dancing afterwards. The Tarleton twins are home.”
“We heard that. Have they recovered?”
“They weren’t badly wounded. Stuart had it in the knee and a minie ball went through Brent’s shoulder. You had it, too, that they were mentioned in dispatches for bravery?”
“No! Tell us!”
“Hare brained—both of them. I’m believing there’s Irish in them,” said Gerald complacently. “I forget what they did, but Brent is a lieutenant now.”
Scarlett felt pleased at hearing of their exploits, pleased in a proprietary manner. Once a man had been her beau, she never lost the conviction that he belonged to her, and all his good deeds redounded to her credit.
“And I’ve news that’ll be holding the both of you,” said Gerald. They’re saying Stu is courting at Twelve Oaks again.”
“Honey or India?” questioned Melly excitedly, while Scarlett stared almost indignantly.
“Oh, Miss India, to be sure. Didn’t she have him fast till this baggage of mine winked at him?”
“Oh,” said Melly, somewhat embarrassed at Gerald’s outspokenness.
“And more than that, young Brent has taken to hanging about Tara. Now!”
Scarlett could not speak. The defection of her beaux was almost insulting. Especially when she recalled how wildly both the twins had acted when she told them she was going to marry Charles. Stuart had even threatened to shoot Charles, or Scarlett, or himself, or all three. It had been most exciting.
“Suellen?” questioned Melly, breaking into a pleased smile. “But I thought Mr. Kennedy—”
“Oh, him?” said Gerald. “Frank Kennedy still pussyfoots about, afraid of his shadow, and I’ll be asking him his intentions soon if he doesn’t speak up. No, ‘tis me baby.”
“Carreen?”
“She’s nothing but a child!” said Scarlett sharply, finding her tongue.
“She’s little more than a year younger than you were, Miss, when you were married,” retorted Gerald. “Is it you’re grudging your old beau to your sister?”
Melly blushed, unaccustomed to such frankness, and signaled Peter to bring in the sweet potato pie. Frantically she cast about in her mind for some other topic of conversation which would not be so personal but which would divert Mr. O’Hara from the purpose of his trip. She could think of nothing but, once started, Gerald needed no stimulus other than an audience. He talked on about the thievery of the commissary department which every month increased its demands, the knavish stupidity of Jefferson Davis and the blackguardery of the Irish who were being enticed into the Yankee army by bounty money.
When the wine was on the table and the two girls rose to leave him, Gerald cocked a severe eye at his daughter from under frowning brows and commanded her presence alone for a few minutes. Scarlett cast a despairing glance at Melly, who twisted her handkerchief helplessly and went out, softly pulling the sliding doors together.
“How now, Missy!” bawled Gerald, pouring himself a glass of port. “ ‘Tis a fine way to act! Is it another husband you’re trying to catch and you so fresh a widow?”
“Not so loud, Pa, the servants—”
“They know already, to be sure, and everybody knows of our disgrace. And your poor mother taking to her bed with it and me not able to hold up me head. ‘Tis shameful. No, Puss, you need not think to get around me with tears this time,” he said hastily and with some panic in his voice as Scarlett’s lids began to bat and her mouth to screw up. “I know you. You’d be flirting at the wake of your husband. Don’t cry. There, I’ll be saying no more tonight, for I’m going to see this fine Captain Butler who makes so light of me daughter’s reputation. But in the morning— There now, don’t cry. ‘Twill do you no good at all, at all. ‘Tis firm that I am and back to Tara you’ll be going tomorrow before you’re disgracing the lot of us again. Don’t cry, pet. Look what I’ve brought you! Isn’t that a pretty present? See, look! How could you be putting so much trouble on me, bringing me all the way up here when ‘tis a busy man I am? Don’t cry!”
