Scarlett sat in the gloomy parlour of Aunt Pitty's house, her head resting heavily upon her hand as she watched the rain pour down from a suffocating grey sky and smack hard against the window pane. She was trying to concentrate on the books from the mills, but her heart wasn't really in it. In fact, there didn't seem to be much that her heart was in these days. Somehow nothing felt quite as important as it had once had; not her businesses, not her pursuit of wealth, not even her love for Ashley.
It was as if the heavy clouds outside had also collected over her life, drawing a thick, impenetrable veil over the things that had once brought her happiness and making everything around her appear unbearably drab and ordinary. Laying down her pen in defeat, Scarlett sighed and lent back in her chair, nuzzling her cheek into the comforting warmth of its plush velvet fabric as she closed up her eyes and gave into the weariness that seemed to be her only true companion these days.
Though she tried not to think about it too often, she knew that her present unease stemmed back to that morning six months ago when she'd received a telegram informing her of Gerald's death. It wasn't until that moment that she'd realised just how deep her love for her ill-tempered, soft-hearted Pa truly ran. Growing up it had always been Ellen that she had loved most, Ellen who's saintly behaviour she had fought so hard to emulate and who's kind words and soft carcasses she had constantly tried to earn. Indeed, often she had treated Gerald as more of a beloved and highly-strung pet than a father, regarding him as a source of fond amusement and someone who needed to be praised often and rigorously sheltered from the harsh realities of the outside world.
This need to molly-coddle him had only intensified after Ellen's death, the loss of his beloved wife having reduced Gerald to a pale, quaking shadow of the robust, fiery man that he had once been. Often during the grueling days of the war Scarlett had bemoaned his very existence, resenting the energy and time she wasted in having to sooth away his fears and wishing most bitterly that he would only pull himself together and start doing his fair share of work around the struggling plantation.
Yet now that he was lost to her forever she wanted nothing more than to take back every cruel thought and heated word she had thrown in his direction. Having never been one for regrets, Scarlett found this sudden, pressing weight of them almost unbearable, playing upon her mind as they did like an ugly, festering sore which could be concealed but never fully cured.
Deep inside she longed for Tara, yearned to walk once more amongst its miles of rolling red hills under cloudless, infinite blue skies. It had been raining in Atlanta for days now, the kind of sluggish, fine December rain which soaked through your clothes in seconds and made you fear that you'd never see the sun again. It was the sort of rain that seeped into your spirit and made it as grey as the clouds above your head. The sort which made even the mighty Scarlett O'Hara lose her will to fight.
She knew if only she could visit Tara, could stand again upon the creaking porch steps and look out across the land she loved, that she would be able to lift this choking fog that had settled down over her in recent months. But of course that was impossible, Frank would never let her leave again so soon after having borne Ella and besides, a small, pernickety little voice which resided deep in the back of her mind warned her that the Tara she returned to now would no longer be the one that she so desperately sought.
For if Ellen had been responsible for turning Tara into a great plantation, her subtle overseeing of everything and everyone insuring that the house and land ran as smoothly as was possible, then it was Gerald, with all his loud, harmless blustering and mischievous, gentle-hearted teasing that had transformed it into a family home. It was his fierce, boundless love for everything around him, be it the soil beneath his feet, the children in his house or the wife who shared his bed, which had breathed some much needed life into the stone walls and cotton fields of the plantation.
He was an unstoppable force of nature, hot-tempered and formidable on the surface, endlessly generous and so easily bruised underneath. He had been the beating heart of Tara for decades now and without him it would never be quite so great again.
Going back for his funeral had only confirmed this suspicion, the place that had once seemed the solution to all Scarlett's worries and cares had felt oddly diminished without its former master, reduced in size and stature like a once proud soldier who, having survived the war in tact, is shocked to find himself unable to fight against the slow, crippling effects of time itself. Indeed, it had done well to hold out for as long as it had, for most of the other once mighty houses around the county had already fallen into decline years before.
