He bowed briefly and went out, closing the door behind him. Those in the house heard a sharp order, muffled by the wind: “Surround the house. A man at each window and door.” There was a tramping of feet. Scarlett checked a start of terror as she dimly saw bearded faces peering in the windows at them. Melanie sat down and with a hand that did not tremble reached for a book on the table. It was a ragged copy of Les Miserables, that book which caught the fancy of the Confederate soldiers. They had read it by campfire light and took some grim pleasure in calling it “Lee’s Miserables.” She opened it at the middle and began to read in a clear monotonous voice.
“Sew,” commanded Archie in a hoarse whisper and the three women, nerved by Melanie’s cool voice, picked up their sewing and bowed their heads.
How long Melanie read beneath that circle of watching eyes, Scarlett never knew but it seemed hours. She did not even hear a word that Melanie read. Now she was beginning to think of Frank as well as Ashley. So this was the explanation of his apparent calm this evening! He had promised her he would have nothing to do with the Klan. Oh, this was just the kind of trouble she had feared would come upon them! All the work of this last year would go for nothing. All her struggles and fears and labors in rain and cold had been wasted. And who would have thought that spiritless old Frank would get himself mixed up in the hot-headed doings of the Klan? Even at this minute, he might be dead. And if he wasn’t dead and the Yankees caught him, he’d be hanged. And Ashley, too!
Her nails dug, into her palms until four bright-red crescents showed. How could Melanie read on and on so calmly when Ashley was in danger of being hanged? When he might be dead? But something in the cool soft voice reading the sorrows of Jean Valjean steadied her, kept her from leaping to her feet and screaming.
Her mind fled back to the night Tony Fontaine had come to them, hunted, exhausted, without money. If he had not reached their house and received money and a fresh horse, he would have been hanged long since. If Frank and Ashley were not dead at this very minute, they were in Tony’s position, only worse. With the house surrounded by soldiers they couldn’t come home and get money and clothes without being captured. And probably every house up and down the street had a similar guard of Yankees, so they could not apply to friends for aid. Even now they might be riding wildly through the night, bound for Texas.
But Rhett—perhaps Rhett had reached them in time. Rhett always had plenty of cash in his pocket. Perhaps he would lend them enough to see them through. But that was queer. Why should Rhett bother himself about Ashley’s safety? Certainly he disliked him, certainly he professed a contempt for him. Then why— But his riddle was swallowed up in a renewed fear for the safety of Ashley and Frank.
“Oh, it’s all my fault!” she wailed to herself. “India and Archie spoke the truth. It’s all my fault. But I never thought either of them was foolish enough to join the Klan! And I never thought anything would really happen to me! But I couldn’t have done otherwise. Melly spoke the truth. People have to do what they have to do. And I had to keep the mills going! I had to have money! And now I’ll probably lose it all and somehow it’s all my fault!”
After a long time Melanie’s voice faltered, trailed off and was silent. She turned her head toward the window and stared as though no Yankee soldier stared back from behind the glass. The others raised their heads, caught by her listening pose, and they too listened.
There was a sound of horses’ feet and of singing, deadened by the closed windows and doors, borne away by the wind but still recognizable. It was the most hated and hateful of all songs, the song about Sherman’s men “Marching through Georgia” and Rhett Butler was singing it.
Hardly had he finished the first lines when two other voices, drunken voices, assailed him, enraged foolish voices that stumbled over words and blurred them together. There was a quick command from Captain Jaffery on the front porch and the rapid tramp of feet. But even before these sounds arose, the ladies looked at one another stunned. For the drunken voices expostulating with Rhett were those of Ashley and Hugh Elsing.
Voices rose louder on the front walk, Captain Jaffery’s curt and questioning, Hugh’s shrill with foolish laughter, Rhett’s deep and reckless and Ashley’s queer, unreal, shouting: “What the hell! What the hell!”
“That can’t be Ashley!” thought Scarlett wildly. “He never gets drunk! And Rhett—why, when Rhett’s drunk he gets quieter and quieter—never loud like that!”
Melanie rose and, with her, Archie rose. They heard the captain’s sharp voice: “These two men are under arrest.” And Archie’s hand closed over his pistol butt.
“No,” whispered Melanie firmly. “No. Leave it to me.”
There was in her face the same look Scarlett had seen that day at Tara when Melanie had stood at the top of the steps looking down at the dead Yankee, her weak wrist weighed down by the heavy saber—a gentle and timid soul nerved by circumstances to the caution and fury of a tigress. She threw the front door open.
“Bring him in, Captain Butler,” she called in a clear tone that bit with venom. “I suppose you’ve gotten him intoxicated again. Bring him in.”
From the dark windy walk, the Yankee captain spoke: “I’m sorry, Mrs. Wilkes, but your husband and Mr. Elsing are under arrest.”
“Arrest? For what? For drunkenness? If everyone in Atlanta was arrested for drunkenness, the whole Yankee garrison would be in jail continually. Well, bring him in, Captain Butler—that is, if you can walk yourself.”
Scarlett’s mind was not working quickly and for a brief moment nothing made sense. She knew neither Rhett nor Ashley was drunk and she knew Melanie knew they were not drunk. Yet here was Melanie, usually so gentle and refined, screaming like a shrew and in front of Yankees too, that both of them were too drunk to walk.