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Chapter eleven

Murder

Next morning, when Scarlett went down to breakfast, Gerald was sitting at the table. As Scarlett sat down, he said, ‘We will wait for Mrs O’Hara. She is late.’

Scarlett stared at him. He was looking at her in a strange and confused way, and his hands were shaking.

‘Has Pa lost his mind?’ thought Scarlett. ‘No! He’ll get better. He must get better! I won’t think about it now. I won’t think of him or Mother or any of these awful things!’

She left the room without eating.

Pork was outside the house. ‘Have you been over to Twelve Oaks or the Macintosh place to see if there’s anything left in the gardens that we can eat?’ Scarlett asked him.

‘No, Miss,’ said Pork, ‘We ain’t left Tara.’

‘You go to Macintosh, and I’ll go to Twelve Oaks,’ she said.

The road was hot and dusty, but she was hungry, and they needed food from somewhere. At the bottom of the hill was the river, and Scarlett took off her shoes and put her feet into the cool water before going on to Twelve Oaks.

It was burned down, and just a few blackened stones were left of the house where she had danced and flirted with the men, and dreamed her dreams of marrying Ashley.

‘Oh, Ashley, I hope you are dead!’ she thought. ‘I don’t want you to see this!’

She walked to the garden and found some potatoes in the soft earth. Without stopping to clean it, Scarlett picked up a potato and began to eat. But it was old and the taste was bitter, and Scarlett was sick almost immediately.

Then she lay down, her face against the earth, and thought of the people who were dead, the way of life that had gone forever, and the dark and frightening future.

But the past was the past, Scarlett told herself, sitting up. Those lazy, happy old days were gone, never to return. There was no going back. ‘I’m going to live through this,’ she said aloud. ‘And when it’s over, I’m never going to be hungry again. If I have to steal or kill - as God is my witness - I’m never going to be hungry again!’

After two weeks, she knew that her father would never get any better. He would always be waiting for Ellen, always listening for her. When Scarlett asked him for advice, his only answer was, ‘Do what you think best, daughter.’

One morning, she was at the open window of her bedroom. She had hurt her foot and was sitting in a chair. Melanie was in her room with the children, Careen and Suellen were in their room, and Gerald, Mammy, Pork and Dilcey were in the fields.

Scarlett was wondering how they were going to buy food. The only money in the house was Confederate money, and that had almost no value now. ‘And if I can get my hands on some money,’ she thought, ‘how can we carry food from Jonesboro to Tara?’ The old horse that brought them from Atlanta had died.

It was while she was worrying that she heard the sound of a horse. She looked up quickly - and saw a Yankee soldier. He was a rough-looking man with an untidy black beard - and a gun! And he was getting off his horse outside the front door.

Scarlett heard him come into the house and walk through the rooms downstairs. ‘In a moment,’ she thought, ‘he’ll walk into the kitchen!’ There, cooking over the fire in two large pots, were apples and vegetables - brought painfully from Twelve Oaks and the Macintosh garden - dinner for nine hungry people, but only really enough for two. The thought of the Yankee eating their meal made Scarlett so angry that she began to shake.

She went to the cupboard and took out the heavy gun which Charles had never used. Then, quickly and silently, she ran downstairs, holding it behind her.

‘Who’s there?’ he shouted. And she stopped in the middle of the stairs. He was standing in the doorway of the dining room, his gun in one hand. ‘So there is somebody home,’ he said, smiling and putting his gun away. He walked across until he was standing below her. ‘All alone, little lady?’ he said.

Before he could move again, Scarlett lifted her gun and shot him in the face. The noise filled her ears and the man crashed backwards on to the floor. Scarlett ran down and stood over him, looking into what was left of his face. As she looked, two streams of blood ran across the floor, one from his face and one from the back of his head. He was dead. She had killed a man. ‘Murder,’ she thought. ‘I’ve done murder. Oh, this can’t be happening to me!’

A sound behind her made Scarlett turn round. Melanie, wearing only a night-dress, was coming down the stairs. She saw the dead Yankee, then smiled proudly at Scarlett.

‘She - she’s like me!’ thought Scarlett. ‘She would do the same thing!’

‘Scarlett! Scarlett!’ cried the frightened voices of her sisters. Then Wade began to scream. Melanie climbed back up the stairs and opened the door of the girls’ room.

‘Don’t be frightened!’ she said, laughing. ‘Your sister was trying to clean Charles gun, and it went off and nearly frightened her to death! Wade, your mother just shot your dear Pa’s gun. When you get older, she’ll let you shoot it, too.’

‘What a cool liar!’ thought Scarlett. ‘I couldn’t think that quickly. But why did she lie? They’ve got to know I’ve done it.’

Melanie came back downstairs, although she was weak and in pain. ‘Scarlett, we must get him out of here,’ she said. ‘He may not be alone, and if more soldiers come and find him-‘

‘He must be alone,’ said Scarlett. ‘I didn’t see any others from the upstairs window.’

‘Well, no one must know about it,’ said Melanie. ‘The negroes might talk and then they’ll come and get you. We must hide him before they come back.’

‘I could dig a hole in the corner of the garden and put him in it,’ said Scarlett. ‘But how will I get him there?’

‘We’ll each take a leg and pull him,’ said Melanie.

‘You couldn’t pull a cat. You’ll kill yourself.’

‘All right,’ said Melanie. ‘You pull him out and I’ll clean up the mess. But can’t we go through his bag and his pockets first? He might have something to eat.’

Scarlett found a wallet inside his coat. It was full of money - United States money as well as Confederate money, and one ten-dollar gold coin and two five-dollar gold coins. Melanie found some coffee in the bag, and there were rings and other small pieces of jewellery in his pockets.

‘A thief!’ whispered Melanie. ‘He stole all this! I’m glad you killed him, Scarlett.’

No one asked where the horse came from, they were just pleased to have him. The Yankee lay covered in the hole in the corner of the garden. No ghost came to frighten Scarlett during the long nights when she lay awake afterwards.

‘I won’t think about it,’ she said to herself.

But whenever she had to do something difficult after this, she thought: ‘I’ve done murder, so I can do this.’