Scarlett (88 page)

Joe O’Neill, the blacksmith, had cowered in a corner of Ballyhara’s kitchen until daylight, then scuttled to his smithy to drink himself brave. “Though Saint Patrick himself would have needed more than all the prayers at his beckoning on that night,” he told anyone who would listen, and there were many.

“Ready was I to save the life of The O’Hara when the witch come through the stone wall and throws me with terrible force onto the floor. Then kicks me—and I could feel in my flesh that the foot was no human foot but a cloven hoof. She cast a spell on The O’Hara then and ripped the babe from the womb. All bloody was the babe, and blood on the floors and the walls and in the air. A lesser man would have sheltered his eyes from such a fearful sight. But Joseph O’Neill saw the babe’s fine strong form beneath the blood, and I’m telling you it was a manchild, with manhood plain between its limbs.

“ ‘I’ll wash the blood away,’ says the demon, and she turns her back, then presents to Father O’Hara a spindly frail near-lifeless creature—female and brown as the earth of the grave. Now who will tell me? If I didn’t see a changeling, what was it I saw that terrible night? There’s no good will come of it, not to The O’Hara nor any man who’s touched by the shadow of the fairy babe left in place of The O’Hara’s stolen boy.”

*   *   *

The story from Dunshaughlin got to Ballyhara after a week. The O’Hara was dying, said the midwife, and could only be saved by ridding her of the dead babe in her womb. Who would know these things, pitiful though they were, better than a midwife who’d seen all there was to see of childbirth? Of a sudden the suffering mother sat up on her bed of pain. “I see it,” says she, “the banshee! Tall and clad all in white with the fairy beauty on its face.” Then the devils drove a spear from Hell through the window and the banshee flew out to wail the call to death. It was calling the soul of the lost babe, but the dead babe was restored among the living by sucking out the soul of the good old woman who was grandmother to The O’Hara. It was the devil’s work and no mistaking and the babe The O’Hara takes for her own is nought but a ghoul.

“I feel that I should warn Scarlett,” Colum said to Rosaleen Fitzpatrick, “but what can I tell her? That people are superstitious? That All Hallows’ Eve is a dangerous birth date for a baby? I cannot find any advice to give her, there’s no way to protect the baby from talk.”

“I’ll see to Katie’s safety,” Mrs. Fitzpatrick said. “No one and nothing enters this house unless I say so, and no harm will come near that tiny child. Talk will be forgotten in time, Colum, you know that. Something else will come along to weave tales about and everyone will see that Katie’s only a little girl like any other little girl.”

A week later Mrs. Fitzpatrick took a tray of tea and sandwiches to Scarlett’s room and stood patiently while Scarlett bombarded her with the same plaint she’d been making for days.

“I don’t see why I have to stay stuck up here in this room forever. I feel plenty well enough to be up and about. Look at the lovely sunshine today, I want to take Katie out for a ride in the trap, but the best I can do is sit by the window and look out at the leaves falling. I’m sure she’s watching. Her eyes look up and then follow them floating down—Oh, look! Come look! Look at Katie’s eyes here in the light. They’re changing from blue. I thought they’d turn brown like Rhett’s because she’s the spit of him. But I can see the first little specks, and they’re green. She’s going to have my eyes!”

Scarlett nuzzled the baby’s neck. “You’re Momma’s girl, aren’t you, Katie O’Hara? No, not Katie. Anybody can be a Katie. I’m going to call you Kitty Cat, with your green eyes.” She lifted the solemn baby up to face the housekeeper.

“Mrs. Fitzpatrick, I’d like to introduce you to Cat O’Hara.” Scarlett’s smile was like sunlight.

Rosaleen Fitzpatrick felt more frightened than at any time in her life.

T
he enforced idleness of her convalescence gave Scarlett many hours to think, since her baby spent most of the day and the night sleeping, exactly like all other infants. Scarlett tried reading, but she had never cared for it, and she had not changed in that way.

What had changed was what she thought about.