It hurt Scarlett sorely to think of the sad, pitiful remains of what had once been such a hardy and strong people. To think of the Tarleton family shorn forever of its long-legged, smiling sons and Alex Fontaine forced to scrape a living out of the same dusty earth his ancestors had once stood so tall upon. Why, it was simply too much to be borne!
With her former home in all but ruins and with both her parents now gone from her, Scarlett felt as though the foundations of her life had been cruelly ripped up from under her, and though relics like Mammy and Ashley still remained, her existence had lost its sense of permanence, the heavy losses she had suffered in recent years making her unable to trust that everything else would not soon come tumbling down around her as well.
Indeed, since returning from Tara it was hard not to feel as if she had become unstuck, trapped upon a slope which seemed intent on dragging her ever further downwards.
She was just so exhausted, the demands of the business alongside her obligations to her new child wearing her down in a way that made her feel far older than her 21 years. Though she would never dare speak the words out loud, inside the safety of her own mind she dwelt bitterly on the resounding disappointment that Ella had turned out to be. If she had been hoping that having a daughter might bring out her more maternal side then the birth of her second child had proven her wrong. She was just such an ugly baby, a small, awkward looking thing who did nothing but cry all the time no matter how hard Scarlett tried to calm her. Her constant tears angered Scarlett seeming as they did to highlight her failings as a mother. Often holding Ella in her arms as she screwed up her little face and bawled incessantly, Scarlett couldn't help but think that her daughter was demanding something from her that she had no idea how to go about giving and she resented the child for making her feel so helpless.
The situation wasn't helped by the fact that she seemed to be the only one with whom Ella behaved this way. Why, Melanie only had to step into the same room as her daughter and suddenly Ella would cease her tears and begin to coo so prettily Scarlett could scarcely believe she was the same child. It wasn't only Melly who had this sort of effect though; Ashley, Aunt Pitty, Mammy and even old Frank all seemed to possess the ability to make Ella happy in a way that Scarlett couldn't even begin to dream of, almost as if they all spoke a language that she herself had never taken the time to learn.
It wasn't just Ella that made her home life so unbearable these days though, Frank was himself becoming an ever bigger irritation, his constant weakness and indecisiveness driving Scarlett near crazy with frustration. While at the beginning of their marriage she had thanked the Lord that he was able to be so easily manipulated; now she cursed this very feebleness of spirit which allowed the residents of Atlanta to take similar advantage of him. They were just so very different, their opposite natures meaning that they never truly understood one another, could never talk to each other as equals or share the sort of mental intimacy that she knew Melanie and Ashley did.
Not that she particularly wanted to be intimate with Frank of course, indeed she was glad that he seemed to be absent so often at night now, forever being called away to some Democrat meeting or other which kept him out until all hours and which, upon his return, usually saw him too tired to do anything other than curl up in bed and fall straight off to sleep.
Yet, though the thought of him touching her as a husband should made her skin itch unpleasantly, sometimes Scarlett couldn't help but feel a pang of loneliness whenever they sat together in the evenings, both avoiding eye contact and struggling to think of things to say in order to starve off the silences that so often enveloped them.
The divide between them had grown even wider in these last few months, ever since she had made the decision to replace the free darkies with convicts in her mills. In fact, that decision which had seemed so sensible at the time had ended up putting a strain on almost every relationship she had. While Frank and Aunt Pitty were merely nervously disapproving of her actions and Ashley and Melanie quietly objective, Mammy was downright livid and never failed to make Scarlett aware of her views.
And as much as it wounded her pride to be judged by one of her servants, Scarlett's feelings were far more bruised by Mammy's harsh words. In the past, Mammy had always been quick to defend her no matter how dubious her behaviour may have been. Why, not too long ago she'd even placed her regard for Scarlett above her duties for the O'Hara family as a whole by helping her to win Frank at Suellen's expense. But now the camaraderie that the two had shared for so long was all but broken, Scarlett having unknowingly overstepped some line of decency that Mammy held dear, fracturing their once impervious relationship seemingly beyond repair.
