Scarlett

by Alexandra Ripley

  Mrs. Fitzpatrick waited for Scarlett’s tirade to end. Then she calmly took the book from her and put it on a table. “You’d turn them out onto the road, then?” she said. “They’ll find plenty of company, for many of the Big Houses in Ireland are doing just what you’re proposing. Not a day goes by we don’t have a dozen or more poor souls begging a bowl of soup at the kitchen door. Will you add to their number?”

  Scarlett strode impatiently to the window. “No, of course not, don’t be ridiculous. But there must be some way we can cut expenses.”

  “It’s more costly to feed your fine horses than your servants.” Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s voice was cold.

  Scarlett turned on her. “That will be all,” she said furiously. “Leave me alone.” She picked up the book and went to her desk. But she was too upset to concentrate on the accounts. How could Mrs. Fitz be so mean? She must know that I enjoy hunting more than anything else in my life. The only thing that’s getting me through this horrible summer is knowing that come fall, the hunting will begin again.

  Scarlett closed her eyes and tried to remember the crisp cold mornings, with the night’s light frost turned to trailing mist, and the sound of the horn signalling the beginning of the chase. A tiny muscle jumped involuntarily in the soft flesh over her clenched jaw. She wasn’t good at imagining, she was good at doing.

  She opened her eyes and worked doggedly on the accounts. With no grain to sell and no rents to collect, she was going to lose money this year. The knowledge bothered her, because she had always made money in business and losing it was a highly disagreeable change.

  But Scarlett had grown up in a world where it was accepted that sometimes a crop failed or a storm wrought havoc. She knew that next year would be different, and certainly better. She was not a failure because of the disaster of the drought and the hail. It wasn’t like the lumber business or the store where she would have been responsible if there had been no profit.

  Besides, the losses would barely make a dent in her fortune. She could be extravagant for the rest of her life, and the crops at Ballyhara could fail every year, and she would still have plenty of money.

  Scarlett sighed unconsciously. For so many years she had worked and scrimped and saved, thinking that if only she could have enough money, she would be happy. Now she had it, thanks to Rhett, and somehow it didn’t mean anything at all. Except that there was no longer anything to work for, to scheme and strive for.

  She wasn’t foolish enough to want to be poor and desperate again, but she needed to be challenged, to use her quick intelligence, to conquer obstacles. And so she thought with longing about jumping fences and ditches and taking chances on a powerful horse that she controlled by force of will.

  When the accounts were done, Scarlett turned to the pile of personal mail with a silent groan. She hated writing letters. She already knew what was in the mail. Many were invitations. She put them in a stack. Harriet could pen the polite refusals for her, no one would know she hadn’t written them herself, and Harriet loved being useful.

  There were two more proposals. Scarlett received at least one a week. They pretended to be love letters, but she knew very well that they wouldn’t be there if she wasn’t a rich widow. Most of them, anyhow.

  She replied to the first one with the convenient phrases about “honored by your regard” and “unable to return your affection to the degree you merit” and “place incalculable value on your friendship” that protocol demanded and supplied.

  The second was not so easy. It was from Charles Ragland. Of all the men she had met in Ireland, Charles was the most truly eligible to her. His adoration was convincing, not at all like the elaborate fawning over her that so many men did. He wasn’t after her money, she was sure of that. He came from money himself, his people were big landowners in England. He was a younger son, and he’d chosen the army instead of the Church. But he must have some money of his own. His dress uniform cost more than all her ball gowns put together, she was sure.

  What else? Charles was handsome. He was as big as Rhett, only blond instead of dark. Not washed-out blond, though, like so many fair people. His hair was gold, with just a touch of red in it, startling against his tanned skin. He was really very good looking. Women looked at him like they could eat him with a spoon.

  So why didn’t she love him? She had thought about it, she’d thought often and long. But she couldn’t, she didn’t care enough.

  I want to love somebody. I know how it feels to love, it’s the best feeling in the world. I can’t bear the unfairness, that I learned about loving too late. Charles loves me, and I want to be loved, I need it. I’m lonely by myself without it. Why can’t I love him?

