Scarlett

by Alexandra Ripley

  Suddenly there was sunlight slanting low through the rain-wet windows, turning drops of water into shards of rainbow. There’s something unnatural about rain one minute and sun the next and then rain again, Scarlett thought. She looked away from the rainbows, toward Colum.

  “You saw the mockery of them in Savannah’s parade,” Colum began, “and I tell you it’s a good thing for all who saw it that there are no leprechauns in America, because their wrath would have been terrible and would have called in all their fairy kinfolk for taking the revenge. In Ireland, however, where they’re given proper respect, they bother no one if no one bothers them. They find a pleasant spot and settle themselves there to ply their trade of cobbler. Not as a group, mind you, for the leprechaun is a solitary, but one in one place, another in another, and so on until—if you listen to enough tales—you could come to count on finding one by every stream and stone in the country. You know he’s there by the tap-tap-tap of his hammer tacking on the sole and heel of the shoe. Then, if you creep as quiet as a caterpillar, you may catch him unaware. Some say you must hold him in your grip by an arm or an ankle, but for the most part there’s general agreement that fixing your gaze on him is sufficient for the capture.

  “He’ll beg you to let him go, but you must refuse. He’ll promise you your heart’s desire, but he’s notorious for lying, and you must not believe him. He’ll threaten some great woe, but he cannot harm you, so you disdain his blustering. And in the end he’ll be forced to buy his freedom with the treasure he has concealed in a safe hidden spot nearby.

  “Such a treasure it is, too. A crock of gold, not looking like much, perhaps, to the uneducated eye, but the crock is made with great and deceptive leprechaun cunning, and there’s no bottom to it, so you may take out and take out gold to the end of your days, and there’ll always be more.

  “All this he’ll give, just to be set free; he likes not company so much. Solitary is his nature, at any cost. But fearful cunning is his nature, too, so much so that he outwits almost all who capture him by distracting the attention. And if your grip eases, or your eye looks away, he’s gone in an instant, and you’re none the richer save for a story to tell of your adventure.”

  “It doesn’t sound hard to me for a person to hold on or keep staring if it means getting the treasure,” Scarlett said. “That story doesn’t make sense.”

  Colum laughed. “Practical and businesslike Scarlett darling, you’re just the sort the little people delight in tricking. They can count on doing what they like because you’d never credit them as the cause. If you were strolling through a lane and heard a tapping, you’d never bother to stop and look.”

  “I would so, if I believed that kind of nonsense.”

  “There you are, then. You don’t believe and you wouldn’t stop.”

  “Fiddle-dee-dee, Colum! I see what you’re doing. You’re putting the fault on me for not catching something that’s not there in the first place.” She was beginning to get angry. Word games and mind games were too slippery, and they served no purpose.

  She didn’t notice that Colum had turned her attention away from the eviction.

  “Have you told Scarlett about Molly, yet, Colum?” Kathleen asked. “She has a right to a warning, I would say.”

  Scarlett forgot all about leprechauns. She understood gossip, and relished it. “Who’s Molly?”

  “She’s the first of the Adamstown O’Haras you’ll meet,” said Colum, “and a sister to Kathleen and me.”

  “Half sister,” Kathleen corrected, “and that’s a half too much, by my thinking.”

  “Tell,” Scarlett encouraged.

  The telling took so long that the trip was almost over when it was done, but Scarlett wasn’t conscious of the time or the miles going by. She was hearing about her own family.

  Colum and Kathleen were also half brother and sister, she learned. Their father, Patrick—who was one of Gerald O’Hara’s older brothers—had married three times. The children by his first wife included Jamie, who’d gone to Savannah, and Molly, who was, said Colum, a great beauty.

  When she was young, maybe, according to Kathleen.

  After his first wife died, Patrick married his second wife, Colum’s mother; and, after her death, he married Kathleen’s mother, who was also the mother of Stephen.

  The silent one, Scarlett commented silently.

  There were ten O’Hara cousins for her to meet in Adamstown, some with children and even grandchildren of their own. Patrick, God rest his soul, was dead these fifteen years, come November 11.

