Scarlett (104 page)

One long wall was made up of widely spaced French doors with tall gilt mirrors between them. The wall opposite was centered by a fireplace surmounted by another gilt-framed mirror. All the mirrors were infinitesimally tilted so that they reflected not only the room but also the high ceiling. It was painted with scenes from the heroic legends of Irish history. The High Kings’ buildings on the hill of Tara looked rather like Roman temples. Scarlett loved it.

“The furniture throughout this floor is Irish-made, so are the fabrics—all wools and linens—and the silver, china, glass, almost everything. This is where The O’Hara is hostess. Come, there’s only the library still to see.”

Scarlett liked the leather-covered chairs and Chesterfield, and she recognized that the leather-backed books were very handsome. “You’ve done a wonderful job, Charlotte,” she said sincerely.

“Yes, well it wasn’t as difficult as at first I feared. The people who lived here must have used a Capability Brown design for the gardens, so there was only pruning and cleaning to do. The kitchen garden will be very productive next year, though it may be two years before the wall fruits come back. They had to be pruned back to leaders.”

Scarlett hadn’t the remotest idea what Charlotte was talking about, nor the faintest interest. She was wishing Gerald O’Hara could see the ceiling in the ballroom and Ellen O’Hara could admire the furniture in her boudoir.

Charlotte opened more doors. “Here we are in the hall again,” she said. “Excellent circular movement for large parties. The Georgian architects knew precisely what they were doing… Come through to the entrance door, Scarlett.”

She escorted Scarlett onto the top of the steps that led down to the freshly gravelled drive. “Your staff, Mrs. O’Hara.”

“My grief,” Scarlett said weakly.

Two long rows of uniformed servants were facing her. To her right Mrs. Fitzpatrick stood slightly in front of the cook, four kitchen maids, two parlor maids, four upstairs maids, three dairymaids, the head laundress, and three laundry maids.

To her left she saw a haughty-looking man who could only be a butler, eight footmen, two nervous-footed boys, the stableman she knew and six grooms, and five men she guessed were gardeners by their earth-stained hands.

“I believe I need to sit down,” she whispered.

“First you smile and welcome them to Ballyhara,” Charlotte said. Her tone would permit no remonstrance. Scarlett did as she was told.

Back inside the house—which had now become an establishment—Scarlett began to giggle. “They’re all better dressed than I am,” she said. She looked at Charlotte Montague’s expressionless face. “You’re about to bust out laughing, Charlotte, you can’t fool me. You and Mrs. Fitz must have had a high old time planning this.”

“We did rather,” Charlotte admitted. A smile was the nearest thing to “bust out laughing” that Scarlett could get from her.

Scarlett invited all the people from Ballyhara and Adamstown to come up to see the revived Big House. The long dining room table was spread with refreshments, and she darted from room to room, urging everyone to help themselves, dragging them to see the High Kings. Charlotte Montague stood quietly to one side of the big staircase, quietly disapproving. Scarlett ignored her. She tried to ignore the discomfort and embarrassment of her cousins and villagers, but within a half hour of their arrival, she was close to tears.

“It goes against tradition, Mrs. O,” Rosaleen Fitzpatrick murmured to her, “it’s naught to do with you. No farmer’s boot has ever crossed the threshold of a Big House in Ireland. We’re a people ruled by the old ways, and we’re not ready for change.”

“But I thought the Fenians wanted to change everything.”

Mrs. Fitz sighed. “That is so. But the change is for a return to even older ways than the ones that keep the boots out of a Big House. I wish I could explain more clearly.”

“Don’t bother, Mrs. Fitz. I’ve just made a mistake, that’s all. I won’t do it again.”

“It was the error of a generous heart. Take credit for that.”

Scarlett forced a smile. But she was bewildered and upset. What was the point of having all these Irish-decorated rooms if the Irish didn’t feel comfortable in them? And why did her own cousins treat her like a stranger in her own house?

After everyone left and the servants removed all traces of the party, Scarlett went from room to room alone.

Well, I like it, she decided. I like it a lot. It was, she thought, a damn sight prettier than Dunmore Landing would ever be, or ever was.