  Because I love Rhett, that’s why. That’s why for Charles and for every other man in the world. They’re none of them Rhett.

  You will never have Rhett, her mind told her.

  And her heart cried out in anguish: Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I can ever completely forget it? Do you think that it doesn’t haunt me every time I see him in Cat? Do you think it doesn’t spring on me from nowhere just when I believe that my life is my own?

  Scarlett wrote carefully, looking for the kindest words she knew to say no to Charles Ragland. He would never understand if she told him that she truly liked him, that in a very small way perhaps she even loved him because he loved her, and that her affection for him made it impossible for her to marry him. She wished better for him than a wife who would forever belong to another man.

  The year’s final house party was not far from Kilbride, which was not far from Trim. Scarlett could drive herself instead of all the complications of taking the train. She left very early in the morning when it was still cool. Her horses were suffering from the heat, despite being sponged down four times a day. Even she had started to feel it; she felt twitchy and sweaty almost all night when she was trying to sleep. Thank heaven it was August. The summer was almost done, if it would only admit it.

  The sky was still tinged with pink, but there was already a haze of heat in the distance. Scarlett hoped she’d calculated the time right for the trip. She’d like to have her horse and herself in the shade when the sun was full up.

  I wonder if Nan Sutcliffe will be up? She never looked like an early riser to me. No matter. I wouldn’t mind having a cool bath and changing my clothes before I see anybody. I do hope there’s a decent maid for me here, not like that ham-handed idiot at the Giffords’. She practically tore the sleeves off my frocks hanging them up. Maybe Mrs. Fitz is right, she usually is. But I don’t want a personal maid hanging around me every minute of my life. Peggy Quinn does all I need at home, and if people want me to come visit they’ll just have to put up with me not bringing my maid. I really should give a house party myself, to pay back all the hospitality I owe. Everyone has been so kind . . . But not yet. Next summer will do. I can say this year was just too hot, plus I was worried about the farms . . .

  Two men stepped from shadows on each side of the road. One caught the horse’s bridle; the other was pointing a rifle. Scarlett’s mind raced, her heart did too. Why hadn’t she thought to bring the revolver with her? Maybe they’d just take her rig and her cases and let her walk back to Trim if she swore not to tell what they looked like. Idiots! Why couldn’t they at least be wearing those masks, like she’d read about in the newspaper?

  For the love of God! They were in uniform, they weren’t Whiteboys at all.

  “Damn your eyes, you scared me half to death!” She could barely see the men. The green uniforms of the Royal Irish Constabulary blended into the shadowy hedgerows.

  “I’ll have to ask you for some identification, madam,” said the man holding her horse. “Kevin, you look in the back there.”

  “Don’t you dare touch my things. Who do you think you are? I am Mrs. O’Hara of Ballyhara, on my way to the Sutcliffes’ at Kilbride. Mr. Sutcliffe is a magistrate, and he’ll see to it that both of you end up in the dock!” She didn’t really know that Ernest Su
tcliffe was a magistrate, but he looked like one with his bushy ginger mustache.

  “Mrs. O’Hara is it?” The Kevin who’d been told to search her buggy came forward beside her. He took off his hat. “We heard tell of you in barracks, ma’am. I was asking Johnny here only a couple of weeks ago should we go over and make ourselves known to you?”

  Scarlett stared incredulously. “Whatever for?” she said.

  “They’re saying you’re from America, Mrs. O’Hara, a fact I can tell the truth of myself after hearing you speak. They’re also saying you come from the grand state called Georgia. It’s a place we two hold a fondness for in our hearts, seeing we both fought in the army there back in ’sixty-three and more.”

  Scarlett smiled. “You did?” Think of meeting someone from home on the road to Kilbride. “Where were you? What part of Georgia? Were you with General Hood?”

  “No, ma’am, I was one of Sherman’s boys. Johnny there, he was with the Confederates, that’s where he got the name, for Johnny Reb and all that.”