First and foremost, there was her love for Cat. Only weeks old, the baby was too young to be responsive, except in reacting to her own hunger and the satisfaction of Scarlett’s warm breast and milk. It’s loving that’s making me so happy, Scarlett realized. It has nothing to do with being loved. I like to think Cat loves me, but the truth is she loves to eat.

Scarlett was able to laugh at the joke on herself. Scarlett O’Hara, who’d made men fall in love with her as a sport, as an amusement, was nothing more than a source of food to the one person she loved more than she’d ever loved in her life.

Because she hadn’t really loved Ashley; she’d known that for a long time. She’d only wanted what she couldn’t have and called that love.

I threw away over ten years on the false love, too, and I lost Rhett, the man I really loved.

… Or did I?

She searched her memory, in spite of the pain. It always hurt to think about Rhett, about losing him, about her failure. It eased the pain some when she thought about the way he’d treated her and hatred burned away the hurt. But for the most part, she managed to keep him out of her mind; it was less disturbing.

During these long days with nothing to do, however, her mind kept going back over her life, and she couldn’t avoid remembering him.

Had she loved him?

I must have, she thought, I must love him still, or my heart wouldn’t ache the way it does when I see his smile in my mind, hear his voice.

But for ten years she had conjured up Ashley in the same way, imagining his smile and his voice.

And I wanted Rhett most after he left me, Scarlett’s deep core of honesty reminded her.

It was too confusing. It made her head ache, even more than her heart. She wouldn’t think about it. It was much better to think about Cat, to think about how happy she was.

To think about happiness?

I was happy even before Cat came. I was happy from the day I went to Jamie’s house. Not like now, I didn’t dream anybody could ever feel as happy as I do every time I look at Cat, every time I hold her, or feed her. But I was happy, all the same, because the O’Haras took me just the way I was. They never expected me to be just like them, they never made me feel I had to change, they never made me feel I was wrong.

Even when I was wrong. I had no call to expect Kathleen to do my hair and mend my clothes and make my bed. I was putting on airs. With people who never did anything so tacky as put on airs themselves. But they never said, “Oh, stop putting on airs, Scarlett.” No, they just let me do what I was doing and accepted me, airs and all. Just like I was.

I was awful wrong about Daniel and all moving to Ballyhara. I was trying to make them be a credit to me. I wanted them to live in grand houses and be grand farmers with lots of land and hired hands to do most of the work. I wanted to change them. I never wondered what they wanted. I didn’t take them just the way they were.

Oh, I’m never going to do that to Cat. I’m never going to make her different from what she is. I’m always going to love her like I do now—with my whole heart, no matter what.

*   *   *

Mother never loved me like I love Cat. Or Suellen or Carreen, either. She wanted me to be different from me, she wanted me to be just like her. All of us, that’s what she wanted from all three of us. She was wrong.

Scarlett recoiled from what was in her head. She’d always believed her mother was perfect. It was unthinkable that Ellen O’Hara could ever be wrong about anything.

But the thought would not go away. It returned again and again when she was unprepared to shut it out. It returned in different guises, with different embellishments. It would not leave her alone.

Mother was wrong. Being a lady like her isn’t the only way to be. It isn’t even always the best way to be. Not if it doesn’t make you happy. Happy is the best way to be because then you can let other people be happy, too. Their own way.

Mother wasn’t happy. She was kind and patient and caring—for us children, for Pa, for the darkies. But not loving. Not happy. Oh, poor Mother. I wish you could have felt the way I feel now, I wish you could have been happy.

What was it Grandfather had said? That his daughter Ellen had married Gerald O’Hara to run away from a disappointment in love. Was that why she was never happy? Was she pining over someone she couldn’t have the way I pined over Ashley? The way I pine now over Rhett when I can’t help it.

What a waste! What a horrible, senseless waste. When happiness was so wonderful, how could anyone cling to a love that made them unhappy? Scarlett vowed that she wouldn’t do it. She knew what it was to be happy, and she would not ruin it.

She caught her sleeping baby up in her arms and hugged her. Cat woke and waved her helpless hands in protest. “Oh, Kitty Cat, I’m sorry. I just had to hug you some.”

