It didn’t mean a thing that she had hated it. After all, she’d been so young then, only seventeen, and a new widow with a baby, besides. Wade Hampton hadn’t even cut his teeth yet. That was over twelve years ago. Everything would be completely different now. It was all going to work out just fine, just the way she wanted.

“Pansy, go tell the conductor to move our things, I want to sit closer to the stove. There’s a draft from this window.”


Scarlett sent a telegram to her aunts from the station in Augusta where she changed to the South Carolina railroad line:

ARRIVING FOUR PM TRAIN FOR VISIT STOP ONLY ONE SERVANT STOP LOVE SCARLETT

She had thought it all out. Exactly ten words, and there was no risk that her aunts would wire back some excuse to keep her from coming, because she was already on her way. Not that they’d be likely to. Eulalie was forever begging her to come see them, and hospitality was still the unwritten law of the land in the South. But no sense gambling when you could have a sure thing, and she had to have her aunts’ house and protection to begin with. Charleston was a mighty stuck-up, proud place, and Rhett was obviously trying to turn people against her.

No, she wouldn’t think about that. She was going to love Charleston this time. She was determined. Everything was going to be different. Her whole life was going to be different. Don’t look back, she’d always told herself. Now she truly meant it. Her whole life was behind her, further behind with each turn of the wheels. All the demands of her businesses were in Uncle Henry’s hands, her responsibilities to Melanie were taken care of, her children were settled at Tara. For the first time in her adult life she was free to do anything she wanted to do, and she knew what that was. She’d prove to Rhett that he was wrong when he refused to believe that she loved him. She’d show him that she did. He’d see. And then he’d be sorry he’d left her. He’d put his arms around her and kiss her, and they’d be happy forever after . . . Even in Charleston if he insisted on staying there.

Lost in her daydream, Scarlett didn’t notice the man who got onto the train at Ridgeville until he lurched against the arm of her seat. Then she recoiled as if he had struck her. He was in the blue uniform of the Union Army.

A Yankee! What was he doing here? Those days were done, and she wanted to forget them forever, but the sight of the uniform brought them all back. The fear when Atlanta was under siege, the brutality of the soldiers when they stripped Tara of its pitiful store of food and set fire to the house, the explosion of blood when she shot the straggler before he could rape her . . . Scarlett felt her heart pounding with terror all over again, and she almost cried out. Damn them, damn them all for destroying the South. Damn them most of all for making her feel helpless and afraid. She hated the feeling, and she hated them!

I won’t let it upset me, I won’t. I can’t let anything bother me now, not when I need to be at my best, ready for Charleston and Rhett. I won’t look at the Yankee, and I won’t think about the past. Only the future counts now. Scarlett stared resolutely out the window at the hilly countryside, so similar to the land around Atlanta. Red clay roads through stands of dark pine woods and fields of frostdarkened crop stubble. She’d been travelling for more than a day, and she might as well have never left home. Hurry, she urged the engine, do hurry.

“What’s Charleston like, Miss Scarlett?” Pansy asked for the hundredth time just as the light was beginning to fade outside the window.

“Very pretty, you’ll like it fine,” Scarlett answered for the hundredth time. “There!” She pointed at the landscape. “See that tree with the stuff hanging off it? That’s the Spanish moss I told you about.”

Pansy pressed her nose to the sooty pane. “Oooh,” she whimpered. “It looks like ghosts moving. I’m scared of ghosts, Miss Scarlett.”

“Don’t be a ninny!” But Scarlett shivered. The long, swaying, gray wisps of moss were eerie in the gray light, and she didn’t like the way it looked either. It meant that they were moving into the low-country, though, close to the sea and to Charleston. Scarlett peered at her lapel watch. Five-thirty. The train was over two hours late. Her aunts would have waited, she was sure. But even so, she wished she wouldn’t be arriving after dark. There was something so unfriendly about the dark.


The cavernous station in Charleston was poorly lit. Scarlett craned her neck, searching for her aunts or for a coachman who might be their servant, looking for her. What she saw instead were a half dozen more soldiers in blue uniform, carrying guns slung over their shoulders.

“Miss Scarlett—” Pansy tugged on her sleeve. “There’s soldiers everywhere.” The young maid’s voice was quavering.

Her fear forced Scarlett to appear brave. “Just act like they’re not here at all, Pansy. They can’t hurt you, the War’s been over for practically ten years. Come on.” She gestured to the porter who was pushing the cart with her luggage. “Where would I find the carriage that’s meeting me?” she asked haughtily.

He led the way outside, but the only vehicle there was a ramshackle buggy with a swaybacked horse and a dishevelled black driver. Scarlett’s heart sank. Suppose her aunts were out of town? They went to Savannah to visit their father, she knew. Suppose her telegram was just sitting on the front stoop of a dark, empty house?

She drew in a long breath. She didn’t care what the story was, she had to get away from the station and the Yankee soldiers. I’ll break a window to get into the house if I have to. Why shouldn’t I? I’ll just pay to get it fixed the same way I paid to fix the roof for them and everything else. She’d been sending her aunts money to live on ever since they lost all of theirs during the War.

“Put my things in that hack,” she ordered the porter, “and tell the driver to get down and help you. I’m going to the Battery.”

The magic word “Battery” had exactly the effect she hoped for. Both driver and porter became respectful and eager to be of service. So it’s still the most fashionable address in Charleston, Scarlett thought with relief. Thank goodness. It would be too awful if Rhett heard I was living in a slum.



Pauline and Eulalie threw open the door of their house the moment the buggy stopped. Golden light streamed out onto the path from the sidewalk, and Scarlett ran through it to the sanctuary it promised.