  Scarlett shook her head to clear it. She couldn’t be hearing right. But more questions and more answers confirmed it. The two men, both Irish, were now the best of friends. With happy shared memories of being on opposite sides in a savage war.

  “I don’t understand,” she admitted at last. “You were trying to kill each other fifteen years ago, and you’re friends now. Don’t you even argue about the North and the South and who was right?”

  “Johnny Reb” laughed. “What’s it to a soldier the right and the wrong of it all? He’s there for the fighting, that’s what he likes. Doesn’t matter who you’re fighting, long as he gives you a good fight.”

  When Scarlett reached the Sutcliffes’ house she shocked their butler almost out of his professional composure by asking for a brandy with her coffee. She was more confused than she could handle.

  Afterwards she bathed and put on a fresh frock and came downstairs, her composure restored. Until she saw Charles Ragland. He shouldn’t be at this party! She acted as if she hadn’t noticed him.

  “Nan, how lovely you look. And I just love your house. My room’s so pretty I might stay forever.”

  “Nothing would please me more, Scarlett. You know John Graham, don’t you?”

  “Only by reputation. I’ve been angling for an introduction. How do you do, Mr. Graham?”

  “Mrs. O’Hara.” John Graham was a tall slender man with the loose-limbed ease of the natural athlete. He was the Master of Hounds of the Galway Blazers, perhaps the most famous hunt in all Ireland. Every fox hunter in Great Britain hoped to be invited to join one of the Blazers’ hunts. Graham knew it, and Scarlett knew that he knew it. There was no point in being coy.

  “Mr. Graham, are you open to bribery?” Why didn’t Charles quit staring at her like that? What was he doing here anyhow?

  John Graham threw back his silvered head in laughter. His eyes were lively with it when he looked back down at Scarlett. “I have always heard that you Americans come straight to the point, Mrs. O’Hara. Now I see it’s true. Tell me, what precisely did you have in mind?”

  “Would an arm and a leg do? I can stay on a sidesaddle with one leg—it’s the only good thing about a sidesaddle that I can think of—and I only need one hand for the reins.”

  The Master smiled. “Such an extravagant offer. I’ve heard that about Americans, too, that they tend to extravagance.”

  Scarlett was tiring of banter. And Charles’ presence made her edgy. “What you may not have heard, Mr. Graham, is that Americans take fences where the Irish go through gates and the English go back home. If you’ll let me ride with the Blazers, I’ll take at least a pad or I’ll eat a flock of crows in front of you all—without salt.”

  “By God, madam, with style like yours, you’ll be welcome any time you say.”

  Scarlett smiled. “I’ll take you up on that.” She spit in her hand. Graham smiled broadly and spit in his. The slap they gave each other’s palm resounded throughout the long gallery.

  Then Scarlett strode over to Charles Ragland. “I told you in my letter, Charles, that this was the one house party in the whole country you should stay away from. It’s mean of you to come.”

  “I’m not here to embarrass you, Scarlett. I wanted to tell you myself, not in a letter. You needn’t worry about my pressing you or importuning you. I understand that no means no. The regiment’s going to Donegal next week; it was my last chance to say what I wanted to say. And, I confess, to see you again. I promise not to lurk or gaze with soulful eyes.” he smiled with rueful humor. “I practiced that speech, too. How did it sound?”

  “Pretty fair. What’s in Donegal?”

  “Whiteboy trouble. It seems to be more concentrated there than any other county.”

  “Two constables stopped me to search my buggy.”

  “All the patrols are out now. With rents coming due soon—but I don’t want to talk military. What did you say to John Graham? I haven’t seen him laugh like that in years.

  “Do you know him?”

  “Very well. He’s my uncle.”

  Scarlett laughed until her sides ached. “You English. Is that what ‘diffident’ means? If you’d only brag a little, Charles, you could have saved me a lot of trouble. I’ve been trying to get with the Blazers for a year, but I didn’t know anybody.”