While she was never one to back down even when she was wrong -which this time she didn't even believe herself to be- Scarlett couldn't help but sometimes regret her hasty decision when she stared into Mammy's eyes and saw not the indulgent affection which had burned in them for so many years, but rather only a new look of angry disapproval and stunned hurt.
Such hostile looks were hardly a novelty for Scarlett these days though, indeed recently she seemed to come up against them wherever she went, the entire town having apparently gotten together behind her back and decided that in Rhett's absence she was to be the sole target for all their spite and nasty words.
It was as if they wanted her to feel bad for trying to make a success out of her businesses, to be ashamed of her attempts to build a secure future for herself and her children. Well they could turn up their noses and blank her on the street all they wanted, but she would never give in, not when they were nothing more than a bunch of jealous fools only angry because she'd had the gumption to make something out of the Reconstruction while they'd all been too busy crying over the lost war and dreaming about the golden days of the past to do the same.
It was not as if their condemnation came as surprise to Scarlett, after all she had never exactly been one of Atlanta's favourite residents and had endured more than her fair share of criticism and thinly veiled barbs since moving here after Charles's death. Yet never before had she felt quite this isolated, almost as if the entire town had turned their backs on her rather than just the usual band of old, disapproving cats. Of course Melanie was as unquestioningly loyal as ever and, loath as she as to admit it, Scarlett knew that it was only her unfailing support that had prevented her from becoming a complete outcast in this city. The few gatherings that she was still invited to were almost always organised by Melanie and, where once she would have scorned to attend such dull meetings, now she despised herself for feeling oddly grateful just to be included.
Even her friendship with Melly had its limitations though, ever since she'd hired the darkies in her mills she could sense the other woman's objection in the stilted silences that now sometimes fell between them and in the fact she had yet to dismiss Archie despite the awful way he had spoken to Scarlett about the matter and his continued refusal to drive her around town. Scarlett had never liked Archie, had looked down on him for his rough ways and his dirty clothes and his habit of chewing noisily upon a wad of tobacco as he drove her back and forth to her mills in the weeks after Ella's birth. No, she had not liked him at all, for he was ill-bred and rude and without proper respect for any lady other than the saintly Mrs. Wilkes.
But oh how useful he had been to her! With him by her side in the buggy she had been able to go wherever she pleased, to travel to the mills every day without anyone being able to chastise her for it. It had been a fragile accord between the two of them, but it had benefited both. And to think that now he even refused to transport others around if she was in the buggy with them! Why, it was beyond humiliating to have a low-bred, wife-murdering former prisoner sit in judgement of her like this.
Even worse than his condemnation though, was the knowledge that even her beloved Ashley thought less of her since she'd made the decision to lease the convicts. Of course he was far too well-mannered to ever say such a thing out loud, but she knew him well enough to sense the veiled disapproval in his looks and actions. She knew he hated being in charge of the men, despised the thought of pushing them to complete the tasks and would rather dent the mill's profits than go too hard on them. Indeed, since she had hired them Ashley's mill was becoming less profitable every day and was beginning to lag ever further behind the one run by Johnnie Gallagher.
She tried to help him as much as she could of course, but these days he seemed to have little appreciation for her company, acting cool and aloof with her in a way he had never done before and which brought a hollow, aching sensation to the pit of her stomach. She had missed him so badly during the time he and Melly had remained at Tara while she had been forced to come to Atlanta and marry Frank. Apart from during the war, she had never gone so long without seeing him and the separation had pained her cruelly. She wished more than anything that she could get him alone and demand that he tell her what was ailing him, for there was nothing she wouldn't do to help him if only he'd let her, but recently he had started to shy away from being near her, avoiding her when he could and only speaking in short, closed-off sentences when he was forced to talk to her.
He seemed so much older than he had before the war, grey hairs springing up in his once golden mane and deep-set lines appearing on a face her sixteen year old self had been convinced would remain forever young. It wasn't just his appearance that had altered so drastically though, his manner had similarly taken a turn for the worse since his return to Atlanta and he moved everywhere now as if battling against a fierce current which was determined to pull him under.
