Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell Read Free Book Online Page B

you’ve been recently. Has he been trifling with you? Has he asked to marry you?”
    “No,” she said shortly.
    “Nor will he,” said Gerald.
    Fury flamed in her, but Gerald waved her quiet with a hand.
    “Hold your tongue, Miss! I had it from John Wilkes this afternoon in the strictest confidence that Ashley’s to marry Miss Melanie. It’s to be announced tomorrow.”
    Scarlett’s hand fell from his arm. So it was true!
    A pain slashed at her heart as savagely as a wild animal’s fangs. Through it all, she felt her father’s eyes on her, a little pitying, a little annoyed at being faced with a problem for which he knew no answer. He loved Scarlett, but it made him uncomfortable to have her forcing her childish problems on him for a solution. Ellen knew all the answers. Scarlett should have taken her troubles to her.
    “Is it a spectacle you’ve been making of yourself — of all of us?” he bawled, his voice rising as always in moments of excitement. “Have you been running after a man who’s not in love with you, when you could have any of the bucks in the County?”
    Anger and hurt pride drove out some of the pain.
    “I haven’t been running after him. It — it just surprised me.”
    “It’s lying you are!” said Gerald, and then, peering at her stricken face, he added in a burst of kindliness: “I’m sorry, daughter. But after all, you are nothing but a child and there’s lots of other beaux.”
    “Mother was only fifteen when she married you, and I’m sixteen,” said Scarlett, her voice muffled.
    “Your mother was different,” said Gerald. “She was never flighty like you. Now come, daughter, cheer up, and I’ll take you to Charleston next week to visit your Aunt Eulalie and, what with all the hullabaloo they are having over there about Fort Sumter, you’ll be forgetting about Ashley in a week.”
    “He thinks I’m a child,” thought Scarlett, grief and anger choking utterance, “and he’s only got to dangle a new toy and I’ll forget my bumps.”
    “Now, don’t be jerking your chin at me,” warned Gerald. “If you had any sense you’d have married Stuart or Brent Tarleton long ago. Think it over, daughter. Marry one of the twins and then the plantations will run together and Jim Tarleton and I will build you a fine house, right where they join, in that big pine grove and —”
    “Will you stop treating me like a child!” cried Scarlett. “I don’t want to go to Charleston or have a house or marry the twins. I only want —” She caught herself but not in time.
    Gerald’s voice was strangely quiet and he spoke slowly as if drawing his words from a store of thought seldom used.
    “It’s only Ashley you’re wanting, and you’ll not be having him. And if he wanted to marry you, ‘twould be with misgivings that I’d say Yes, for an the fine friendship that’s between me and John Wilkes.” And, seeing her startled look, he continued: “I want my girl to be happy and you wouldn’t be happy with him.”
    “Oh, I would! I would!”
    “That you would not, daughter. Only when like marries like can there be any happiness.”
    Scarlett had a sudden treacherous desire to cry out, “But you’ve been happy, and you and Mother aren’t alike,” but she repressed it, fearing that he would box her ears for her impertinence.
    “Our people and the Wilkes are different,” he went on slowly, fumbling for words. “The Wilkes are different from any of our neighbors — different from any family I ever knew. They are queer folk, and it’s best that they marry their cousins and keep their queerness to themselves.”
    “Why, Pa, Ashley is not —”
    “Hold your whist, Puss! I said nothing against the lad, for I like him. And when I say queer, it’s not crazy I’m meaning. He’s not queer like the Calverts who’d gamble everything they have on a horse, or the Tarletons who turn out a drunkard or two in every litter, or the Fontaines who are hot-headed little brutes and