  In addition there was her uncle Daniel, who was still living, and his children and grandchildren. Of them, Matt and Gerald were in Savannah, but six had stayed in Ireland.

  “I’ll never get them all straight,” Scarlett said with apprehension. She still got some of the O’Hara children in Savannah confused.

  “Colum’s starting you out easy,” Kathleen said. “Molly’s house has no O’Haras in it at all, save her, and she’d just as soon deny her own name.”

  Colum, with Kathleen’s acid commentary, explained about Molly. She was married to a man named Robert Donahue, a “warm” man in material terms, with a prosperous big farm of a hundred and some acres. He was what the Irish called a “strong farmer.” Molly had first worked in the Donahue kitchen as a cook. When Donahue’s wife died, Molly became, after a suitable time of mourning, his second wife, and stepmother to his four children. There were five children of this second marriage—the eldest of them very big and healthy for all that he was nearly three months early—but they were all grown now and gone to homes of their own.

  Molly was not devoted to her O’Hara kinfolk, Colum said neutrally, and Kathleen snorted, but that was perhaps because her husband was their landlord. Robert Donahue rented acreage in addition to his own farm; he sublet a smaller farm to the O’Haras.

  Colum began to enumerate and name Robert’s children and grandchildren, but by this time Scarlett had already started dismissing the overwhelming onslaught of names and ages as “the begats.” She paid no close attention until he spoke about her own grandmother.

  “Old Katie Scarlett still lives in the cottage her husband built for her when they married in 1789. Nothing will persuade her to move. My father, and Kathleen’s, married first in 1815 and took his bride to live in the crowded cottage. When the children started coming, he built nearby a grand big place with room to grow in, and with a warm bed by the fire especially for his mother in her old age. But the Old One will have none of it. So Sean, he lives in the cottage with our grandmother, and the girls—like Kathleen here—do for them.”

  “When there’s no escaping it,” Kathleen added. “Grandmother needs no doing for really, except a pass with the broom and the dust cloth, but Sean goes out of his way to find mud to track in on a clean floor. And the mending that man creates! He can go through a new shirt before the buttons are hardly sewed on. Sean’s the brother to Molly and only a half to us. He’s a poor model of a man, nearly as nothing as Timothy, though he’s a full twenty years older and more.”

  Scarlett’s brain was reeling. She didn’t dare ask who Timothy was, for fear of having another dozen names thrown at her.

  In any case, there wasn’t time. Colum opened the window and shouted up to the driver. “Haul up, Jim, if you please, and I’ll get out and join you on the box. We’ll be turning into a lane just ahead; I’ll need to show you the way.”

  Kathleen caught his sleeve. “Oh, Colum darling, say I can get down with you and make my own way home. I can’t wait longer. Scarlett won’t mind riding along to Molly’s, will you, Scarlett?” She smiled at Scarlett with such shining hope that Scarlett would have agreed even if she hadn’t wanted a few minutes by herself.

  She wasn’t about to go to the house of the O’Hara family beauty—no matter how faded—without spitting on a handkerchief and wiping the dust off her face and her boots. Then some toilet water from the silver vial in her purse and some powder and maybe just a very, very small
touch of rouge.

  50

  The lant to Molly’s house ran through the center of a small apple orchard; twilight tinted the airy blossoms mauve against the dark blue low sky. Strict ribbon beds of primroses edged the angularity of the square house. Everything was very tidy.

  Inside, as well. The rigid horsehair suite of furniture in the parlor wore antimacassars, each table was covered with a starched white lace-edged cloth, the coal fire was ashless in the brightly polished brass grate.

  Molly herself was impeccable in dress and in manner. Her burgundy gown was trimmed with dozens of silver buttons, all gleaming; her dark hair was shining and neatly coiled beneath a delicate white cap of drawn work with lace lappets. She offered her right cheek and then her left for Colum’s kiss and expressed “a thousand welcomes” to another O’Hara when Scarlett was presented.

