Margaret Mitchell & John Marsh

by Marianne Walker

  She had adjusted well to their poverty and never complained about being confined in the apartment. What bothered her, she explained tearfully, was his talking all the time about his work, about loving his job, and his coming home so late and tired that he just went to sleep, sometimes without talking to her at all. Certainly she knew he was working hard for them, but that did not prevent her from feeling deserted. She had made no progress on her book because she missed having him to talk to and to confirm her ideas; he was the only person she trusted with her writing. She struggled to explain her ambivalent feelings, saying that she had in him everything she had ever wanted. She was happy, and yet she was unhappy; and that state of affairs did not make sense to her. Nearly twenty-six years old, she felt as if she had accomplished nothing.

  As he listened to her words tumble out in a childlike voice full of pain, John realized that in a sense he had neglected her. Leaving her on her own to write was not working. She had no self-discipline; they both knew that. She could not impose deadlines on herself. She needed more direction than he had been giving her. With her excitable temperament and impatient nature, she needed his patience and assurance. She had ideas of her own, but she needed him to listen to her talk about them. After all, talking was something they always had done, as he had pointed out earlier:

  Both of us have an inordinate fondness for talking, and instead of clearing up one subject and getting on to the next, we spend hours arguing one small angle of one subject, all of which is highly unimportant but very interesting.99

  That night John made a decision. He informed Peggy that he was not going to bring any more books home for her to read. She was going to write one of her own. He would see to it. And they were to begin that night.

  Taking their sandwiches, drinks, and his cigarettes, they propped themselves up in their bed and talked for hours. They talked about the incomplete draft of her adventure story set in the Jazz Age, the one she had been working on off and on since before they married. Its main character was Pansy, a high-spirited, adventurous teenager, but the plot was an ordinary one—teenagers getting into trouble by drinking and driving. And, John pointed out, it was too much like all those boys’ adventure stories she had consumed as a child and as an adult.100 Although she saved the thirty or so pages of that manuscript, she apparently never worked on it again.101 The other manuscript, the novella “’Ropa Carmagin,” a tale of mystery, was better, but she had done all she needed to do with it, having completed it while John was recuperating in her father’s home before they had married.102 What she needed now was a new project with a new plot.

  Doing all the things any good editor or teacher does in trying to draw a fearful writer into believing in herself, John convinced her that she should write what she knew best and cared about the most. Her writing had to reflect her own uniqueness, he insisted. He kept going back to her love for the old South and its traditions, to her hardy attachment to and reverence for Atlanta, to those stories she had told him about her grandparents and relatives, people, she said, who “could take it on the chin” and not only survive tragedy but grow stronger for going through it. Instead of trying to write adventure fiction, John urged her to write about people. He told her she should be writing an historical novel because she had a creative, historical imagination. Why not start, he asked her, by writing what she wrote best—descriptions of some characters, like those survivor types that she always had in her mind? John’s advice was, “Create some great characters first and then let them generate the action for you.”103

  As she listened, she rummaged through the cardboard box of papers that she had saved when she moved from the Magazine office. She found her material on the Confederate generals. Having gathered much more information than she was able to use in those short articles, she had copious notes on General Benning’s wife, with whom she had been so fascinated that she included a paragraph about her in the article. Those notes were a treasure trove.104 A bountiful mother of ten children, Mrs. Benning not only looked after her own family, aging parents, and her brother’s grieving widow and children but, with energy and competence, also managed the huge plantation and the slaves by herself while her husband was away fighting the Yankees. Mrs. Benning was only one example of many fine-mannered, soft-voiced, good women who survived after their luxurious homes and elegant manner of living had been completely destroyed. Many of those women survived in the face of terrible odds and rebuilt their new lives in their defeated South. The thought of these women inspired her, particularly when she added thoughts of her own grandparents and great-aunts Mamie and Sis. Then, too, as John pointed out, his own mother was an example of a survivor. Left suddenly alone after the unexpected death of her husband, Mary Marsh had had to figure out a way to support herself and five young children in addition to looking after her elderly mother, aunt, and brother.

  “Why did some survive and others not?” Peggy asked John as she began to focus her attention on women survivors. Clearly, the excited discussion that she and John had that night directed her attention to a central idea at last and forged the way for Melanie Wilkes, Ellen O’Hara, and even Scarlett herself.105 Little did John and Peggy know how far the results of their brainstorming session that night would take them, for they had discovered the essence of the novel that not only changed their lives forever but also the lives of many others.

  The next evening John gave her a birthday present in advance. Smiling broadly, he appeared in their doorway with a stack of yellow copy paper and an oak typing table under one arm and a shiny but second-hand black Remington typewriter under his other arm. Peggy squealed with delight when she saw him.106 Although he really could not afford the typewriter (the paper and table came from Georgia Power), he thought it was cheaper than paying for her visits to physicians. “Madam,” he said as he set the typewriter on the little table in the alcove of the front room, “I greet you on the beginning of a great new career.”107

  17

  Except for some penciled notes, every line of Gone With the Wind was typed on that typewriter and most of it done between 1926 and 1932. From that summer until her death, twenty-three years later, their domestic life centered around Gone With the Wind—first the writing of it and then the administration of the international copyright business and myriad other problems that resulted from the book’s success.