She knew he was suffering from the same heaviness of spirit that was currently afflicting her, they were both such similar creatures after all, but while she was a fighter, fated to survive whatever trials life threw at her, Ashley was made of far softer stuff. Though she was low presently, Scarlett had complete faith in her ability to throw off the chains that bound her whilst at the same time knowing full well that Ashley would not be strong enough to do the same. If only he had married her not Melanie, for Ashley needed a wife capable of fighting his battles for him and Melly with her child-like figure and mousey-brown hair was definitely not that woman.
Everything would be so much easier if they were together, she wouldn't have Ella and Frank to tie her down and this sadness she felt inside would surely lift if only it were Ashley she got to come home to every night. She had always seen herself as completely self-sufficient, but now the thought of having a husband who she loved dearly and from whom she could draw additional strength when hers was running low sounded like a wondrous thing.
Oh to have a partner strong enough to help share her strife, to hold her tightly in his arms and whisper in her ear that everything was going to turn out alright. A man who she could depend on to stick by her even if all else turned away from her in shame and disgust, a man forward thinking enough to understand the reasons why she'd hired the convicts and like minded enough to applaud her for her cunning rather than chastise her for her cruelty. Surely with such a husband she would never have to feel alone again.
For it was only now that the people around her were beginning to pull away that she realised how lonely she felt, how lonely she had been her entire life. She thought suddenly of Cathleen Calvert, dear Cathleen who had been one of the liveliest girls in the county and Scarlett's only close friend growing up, perhaps the only real friend she'd ever had. Cathleen hadn't seemed so spirited the last time Scarlett had seen her though, at Gerald's funeral she had looked downright miserable, brought low by her brother's illness and the decision to marry her former plantation overseer, Cathleen had been but a ghost of the bright, vivacious girl who had once laughed with Scarlett on a wide, grand staircase, whispering scandalous gossip in her ear at that infamous Twelve Oakes barbecue.
She'd never seen the need for friends before, having always filled the gap left by them with a sea of ever-changing beaus. But now as a married mother of two, and with her belle days firmly behind her, beaus were strictly off limits and in their absence her lack of friends had slowly become apparent.
Scarlett sorely missed being a belle and remembered fondly the heady thrill of ensnaring a new man with her charms before sitting back and watching him make a fine fool of himself in a bid to win her affection. It had all been so much more exciting back then, each day akin to riding a horse full pelt along open roads whereas now she felt as though she were permanently confined to a buggy, the reins taken from her grasp and held instead by Frank who drove them both along at a pace so sedate and slow it made her want to cry out from the sheer frustration and unfairness of it all.
Her mind wandered back to the days of her pregnancy, recalling a time when it had been an altogether different man driving her around. She smiled in her seat as she remembered how Rhett had used to make her laugh with his scandalous tales of debauchery as they traveled along together, working her up into a fit of helpless giggles with his stories before switching suddenly and teasing her relentlessly about some silly, trifling thing or other until she was all but yelling in annoyance and so eager to escape him she was willing to jump out of a fast-moving carriage just to be free of his jeers. Oh, but he was infuriating! Just thinking about it now made her pulse race, drawing her steadily out of the languor she had been suffering under these last few weeks.
It had been so long since she had last seen him for he had left Atlanta suddenly just after Gerald had died, only stopping by the house to convey his sympathies and inform her that he would be leaving the following morning for an extended period of time. She had asked where it was that he was going but he had been strangely guarded about his destination, refusing to name the place and instead only going so far as to say he would not be travelling overseas.
There was much gossip around the town that it was a sweetheart he had gone off to visit, some secret woman or other that he had met on one of his many trips and had become suddenly enamored with. Scarlett pursed up her lips at the thought though, refusing to believe it was true. The very idea of Rhett falling in love was ridiculous, why in all the years she had known him never had she once seen him take more than a passing interest in a lady, let alone try and woo one. He was far too proud for that, he thought most of the women he met were silly, fickle things unworthy of holding his attention for longer than it took to be formally introduced to them. In fact in all the time they had been acquainted she had only ever known him to willingly spend time with three women; herself, Melly and that dreadful Watling woman.