  And she didn’t even know I was coming. Scarlett was favorably impressed, in spite of Molly’s undeniable beauty. She had the most velvety clear skin Scarlett had ever seen, and her bright blue eyes were free of shadows or pouches. Hardly any crows’ feet, either, and not a line worth mentioning except from her nose to her mouth, and even girls can have those, Scarlett summed up in her rapid appraisal. Colum must have been mistaken, Molly couldn’t possibly be in her fifties. “I’m so happy to meet you, Molly, and just too grateful for words that you’re going to put me up in your lovely house,” Scarlett gushed. Not that the house was all that much. Clean as fresh paint, granted, but the parlor wasn’t any bigger than the smallest bedroom in her Peachtree Street house.

  “My grief, Colum! How could you have gone off and left me there all by myself?” she complained the next day. “That awful Robert is the most boring man in the world, talking about his cows—for pity’s sake!—and how much milk every one of them gives. I felt like I was going to start mooing before we finished eating. Dinner, as they told me about fifty-eight times, not supper. What on earth difference does it make?”

  “In Ireland the English have dinner in the evening, the Irish have supper.”

  “But they’re not English.”

  “They have aspirations. Robert had a glass of whiskey once in the Big House with the Earl’s agent when he was paying the rents.”

  “Colum! You’re joking.”

  “I’m laughing, Scarlett darling, but I’m not joking. Don’t worry yourself about it; what matters is, was your bed comfortable?”

  “I suppose so. I could have slept on corncobs I was so tired. It feels good to be walking, I must say. That was a long ride yesterday. Is it far to Grandmother’s place?”

  “A quarter mile, no more, by this boreen.”

  “ ‘Boreen.’ What pretty words you’ve got for things. We’d say ‘track’ for a skinny little path like this. It wouldn’t have these hedgerows either. I think I’ll try them at Tara instead of some of the fences. How long does it take to get them this thick?”

  “It depends on what kind of planting you use for the foundation. What kind of shrubs grow in Clayton County? Or do you have a tree you can prune low?”

  Colum was surprisingly well informed about growing things, for a priest, Scarlett thought as he explained and demonstrated the art of creating a hedgerow. But he had a lot to learn about measurements. The narrow twisting path was much longer than a quarter mile.

  They emerged suddenly into a clearing. Ahead of them was a thatched cottage, its white walls and small blue-framed windows fresh and bright. A thick stream of smoke painted a pale line across the sunny blue sky from the low chimney in the roof, and a calico cat was sleeping on the blue sill of one of the open windows. “Its adorable, Colum! How do people keep their cottages so white? Is it all the rain?” It had showered three times during the night, Scarlett knew, and that was only in the hours before she went to sleep. The muddiness of the boreen made her think there might have been more.

  “The wet helps a bit,” Colum said with a smile. He was pleased with her for not complaining about what the walk was doing to her hems and her boots. “But really it’s that you’re visiting at a good time. We do our buildings twice a year without fail, for Christmas and for Easter, inside and out, whitewash and paint. Will we go see if Grandmother’s not dozing?”

  “I’m nervous,” Scarlett confessed. She didn’t say why. In fact she was afraid of what a person looked like who was almost a hundred years old. Suppose it turned her stomach to look at her own grandmother? What would she do?

  “We’ll not stay long,” said Colum, as if he read her mind, “Kathleen’s expecting us for a cup of tea.” Scarlett followed him around the cottage to the front. The top half of the blue door was open, but she couldn’t see anything inside except shadows. And there was a strange smell, earthy and sort of sour. It made her nose wrinkle. Was that what very old age smelled like?

  “Are you sniffing the peat fire, then, Scarlett darling? You’re smelling the true warm heart of Ireland. Molly’s coal fire is naught but more Englishness. It’s the turf burning that means home. Maureen told me she dreams of it some nights and wakes with a heart full of longing. I mean to take her a few bricks when we go back to Savannah.”

  Scarlett inhaled curiously. It was a funny smell, like smoke, but not really. She followed Colum through the low doorway into the cottage, blinking to adjust her eyes to the dark interior.

  “And is that you at last, Colum O’Hara? Why, I want to know, have you brought Molly to see me when Bridie promised me the gift of my own Gerald’s girl?” Her voice was thin and cantankerous, but not cracked or weak. Relief and a kind of wonder filled Scarlett’s being. This was Pa’s mother that he told about so many times.

