Scarlett

by Alexandra Ripley

Scarlett and Kathleen stood side by side watching the flat shoreline recede quickly into a soft blur of green, then disappear.

  What have I done? Scarlett thought, and she grabbed the deck rail in momentary panic. Then she looked ahead at the limitless expanse of sun-flecked ocean, and her heart beat faster with the thrill of adventure.

  “Oh!” Kathleen cried out. Then, “Oooh,” she moaned.

  “What’s wrong, Kathleen?”

  “Oooh. I’d forgot the seasickness,” the girl gasped.

  Scarlett held back her laughter. She put her arm around Kathleen’s waist and led her to their cabin. That evening, Kathleen’s chair at the captain’s table was empty. Scarlett and Colum did full justice to the gargantuan meal that was served. Afterwards, Scarlett took a bowl of broth to her unfortunate cousin and spoon-fed her.

  “I’ll be all right in a day or two,” Kathleen promised in a weak voice. “You won’t need to be tending me forever.”

  “Hush up and take another sip,” said Scarlett. Thank heavens I haven’t got a puny stomach, she thought. Even the food poisoning from Saint Patrick’s Day is over now, or I couldn’t have enjoyed my dinner so much.

  She woke abruptly when the first red streaks of dawn were on the horizon and ran with frantic clumsiness into the small convenience room that adjoined the cabin. There she fell to her knees and vomited into the flower-decorated china receptacle of the mahogany chaise privée.

  She couldn’t be seasick, not her. Not when she loved sailing so much. Why, in Charleston, when the tiny sailboat was climbing the waves in the storm, she hadn’t even felt queasy, nor when it slid down into the trough of the wave. The Brian Boru was steady as a rock compared to that. She couldn’t imagine what was wrong with her . . .

  . . . Slowly, slowly Scarlett’s bent head rose from its drooping weakness. Her mouth and eyes opened wide with discovery. Excitement raced through her, hot and strengthening, and she laughed deep in her throat.

  I’m pregnant. I’m pregnant! I remember; this is how it feels.

  Scarlett leaned back against the wall and threw her arms wide in a luxurious stretch. Oh, I feel wonderful. I don’t care how awful my stomach feels, I feel wonderful. I’ve got Rhett now. He is mine. I can’t wait to tell him.

  Sudden tears of happiness poured down her cheeks, and her hands flew down to cover her middle in a protective cradling of the new life growing within. Oh, how she wanted this baby. Rhett’s baby. Their baby. It would be strong, she knew it, she could feel its tiny strength already. A bold, fearless little thing, like Bonnie.

  Scarlett’s mind flooded with memories. Bonnie’s little head had fit into her palm, hardly bigger than a kitten’s. She’d fit into Rhett’s big hands like a doll. How he had loved her. His wide back bent over the cradle, his deep voice making silly baby-talk sounds—never in all the world was there a man so besotted with a baby. He was going to be so happy when she told him. She could see his dark eyes flashing with the joy of it, his white smile gleaming in his pirate’s face.

  Scarlett smiled, too, thinking of it. I’m happy, too, she thought. This is the way it’s supposed to be when you have a baby, Melly always said so.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered aloud. Melly died trying to have one, and my insides are all messed up, Dr. Meade said, after I had the miscarriage. That’s why I didn’t know I was pregnant, I didn’t even notice I missed my time of month, because it’s been so undependable for so long. Suppose having this baby kills me? Oh, God, please, please, God, don’t let me die just when I finally get what I need to be happy. She crossed herself again and again in confused entreaty, propitiation, superstition.

  Then she shook her head angrily. What was she doing? Just being silly. She was strong and healthy. Not like Melly at all. Why, Mammy always said it was downright shameful the way she dropped a baby with hardly more fuss than an alley cat. She was going to do just fine, and her baby would be fine, too. And her life would be fine, with Rhett loving her, loving their baby. They’d be the happiest, lovingest family in the whole world. Gracious, she hadn’t even thought of Miss Eleanor. Talk about baby-loving! Miss Eleanor was going to pop her buttons with pride. I can see her now, at the Market, telling everybody, even the bent-up old man who sweeps out the trash. This baby’s going to be the talk of Charleston before it even draws its first breath.

