we licked them!” He hung breathless on her words. Her hand slid into his.
“I wouldn’t want to wait,” she said.
He sat clutching her hand, his mouth wide open. Watching him from under her lashes, Scarlett thought that he looked like a frog. He stuttered several times, closed his mouth and opened it again, and again became red in the face.
“Can you possibly love me?”
She said nothing but looked down into her lap, and Charles was embarrassed. Perhaps a man should not ask a girl such a question. Perhaps it would be hard for her to answer it. Charles was at a loss as to how to act. He wanted to shout and to sing and to kiss her and then run tell everyone, black and white, that she loved him. But he only squeezed her hand until he drove her rings into the flesh.
“You will marry me soon, Miss Scarlett?”
“Um,” she said, fingering a fold of her dress.
“Shall we make it a double wedding with Mel —”
“No,” she said quickly. Charles knew again that he had made an error. Of course, a girl wanted her own wedding – not shared glory.
“When may I speak to your father?”
“The sooner the better,” she said.
He leaped up and for a moment she thought he was going to cut a caper[25]. He looked down at her radiantly, his clean simple heart in his eyes. She had never had anyone look at her thus before and would never have it from any other man, but she only thought that he looked like a calf.
“I’ll go now and find your father,” he said, smiling all over his face. “I can’t wait. Will you excuse me – dear?” The word came hard but having said it once, he repeated it again with pleasure.
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll wait here. It’s so cool and nice here.”
He went off across the lawn and disappeared around the house, and she was alone under the rustling oak. From the stables, men were streaming out on horseback, negro servants riding hard behind their masters.
The white house with its tall columns stood before her. It would never be her house now. Ashley would never carry her over the threshold as his bride. Oh, Ashley, Ashley! What have I done? Deep in her, under hurt pride and cold practicality, something stirred hurtingly. An adult emotion was being born. She loved Ashley and she had never cared for him so much as in that instant when she saw Charles disappearing around the graveled walk.
Chapter VII
Within two weeks Scarlett had become a wife, and within two months more she was a widow.
In after years when she thought of those last days of April, 1861, Scarlett could never quite remember details. Time and events were jumbled together like a nightmare. Especially vague were her memories of the time before the wedding. Two weeks! So short an engagement would have been impossible in times of peace. But the South was at war.
Learning that Ashley’s wedding had been moved up to the first of May, so he could leave with the Troop, Scarlett set the date of her wedding for the day before his. Ellen protested but Charles was impatient to be off to South Carolina to join the Legion, and Gerald sided with the two young people.
The South was intoxicated with enthusiasm and excitement. Everyone knew that one battle would end the war and every young man hastened to enlist before the war should end – hastened to marry his sweetheart before he went to Virginia to strike a blow at the Yankees. The ladies were making uniforms, knitting socks and rolling bandages, and the men were drilling and shooting. Train loads of troops passed through Jonesboro daily on their way north to Atlanta and Virginia. All were half-drilled, half-armed, wild with excitement and shouting as though on the way to a picnic.
Almost before she knew it, Scarlett was wearing Ellen’s wedding dress and veil, coming down the wide stairs of Tara on her father’s arm, to face a house packed full with guests. Afterward she remembered, as from a dream, the hundreds of candles flaring on the walls, her mother’s face, her lips moving in a silent prayer for her daughter’s happiness, Gerald flushed with brandy and pride that his daughter was marrying both money and a fine name – and Ashley, standing at the bottom of the steps with Melanie’s arm through his.
When she saw the look on his face, she thought: “This can’t be real. It can’t be. It’s a nightmare. I’ll wake up and find it’s all been a nightmare. I mustn’t think of it now, or I’ll begin screaming in front of all these people. I can’t think now. I’ll think later, when I can stand it – when I can’t see his eyes.”
It was all very dreamlike. Even the feel of Ashley’s kiss upon her cheek, even Melanie’s soft whisper, “Now, we’re really and truly sisters,” were unreal.
But when the dancing and toasting were finally ended and the dawn was coming, there came reality. The reality was the blushing Charles, emerging from her dressing room in his nightshirt, avoiding the look she gave him over the high-pulled sheet.
Of course, she knew that married people occupied the same bed but she had never given the matter a thought before. It seemed very natural in the case of her mother and father, but she had never applied it to herself. Now for the first time she realized just what she had brought on herself. The thought of this strange boy getting into bed with her, when her heart was breaking for losing Ashley forever, was too much for her. As he approached the bed she spoke in a hoarse whisper.
“I’ll scream out loud if you come near me. I will! I will – at the top of my voice! Get away from me! Don’t you dare touch me!”
So Charles Hamilton spent his wedding night in an armchair in the corner, not too unhappily, for he understood, or thought he understood, the modesty and delicacy of his bride.
Ashley’s wedding was even worse. She saw the plain little face of Melanie Hamilton glow into beauty as she became Melanie Wilkes. Now, Ashley was gone forever. Her Ashley. No, not her Ashley now. Had he ever been hers? Now he was gone and she was married to a man she did not love.
So she danced through the night of Ashley’s wedding in a daze and said things mechanically and smiled at the people who thought her a happy bride and could not see that her heart was broken. Well, thank God, they couldn’t see!
That night after Mammy had helped her undress and had departed and Charles had emerged shyly from the dressing room, wondering if he was to spend a second night in the chair, she burst into tears. She cried until Charles climbed into bed beside her and tried to comfort her till at last she lay sobbing quietly on his shoulder.
A week after the wedding Charles left to join the Legion, and two weeks later Ashley and the Troop departed.
In those two weeks, Scarlett never saw Ashley alone, never had a private word with him. Not even at the terrible moment of parting, when he stopped by Tara on his way to the train. Melanie, hanging on his arm, said: “You must kiss Scarlett, Ashley. She’s my sister now,” and Ashley bent and touched her cheek with cold lips, his face drawn. “You will come to Atlanta and visit me and Aunt Pittypat, won’t you? We want to know Charlie’s wife better.”
Five weeks passed during which letters came from Charles telling of his love, his plans for the future when the war was over, his desire to become a hero for her sake. In the seventh week, there came a telegram that Charles was dead. He had died of pneumonia, following measles, without getting any closer to the Yankees than the camp in South Carolina.
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