"Tomorrow I'll be Mrs. George Wilkes!" cried Scarlett O'Hara Kinnicut with glee as she surveyed herself in the mirror. She was wearing the beautiful bridal veil that had belonged once to her great-grandmother, but her dress was not the sumptuous matching gown but a pair of polka-dotted pajamas. Scarlett arranged her dark curls and looked down at Bertha, who was sitting on the floor in pajamas of her own. Impulsively, Scarlett leapt down and kissed Bertha's face, copiously. "April 14, 1945," she intoned, like an announcer on a newsreel. "A date which shall truly live in infamy! At least among the O'Haras and the Wilkes families. Bertha, I've never told you, but do you realize tomorrow's nuptials have been almost a hundred years in the making?"
"What do you mean, Letty?"
"My great-grandmother," Scarlett said slowly. "Scarlett O'Hara the First—or Katie Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton Kennedy Bulter Darcy Butler again was in love with Ashley Wilkes when she was my age. She almost lost everything because of it. She never married him—though you could see that she married enough for several people! Ashley wasn't her true love. Great-Granddad was, and they finally got it right in the end. But I believe Scarlett cared for Ashley, and he for her, in a different way, all the days of their lives. There was some bad blood between the families for years—still is, to some extent. But now I'm marrying George, and putting and end to all that. If Great-Grandma was here, she'd be pleased as punch to see it." Scarlett took her veil off and fiddled with it. "Bertha—George is my true love. We're meant to be together—aren't we?"
Her green eyes were large and frightened, and Bertha reached over to clasp her friend's hand.
"How can you doubt it, darling?" she asked. "I've seen you and George together. He dotes on you. Don't be fearful. It's a big thing—but it's a happy thing. What would Great-Grandmama Scarlett say if she were here?"
"She'd say 'God's nightgown, child! This isn't anything to be afraid of! Think of facing the Yankee army with a squalling baby in your arms and a dead man's wallet in his drawers!' Grandmama Scarlett—I knew her, a bit, she lived to be quite aged—didn't tolerate cowardliness in anybody, animal, vegetable, mineral, or even child." Scarlett laughed, restored to good humor. "Oh, thank you for staying with me tonight, Birdie. Except for that brief jittery moment, I haven't been nervous about tomorrow at all. Is that a bad sign? Well, I know there's a greater chance I'd fall to pieces if you weren't here."
Bertha watched her friend and thought that if ever the world had wanted two people to be together, it was Scarlett Kinnicut and George Wilkes. Their story was like something out of a romance novel. Bertha smiled, herself, feeling only a small pang of regret. "Is everything ready for tomorrow, you goof? We're supposed to be going over things. Do you have your traveling suit pressed and hung up?"
"Check. It's in the garment bag in the wardrobe."
"Well, what about your shoes—your hat—your gloves?"
"Check, check, and check."
"Your bag?"
"Aye, aye, Captain Wright."
"Your vows!" Bertha cried triumphantly, thinking that she would finally trump her, but Scarlett rooted around on the dresser and found a small card.
"Right here," she laughed. "I'm going to recite Ruth's speech to Naomi. Whither thou goest…"
"I will go," Bertha finished. "I always thought when I was a child that I'd read those words my own wedding. Or else, I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine."
"You and Michael will make the cutest couple," Scarlett said, tossing her veil onto the dresser-top and toppling back onto the bed. "Matching hair—matching freckles—like bookends. His and hers redheads, with a bunch of little kiddies to match."
Bertha smiled wanly. She had not been thinking of her wedding to Michael, though she felt she must start doing that, soon. They had still not set a date and he was growing sulky about it. They had rowed over it twice in the past week alone! She looked at the diamond on her hand, as clear and guileless as Michael himself. Oh, for the luster—the depth—of emerald! But she shook her head. There was no use thinking of things that couldn't be. It would hurt her; it was only a waste of time. She tried to turn her thoughts to what it was Scarlett was saying about the wedding presents that were accumulating downstairs in the foyer, but she found she could not hear her, not really.
"…and what do you think it was but another teapot? This makes twelve. The way I think of it is that nobody in mine and George's family will have to buy a new teapot for the next twelve hundred years. Mrs. Rachel Gray sent her present over and it was just the right shape and Mother said, 'Oh, no, not another one,' but it was a silver coffeepot, instead. Though I suppose one could use it for tea. And Jordan Gray had included a book of poems. He can't come to the wedding of course, but it was nice of him to think of us all the sa—"
"Scarlett!" cried Bertha, hoarsely. "Did you just say—Jordan Gray?"
"Well, of course I did," Scarlett said, looking at Bertha strangely. "What's it to you?"
"Oh, Scarlett—what do you mean? How can he have sent you anything? He's dead! Jordan Gray died in Holland last year."
Now Scarlett was looking at her as though she had two heads. "No, he didn't. What are you talking about? Jordan was shot in Holland last year. He's been in hospital in England for the past six months, but he's home now. Just last week he arrived. Why would you think he was dead?"
"You wrote me," Bertha said, in a smallest voice—the smallest voice that Scarlett had ever heard the bold redheaded girl use. "In October of last year. You wrote me, Scarlett—I read it over and over—that 'Eb Brown was shot at Boulougne and injured terribly and Jordan Gray was killed at Arnheim, in Holland.'"
Scarlett cried, "But I couldn't have written that! Jordan Gray was shot at Arnheim and injured and Eb Brown was killed at Boulougne. Back in September. You read it wrong, Bertha. You switched the names."
Bertha said, shakily, "I read that letter a thousand times, Scarlett. I was in love with Jordan Gray! We were—we were going to be married. Scarlett—you wrote it wrong. You switched the names! Scarlett—I thought Jordan was dead. For months I thought it." She began to cry, silently, the tears streaming in rivers down her face.
Scarlett jumped up, her hands pulling at her curls. "Bertha—no! Oh, honey, I couldn't have—but I must have, I was in a tizzy over the wedding. Oh, my God! Honey, honey-darling, Jordan Gray isn't dead! My brother Rhett had a letter from him last week. He was shot in the leg or arm or something but he's going to be fine now, he's home and everything. And you thought… Oh, I'm going to The Bad Place Below for this! It's the worst thing I've ever done. I'm damned to perdition for eternity." Scarlett was crying, now, too. "You loved him—he was that fellow you were always writing to—and I told you he was dead." She looked horrified.
"And now you've told me he's alive," wept Bertha, "And it is as though I've begun to live again. Oh, Letty, Letty, I think I know how everybody will feel on the Last Day, when they are raised up. 'I once was lost'—but now he's found. Oh, Scarlett, Scarlett—Jordan is alive!"
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A/N: The parts about Scarlett Kinnicut's history are taken from my GWTW fic, Tomorrow. These are two of my faves and I wanted to combine them in some way.