She stood in the midst of the reflected images of the High Kings and imagined Rhett there with her, full of envy and admiration. It would be years from now, when Cat was grown, and he would be heartsick that he had missed seeing his daughter grow up to become the beautiful heiress of the home of the O’Haras.

Scarlett ran to the stairs and up them and through the corridor to Cat’s room. “Hello,” said Cat. She was sitting at her little table, carefully pouring milk into a cup for her big tabby. Ocras was watching attentively from his commanding position in the center of the table. “Sit down, Momma,” Cat invited. Scarlett lowered herself onto a small chair.

If only Rhett were there to join the tea party. But he wasn’t, and he never would be, and she had to accept it. He would have tea parties with his other child, his other children—by Anne. Scarlett resisted the impulse to grab Cat in her arms. “I’d like two lumps of sugar, please, Miss O’Hara,” she said.

That night Scarlett couldn’t sleep. She sat upright in the center of her exquisite French bed with her silk-covered eiderdown wrapped closely around her for warmth. But the warmth and comfort she wanted was to feel Rhett’s arms around her, to hear his deep voice mocking the disastrous party until she could laugh at it and at the error of giving it.

She wanted comfort for her disappointment. She wanted love, grown-up caring and understanding. Her heart had learned to love, it was overflowing with love, and she had nowhere to spend it.

Damn Rhett for getting in the way! Why couldn’t she love Bart Morland? He was kind, he was attractive, Scarlett enjoyed being with him. If she really wanted him, she didn’t doubt for a minute that she could make him forget Grace Hastings.

But she didn’t want him, that was the problem. She didn’t want anybody except Rhett.

It’s not fair! she thought, like a child. And, like a child, eventually she cried herself to sleep.

When she woke, she was in control of herself once more. So what if everyone had hated her party? So what if Colum hadn’t stayed more than ten minutes? She had other friends, and she was going to make lots more. Now that the house was finally done, Charlotte was busy as a spider spinning a web with plans about the future. And in the meantime, the weather was perfect for hunting, and Mrs. Sims had made a tremendously becoming riding habit for her.

S
carlett rode to Sir John Morland’s hunt in style. She was riding a saddle horse and was accompanied by two grooms leading Half Moon and Comet, one of her new hunters. The skirts of her new habit flowed elegantly over her new sidesaddle, and she was very pleased with herself. She had had to fight Mrs. Sims like a tiger, but she had won. No corsets. Charlotte had been amazed. No one, she said, ever argued with Daisy Sims and won. No one till me, maybe, Scarlett thought. I won the argument with Charlotte, too.

Bart Morland’s hunt was no place for Scarlett to make her emergence into the world of Irish society, said Charlotte. He himself was beyond reproach and, except for his lack of money, one of the most eligible bachelors around. But he didn’t keep a grand household at all. The footmen at his breakfasts were really stable grooms in livery for a few hours. Charlotte had secured a much more important invitation for Scarlett. It would do exactly what was needed to prepare for her real debut. Scarlett couldn’t possibly go first to Morland Hall instead of Charlotte’s selection.

“I can and I will,” Scarlett said firmly. “Bart is my friend.” She repeated it until Charlotte gave in. She didn’t tell Charlotte the rest. She needed to go someplace where she felt at least a little bit comfortable. Now that it was getting close, the prospect of “Society” scared her even more than it enticed her. She kept thinking of what Mammy had said about her once: “Just a mule in horse’s harness.” As the Paris-inspired wardrobe from Mrs. Sims came into the house Scarlett thought of the saying more and more often. She could imagine hundreds of lords and ladies and earls and countesses whispering it when she went to her first important party.

“Bart, I’m glad to see you.”

“I’m glad to see you, too, Scarlett. Half Moon is looking ready for a good run. Come along over here and have a stirrup cup with my special guest. I’ve been lion-hunting. I’m proud as Lucifer.”

Scarlett smiled graciously at the young Member of Parliament for County Meath. He was very handsome, she thought, even though usually she didn’t much like men who wore beards, even well-trimmed ones like this Mr. Parnell. She’d heard the name before—oh, yes, at Bart’s breakfast. She remembered now. Colum really detested this Parnell. She’d have to pay attention so she could tell Colum all about him. After the hunt. For now Half Moon was eager to go and so was she.