  . . . Charleston . . . That’s where I should be going. Not to Ireland. I want to see Rhett, to tell him.

  Maybe the Brian Boru could put in there. The captain’s a friend of Colum’s; Colum could persuade him to do it. Scarlett’s eyes sparkled. She got to her feet and washed her face, then rinsed the sour taste out of her mouth. It was too early to talk to Colum, so she went back to bed and sat up against the pillows making plans.

  When Kathleen got up, Scarlett was sleeping, a contented smile on her lips. There was no need to hurry, she had decided. No need to talk to the captain. She could meet her grandmother and her Irish kin. She could have her adventure of crossing the ocean. Rhett had kept her waiting for him in Savannah. Well, he could wait awhile to learn about the baby. There were months and months to go before it was born. She was entitled to have some fun before she went back to Charleston. Sure as fate, she wouldn’t be allowed to do so much as stick her nose out of the door there. Ladies in a delicate condition weren’t supposed to stir a stump.

  No, she’d have Ireland first. She’d never have another chance.

  She’d enjoy the Brian Boru too. Her morning sickness had never lasted much more than a week with the other babies. It must be almost over now. Like Kathleen, in a day or two she’d be just fine.

  Crossing the Atlantic on the Brian Boru was like a continuous Saturday night at the O’Haras’ in Savannah—only more so. At first Scarlett loved it.

  The ship soon had a full complement of passengers who boarded at Boston and New York, but they didn’t seem like Yankees at all, Scarlett thought. They were Irish and proud of it. They had the vitality that was so appealing in the O’Haras, and they took advantage of everything the ship had to offer. All day there was something to do: checkers tournaments, heated competitions at quoits on deck, excited participation in games of chance, such as wagering on the number of miles the ship would cover the following day. In the evening they sang along with the professional musicians and danced energetically to all the Irish reels and Viennese waltzes.

  Even when the dancing was done, the amusement continued. There was always a game of whist in the Ladies’ Card Saloon, and Scarlett was always in demand as a partner. Except for Charleston’s rationed coffee, the stakes were higher than any she’d known, and every turn of a card was exciting. So were her winnings. The Brian Boru’s passengers were living proof that America was the Land of Opportunity, and they didn’t mind spending their lately gained wealth.

  Colum, too, benefitted from their opened pockets. While the women played cards, the men generally retired to the ship’s bar for whiskey and cigars. There, Colum brought tears of pity and pride to eyes that were normally shrewd and dry. He talked about Ireland’s oppression under English rule, called the roll of martyrs to the cause of Irish freedom, and accepted lavish donations for the Fenian Brotherhood.

  A crossing on the Brian Boru was always a profitable enterprise, and Colum made the trip at least twice a year, even though the excessive luxury of the staterooms and the gargantuan meals secretly sickened him when he thought of the poverty and need of the Irish in Ireland.

  By the end of the first week, Scarlett, too, was looking at their fellow passengers with a disapproving eye. Both men and women changed clothes four times a day, the better to show off the extent of their costly wardrobes. Scarlett had never seen so many jewels in her life. She told herself she was glad that she’d left hers in the vault of the Savannah bank; they’d pale next to the array in the dining saloon every night. But in truth she wasn’t glad at all. She had grown accustomed to having more of everything than anyone she knew—a bigger house, more servants, more luxury, more things, more money.
It put her nose decidedly out of joint to see display more conspicuous than hers had ever been. In Savannah, Kathleen, Mary Kate, and Helen had been ingenuously blatant in their envy, and all the O’Haras had fed her need for admiration. These people on the ship didn’t envy her, or even admire her all that much. Scarlett wasn’t at all pleased with them. She couldn’t bear a whole country full of Irish if this was what they were like. If she heard “Wearing o’ the Green” one more time she’d scream.

  “You’re just not taken with the American New-Rich, Scarlett darling,” Colum soothed. “You’re a grand lady, that’s why.” It was exactly the right thing for him to say.

  A grand lady was what she had to be after this vacation was over. She’d have this final fling of freedom and then she’d go to Charleston, put on her drab clothes and company manners, and be a lady for the rest of her life.

