Scarlett had a wild impulse to cry out questions, but they died on her lips as Melanie took her hand and held it for an instant against her cheek.
Tranquillity had come back into her eyes.
“Why do you think it will be today, Melly?”
“I’ve been having pains since dawn—but not very bad ones.”
“You have?
Well, why didn’t you call me?
I’ll send Prissy for Dr. Meade.”
“No, don’t do that yet, Scarlett.
You know how busy he is, how busy they all are.
Just send word to him that we’ll need him some time today.
Send over to Mrs. Meade’s and tell her and ask her to come over and sit with me.
She’ll know when to really send for him.”
“Oh, stop being so unselfish.
You know you need a doctor as much as anybody in the hospital.
I’ll send for him right away.”
“No, please don’t.
Sometimes it takes all day having a baby and I just couldn’t let the doctor sit here for hours when all those poor boys need him so much.
Just send for Mrs. Meade.
She’ll know.”
“Oh, all right,” said Scarlett.
CHAPTER XXI
After sending up Melanie’s breakfast tray, Scarlett dispatched Prissy for Mrs. Meade and sat down with Wade to eat her own breakfast.
But for once she had no appetite.
Between her nervous apprehension over the thought that Melanie’s time was approaching and her unconscious straining to hear the sound of the cannon, she could hardly eat.
Her heart acted very queerly, beating regularly for several minutes and then thumping so loudly and swiftly it almost made her sick at her stomach.
The heavy hominy stuck in her throat like glue and never before had the mixture of parched corn and ground-up yams that passed for coffee been so repulsive.
Without sugar or cream it was bitter as gall, for the sorghum used for “long sweetening” did little to improve the taste.
After one swallow she pushed her cup away.
If for no other reason she hated the Yankees because they kept her from having real coffee with sugar and thick cream in it.
Wade was quieter than usual and did not set up his every morning complaint against the hominy that he so disliked.
He ate silently the spoonfuls she pushed into his mouth and washed them down with noisily gulped water.
His soft brown eyes followed her every movement, large, round as dollars, a childish bewilderment in them as though her own scarce-hidden fears had been communicated to him.
When he had finished she sent him off to the back yard to play and watched him toddle across the straggling grass to his playhouse with great relief.
She arose and stood irresolutely at the foot of the stairs.
She should go up and sit with Melanie and distract her mind from her coming ordeal but she did not feel equal to it.
Of all days in the world, Melanie had to pick this day to have the baby!
And of all days to talk about dying!
She sat down on the bottom step of the stairs and tried to compose herself, wondering again how yesterday’s battle had gone, wondering how today’s fighting was going.
How strange to have a big battle going on just a few miles away and to know nothing of it!
How strange the quiet of this deserted end of town in contrast with the day of the fighting at Peachtree Creek!
Aunt Pitty’s house was one of the last on the north side of Atlanta and with the fighting somewhere to the far south, there were no reinforcements going by at double-quick, no ambulances and staggering lines of walking wounded coming back.
She wondered if such scenes were being enacted on the south side of town and thanked God she was not there.
If only everyone except the Meades and the Merriwethers had not refugeed from this north end of Peachtree!
It made her feel forsaken and alone.
She wished fervently that Uncle Peter were with her so he could go down to headquarters and learn the news.
If it wasn’t for Melanie she’d go to town this very minute and learn for herself, but she couldn’t leave until Mrs. Meade arrived.
Mrs. Meade.
Why didn’t she come on?
And where was Prissy?
She rose and went out onto the front porch and looked for them impatiently, but the Meade house was around a shady bend in the street and she could see no one.