But they looked so old! she thought when she was close to her aunts. I don’t remember Aunt Pauline being skinny as a stick and all wrinkled like that. And when did Aunt Eulalie get so fat? She looks like a balloon with gray hair on top.

“Look at you!” Eulalie exclaimed. “You’ve changed so, Scarlett, why I’d hardly know you.”

Scarlett quailed. Surely she hadn’t got old, too, had she? She accepted her aunts’ embraces and forced a smile.

“Look at Scarlett, Sister,” Eulalie burbled. “She’s grown up to be the image of Ellen.”

Pauline sniffed. “Ellen was never this thin, Sister, you know that.” She took Scarlett’s arm and pulled her away from Eulalie. “There is a clear resemblance, though, I will say that.”

Scarlett smiled, this time happily. There was no greater compliment in the world that anyone could pay her.

The aunts fluttered and argued about the business of settling Pansy in the servants’ quarters and getting the trunks and valises carried upstairs to Scarlett’s bedroom. “Don’t you lift a finger, honey,” Eulalie said to Scarlett. “You must be worn out after that long trip.” Scarlett settled herself gratefully on a settee in the drawing room, away from the fuss. Now that she was finally here, the feverish energy that had gotten her through the preparations seemed to have evaporated, and she realized that her aunt was right. She was worn out.

She all but dozed off during supper. Both her aunts had soft voices, with the characteristic low-country accent that elongated vowels and blurred consonants. Even though their conversation consisted largely of politely expressed disagreement on everything, the sound of it was lulling. Also, they weren’t saying anything that interested her at all. She’d learned what she wanted to know almost as soon as she stepped across the threshold. Rhett was living at his mother’s house, but he was out of town.

“Gone North,” Pauline said, with a sour expression.

“But for good reason, Sister,” Eulalie reminded her. “He’s in Philadelphia buying back some of the family silver that the Yankees stole.”

Pauline relented. “It’s a joy to see how devoted he is to his mother’s happiness, finding all the things that she lost.”

This time Eulalie was the critic. “He could have shown some of that devotion a lot sooner, if you ask me.”

Scarlett didn’t ask. She was busy with her own thoughts, which were concentrated on wondering how soon she could go up to bed. No sleeplessness would plague her tonight, she was sure of it.

And she was right. Now that she’d taken her life in her own hands and was on her way to getting what she wanted, she could sleep like a baby. She woke in the morning with a sense of wellbeing that she hadn’t felt for years. She was welcome at her aunts’, not shunned and lonely like in Atlanta, and she didn’t even have to think yet about what she’d say to Rhett when she saw him. She could relax and be spoiled a little while she waited for him to get back from Philadelphia.

Her aunt Eulalie punctured Scarlett’s bubble before she’d finished her first cup of breakfast coffee. “I know how anxious you must be to see Carreen, honey, but she only has visitors on Tuesdays and Saturdays, so we’ve planned something else for today.”

Carreen! Scarlett’s lips tightened. She didn’t want to see her at all, the traitor. Giving her share of Tara away as if it meant nothing at all . . . But what was she going to say to the aunts? They’d never understand that a sister wouldn’t be just dying to see another sister. Why, they even live together, they’re so close. I’ll have to pretend I want to see Carreen more than anything in the world and get a headache when it’s time to go.

Suddenly she realized what Pauline was saying, and her head did begin to throb painfully at the temples.

“. . . so we sent our maid Susie with a note to Eleanor Butler. We’ll call on her this morning.” She reached for the bowl of butter. “Would you please pass the syrup, Scarlett?”

Scarlett’s hand reached out automatically, but she knocked over the pitcher, spilling the syrup. Rhett’s mother. She wasn’t ready to see Rhett’s mother yet. She’d only met Eleanor Butler once, at Bonnie’s funeral, and she had almost no memory of her, except that Mrs. Butler was very tall and dignified and imposingly silent. I know I’ll have to see her, Scarlett thought, but not now, not yet. I’m not ready. Her heart pounded and she dabbed clumsily with her napkin at the spreading stickiness on the tablecloth.

“Scarlett, dear, don’t rub the stain into the cloth like that.” Pauline put her hand on Scarlett’s wrist. Scarlett jerked her hand away. How could anyone worry about some silly old tablecloth at a time like this?

“I’m sorry, Auntie,” she managed to say.

“That’s all right, dear. It’s just that you’re practically putting a hole through it, and we have so few of our nice things left . . .” Eulalie’s voice faded mournfully.

Scarlett clenched her teeth. She wanted to scream. What did a tablecloth matter when she had to face the mother Rhett practically worshipped? Suppose he’d told her the truth about why he’d left Atlanta, that he had walked out on the marriage? “I’d better go look at my clothes,” Scarlett said through the constriction in her throat. “Pansy’ll have to press the wrinkles out of whatever I’m going to wear.” She had to get away from Pauline and Eulalie, she had to pull herself together.

“I’ll tell Susie to start heating the irons,” Eulalie offered. She rang the silver bell near her plate.

“She’d better wash out this cloth before she starts on anything else,” Pauline said. “Once a stain sets—”

“You might observe, Sister, that I have not yet finished my breakfast. Surely you don’t expect me to let it get cold while Susie clears everything off the table.”

Scarlett fled to her room.


“You won’t need that heavy fur cape, Scarlett,” said Pauline.

“Indeed not,” said Eulalie. “We have a typical Charleston winter day today. Why, I wouldn’t even wear this shawl if I didn’t have a cold.”