  At least now when Miss Eleanor and everybody else in Charleston talked about their trips to Europe before the War, she’d not feel so left out. She wouldn’t say she’d disliked it, either. Ladies didn’t say things like that. Unconsciously, Scarlett sighed.

  “Ach, Scarlett darling, it can’t be as bad as all that,” Colum said. “Look at the bright side. You’re cleaning out their deep pockets at the card table.”

  She laughed. It was true. She was winning a fortune—some evenings as much as thirty dollars. Wait till she told Rhett! How he’d laugh. He’d been a gambler on Mississippi riverboats for a while, after all. Come to think of it, it was a good thing, really, that there was still a week at sea. She wouldn’t have to touch a penny of Rhett’s money.

  Scarlett’s attitude toward money was a complex mixture of miserliness and generosity. It had been her measure of safety for so many years that she guarded every penny of her hard-earned fortune with angry suspicion of anyone who made any real or imagined demands for a dollar of it. And yet she accepted the responsibility to support her aunts and Melanie’s family without question. She had taken care of them even when she didn’t know where she’d find the means to take care of herself. If some unforeseen calamity befell, she would continue to take care of them, even if it meant that she had to go hungry. She didn’t think about it; it was simply the way things were.

  Her feelings about Rhett’s money were equally inconsistent. As his wife she spent profligately on the Peachtree Street house, with its prodigious expenses, and on her wardrobe and luxuries. But the half million he had given her was different. Inviolable. She intended to give it back to him intact when they were once again truly man and wife. He had offered it as payment for separation, and she could not accept it because she would not accept separation. It bothered her that she’d had to take some of it out of the bank vaults to bring on the trip. Everything had happened so fast, there’d been no time to get any of her own money from Atlanta. But she’d put an IOU in the box with the remaining gold in Savannah, and she was determined to spend as little as possible of the gold coins that were now keeping her back straight and her waist small, filling the channels in her corset where steel strips had once been. It was much better to win at whist and have her own money to spend. Why, in another week, with any luck, she’d add at least another $150 to her purse.

  But still, she’d be glad when the voyage was over. Even with all the sails bellied taut with wind, the Brian Boru was too big for her to feel the thrill she remembered from racing ahead of the storm in Charleston Harbor. And she hadn’t seen even one dolphin, despite Colum’s poetic promises.

  “There they are, Scarlett darling!” Colum’s usually calm, melodious voice rose in excitement; he took Scarlett’s arm and drew her to the ship’s rail. “Our escorts are here. We’ll be seeing land soon.”

  Overhead the first gulls circled the Brian Boru. Scarlett hugged Colum impulsively. Then again when he pointed to the sleek silvery forms on the nearby sea. There were dolphins after all.

  Much later, she stood between Colum and Kathleen trying to hold her hat on her head against the attack of the strong wind. They were entering harbor under steam. Scarlett stared in astonishment at the island of rock to starboard. It seemed impossible that anything, even the towering wall of craggy stone, could withstand the crashing waves that beat against it and threw white foam high against its face. She was accustomed to the low rolling hills of Clayton County. This soaring stark cliff was the most exotic sight she’d ever seen.

  “Nobody tries to live there, do they?” she asked Colum.

  “No bit of earth is wasted in Ireland,” he replied. “But it takes a hardy breed you call Inishmore home.”

  “Inishmore.” Scarlett repeated the beautiful strange name. It sounded like music. And like no name she’d ever heard before.

  Then she was silent; so were Colum and Kathleen; each of them looked at the broad blue sparkling waters of Galway Bay with private thoughts.

  Colum saw Ireland ahead and his shirt swelled with love for her and pain for her sufferings. As he did many times every day, he renewed his vow to destroy the oppressors of his country and to restore her to her own people. He felt no anxiety about the weapons concealed in Scarlett’s trunks. Customs officials in Galway concentrated mainly on ships’ cargoes, making sure that duty owed to the British government was paid. They’d look at the Brian Boru with sneers. They always did. Successful Irish-Americans gratified their sense of superiority over both—the Irish and the Americans. Even so, it was very good fortune, Colum thought, that he’d managed to convince Scarlett to come. Her petticoats were much better for hiding guns than the dozens of American boots and calicoes he’d bought. And she might even loosen her purse strings a bit when she saw the poverty of her own people. He didn’t have high hopes; Colum was a realist, and he’d gotten Scarlett’s measure from the first. He did not like her less because she was so unthinkingly self-centered. He was a priest, and human frailty was forgivable—so long as the humans were not English. In fact, even when he was manipulating Scarlett, he was fond of her, just as he was fond of all the O’Hara children.

