Scarlett

by Alexandra Ripley

  Scarlett was so overjoyed that tears came to her eyes. There was a scythed and sickled path wide enough to drive the trap where she had ridden the pony before. Now she could visit Kathleen again, and get milk for her tea and her oatmeal. She’d felt too heavy to ride for the past week and more.

  “I’ll go this very minute,” she said.

  “Then let me lace up your boots.”

  “No, they press on my ankles. I’ll go barefoot, now that I’ve got a cart to ride in and a road to ride on. You can hitch up the pony, though.”

  Colum watched her drive off with a feeling of relief. He went back to his gate house and his books, his pipe, and his glass of good whiskey with a sense of a reward well earned. Scarlett O’Hara was the most exhausting individual of any gender, any age, any nationality he’d ever met. And why, he wondered, does my mind always add “poor lamb” to every opinion I have of her?

  She looked like a poor lamb indeed when she burst in on him just before summer’s late darkness fell. The family had—very kindly and very often—turned down her invitation and then her appeals to come to Ballyhara.

  Colum had come to believe that Scarlett had become almost incapable of tears. She had not cried when she’d received the notice of the divorce, nor even when the ultimate blow fell with the announcement that Rhett had married again. But on this warm rainy night in August, she sobbed and wept for hours, until she fell asleep on his comfortable couch, a luxury unknown in her Spartan two rooms. He covered her with a lightweight coverlet and went to his bedroom. He was glad that she had found release for her grief, but he feared she would not see her outburst in the same light. So he left her alone; she might prefer not to see him for a few days. Strong people didn’t like witnesses to their weak moments.

  He was mistaken. Again, he thought. Would he ever really get to know this woman? In the morning, he found Scarlett was sitting at his kitchen table, eating the only eggs he had. “You’re right, you know, Colum. They are a lot better with salt . . . And you might start thinking about good tenants for my houses. They’ll have to be prosperous because everything in those houses is the best there is, and I expect a good rent.”

  Scarlett was profoundly hurt, even though she didn’t show it again and never referred to it. She continued to ride over to Daniel’s in the trap several times a week, and she worked just as hard as ever on Ballyhara, although her pregnancy was increasingly burdensome. By the end of September the town was done. Every building was clean, freshly painted inside and out, with strong doors and good chimneys and tight roofs. The population was growing by leaps and bounds.

  There were two more bars, a cobbler’s shop for boots and harness, the dry-goods store that had moved from Bective, an elderly priest for the small Catholic church, two teachers for the school, which would begin classes as soon as authorization came from Dublin, a nervous young lawyer who was hoping to build a practice, with an even more nervous young wife who peered from behind her lace curtains at the people on the street. The farmers’ children played games in the street, their wives sat on their doorsteps and gossiped, the post rider from Trim came every day to leave the mail with the scholarly gentleman who had opened a shop with books and writing paper and ink in the one-room annex to the dry-goods store. There was a promise that an official post office would be designated after the first of the year, and a doctor had taken the lease on the largest of the houses, to begin occupancy the first week of November.

  This last was the best news of all for Scarlett. The only hospital in the area was at the Work House in Dunshauglin, fourteen miles away. She’d never seen a Work House, the last refuge of the penniless, and she hoped she never would. She firmly believed in work instead of begging, but she’d rather not have to look at the unfortunates who ended up there. And it was certainly no way for a baby to start life.

  Her own doctor. That was more her style. He’d be right at hand, too, for croup and chicken pox and all those things babies always got. Now all she had to do was put out word that she’d want a wet nurse in mid-November.

  And get the house ready.

  “Where is this perfect Fitzpatrick woman of yours, Colum? I thought you told me she’d agreed to come a month ago.”

  “She did agree a month ago. And gave a month’s notice, like any responsible person has to do. She’ll be here on October first, that’s Thursday next. I’ve offered her the use of my house.”

  “Oh, have you? I thought she was supposed to housekeep me. Why doesn’t she stay here?”

  “Because, Scarlett darling, your house is the only building in Ballyhara that hasn’t been repaired.”

  Scarlett looked around her kitchen-workroom in surprise. She had never paid any attention before to how it looked; it was only temporary, a convenient spot for watching the work on the town.

