"I wish the Federal fleet would come in," Scarlett said more to herself than to Prissy. "Anything to break this monotony.”
Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton loathed widowhood. She despised her drab mourning clothes, her dutiful sackcloth and ashes.
At least in Charleston, she could wear lavender sleeve piping! At Tara, any outfit that wasn't utterly drear brought her mother Ellen's swift reproach: "Dear Scarlett, people might misconstrue your true feelings.”
Her true feelings ...
Solemnity was crushing her. Who was this morbid creature in black veil and flat widow's cap? Was this caricature really Scarlett O'Hara, the gayest, most fetching young woman in Clayton County? Must Scarlett repel every admirer for her dead husband's sake — whose passing Scarlett regretted less than the loss of a favorite pony? Charles Hamilton had been such a boy; his lovemaking so earnest and tedious!
Life was terribly unfair! Scarlett must pretend to the world that her heart was buried with Charles while she dreamt of Ashley Wilkes, the man she should have married. Ashley Wilkes. Ashley's smile. Ashley's drowsy gray eyes. In her cold widow's bed, Scarlett relived every moment she and Ashley had spent together — strolling through Twelve Oaks' scented rose garden, Ashley's quiet kindnesses, the books he'd mentioned, the great paintings he'd seen on his European tour, their happy rides through the Georgia countryside. Their love had been too precious and tender to need voicing, until that fatal afternoon in the library at Twelve Oaks when Scarlett had spoken her love and Ashley had rejected her to marry another.
Very well, then. If Ashley would marry mousy Melanie Hamilton, Scarlett could bewitch Melanie's naive brother, Charles, and marry him!
Six months afterward, Charles had succumbed to some silly camp disease and Scarlett was pregnant, widowed, and fitted out in black.
Scarlett had tried to grieve for Charles. She had tried.
Concerned about her daughter's health, and hoping a change of scenery might improve Scarlett's spirits, Ellen O'Hara had sent Scarlett to Charleston to visit her aunt, Eulalie Robillard Ward.
IOI Scarlett had had hopes for Charleston; Charleston had a reputation. But it was more tedious than Tara had been.
Every afternoon, Eulalie's friends gathered to reconsider Charleston's petty scandals and compare genealogies.
Scarlett's mother was infrequently mentioned in her sister's home, and when someone did speak of Ellen Robillard O'Hara, they spoke in tones reserved for the gentlewoman who is rather more ill than she admits.
Young Prissy tended Baby Wade as earnestly as a child cares for her favorite doll. "Hear Baby Wade? I believe he snorin'. Now ain't he a wonder!”
"Don't all babies snore?" Scarlett sighed, and went downstairs for another long afternoon pulling lint with Aunt Eulalie Robillard Ward and her friends.
Since the Confederacy had no linen bandages, gentlewomen rummaged their attics for chemises and camisoles that could be reduced to lint for stanching wounds.
Eulalie's fastidious brother-in-law, Frederick Ward, had abandoned his customary wing chair for a settee at farthest remove from the undergarments the ladies were disassembling; Frederick Ward thought novels immoral and had been known to leave the room rather than subject himself to "bohemian" opinions.
He rose at Scarlett's entry. "Good afternoon, Mrs. Hamilton.”
In Frederick's considered opinion, lavender sleeve piping was inappropriate for a widow whose husband had not been in his grave twelve months.
Young Mrs. Hamilton seemed unaffected by Frederick's disapproval, and rarely showed the deference one expected from an upcountry Georgia girl among her betters.
The widow Eulalie Ward had worn black for years, but Charlotte Fisher Ravanel had donned her mourning garb last month when Grandmother Fisher died.
Charlotte Ravanel and Rosemary Haynes made up their differences at the funeral, where Charlotte completely forgot the Patriotic Ball. Juliet's cleverest innuendoes were blunted on Charlotte's forgetfulness. "I do wish I knew what you were talking about, dear, but I had a headache and left the ball early.”
Lifting her eyes from the chemise she was pulling apart, Juliet Ravanel said proudly, "This morning's Mercury compared Andrew with Stonewall Jackson.”
Scarlett Hamilton yawned. "General Jackson is the homeliest man alive.”
Aunt Eulalie's lapdog, Empress, barked.
Rosemary Haynes grinned. "Ah-ha! That's why the Federals run from Jackson. They are repelled by his visage! Here's a plan! We'll rout the Federals with likenesses! Our generals can use special batteries to bombard our foes" — Rosemary tugged an imaginary lanyard — "with daguerreotypes of homely Confederates. The Federals will run like rabbits! The South may lack flour, shoes, fabric, sugar, coffee, and tea, but we've plenty of flatfaced, scraggly-bearded, wall-eyed, leering, two-toothed males.”
Her conceit was greeted by chilly silence. Scarlett muffled a coughing fit in her handkerchief.
Eulalie's tiny spaniel barked again and Eulalie said, "Empress does not appreciate your joking, dear. Who would have imagined that my sweet little dog would be patriotic?”
Scarlett couldn't resist: "She has a patriot's brains.”
Another silence. Scarlett shut her eyes. Lord! She was enmired in dullness.
Dullness smothered her so, she could not breathe. Scarlett's great fear was that one morning she'd be unable to remember — as the Wards could no longer remember — what joy was.
Juliet Ravanel broke the silence, "Rosemary, I hear your brother is back in Charleston.”
"Yes, he spoils Meg terribly.”
"Didn't I hear his son is in New Orleans?”
"Dear Juliet" — Rosemary smiled, tight-lipped — "I wouldn't expect you, of all people, to repeat scurrilous gossip.”
Juliet Ravanel smiled right back at her.
Meanwhile, bored Scarlett was populating an imaginary bestiary: Frederick Ward was an overfed yellow tabby cat, the high-colored Juliet Ravanel a cardinal. Eulalie's daughters, Patience and Priscilla, in identical green brocade, had lizards' features and reptilian attitudes. In her mourning habit, poor Aunt Eulalie was a perfect crow.
While Scarlett daydreamed, conversation turned to a Robillard connection killed at Shiloh.
Frederick set his index finger to his chin. "Pauline's daughter's husband, hmm. Wasn't his first wife a Menninger? Hmm. If memory serves, Menninger senior's son, James, had that plantation on the Ashley, below Grafton, hmm. Didn't he marry that girl — dear me, I can't recall her name — that Richmond belle?”
At that instant, had the Devil himself appeared shrouded in smoke, Scarlett would have taken his bargain gladly for one more barbecue, one more night of waltzes and music and fun.
But the moment passed and Scarlett's immortal soul shrank from the brink. "I believe I'll take the air," she said, not troubling to conceal her yawn behind her black silk fan.
Outdoors, Charleston's heat struck Scarlett like a wet woolen glove.
Shading her eyes, she squinted against the glare. How she wished she were at shady Tara.
The garden separated the Ward house from dependencies concealed behind a thick boxwood hedge. Louisiana iris bloomed beneath flame-colored azaleas whose scent was overwhelmed by lavender.
Frederick Ward's son Willy and his friends were gathered beneath an ancient eucalyptus. Willy Ward's friends wore the elaborate uniforms of the Palmetto Brigade, the Moultrie Guards, and the Washington Light Infantry.
Oh dear! Scarlett knew they would prate on about the War, and she must pretend to be fascinated by their gallantry. Scarlett Hamilton was so sick of boys!
Inhaling Charleston's moist, heavily scented air, Scarlett recalled Taras subtly aromatic roses. The memory was so poignant that, hundreds of miles from home, Scarlett closed her eyes and swayed.