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 horsehair chair, she burst into tears. She cried until Charles climbed into bed beside her and tried to comfort her, cried without words until no more tears would come and at last she lay sobbing quietly on his shoulder.
If there had not been a war, there would have been a week of visiting about the County, with balls and barbecues in honor of the two newly married couples before they set off to Saratoga or White Sulphur for wedding trips. A week after the wedding Charles left to join Colonel Wade Hampton, and two weeks later Ashley and the Troop departed, leaving the whole County bereft.
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, did she have a private talk.Melanie, bonneted andshawled, sedate in newly acquired matronly dignity, hung on his arm and the entire personnel of Tara, black and white, turned out to see Ashley off to the war.
Melanie said:“You must kiss Scarlett, Ashley. She's my sister now,”and Ashley bent and touched her cheek with cold lips, his face drawn and taut.Scarlett could hardly take any joy from that kiss, so sullen was her heart at Melly's prompting it.Melanie smothered her with an embrace at parting.
“You will come to Atlanta and visit me and Aunt Pittypat, won't you?Oh, darling, we want to have you so much!We want to know Charlie's wife better.”
Five weeks passed during which letters, shy, ecstatic, loving, came from Charles in South Carolina telling of his love, his plans for the future when the war was over, his desire to become a hero for her sake and his worship of his commander, Wade Hampton. In the seventh week, there came a telegram from Colonel Hampton himself, and then a letter, a kind, dignified letter of condolence.Charles was dead.The colonel would have wired earlier, but Charles, thinking his illness a trifling one, did not wish to have his family worded.The unfortunate boy had been cheated not only of the love he thought he had won but also of his high hopes of honor and glory on the field of battle.He had died ignominiously and swiftly of pfieumonia, following measles, without ever having gotten any closer to the Yankees than the camp in South Carolina.
In due time, Charles'son was born and, because it was fashionable to name boys after their fathers'commanding officers, he was called Wade Hampton Hamilton. Scarlett had wept with despag at the knowledge that she was pregnant and wished that she were dead.But she carried the child through its time with a minimum of discomfort, bore him with little distress and recovered so quickly that Mammy told her privately it was downright common—ladies should suffer more.She had not wanted him and she resented his coming and, now that he was here, it did not seem possible that he was hers, a part of her.
Though she recovered physically from Wade's birth in a disgracefully short time, mentally she was dazed and sick. Her spirits drooped, despite the efforts of the whole plantation to revive them.Ellen went about with apuckered, worried forehead and Gerald swore even more frequently than usual and brought her useless gifts from Jonesboro.Even old Dr.Fontaine admitted that he was puzzled, after his tonic of sulphur, molasses and herbs failed to perk her up.He told Ellen privately that it was a broken heart that made Scarlett so irritable and listless by turns.But Scarlett, had she wished to speak, could have told them that it was a far different and more complex trouble.She did not tell them that it was utter boredom, bewilderment at actually being a mother and, most of all, the absence of Ashley that made her look so woebegone.
Her boredom was acute and ever present. The County had been devoid of any entertainment or social life ever since the Troop had gone away to war.All of the interesting young men were gone—the four Tarletons, the two Calverts, the Fontaines, the Munroes and everyone from Jonesboro, Fayetteville and Lovejoy who was young and attractive.Only the older men, the cripples and the women were left, and they spent their time knitting and sewing, growing more cotton and corn, raising more hogs and sheep and cows for the army.There was never a sight of a real man except when the commissary troop under Suellen's middleaged beau, Frank Kennedy, rode by every month to collect supplies.The men in the commissary were not very exciting, and the sight of Frank's timid courting annoyed her until she found it difficult to be polite to him.If he and Suellen would only get it over with!
Even if the commissary troop had been more interesting, it would not have helped her situation any. She was a widow and her heart was in the grave.At least, everyone thought it was in the grave and expected her to act accordingly.This irritated her for, try as she could, she could recall nothing about Charles except the dying-calf look on his face when she told him she would marry him.And even that picture was fading.But she was a widow and she had to watch her behavior.Not for her the pleasures of unmarried girls.She had to be grave and aloof.Ellen had stressed this at great length after catching Frank's lieutenant swinging Scarlett in the garden swing and making her squeal with laughter.Deeply distressed, Ellen had told her how easily a widow might get herself talked about.The conduct of a widow must be twice as circumspect as that of a matron.
“And God only knows,”thought Scarlett, listening obediently to hermother's soft voice,“matrons never have any fun at all. So widows might as well be dead.”