“I can’t for the life of me understand how you can be so stubborn, Colum.” Scarlett had passed from enthusiasm to explanation to rage. “You’ve never even bothered to go hear the man speak, for pity’s sake. Well, I heard him, he was fascinating, everybody was hanging on his every word. And he wants exactly what you always talked about—Ireland for the Irish, and no evictions, and even no rent and no landlords. What more can you ask?”

Colum’s patience cracked. “I can ask that you not be such a trusting fool! Do you not know that your Mr. Parnell is a landlord himself? And a Protestant. And educated at the English Oxford University. He’s looking for votes, not justice. The man’s a politician, and his Home Rule policy, that you’ve swallowed for the sugar coating of his earnest manner and handsome face, is nothing more nor less than a stick for him to shake at the English and a carrot to tempt the poor ignorant Irish donkey.”

“There’s simply no talking to you! Why, he said right out that he supports the Fenians.”

Colum grabbed Scarlett’s arm. “Did you say anything?”

She jerked away from him. “Of course not. You take me for a fool and lecture me like I’m a fool, but I am not a fool. And I know this much. There’s no reason to smuggle in guns and start a war if you can get what you want without it. I lived through a war that a bunch of hotheads started because of some high-faluting principles. All it did was kill most of my friends and ruin everything. For nothing. I’m telling you right now, Colum O’Hara, there’s a way to get Ireland back for the Irish without killing and burning, and that’s what I’m for. No more money for Stephen to buy guns with, do you hear? And no more guns hidden away in my town. I want them out of that church. I don’t care what you do with them, sink them in the bog for all it matters to me. But I want to be rid of them. Right away.”

“And rid of me as well, are you saying?”

“If you insist, then—” Scarlett’s eyes filled with tears. “What am I saying? What are you saying? Oh, Colum, don’t let this happen. You’re my best friend, my almost brother. Please, please, please Colum, don’t be so hardheaded. I don’t want to fight.” The tears spilled over.

Colum took her hand in his and held it very tight. “Ach, Scarlett darling, it’s the Irish temper in the two of us talking, not Colum and Scarlett. The fearful pity of it, the two of us scowling and shouting. Forgive me,
aroon
.”

“What does that mean, ‘
aroon
’?” she asked between sobs.

“It means ‘darling’ like Scarlett darling in English. In Irish you’re my Scarlett
aroon
.”

“That’s pretty.”

“All the better as a name for you, then.”

“Colum, you’re charming the birds from the trees again, but I’m not going to let you charm me into forgetting. Promise me you’ll get rid of those guns. I’m not asking you to vote for Charles Parnell, just promise me you won’t start a war.”

“I promise you, Scarlett
aroon
.”

“Thank you. I feel worlds better. Now I’ve got to go. Will you come up to the house for dinner in my fancy morning room though it’s at night?”

“I cannot, Scarlett
aroon
. I’m meeting a friend.”

“Bring him, too. With the cook fixing food for those nine million servants I’ve got all of a sudden, I’m sure there’ll be enough to feed you and your friend.”

“Not tonight. Another time.”

Scarlett didn’t press him, she had gotten what she wanted. Before she went home she detoured to the little chapel and made her confession to Father Flynn. Losing her temper with Colum was part of it, but not the main part. She was there to be absolved of the sin that made her own blood run cold. She had thanked God when John Morland told her that six months earlier Rhett’s wife had lost her baby.

Not long after Scarlett left, Colum O’Hara entered the confessional. He had lied to her, a heavy sin. After doing his penance he went to the arsenal in the Anglican church to make sure the arms were sufficiently well concealed in the event she decided to investigate.

Charlotte Montague and Scarlett left for the house party that was Scarlett’s debut after she went to early Mass on Sunday. The party was to last a week. Scarlett didn’t like being away from Cat for so long, but the birthday party was only just over—Mrs. Fitz was still in a tight-lipped fury about the damage all the running children had done to the parquet in the ballroom—and she was certain that Cat wouldn’t miss her. With all the new furnishings to inspect and new servants to investigate, Cat was a very busy little girl.