Little by little, she extracted the information she wanted. Rhett had gone back to Charleston, to stay. Pork had packed all of Rhett’s clothes and sent them to the depot for shipping. It was his final duty as Rhett’s valet, he was retired now, with a parting bonus that was big enough for him to have a place of his own anywhere he liked. “I can do for my family, too,” Pork said proudly. Dilcey would never need to work again, and Prissy would have something to offer any man who wanted to marry her. “Prissy ain’t no beauty, Miss Scarlett, and she’s going on twenty-five years old, but with a ’heritance behind her, she can catch herself a husband easy as a young pretty girl what got no money.”

Scarlett smiled and smiled and agreed with Pork that “Mist’ Rhett” was a fine gentleman. Inside she was raging. That fine gentleman’s generosity was making a real hash of things for her. Who was going to take care of Wade and Ella, with Prissy gone? And how the devil was she going to manage to find a good nursemaid for Beau? He’d just lost his mother, and his father was half crazy with grief, and now the only one in that house with any sense was leaving, too. She wished she could pick up and leave, too, just leave everything and everybody behind. Mother of God! I came to Tara to get some rest, to straighten out my life, and all I found was more problems to take care of. Can’t I ever get any peace?

Will quietly and firmly provided Scarlett with that respite. He sent her to bed and gave orders that she wasn’t to be disturbed. She slept for almost eighteen hours, and she woke with a clear plan of where to begin.


“I hope you slept well,” said Suellen when Scarlett came down for breakfast. Her voice was sickeningly honeyed. “You must have been awfully tired, after all you’ve been through.” The truce was over, now that Mammy was dead.

Scarlett’s eyes glittered dangerously. She knew Suellen was thinking of the disgraceful scene she’d made, begging Rhett not to leave her. But when she answered, her words were equally sweet. “I hardly felt my head touch the pillow, and I was gone. The country air is so soothing and refreshing.” You nasty thing, she added in her head. The bedroom that she still thought of as hers now belonged to Susie, Suellen’s oldest child, and Scarlett had felt like a stranger. Suellen knew it, too, Scarlett was sure. But it didn’t matter. She needed to stay on good terms with Suellen if she was going to carry out her plan. She smiled at her sister.

“What’s so funny, Scarlett? Do I have a spot on my nose or something?”

Suellen’s voice set Scarlett’s teeth on edge, but she held on to her smile. “I’m sorry, Sue. I was just remembering a silly dream I had last night. I dreamt we were all children again, and that Mammy was switching my legs with a switch from the peach tree. Do you remember how much those switches stung?”

Suellen laughed. “I sure do. Lutie uses them on the girls. I can almost feel the sting on my own legs when she does.”

Scarlett watched her sister’s face. “I’m surprised I don’t have a million scars to this day,” she said. “I was such a horrid little girl. I don’t know how you and Carreen could put up with me.” She buttered a biscuit as if it were her only concern.

Suellen looked suspicious. “You did torment us, Scarlett. And somehow you managed to make the fights come out looking like our fault.”

“I know. I was horrid. Even when we got older. I drove you and Carreen like mules when we had to pick the cotton after the Yankees stole everything.”

“You nearly killed us. There we were, half dead from the typhoid, and you dragged us out of bed and sent us out in the hot sun . . .” Suellen became more animated and more vehement as she repeated grievances that she had nursed for years.

Scarlett nodded encouragement, making little noises of contrition. How Suellen does love to complain, she thought. It’s meat and drink to her. She waited until Suellen began to run down before she spoke:

“I feel so mean, and there’s just nothing I can do to make up for all the bad times I put you through. I do think Will is wicked not to let me give you all any money. After all, it is for Tara.”

“I’ve told him the same thing a hundred times,” Suellen said.

I’ll just bet you have, thought Scarlett. “Men are so bullheaded,” she said. Then, “Oh, Suellen, I just thought of something. Do say yes, it would be such a blessing to me if you did. And Will couldn’t possibly fuss about it. What if I left Ella and Wade here and sent money to you for their keep? They’re so peaked from living in the city, and the country air would do them a world of good.”

“I don’t know, Scarlett. We’re going to be awfully crowded when the baby comes.” Suellen’s expression was greedy, but still wary.

“I know,” Scarlett crooned sympathetically. “Wade Hampton eats like a horse, too. But it would be so good for them, poor city creatures. I guess it would run about a hundred dollars a month just to feed them and buy them shoes.”

She doubted that Will had a hundred dollars a year in cash money from his hard work at Tara. Suellen was speechless, she noted with satisfaction. She was sure her sister’s voice would return in time to accept. I’ll write a nice fat bank draft after breakfast, she thought. “These are the best biscuits I ever tasted,” Scarlett said. “Could I have another?”

She was beginning to feel much better with a good sleep behind her, a good meal in her stomach, and the children taken care of. She knew she should go back to Atlanta—she still had to do something about Beau. Ashley, too; she’d promised Melanie. But she’d think about that later. She’d come to Tara for country peace and quiet, she was determined to have some before she left.

After breakfast Suellen went out to the kitchen. Probably to complain about something, Scarlett thought uncharitably. No matter. It gave her a chance to be alone and peaceful . . .

The house is so quiet. The children must be having their breakfast in the kitchen, and of course Will’s long gone to the fields with Wade dogging his footsteps, just the way he used to when Will first came to Tara. Wade’ll be much happier here than in Atlanta, especially with Rhett gone— No, I won’t think about that now, I’ll go crazy if I do. I’ll just enjoy the peace and quiet, it’s what I came for.

