“Oh, they are better, much better, almost well but quite weak,” answered Scarlett. Then, seeing the question she feared hovering on the old lady’s lips, she cast hastily about for some other topic of conversation.
“I—I wonder if you could lend us something to eat? The Yankees cleaned us out like a swarm of locusts. But, if you are on short rations, just tell me so plainly and—”
“Send over Pork with a wagon and you shall have half of what we’ve got, rice, meal, ham, some chickens,” said Old Miss, giving Scarlett a sudden keen look.
“Oh, that’s too much! Really, I—”
“Not a word! I won’t hear it. What are neighbors for?”
“You are so kind that I can’t— But I have to be going now. The folks at home will be worrying about me.”
Grandma rose abruptly and took Scarlett by the arm.
“You two stay here,” she commanded, pushing Scarlett toward the back porch. “I have a private word for this child. Help me down the steps, Scarlett.”
Young Miss and Sally said good-by and promised to come calling soon. They were devoured by curiosity as to what Grandma had to say to Scarlett but unless she chose to tell them, they would never know. Old ladies were so difficult, Young Miss whispered to Sally as they went back to their sewing.
Scarlett stood with her hand on the horse’s bridle, a dull feeling at her heart.
“Now,” said Grandma, peering into her face, “what’s wrong at Tara? What are you keeping back?”
Scarlett looked up into the keen old eyes and knew she could tell the truth, without tears. No one could cry in the presence of Grandma Fontaine without her express permission.
“Mother is dead,” she said flatly.
The hand on her arm tightened until it pinched and the wrinkled lids over the yellow eyes blinked.
“Did the Yankees kill her?”
“She died of typhoid. Died—the day before I came home.”
“Don’t think about it,” said Grandma sternly and Scarlett saw her swallow. “And your Pa?”
“Pa is—Pa is not himself.”
“What do you mean? Speak up. Is he ill?”
“The shock—he is so strange—he is not—”
“Don’t tell me he’s not himself. Do you mean his mind is unhinged?”
It was a relief to hear the truth put so baldly. How good the old lady was to offer no sympathy that would make her cry.
“Yes,” she said dully, “he’s lost his mind. He acts dazed and sometimes he can’t seem to remember that Mother is dead. Oh, Old Miss, it’s more than I can stand to see him sit by the hour, waiting for her and so patiently too, and he used to have no more patience than a child. But it’s worse when he does remember that she’s gone. Every now and then, after he’s sat still with his ear cocked listening for her, he jumps up suddenly and stamps out of the house and down to the burying ground. And then he comes dragging back with the tears all over his face and he says over and over till I could scream: ‘Katie Scarlett, Mrs. O’Hara is dead. Your mother is dead,’ and it’s just like I was hearing it again for the first time. And sometimes, late at night, I hear him calling her and I get out of bed and go to him and tell him she’s down at the quarters with a sick darky. And he fusses because she’s always tiring herself out nursing people. And it’s so hard to get him back to bed. He’s like a child. Oh, I wish Dr. Fontaine was here! I know he could do something for Pa! And Melanie needs a doctor too. She isn’t getting over her baby like she should—”
“Melly—a baby? And she’s with you?”
“Yes.”
“What’s Melly doing with you? Why isn’t she in Macon with her aunt and her kinfolks? I never thought you liked her any too well, Miss, for all she was Charles’ sister. Now, tell me all about it.”
“It’s a long story, Old Miss. Don’t you want to go back in the house and sit down?”
“I can stand,” said Grandma shortly. “And if you told your story in front of the others, they’d be bawling and making you feel sorry for yourself. Now, let’s have it.”
Scarlett began haltingly with the siege and Melanie’s condition, but as her story progressed beneath the sharp old eyes which never faltered in their gaze, she found words, words of power and horror. It all came back to her, the sickeningly hot day of the baby’s birth, the agony of fear, the flight and Rhett’s desertion. She spoke of the wild darkness of the night, the blazing camp fires which might be friends or foes, the gaunt chimneys which met her gaze in the morning sun, the dead men and horses along the road, the hunger, the desolation, the fear that Tara had been burned.
“I thought if I could just get home to Mother, she could manage everything and I could lay down the weary load. On the way home I thought the worst had already happened to me, but when I knew she was dead I knew what the worst really was.”
She dropped her eyes to the ground and waited for Grandma to speak. The silence was so prolonged she wondered if Grandma could have failed to comprehend her desperate plight. Finally the old voice spoke and her tones were kind, kinder than Scarlett had ever heard her use in addressing anyone.