  “It is disgusting, isn’t it?” she said. “We’d best get the house done fast so I can move.” She smiled, but with difficulty. “The truth is, Colum, I’m nearly worn out. I’ll be glad to be done with the work so I can rest some.”

  What Scarlett didn’t say was that the work had become just that—work—after the cousins said they wouldn’t move. It had taken the joy out of rebuilding the O’Hara lands when the O’Haras wouldn’t be enjoying them. She’d tried and tried to figure out why they’d turned her down. The only answer that made sense to her was that they didn’t want to be too close to her, that they didn’t really love her, despite all their kindnesses and warmth. She felt alone now, even when she was with them, even when she was with Colum. She’d believed he was her friend, but he’d told her they’d never come. He knew them, was one of them.

  Her back hurt all the time now. Her legs, too, and her feet and ankles were so swollen that walking was agony. She wished she wasn’t having the baby. It was making her ill, and it had given her the idea of buying Ballyhara in the first place. And she had six—no, six and a half—more weeks of this.

  If I had the energy, I’d bawl, she thought despondently. But she found another weak smile for Colum.

  He looks like he wants to say something and doesn’t know what to say. Well, I can’t help him. I’m clean out of conversation.

  There was a knock on the street door. “I’ll go,” Colum said. That’s right, run like a rabbit.

  He came back to the kitchen with a package in his hand and an unconvincing smile on his face. “That was Mrs. Flanagan, from the store. The tobacco you ordered for Grandmother came in, she brought it over. I’ll take it to her for you.”

  “No.” Scarlett heaved herself to her feet. “She asked me to get it. It’s the only thing she’s ever asked for. You hitch up the pony and help me into the trap. I want to take it to her.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “Colum, there’s barely room on the seat for me, let alone the two of us. Just bring me the trap and get me in it. Please.”

  And how I’ll get out of it, God only knows.

  Scarlett wasn’t very happy when her cousin Sean came out from her grandmother’s cottage at the sound of her arrival. “Spooky Sean” she called him to herself, just as she always thought of her cousin Stephen in Savannah as “Spooky Stephen.”

  They gave her the shivers because they always watched silently while the other O’Haras were talking and laughing. She didn’t care much for people who didn’t talk and laugh. Or for people who seemed to be thinking secret thoughts. When Sean offered his arm to help her walk into the house, she sidestepped clumsily to avoid him.

  “No need,” she said gaily, “I can manage just fine.” Even more than Stephen, Sean made her nervous. All failure made Scarlett nervous, and Sean was the O’Hara who had failed. He was Patrick’s third son. The eldest died, Jamie worked in Trim instead of farming, so when Patrick died in 1861, Sean inherited the farm. He was “only” thirty-two at the time, and the “only” was an excuse he thought adequate for all his troubles. He mismanaged everything so badly that there was a real chance the lease would be lost.

  Daniel, as the eldes
t, called Patrick’s children together. Although he was sixty-seven, Daniel had more faith in himself than in Sean or in his own son Seamus, who was also “only” thirty-two. He’d worked beside his brother all his life; now that Patrick was gone, he wouldn’t hold his tongue and watch their life’s work go, too. Sean would have to go instead.

  Sean went. But not away. He had lived with his grandmother for twelve years now, letting her take care of him. He refused to do any work on Daniel’s farm. He made Scarlett’s hackles rise. She walked away from him as fast as her bare swollen feet would carry her.

  “Gerald’s girl!” said her grandmother. “It’s glad I am to see you, Young Katie Scarlett.”

  Scarlett believed her. She always believed her grandmother. “I’ve brought your tobacco, Old Katie Scarlett,” she said with genuine cheerfulness.

  “What a grand thing to do. Will you have a pipe with me?”

  “No, thank you, Grandmother. I’m not quite that Irish yet.”

  “Ach, that’s a shame. Well, I’m as Irish as God makes them. Fill a pipe for me, then.”

  The tiny cottage was quiet except for the sound of her grandmother’s soft sucking pulls on the stem of her pipe. Scarlett put her feet up on a stool and closed her eyes. The peacefulness was balm.