They were all wrong! The idea was so explosive that it woke Scarlett from a sound sleep. They were wrong! All of them—the people who cut me dead in Atlanta, Aunt Eulalie and Aunt Pauline, and just about everybody in Charleston. They wanted me to be just like them, and because I’m not, they disapproved of me, made me feel like there was something terribly wrong with me, made me think I was a bad person, that I deserved to be looked down on.

And there was nothing I did that was as terrible as all that. What they punished me for was that I wasn’t minding their rules. I worked harder than any field hand—at making money, and caring about money isn’t ladylike. Never mind that I was keeping Tara going and holding the aunts’ heads above water and supporting Ashley and his family and paying for almost every piece of food on the table at Aunt Pitty’s plus keeping the roof fixed and the coal bin filled. They all thought I shouldn’t have dirtied my hands with the ledgers from the store or put on a smile when I sold lumber to the Yankees. There were plenty enough things I did that I shouldn’t have done, but working for money wasn’t one of them, and that’s what they blamed me for most. No, that’s not quite it. They blamed me for being successful at it.

That and pulling Ashley back from breaking his neck flinging himself into the grave after Melly. If it had been the other way around, and I’d saved her at Ashley’s burial, it would have been all right. Hypocrites!

What gives people whose whole life is a lie the right to judge me? What’s wrong with working as hard as you can, and then more besides? Why is it so terrible to push in and stop disaster from happening to anyone, especially a friend?

They were wrong. Here in Ballyhara I worked as hard as I could, and I was admired for it. I kept Uncle Daniel from losing his farm, and they started calling me The O’Hara.

That’s why being The O’Hara makes me feel so strange and so happy all at the same time. It’s because The O’Hara is honored for all the same things that I’ve been thinking were bad all these years. The O’Hara would have stayed up late doing the books for the store. The O’Hara would have grabbed Ashley away from the grave.

What was it Mrs. Fitzpatrick said? “You don’t have to do anything, you only have to be what you are.” What I am is Scarlett O’Hara, who makes mistakes sometimes and does things right sometimes, but who never pretends any more to be what she’s not. I’m The O’Hara, and I’d never be called that if I was as bad as they make me out to be in Atlanta. I’m not bad at all. I’m not a saint, either, God knows. But I’m willing to be different, I’m willing to be who I am, not pretend to be what I’m not.

I’m The O’Hara, and I’m proud of it. It makes me happy and whole.

Cat made a gurgling noise to indicate that she was awake, too, and ready to be fed. Scarlett lifted her from her basket and settled the two of them in the bed. She cupped the tiny unprotected head in one hand and guided Cat to her breast.

“I promise you on my word of honor, Cat O’Hara. You can grow up to be whatever you are, even if it’s as different from me as day from night. If you have a leaning towards being a lady, I’ll even show you how, never mind what I think about it. After all, I know all the rules even if I can’t abide them.”

I
’m going out, and there’s no more to be said about it.” Scarlett glowered mulishly at Mrs. Fitzpatrick.

The housekeeper stood in the open doorway like an immovable mountain. “No, you are not.”

Scarlett changed her tactics. “Please do let me,” she coaxed, with the sweetest smile in her arsenal. “The fresh air will do me a world of good. It’ll perk up my appetite, too, and you know how you’ve been after me about not eating enough.”

“That will improve. The cook has arrived.”

Scarlett forgot that she was being beguiling. “And high time, too! Is her high-and-mightiness bothering to say what took her so long?”

Mrs. Fitzpatrick smiled. “She started out on time, but her piles bothered her so badly she had to stop overnight every ten miles on the way here. It seems we won’t have to worry about her lazing in a rocking chair when she should be on her feet working.”

Scarlett tried not to laugh, but she couldn’t help it. And she couldn’t really stay mad at Mrs. Fitzpatrick; they had grown too close for that. The older woman had moved into the housekeeper’s apartment the day after Cat was born. She was Scarlett’s constant companion while she was ill. And readily available afterwards.