Disclaimer: I am the ghost of Margaret Mitchell and I do own this story, so HA!
Just kidding. I don't own Gone With The Wind or any of its characters.
Also, I don't own the title "Nothing Gold Can Stay." That belongs to Robert Frost, and the poem goes like this: Nature's early green is gold/Her hardest hue to hold/ Her early leaf's a flower/ But only so an hour/Then leaf subsides to leaf/So Eden sank to grief/So dawn goes down to day/Nothing gold can stay. Just so you know.
Anyway, chapter 4.
Gerald O'Hara came home at eleven twenty-one am on the dot.
Scarlett knew this because she'd been watching the clock at the very moment the door slammed, wishing that lunch would be over. Scarlett liked food as much as anyone, but that was not enough to change the fact that Suellen was currently giving everyone a mind numbingly boring account of what exactly Frank Kennedy had complimented her about during the party to Careen, who looked ridiculously fascinated. Scarlett glanced at Mrs. O'Hara, wondering what she thought about it, but her mother was busy frowning to herself and muttering figures under her breath, which meant she'd been going over the accounts before eating. Scarlett sighed again, wishing that Mammy was here to distract her, but she'd gone to the Cave to serve clients. Scarlett sighed and glanced at the clock.
At that moment the door slammed, and a voice bellowed loudly (and quite unnecessarily), "I'm home!"
"That must be Pa!" Suellen said loudly. Scarlett rolled her eyes.
"No, Really? I thought it was some burglar coming in discreetly to steal your earrings," Scarlett retorted sarcastically. At that moment the heavy tramp of boots reached them, and all of the estrogen in the O'Hara family turned to look at him.
Gerald O'Hara was, by no means, a handsome man. His curly hair was already graying, though he had barely reached fifty. His shoulders were too broad for his body, he had a barrel chest, and his legs were short.
Yet people rarely noticed that when they looked at him. There was something about his smile, too broad for his tanned and lined face, his habit of gesticulating when he spoke excitedly, his blaring voice which was better made for the outdoors, and, most of all, the energy, vitality, and life that seemed to leap out from him, making his deep blue eyes a pleasure to the most antisocial man.
He was an Irishman, and a poor one at that. His childhood had been spent in deprivation, and as soon as he turned seventeen he moved to the Unites States of America, the land of justice and opportunity, or so he hoped.
And he'd done well. He started as a poor worker on the vineyard of Tara, the largest privately owned estate in the whole state of Georgia. His boss, an unmarried old man by the name of Earl Lapis, had liked him and his hard-working ways, frequently telling him that it was a "shame he wasn't Jewish," which Gerald did not completely understand but knew to be a compliment. Slowly he'd risen in station until he was second only to Mr. Lapis.
Then one day the man died, and twenty-nine years old Gerald was crushed. He'd grown to think of Tara as his one and only home, and had pictured himself living happily ever after working there. The reality was even better than his dream.
Earl left him the whole estate of Tara to him in his will, on the condition that he let Pork and Dilcey, a worker and his wife who'd lived there for years, continue to work for him. Gerald agreed happily, being fond of the two himself, and soon established himself as a hardheaded business and made his fortune.
On a trip to Charleston, he met Ellen Robillard, daughter of Pierre Robillard. The Robillards were one of the oldest and proudest families in South Carolina, and Pierre, to say the least, did not want her daughter to marry a nauveau-riche immigrant Irishman.
Pierre was a very picky man when it came to a husband for his favorite daughter. He had refused to allow her to marry a distant cousin of hers, with whom she had fallen passionately in love. In fact, when he had heard of it he had immediately sent the boy away, and he quickly died in a bar fight.
Mammy would never forget the look on Ellen's face when she heard of the news. There had been something in her eyes…or rather; there had not been something in her eyes. It seemed that a light in them was extinguished; much like a flame could be extinguished. All the life, the passion, the will that made Ellen Ellen was gone, replaced by something flat and blank and empty. From that moment, she was nothing but the gentle shell of a once living girl.
So when Gerald O'Hara had arrived, full of life and vigor, she had known that she would marry him. Not for love, no; she was now incapable of such a feeling, but for safety. She would be a Mrs., with children, an estate, far away from home, where she wouldn't have to deal with the half sympathizing, half "thank God it didn't happen to me," looks, and that was all she wanted.
Pierre Robillard's objections had been easy to take care of. All she had to do to get his permission was to threaten to elope with the local drunk, Richard, who had already proposed to her several times. Pierre Robillard was a proud man, but he was also a smart one. He knew that Ellen, with her desperate face and resolute eyes, would do exactly as she said. So it was consented to (despite Mammy's objections), the preparations were made, the ceremony rolled around, and Gerald O'Hara became a true businessman, with money, a wife ten years younger than him, and soon children.
And they lived happily ever after…
If only.
SCE
I know that this chapter is neither interesting nor well written, as well as very short, but it's going to be important for later on and gives a lot of background info. So don't get mad, please.
I'll update soon with The Adventures Of Scarlett O'Hara,
For those of you who haven't read the book (which you should do, because it about, oh, five million times better than the movie), this is actually in it. Mrs. O'Hara fell in love with her cousin, Phillip Something, her dad found out, sent him away, and he promptly died in a brawl. Then Ellen threatened to join a convent if her father didn't allow him to marry Gerald, and that's it. It also says in the book that Ellen was the "gentle shell" of who she'd once been, and felt nothing at all. So I think that when she was a girl she was quite a bit like Scarlett.
Did You Know: An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain.
And special hugs to all that reviewed. Please God I'm begging you, r&r.