“I see nothing strange about it,” she answered uncomfortably, immediately on the alert.
“No?
But then you lack the impersonal viewpoint.
My impression has been for some time past that you could hardly endure Mrs. Wilkes.
You think her silly and stupid and her patriotic notions bore you.
You seldom pass by the opportunity to slip in some belittling remark about her, so naturally it seems strange to me that you should elect to do the unselfish thing and stay here with her during this shelling.
Now, just why did you do it?”
“Because she’s Charlie’s sister—and like a sister to me,” answered Scarlett with as much dignity as possible though her cheeks were growing hot.
“You mean because she’s Ashley’s Wilkes’ widow.”
Scarlett rose quickly, struggling with her anger.
“I was almost on the point of forgiving you for your former boorish conduct but now I shan’t do it.
I wouldn’t have ever let you come upon this porch at all, if I hadn’t been feeling so blue and—”
“Sit down and smooth your ruffled fur,” he said, and his voice changed. He reached up and taking her hand pulled her back into her chair.
“Why are you blue?”
“Oh, I had a letter from Tara today.
The Yankees are close to home and my little sister is ill with typhoid and—and—so now, even if I could go home, like I want to, Mother wouldn’t let me for fear I’d catch it too.
Oh, dear, and I do so want to go home!”
“Well, don’t cry about it,” he said, but his voice was kinder.
“You are much safer here in Atlanta even if the Yankees do come than you’d be at Tara.
The Yankees won’t hurt you and typhoid would.”
“The Yankees wouldn’t hurt me!
How can you say such a lie?”
“My dear girl, the Yankees aren’t fiends.
They haven’t horns and hoofs, as you seem to think.
They are pretty much like Southerners—except with worse manners, of course, and terrible accents.”
“Why, the Yankees would—”
“Rape you?
I think not.
Though, of course, they’d want to.”
“If you are going to talk vilely I shall go into the house,” she cried, grateful that the shadows hid her crimson face.
“Be frank. Wasn’t that what you were thinking?”
“Oh, certainly not!”
“Oh, but it was!
No use getting mad at me for reading your thoughts.
That’s what all our delicately nurtured and pure-minded Southern ladies think.
They have it on their minds constantly.
I’ll wager even dowagers like Mrs. Merriwether...”
Scarlett gulped in silence, remembering that wherever two or more matrons were gathered together, in these trying days, they whispered of such happenings, always in Virginia or Tennessee or Lousiana, never close to home.
The Yankees raped women and ran bayonets through children’s stomachs and burned houses over the heads of old people.
Everyone knew these things were true even if they didn’t shout them on the street corners.
And if Rhett had any decency he would realize they were true.
And not talk about them.
And it wasn’t any laughing matter either.
She could hear him chuckling softly.
Sometimes he was odious.
In fact, most of the time he was odious.
It was awful for a man to know what women really thought about and talked about.
It made a girl feel positively undressed.
And no man ever learned such things from good women either.
She was indignant that he had read her mind.