  When she heard shouting outside, she was furious. Couldn’t she have a half hour’s quiet? She hurried as best she could into the farmyard, ready to scream at whoever was making the racket.

  What she saw was so terrifying that she forgot her anger, the pain in her back, the agony in her feet, everything except her fear. There were soldiers in Daniel’s farmyard, and constables, and an officer on a curvetting horse with a naked saber in his hand. The soldiers were setting up a tripod of tree trunks. She hobbled across to join Kathleen, who was weeping in the doorway.

  “Here’s another one of them,” said one of the soldiers. “Look at her. These miserable Irish breed like rabbits. Why don’t they learn to wear shoes instead?”

  “You don’t need shoes in bed,” another said, “or under a bush.” The Englishman laughed. The constables looked down at the ground.

  “You!” Scarlett called loudly. “You on the horse. What are you and those common creatures doing at this farm?”

  “Are you addressing me, girl?” The officer looked down his long nose.

  She lifted her chin and stared at him with cold green eyes.

  “I am not a girl, sir, and you are not a gentleman, even if you pretend to be an officer.”

  His mouth dropped open. Now his nose is hardly noticeable at all. I guess that’s because fish don’t have noses, and he looks like a landed fish. The hot joy of combat filled her with energy.

  “But you’re not Irish,” said the officer. “Are you that American?”

  “What I am is none of your concern. What you’re doing here is my concern. Explain yourself.”

  The officer remembered who he was. His mouth closed and his back stiffened. Scarlett noticed that the soldiers were stiff all over, and staring, first at her, then at their officer. The constables were looking from the corners of their eyes.

  “I am executing an order of Her Majesty’s Government to evict the people resident on this farm for nonpayment of rent.” He waved a scrolled paper.

  Scarlett’s heart was in her throat. She lifted her chin higher. Beyond the soldiers she could see Daniel and his sons running from the fields with pitchforks and cudgels, ready to fight.

  “There’s obviously been a mistake,” Scarlett said. “What amount is supposed to be unpaid?” Hurry, she thought, for God’s sake hurry, you long-nosed fool. If any O’Hara man—or men—hit a soldier, they’d be sent to prison, or worse.

  Everything seemed to slow down. The officer took forever to open the scroll. Daniel and Seamus and Thomas and Patrick and Timothy moved as if they were under water. Scarlett unbuttoned her shirt. Her fingers felt like sausages, the buttons like uncontrollable lumps of suet.

  “Thirty-one pounds eight shillings and nine pence,” said the officer. It was taking him an hour to say every word, Scarlett was sure. Then she heard the shouting from the field, saw the big O’Hara men running, waving fists and weapons. She clawed frantically at the string around her neck, at the pouch of money when it appeared, at its tightly closed neck.

  Her fingers felt the coins, the folded bank notes, and she breathed a silent prayer of thanks. She was carrying the wages of all the workers at Ballyhara. More than fifty pounds. Now she was as cool and unhurried as melting ice cream.

  She lifted the cord from her neck, over her head, and she jingled the pouch in her hand. “There’s extra for your trouble, you ill-bred cad,” she said. Her arm was strong and her aim true. The pouch struck the officer in the mouth. Shillings and pence scattered down the front of his tunic and onto the ground. “Clean up the mess you’ve made,” said Scarlett, “and take away that trash you brought with you!”

  She turned her back on the soldiers. “For the love of God, Kathleen,” she whispered, “get over in the field and stop the men before there’s real trouble.”

  Later Scarlett confronted Old Daniel. She was livid. Suppose she hadn’t brought the tobacco? Suppose it hadn’t come in today? She glared at her uncle, then burst out, “Why didn’t you tell me you needed money? I’d have been glad to give it to you.”

  “The O’Haras don’t take charity,” said Daniel.

  “ ‘Charity’? It’s not charity when it’s your own family, Uncle Daniel.”

  Daniel looked at her with old, old eyes. “What isn’t earned by your own hands is charity,” he said. “We’ve heard your history, Young Scarlett O’Hara. When my brother Gerald lost his wits, why did you not call upon his brothers in Savannah? They’re all your own family.”

  Scarlett’s lips trembled. He was right. She hadn’t asked or accepted help from anyone. She had had to carry the burden alone. Her pride wouldn’t permit any yielding, any weakness.

