At ease in the company of ther women, though the pace of Atlanta tired her when these thoughts plagued her so, at length Scarlett knew she must bid goodbye, to those most faithful companions among them Melly, and to wave goodbye at the train, was a curious kind of parting,

"I mustn't think of it," resolved Scarlett, who sat in her cabin, and rested easy on the seat which oversaw the passing scenery, and the rumbling underneath, "I'd just die if I gave way to grief. It is easier to subsist - to pass through with boredom through every intricacy of life, lest it hold and shake me and tell me what's what. Never permit me that."

And so, confined to the relegation of her mood as dictated by her mind, Scarlett saw to it that when she alighted from the train, and met by her Mammy, she saw all the fields of the County and felt no more rested, yet her intentions were set.

"Melly is so nice, and far away and above what I can hope to muster," Scarlett breathed in the country air, "Being Ellen is no cakewalk, not when I cannot walk and talk like her. Being Melly is next to impossible. My most stringent attribute is that of my strength. And if I cannot learn kindness, nor tolerate my vulnerability, I must simply keep going - I must."

So Scarlett, rested with the knowledge that she might live another day, whatever it entailed being what she could oppose, even if the lightest of summer days with the red clay furrows of Tara coming into sight, knowing her soul, in some miserable place, must be lighter.

"Perhaps the softest part is hidden, much as cotton is planted as a seed," conjectured Scarlett, as the trees from either side up the path to Tara sheltered her, "Perhaps I will never know it to grow, but it is there. And perhaps by continuing to persist - it will be happy, even if it does not grow strong enough roots to entangle me. After all, the heart is too busy pumping blood, it does not stop to smile."

Scarlett saw Tara in all its beauty, the slave chasing the chickens with a reed and feathers, and felt nothing, but knew that she did, even if she did not feel it.

"Katie Scarlett O'Hara," bellowed Gerald, lofty with his hat top his head, on his stalwart short legs, barrel chest, grin beaming, and took her in his arms, "Wherever did you go to?"

"You know, Pa," Scarlett grinned, for his animation was much to be admired, and in his, she could indulge a little of hers, "I have not been gone long these past few weeks."

"My girl, come inside and I'll fetch you something to eat," Gerald raised all succor and pride towards the dining room, and food of the most mouthwatering volume had been laid, so many plates of food, that Scarlett could well believe herself straining at her stays already.

"You know, Pa," gave Scarlett her hat to Mammy, and approached Gerald with a smile after he held out her chair, "If I weren't so steadfast about catching a husband, I'd sit at this table every day and indulge, and be the worse off for it."

Gerald beamed, and so they ate and talked, and because Scarlett could provoke his conversation, she needed little to offer of hers, for men liked to talk of their own accord foisted upon topics which they did not once know they had interest in, and Scarlett could happily nod and partake and think on her own.

When the candlelight became stronger than the fade outside, Scarlett sat in the parlour and watched the sun go down over those hills, those pines which always threatened to come closer, the slaves across the fields, those rugged fields, the splay of land far off which belonged to the Tarletons and the Wilkes and the Calverts.

"This is all I have ever wanted," Scarlett lay her head in her hands, "But I am acting a part - anyone looking would think I loved it, but I do not. I am convinced a knife or a shadow, something unspoken, some dark fog, something is frightening me and I cannot tell. Maybe it is entirely beyond me - after all, my fears are not of Tara or of what will happen to this land."

Scarlett roused as the sound of the carriage, as were the footsteps of Suellen and Careen down the staircase, as was Gerald thundering from the back door, as the carriage which announced Ellen came to a telling halt outside the front door, with all sounds as which sparked their concern.

"Oh, Mother," Scarlett sighed, and saw Ellen walk through that front door.

They sat at prayers, and Ellen with her lemon verbena sachet warmed all their cares, and Scarlett, not wanting to disturb Ellen's countenance, by spoiling her mind with that of tales which were best left to nightmares, went upstairs to bed where Gerald's talking continued long after Ellen had shut the door.

And Scarlett felt a vast emptiness, for where she should lay her head should not be on her pillow as the cool breeze came through the open window, but on Ellen's knee, and profess all secrets and desires and hopes and fears, as were abnormal to Scarlett O'Hara of Tara, and likely to spark all suspicion to the wanton degree.

Instead, Scarlett dreamed: she dreamed she was at a farm more crude than Tara and yet no less beautiful, and with people she recognised and felt in her, or at least knew she was dreaming to feel it, a great swell of happiness which she knew was not all-consuming, knowing herself to be dreaming.

And when she awoke, and dressed with Mammy's inclination that she plump for something more fitting, she meekly acquiesced and came down to breakfast, eyeing her food and listening to Gerald's bluster about the war soon to come, and realised, with a start which only Mammy noticed, that truly all this life was to end.

"It's not the war I fear," Scarlett spluttered, when she could contain herself in some measure of privacy underneath a swing from a tree, in the day which promised to be jubilant, "Of course, with some good sense and memory I could counter that. No, it's that during all my grey mood, I've hated that I've had to leave it all behind. I'm living it - living in Tara at peace - and acting as though it's already gone. I'm unable to enjoy it even though I've returned here exactly as I've asked."

Scarlett swung on the swing, and Mammy, eyeing from afar that disposition in Scarlett which was more commonly attributed to the Wilkeses, shook her head and muttered under her breath.