Certainly none of those relationships could be deemed romantic. With Melly he was uncharacteristically sweet, like a naughty child making a special effort to behave nicely in front of its beloved mother, with Belle he was- well, obviously being a lady, she had no clue how he was with Belle, but she could well imagine there was nothing soft or gentle about that particular acquaintance- and with Scarlett herself he was a mocking devil, a taunting rascal who seemed to seek her out with the sole intention of making her mad. She had no idea why he seemed to find her company so endlessly amusing, but it definitely wasn't borne out of love. She doubted if Rhett was even capable of such an emotion, he wore so many masks and kept his true self so carefully hidden that the notion of him opening himself up enough to love someone was just plain absurd.
Still though something about the idea unsettled her. She didn't know why it should be so, but the thought of Rhett caring about a woman enough to overcome all his staunchly-held reservations about marriage simply did not sit well with her. Sometimes she found herself trying to imagine what his eyes would look like if they were to light up with true affection rather than their usual teasing laughter, how his rich drawl would sound if used to utter tender endearments instead of biting taunts, how his large, strong hands would feel...
But, of course, there was no sense in thinking such things for the rumours about him were just that, senseless talk by a group of old women who had nothing better to do than make up such silly nonsense.
No, she may not know where he had gone, or why, but what she did know was that she wished him back as soon as possible. Rhett wasn't like the rest of this small-minded, mealy-mouthed town, he wouldn't condemn her for her decision to lease the convicts but rather would congratulate her on her fine business sense and be proud that she was making such a promising return on his investment. She'd almost forgotten until then that she had another reason for wanting Rhett to return, having formed a plan to ply him for another loan so that she might buy a lot downtown and set up a lumber yard there. Of course Frank would be against it, but then his disapproval had never stopped her before and she was sure a few sweet looks and coy words would be all that she needed to win him round.
Getting the loan out of Rhett might prove a little more difficult though, after all he had never been susceptible to her belle-like tactics of flirting and pleading, indeed he seemed to despise it when she put on airs and tried to hide her true self from him. No, she would have to think of a more cunning method of persuasion, especially as he was bound to be angry when he found out she'd employed Ashley at the mill. He'd never expressly forbidden it of course and she had already made sure to repay her debt to him in full before taking the step, but somehow she knew Rhett wouldn't see it the same way she did. He never was able to be reasonable where Ashley was concerned.
She hoped he wouldn't cause too much of a fuss though, a lumber yard would make a lovely addition to her businesses and Rhett had given her such a good deal on the last loan she could not help but hope for more of the same this time around. Besides, she did not want to argue with him, she had had enough harsh words thrown in her direction recently to last a lifetime and did not think she could stand to hear them from Rhett too. She wanted them to be friends again, for him to make her laugh like he'd used to before Gerald had died and he'd gone away and everything seemed to get that little bit darker.
Her attention caught by a change of light, Scarlett glanced out of the parlour window and was shocked to see the rain had finally stopped and that a thin, but bright, ray of sunshine had managed to break through the oppressive grey clouds.
Feeling her spirits lift at the sight, Scarlett moved to pick her pen back up when a sudden, sharp knock at the door made her start in surprise.
Getting up, she paused to check her appearance in the mirror above the fireplace, frowning in dissatisfaction at the sight of her tired, worn looking reflection. She promised herself she'd make more of an effort tomorrow, perhaps even wear that fine new green challis dress with the lace house-cap that Aunt Pitty had made for her, anything to tempt the emerald back into her eyes and stop them looking quite so lifeless.
As the sun hit the window pane and illuminated the room in a soft, yellow light, Scarlett squared her shoulders, pushed all gloomy thoughts firmly to the back of her mind and moved to open the door.
I have no idea what this is or where it came from. I was just bored and I missed writing and I wanted to see if I could still do it. Sorry it's so depressing, I was re-reading this part of the book and it struck me how completely miserable life for Scarlett must have been at this point so I thought I'd better do something to help her out! No clue where this is headed, but if you fancy coming along for the ride then I'd be very happy to have you with me :)