  “And in the Famine?” She had to know. “Pa would have sent you all he had. Uncle James and Uncle Andrew too.”

  “We were wrong. We thought it would end. When we learned what it was, we’d left it too late.”

  She looked at her uncle’s thin straight shoulders, the proud tilt of his head. And she understood. She would have done the same. She understood, too, why she’d been wrong to offer Ballyhara as a substitute for land he’d farmed all his life. It made all his work meaningless, and the work of his sons, his brothers, his father, his father’s father.

  “Robert raised the rent, didn’t he? Because I made that smart remark about his gloves. He was going to pay me back through you.”

  “Robert’s a greedy man. There’s no saying that it’s anything to do with you.”

  “Will you allow me to help? It would be an honor.”

  Scarlett saw approval in Old Daniel’s eyes. Then a glint of humor. “There’s Patrick’s boy Michael. He works in the stables at the Big House. He has grand ideas about breeding horses. He could apprentice in the Curragh did he have the fee.”

  “I thank you,” said Scarlett formally. “Will anybody be wanting supper or should I throw it to the pigs?” Kathleen said with pretended anger.

  “I’m so hungry I could cry,” said Scarlett. “I’m a truly terrible cook, you should know.” I’m happy, she thought. I hurt from head to toe, but I’m happy. If this baby isn’t proud to be an O’Hara, I’ll wring its neck.

  61

  “You need a cook,” said Mrs. Fitzpatrick. “I do not myself cook well.”

  “Me neither,” said Scarlett. Mrs. Fitzpatrick looked at her. “I don’t cook well either,” Scarlett said hastily. She didn’t think she was going to like this woman, no matter what Colum said. Right off the bat when I asked her what her name was, she answered “Mrs. Fitzpatrick.” She knew I meant her first name. I’ve never called a servant “Mrs.” or “Mr.” or “Miss.” But then I’ve never had a white servant. Kathleen as lady’s maid doesn’t count, or Bridie. They’re my cousins. I’m glad Mrs
. Fitzpatrick is no kin of mine.

  Mrs. Fitzpatrick was a tall woman, at least half a head taller than Scarlett. She was not thin, but there was no fat on her; she looked solid as a tree. It was impossible to tell how old she was. Her skin was flawless, like the skin of most Irish women, product of the constant soft moisture in the air. It had the look of heavy cream. The color in her cheeks was dramatic, a streak of deep rose rather than an all-over blush. Her nose was thick, a peasant’s nose, but with prominent bone, and her lips were a thin wide slash. Most startling and distinctive of all were her dark, surprisingly delicate eyebrows. They formed a perfect thin feathered arch above her blue eyes, strange contrast to her snow-white hair. She was wearing a severe gray gown with plain white linen collar and cuffs. Her strong capable hands were folded in her lap. Scarlett felt like sitting on her own roughened hands. Mrs. Fitzgerald’s were smooth, her short nails buffed, her cuticles perfect white half-moons.

  There was an English seasoning in her Irish voice. Still soft, but it had lost some music to clipped consonants.

  I know what she is, Scarlett realized, she’s businesslike. The thought made her feel better. She could deal with a businesswoman whether she liked her or not.

  “I am confident that you will find my services useful, Mrs. O’Hara,” said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, and there was no possible doubt that Mrs. Fitzpatrick was confident about everything she did or said. Scarlett felt irritated. Was this woman challenging her? Did she intend to run things?

  Mrs. Fitzpatrick was still speaking: “I would like to express my pleasure at meeting you and in working for you. I shall be honored to be housekeeper for The O’Hara.”

  What did she mean?

  The dark brows arched. “Do you not know? Everyone is talking of nothing else.” Mrs. Fitzgerald’s thin wide mouth parted in a gleaming smile. “No woman in our lifetime has ever done it, perhaps no woman in many hundreds of years. They’re calling you The O’Hara, head of the family O’Hara, in all its branches and ramifications. In the days of the High Kings, each family had its leader, representative, champion. Some distant ancestor of yours was The O’Hara who stood for all the valor and pride of all other O’Haras. Today that designation has been reborn for you.”