She poured herself another cup of coffee, not caring that it was only lukewarm. Sunlight through the window behind her illuminated the painting on the wall opposite, above the scarred sideboard. Will had done a grand job repairing the furniture that the Yankee soldiers had broken up, but even he couldn’t remove the deep gouges they’d made with their swords. Or the bayonet wound in Grandma Robillard’s portrait.

Whatever soldier had stabbed her must have been drunk, Scarlett figured, because he’d missed both the arrogant almost-sneer on Grandma’s thin-nosed face and the bosoms that rounded up over her low cut gown. All he’d done was jab through her left earring, and now she looked even more interesting wearing just one.

Her mother’s mother was the only ancestor who really interested Scarlett, and it frustrated her that nobody would ever tell her enough about her grandmother. Married three times, she had learned that much from her mother, but no details. And Mammy always cut off tales of life in Savannah just when they started getting interesting. There had been duels fought over Grandma, and the fashions of her day had been scandalous, with ladies deliberately wetting their thin muslin gowns so that they’d cling to their legs. And the rest of them, too, from the look of things in the portrait . . .

I should blush just from thinking the kind of things I’m thinking, Scarlett told herself. But she looked back over her shoulder at the portrait as she left the dining room. I wonder what she was really like?

The sitting room showed the signs of poverty and constant use by a young family; Scarlett could hardly recognize the velvet-covered settee where she had posed herself prettily when beaux proposed. And everything had been rearranged, too. She had to admit that Suellen had the right to fix the house to suit herself, but it rankled all the same. It wasn’t really Tara this way.

She grew more and more despondent as she went from room to room. Nothing was the same. Every time she came home there were more changes, and more shabbiness. Oh, why did Will have to be so stubborn! All the furniture needed recovering, the curtains were practically rags, and you could see the floor right through the carpets. She could get new things for Tara if Will would let her. Then she wouldn’t have the heartsickness of seeing the things she remembered looking so pitifully worn.

It should be mine! I’d take better care of it. Pa always said he’d leave Tara to me. But he never made a will. That’s just like Pa, he never thought of tomorrow. Scarlett frowned, but she couldn’t really be angry at her father. No one had ever stayed angry at Gerald O’Hara; he was like a lovable naughty child even when he was in his sixties.

The one I’m mad at—still—is Carreen. Baby sister or not, she was wrong to do what she did, and I’ll never forgive her, never. She was stubborn as a mule when she made up her mind to go into the convent, and I accepted it finally. But she never told me she was going to use her one-third share of Tara as her dowry for the convent.

She should have told me! I would have found the money somehow. Then I’d have two-thirds ownership. Not the whole thing, like it should be, but at least clear control. Then I’d have some say so. Instead, I have to bite my tongue and watch while everything goes downhill and let Suellen queen it over me. It’s not fair. I’m the one who saved Tara from the Yankees and the carpetbaggers. It is mine, no matter what the law says, and it’ll be Wade’s some day, I’ll see to that, no matter what it takes.

Scarlett rested her head against the split leather covering on the old sofa in the small room from which Ellen O’Hara had quietly ruled the plantation. There seemed to be a lingering trace of her mother’s lemon verbena toilet water, even after all these years. This was the peacefulness she had come to find. Never mind the changes, the shabbiness. Tara was still Tara, still home. And the heart of it was here, in Ellen’s room.

A slamming door shattered the quiet.

Scarlett heard Ella and Susie coming through the hall, quarrelling about something. She had to get away, she couldn’t face noise and conflict. She hurried outside. She wanted to see the fields anyhow. They were all healed, rich and red the way they’d always been.

She walked quickly across the weedy lawn and past the cow shed. She’d never get over her aversion to cows, not if she lived to be a hundred. Nasty sharp-horned things. At the edge of the first field she leaned on the fence and breathed in the rich ammonia odor of newly turned earth and manure. Funny how in the city manure was so smelly and messy, while in the country it was a farmer’s perfume.

Will sure is a good farmer. He’s the best thing that ever happened to Tara. No matter what I might have done, we’d never have made it if he hadn’t stopped on his way home to Florida and decided to stay. He fell in love with this land the way other men fall in love with a woman. And he’s not even Irish! Until Will came along I always thought only a brogue-talking Irishman like Pa could get so worked up about the land.

On the far side of the field Scarlett saw Wade helping Will and Big Sam mend a downed piece of fence. Good for him to be learning, she thought. It’s his heritage. She watched the boy and the men working together for several minutes. I’d better scoot back to the house, she thought. I forgot to write that bank draft for Suellen.

Her signature on the check was characteristic of Scarlett. Clear and unembellished, with no blots, or wavering lines, like tentative writers. It was businesslike and straightforward. She looked at it for a moment before she blotted it dry, then she looked at it again.

Scarlett O’Hara Butler.

When she wrote personal notes or invitations, Scarlett followed the fashion of the day, adding complicated loops to every capital letter and finishing off with a parabola of swirls beneath her name. She did it now, on a scrap of brown wrapping paper. Then she looked back at the check she’d just written. It was dated—she’d had to ask Suellen what day it was, and she was shocked by the answer—October 11, 1873. More than three weeks since Melly’s death. She’d been at Tara for twenty-two days, taking care of Mammy.

The date had other meanings, too. It was more than six months ago now that Bonnie died. Scarlett could leave off the unrelieved dull black of deep mourning. She could accept social invitations, invite people to her house. She could reenter the world.