  She pushed past Colum and went to kneel beside the old Woman, who was sitting in a wooden armchair next to the chimney. “I am Gerald’s girl, Grandmother. He named me after you, Katie Scarlett.”

  The original Katie Scarlett was small and brown, her skin darkened by nearly a century of open air and sun and rain. Her face was round, like an apple, and withered, like an apple kept too long. But the faded blue eyes were unclouded and penetrating. A thick wool shawl of bright blue lay across her shoulders, across her breast, the fringed ends in her lap. Her thin white hair was covered by a knitted red cap. “Let me look at you, girl,” she said. Her leathery fingers lifted Scarlett’s chin.

  “By all the saints, he told the truth! You’ve got eyes green as a cat’s.” She crossed herself rapidly. “Where did they come from, I’d like to know. I thought Gerald must be drink-taken when he wrote me such a tale. Tell me, Young Katie Scarlett, was your dear mother a witch?”

  Scarlett laughed. “She was more like a saint, Grandmother.”

  “Is that so? And married to my Gerald? The wonder of it all. Or maybe it’s that being married to him made a saint of her with all the tribulation of it. Tell me, did he stay quarrelsome to the end of his days, God rest his soul?”

  “I’m afraid so, Grandmother.” The fingers pushed her away.

  “ ‘Afraid,’ is it? It’s grateful I am. I prayed America wouldn’t ruin him. Colum, you’ll light a candle of thanksgiving for me in the church.”

  “That I will.”

  The old eyes scrutinized Scarlett again. “You meant no ill, Katie Scarlett. I’ll forgive you.” She smiled suddenly, eyes first. The small pursed lips spread into a smile of heartbreaking tenderness. There was not a tooth in the rose-petal-pink gums. “I’ll order another candle for the blessing granted me of seeing you with me own eyes before I go to my grave.”

  Scarlett’s eyes filled with tears. “Thank you, Grandmother.”

  “Not at all, not at all,” said Old Katie Scarlett. “Take her away, Colum, I’m ready for my rest now.” She closed her eyes and her chin dropped onto her warm, shawled chest.

  Colum touched Scarlett’s shoulder. “We’ll go.”

  Kathleen ran out through the open red door of the cottage nearby, sending the hens in the yards scattering and complaining. “Welcome to the house, Scarlett,” she cried joyfully. “Tea’s in the pot st
ewing, and there’s a fresh loaf of barm brack for your pleasure.”

  Scarlett was amazed again at the change in Kathleen. She looked so happy. And so strong. She was wearing what Scarlett still thought of as a costume, an ankle-high brown skirt over blue and yellow petticoats. Her skirt was pulled up on one side and tucked into the top of the homespun apron that was tied around her waist, showing the bright petticoats. Scarlett owned no gown as becoming. But why, she wondered, was Kathleen bare-legged and barefooted when striped stockings would have finished off the outfit?

  She had thought about asking Kathleen to come over to Molly’s to stay. Even if Kathleen made no bones about her dislike for her half sister, she should be able to put up with her for ten days, and Scarlett really needed her. Molly had a parlor maid, who acted as lady’s maid as well, but the girl was hopeless at arranging hair. But this Kathleen, happy at home and sure of herself, was not someone who’d jump to do her bidding, Scarlett could tell. There was no point in even hinting at the move, she’d just have to make do with a clumsy chignon, or wear a snood. She swallowed a sigh and went into the house.

  It was so small. Bigger than Grandmother’s cottage, but still too small for a family. Where did they all sleep? The outside door led directly to the kitchen, a room twice the size of the kitchen in the small cottage but only half the size of Scarlett’s bedroom in Atlanta. The most noticeable thing in the room was the big stone fireplace in the center of the right-hand wall. Perilously steep stairs rose up to an opening high in the wall to the left of the chimney; a door to its right led to another room.

  “Take a chair by the fire,” Kathleen urged. There was a low turf fire directly on the stone floor inside the chimney. The same worked stone extended outward, flooring the kitchen. It gleamed pale from scrubbing, and the smell of soap mingled with the sharp aroma of the burning peat.