Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley Read Free Book Online Page B

off tales of life in Savannah just when they started getting interesting. There had been duels fought over Grandma, and the fashions of her day had been scandalous, with ladies deliberately wetting their thin muslin gowns so that they’d cling to their legs. And the rest of them, too, from the look of things in the portrait…
    I should blush just from thinking the kind of things I’m thinking, Scarlett told herself. But she looked back over her shoulder at the portrait as she left the dining room. I wonder what she was really like?
    The sitting room showed the signs of poverty and constant use by a young family; Scarlett could hardly recognize the velvet-covered settee where she had posed herself prettily when beaux proposed. And everything had been rearranged, too. She had to admit that Suellen had the right to fix the house to suit herself, but it rankled all the same. It wasn’t really Tara this way.
    She grew more and more despondent as she went from room to room. Nothing was the same. Every time she came home there were more changes, and more shabbiness. Oh, why did Will have to be so stubborn! All the furniture needed recovering, the curtains were practically rags, and you could see the floor right through the carpets. She could get new things for Tara if Will would let her. Then she wouldn’t have the heartsickness of seeing the things she remembered looking so pitifully worn.
    It should be mine! I’d take better care of it. Pa always said he’d leave Tara to me. But he never made a will. That’s just like Pa, he never thought of tomorrow. Scarlett frowned, but she couldn’t really be angry at her father. No one had ever stayed angry at Gerald O’Hara; he was like a lovable naughty child even when he was in his sixties.
    The one I’m mad at—still—is Carreen. Baby sister or not, she was wrong to do what she did, and I’ll never forgive her, never. She was stubborn as a mule when she made up her mind to go into the convent, and I accepted it finally. But she never told me she was going to use her one-third share of Tara as her dowry for the convent.
    She should have told me! I would have found the money somehow. Then I’d have two-thirds ownership. Not the whole thing, like it should be, but at least clear control. Then I’d have some say so. Instead, I have to bite my tongue and watch while everything goes downhill and let Suellen queen it over me. It’s not fair. I’m the one who saved Tara from the Yankees and the carpetbaggers. It is mine, no matter what the law says, and it’ll be Wade’s some day, I’ll see to that, no matter what it takes.
    Scarlett rested her head against the split leather covering on the old sofa in the small room from which Ellen O’Hara had quietly ruled the plantation. There seemed to be a lingering trace of her mother’s lemon verbena toilet water, even after all these years. This was the peacefulness she had come to find. Never mind the changes, the shabbiness. Tara was still Tara, still home. And the heart of it was here, in Ellen’s room.
    A slamming door shattered the quiet.
    Scarlett heard Ella and Susie coming through the hall, quarrelling about something. She had to get away, she couldn’t face noise and conflict. She hurried outside. She wanted to see the fields anyhow. They were all healed, rich and red the way they’d always been.
    She walked quickly across the weedy lawn and past the cow shed. She’d never get over her aversion to cows, not if she lived to be a hundred. Nasty sharp-horned things. At the edge of the first field she leaned on the fence and breathed in the rich ammonia odor of newly turned earth and manure. Funny how in the city manure was so smelly and messy, while in the country it was a farmer’s perfume.
    Will sure is a good farmer. He’s the best thing that ever happened to Tara. No matter what I might have done, we’d never have made it if he hadn’t stopped on his way home to Florida and decided to stay. He fell in love with