  In his long interview with Medora Field Perkerson in 1949 for the Sunday Magazine, John explained:

  She did not write it in longhand in bed as has sometimes been reported. She wrote every line of it on the typewriter, except for occasional pencilled notes. She wrote and rewrote. She was never satisfied with it. Even after it was published she always thought she should have done a better job. I started reading right from the time she started writing and we would talk about it. As you know, talking things over sometimes makes an idea come clearer. In trying to write it out before hand the mechanical labor may get between the writer and the idea. I was always more confident than she was that she could write a good book. She didn’t have enough confidence in her own ability.108

  18

  The remainder of that year, 1926, John continued to hold down two jobs. Meanwhile, Peggy worked daily at her typewriter from early in the morning until John came home at night, when he would read what she had done. Following his advice, she framed her characters first, keeping Pansy Hamilton, the young, strong-willed teenager as her protagonist. Actually, she said she wrote the ending of the novel first, and then worked her way backward.109 With his keen sense of order, John kept working on the first chapter. During this period, Peggy hardly wrote any letters at all. She worked steadily although she kept no schedule, and interruptions did not seem to bother her. Clearly, the commotion over the publication of Frances Newman’s novel was the impetus she needed to stop treading water, so to speak, on her own novel.

  But then Frances Newman had always set Peggy’s nerves on edge. A woman with prestige, Newman was the daughter of one of Atlanta’s oldest families; her father, Wil
liam T. Newman, was a federal judge. A brilliant person with an opinion about everything, she associated with an avant-garde group that included James Branch Cabell, one of Peggy’s idols, and H. L. Mencken. Her relationship with the equally brilliant Journal writer Frank Daniel, nearly twenty years her junior, gave Atlanta’s wagging tongues more to wag about. She was also a faddish woman who wore shades of purple almost exclusively. When her book appeared in the bookstores in early December, Atlantans were not surprised to see its cover done in vibrant shades of purple. But they were surprised when they saw the title—The Hard-Boiled Virgin—and shocked when they read the text, scandalous for its day. Newman’s novel created an uproar in Atlanta.110

  Perhaps only because she felt envious, Peggy was intimidated by the older, more successful woman, who was always pleasant with her but in a patronizing or condescending manner. Harvey Smith noted that The Hard-Boiled Virgin was a sort of challenge to Peggy, for with it Frances Newman obtained a bit of the very sort of renown that attracted Peggy so strongly. Others agreed with Smith’s assessment here:

  Certainly Peggy had no real love for her and though she never said so I know there was a sort of feeling present that made Peggy flush, look down and almost visibly gnash her teeth at the mention of Frances’ success. . . . I do not mean to say Peggy disliked Frances; merely that Frances’ achievement made Peggy distinctly uneasy.111

  John knew the effect that Newman had on Peggy. He asked his sister in a letter on December 8, 1926:

  Have you read The Hard-Boiled Virgin, yet? It’s Frances Newman’s first novel. . . . It is creating no end of a sensation here, with suggestions flying thick and fast that Frances should be tarred and feathered and run out of town. The town is worse shocked than ever before in years. Frances has dared to trifle with things sacred to Atlanta, the Driving Club and old family names, in addition to writing in a book things most people “wouldn’t think of,” and admitting to adolescent thoughts “no normal child would ever have had.” So Atlanta writhes and squirms, while sales of the book increase.

  The thing most offensive to Atlanta is the fact that the book is obviously autobiographical, in large part at least, and Frances has seen fit to speak lightly, even scandalously, about her own family, which is one of the oldest and most conservative in town. I can’t say that I approve her good taste in using her own family for copy, but I think she has written a very clever book.

  We were around to see her Sunday afternoon and got our copy of the book autographed. Frances is all atwitter and screamed all over the place in her high pitched voice. She is a little bit taken aback to find the town snapping at her heels so unanimously, but I think she is really very proud of the sensation she is creating and is inwardly gloating over it.

  I won’t ever believe her novel is a failure, because it has had the good effect of getting Peggy roused up again over her novel, and we are at work on it again. I might write more except that I am going to take at stab again at the opening chapter of the fifteenth revision of the Adventures of Pansy. Peggy has promised to work on it if I’ll help her get started again, so here goes.112

  CHAPTER

  7

  1927-1935

  IN THE WAKE OF A MASTERPIECE

  Peggy’s eyes are better and she is beginning to commence to start work on the novel again which means that I am back at my problem of trying to figure out an opening chapter for the book. This time I am approaching the problem by studying the way other novelists get their books going. . . .