  “The one you’ll really like is my Aunt Letitia. She can ride Uncle John into the ground and never look back. Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

  There were promising rumbles of thunder, but no rain. By midday the air was stifling. Ernest Sutcliffe rang the dinner gong to get everyone’s attention. He and his wife had planned something different for the afternoon, he said nervously. “There is the usual croquet and archery, what? Or the library and billiards in the house, what? Or whatever one does customarily. What?”

  “Do get on with it Ernest,” said his wife.

  With many starts and stops and sputters Ernest got on with it. There were bathing costumes for anyone who wanted one and ropes strung across the river for the adventurous to hold on to while cooling off in the rushing water.

  “Hardly ‘rushing,’ ” amended Nan Sutcliffe, “but a decent little current. Footmen will be there with iced champagne.”

  Scarlett was one of the first to accept. It sounded like being in a cool tub all afternoon.

  It was immensely more enjoyable than a cool tub, even though the water was warmer than she’d hoped it would be. Scarlett moved along the rope hand over hand towards the center and deeper water. Suddenly she found herself in the grip of the current. It was colder, so much colder that gooseflesh rose on her arms, and very swift. It pushed her up against the rope then knocked her feet out from under her. She was holding on for her life. Her legs gyrated out of control and the current twisted her body in half circles. She felt a dangerous temptation to let go of the rope and ride swirling in the current to wherever it would take her. Free of the earth under her feet, free of walls or roads or anything controlled and controlling. For long heartracing moments she imagined herself letting go, just letting go.

  She was shaking from the effort she had to make to keep her grip fast on the rope. Slowly, with intense concentration and determination, she moved on, hand over hand, until she was free of the current’s pull. She turned her head away from the others splashing and shouting in the water, and she cried, she didn’t know why.

  There were slow eddies, like fingers from the current, in the warmer water outside it. Scarlett slowly became aware of their caresses, then she let herself float among them. Warm tendrils of movement stroked her legs, her thighs, her body, her breasts, twined around her waist and her knees beneath the wool tunic and bloomers. She felt longings she could not name, an emptiness that cried out to be filled within her. “Rhett,” she whispered against the rope, bruising her lips, inviting the roughness and the hurt.

  “Isn’t this splendid fun?” cried Nan Sutcliffe. “Who wants champagne?”

  Scarlett forced herse
lf to look around. “Scarlett, you brave thing, you went right through the frightening part. You’ll have to come back. None of us has the nerve to bring your champagne to you.”

  Yes, thought Scarlett, I have to go back.

  After dinner she made her way to Charles Ragland’s side. Her cheeks were very pale, her eyes very bright.

  “May I offer you a sandwich tonight?” she asked quietly.

  Charles was an experienced, skillful lover. His hands were gentle, his lips firm and warm. Scarlett closed her eyes and let her skin receive his touch the way it had received the caresses of the river. Then he spoke her name, and she felt the ecstatic sensations slipping away. No, she thought, no, I don’t want to lose it, I mustn’t. She closed her eyes tighter, thought of Rhett, pretended that the hands were Rhett’s hands, the lips Rhett’s lips, that the warm, strong thrusting filling her aching emptiness was Rhett’s.

  It was no good. It was not Rhett. The sorrow of it made her want to die. She turned her face away from Charles’ questing mouth and wept until he was at rest.

  “My darling,” he said, “I love you so.”

  “Please,” Scarlett sobbed, “oh, please go away.”

  “What is it, darling, what’s wrong?”

  “Me. Me. I was wrong. Please leave me alone.” Her voice was so small, so poignant with despair that Charles reached out to comfort her, then drew back in full knowledge that there was only one comfort he could give. He moved quietly as he gathered his clothes, and he shut the door behind him with only the slightest sound.

  83

  I have gone to join my regiment. I will love you forever. Yours, Charles.

  Scarlett folded the note carefully, tucked it beneath the pearls her jewel case. If only . . .

  But there was little room in her heart for anyone. Rhett there. Laughing at her, outwitting her, challenging her, sut her, dominating her, sheltering her.