  Kathleen held tight to the ship’s rail. I’d jump over and swim did I not anchor myself, she thought, I’m that happy to be nearing Ireland, I know I’d be faster than the ship. Home. Home. Home . . .

  Scarlett drew in her breath with a tiny squeaking noise. There was a castle on that little low island. A castle! It couldn’t be anything else, it had tooth-like things on top. What matter that it was half-fallen-down. It was really, truly a castle, just like pictures in a child’s book. She could hardly wait to discover what this Ireland was like.

  When Colum escorted her down the gangplank she realized that she had entered a completely different world. The docks were busy, like the docks in Savannah, noisy, crowded, perilous with hurrying wagons and laden men loading or unloading barrels and crates and bales. But the men were all white, and they shouted to one another in a tongue that had no meaning for her.

  “It’s the Gaelic, the old Irish language,” Colum explained, “but you needn’t fret, Scarlett darling. The Gaelic’s hardly known anyplace in Ireland any more save here in the west. Everyone speaks English; you’ll have no trouble.”

  As if to prove him wrong, a man spoke to him with an accent so pronounced that Scarlett didn’t realize at first that he was speaking English.

  Colum laughed when she told him. “It’s a queer sound, and that’s the truth of it,” he agreed, “but it’s English for sure. English the way the English speak it, all up in their noses like they’re strangling from it. That was a sergeant of Her Majesty’s Army.”

  Scarlett giggled. “I thought he was a button salesman.” The sergeant’s elaborately decorated short, tight uniform jacket was fronted with more than a dozen bars of thick gold braid between pairs of brightly polished brass buttons. It looked like fancy dress to her.

  She tucked her hand in Colum’s elbow. “I’m awfully glad I came,” she said. And she was. Everything was so different, so new. No wonder people liked to travel so much.

  “Our baggages will be brought to the hote
l,” Colum said when he returned to the bench where he’d left Scarlett and Kathleen. “It’s all arranged. Then tomorrow we’ll be on our way to Mullingar and home.”

  “I wish we could go right now,” Scarlett said hopefully. “It’s early yet, barely noon.”

  “But the train left at eight, Scarlett darling. The hotel’s a fine one, with a good kitchen, too.”

  “I remember,” Kathleen said. “This time I’ll do all those fancy sweets justice.” She was radiant with happiness, hardly recognizable as the girl Scarlett had known in Savannah. “Coming the other way I was too sorrowful to put food in my mouth. Oh, Scarlett, you can’t know what it is to me to have the Irish ground under my feet. I feel like getting on my knees to kiss it.”

  “Come along, the two of you,” Colum said. “We’ll have competition getting a hackney, today being Saturday and Market Day.

  “ ‘Market Day?’ ” Scarlett echoed.

  Kathleen clapped her hands. “Market Day in a big city like Galway! Oh, Colum, it should be something grand.”

  It was beyond imagination, “grand” and exciting and foreign to Scarlett. The entire grass-covered square in front of the Railway Hotel was teeming with life, alive with color. When the hackney set them down on the hotel steps, she begged Colum to join in at once, never mind seeing their rooms or eating dinner. Kathleen echoed her. “There’s food aplenty at the stalls, Colum, and I want to take some stockings home to gift the girls. There’s none like them in America, or I would have them bought already. Brigid’s fair pining away for want of some, I know it.”

  Colum grinned. “And Kathleen O’Hara’s pining a bit herself, I wouldn’t be amazed. All right, then. I’ll see to the rooms. You see to Cousin Scarlett so she doesn’t get lost. Have you any money?”

  “A fistful, Colum. Jamie gave it me.”

  “That’s American money, Kathleen. You can’t spend it here.”

  Scarlett grabbed Colum’s arm in panic. What did he mean? Wasn’t her money any good over here?