  —John Marsh to his mother, December 1931

  1

  ONCE PEGGY STARTED WORK ON HER BOOK about the Civil War and its aftermath, the whole atmosphere in the Marshes’ apartment changed for the better. On the winter mornings when Bessie arrived for work before 7:00, she would find Peggy, usually a late sleeper, hammering away at the typewriter with papers scattered all over the floor. According to her brother Stephens, some days she typed nearly all day long, until John came home in the evening, and then, after they had their supper, she would type until midnight or so.1 Later, Bessie was to claim that she had no idea at first that Peggy was writing a book; she thought she was merely writing letters.2 Although Peggy did not discuss any of the details of her book with her father, she often asked him, an authority on Atlanta’s history, questions about dates, events, places, and about some of her grandparents’ experiences. Her father and brother knew only that she was writing a novel about a young girl in Atlanta during the Civil War; they never read a line of the manuscript. Her brother said that John was her only audience.3 In fact, during the first few years of his daughter’s marriage, Eugene Mitchell, a gracious host to all of the frequently visiting Marshes, would make a point of telling each one how marvelous he thought his son-in-law was, especially for the way he got his unpredictable, wayward daughter to settle down.4 Secure in her married life, she was no longer defensive in dealing with her father, and their relationship became warm and loving as it had been when she was a child.5

  In 1927, her friends had no idea what she was working on. Whenever they would drop in for an unannounced visit, they would find Peggy dressed in shorts and one of John’s shirts, or in a loose housedress, and always wearing an eyeshade. There would be books scattered around her and a stack of yellow copy paper on the floor near the typing table. Peggy never looked annoyed when friends interrupted her work; they said she would merely remove the eyeshade and cover the typewriter and the manuscript with a towel she kept handy for this purpose.

  Her brother Stephens was also fascinated by the history of the South, and he helped his father and others develop the Atlanta Historical Society in 1926. In that same year, Stephens was engrossed in research on the economic aspects of the Civil War for an essay published in the Historical Society Bulletin. On the evening when he brought his article to his sister to get her opinion, he observed her taking notes from an old volume of The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, published in 1879.6 She told him she was studying the medical treatments used during the 1860s and was learning about uses of iodine and the treatment of dysentery. He in turn shared with her his discovery of some interesting but little-known information about what had happened to the Confederacy’s store of bullion and into which northern and foreign bank accounts the profits of blockade running went. Praising his essay, she told him that the histories she had been reading mentioned precious little or nothing about the profiteers, and she was grateful to him for his research, which she incorporated into her manuscript.7

  Although Stephens was never permitted to read a line of her manuscript, he understood how his sister worked and talked to Finis Farr about it:

  Her philosophy was made up by the case system. That is a system of studying law where you get no rules and no text, but you study cases which have been tried and decided, and you find out how they turn out, and finally, after reading many cases and discussing them with your fellow students, you make up the rules yourself. Margaret’s philosophy was a “case” philosophy. She did not try to make people fit a rule. She studied the people, and out of that came a rule. . . . She said that she practiced psychiatry on her friends and acquaintances. When she drew characters, it was from her observation of how people behave—it was not from any preconceived notion of how they ought to behave. She put them down as they were.8

  2

  Although John was more attentive to her needs now, he was still caught up in his own career, which continued to burgeon. He had begun to rise at Georgia Power, was working hard and long hours, and was making a name for himself. Temperamentally, he was not only more confident than she; he was also more confidently competitive. No better example of his competitiveness can be given than his determination to win the Coffin Award in 1927. Each year this award, originated by a vice-president of the General Electric Company, was given to the power company judged to have made the most outstanding contribution to the electric art and science of the time. Along with receipt of the award came prestige and national recognition. John had
already won the first of the annual prizes for best advertisement in its field and now he wrote his mother, “I am more determined than ever that I must win my Coffin prize.”9

  To compete, the power companies submitted a journal of their achievement for that year. Sensitive to signs of imperfection, John could not always delegate responsibilities, particularly when he figured that a job had to be done absolutely right, so that year John single-handedly took over the entire job of publishing the Georgia Power’s Journal. The job of winning was entering its last phase when he wrote his mother, “I hope all my life isn’t going to be spent in frantic day and night work such as the past several months have required. Possibly working this way now will help me to arrive at easier circumstances in the future. But I would prefer not to have to be quite so industrious in this chapter of the life history.” After a day’s work in his office, he would go to the print shop and work several more hours on the presentation.10 Some nights he did not come home until very late. Unable to fall asleep unless he was there, Peggy got annoyed. One night while she was waiting for John, she wrote his brother Henry, “You know this damn competition of John’s—well tonight was the dead line.” In this letter dated “Sunday night (or Monday morn 3 a.m.),” she explained,

  Oh, its been hectic. J has worked till 4 every morning for a week. He worked all last night, came home at 9 this a.m. Slept an hour and has been working since. He won’t be home tonight either. I’ve been staying [up] till 2 a.m. but thats my limit. He goes into type tomorrow (if the bon dieu is willing) and then comes the mad week of proof reading (my job). Neither of us have good sense. John is able to type a little now but he is so far behind that he gets frenzies thinking about it. So by next week, he’ll be dead.