“Lights?” she questioned.
“Why is the house so dark, Pork?
Bring candles.”
“Dey tuck all de candles, Miss Scarlett, all ’cept one we been usin’ ter fine things in de dahk wid, an’ it’s ’bout gone.
Mammy been usin’ a rag in a dish of hawg fat fer a light fer nussin’ Miss Careen an’ Miss Suellen.”
“Bring what’s left of the candle,” she ordered.
“Bring it into Mother’s—into the office.”
Pork pattered into the dining room and Scarlett groped her way into the inky small room and sank down on the sofa.
Her father’s arm still lay in the crook of hers, helpless, appealing, trusting, as only the hands of the very young and the very old can be.
“He’s an old man, an old tired man,” she thought again and vaguely wondered why she could not care.
Light wavered into the room as Pork entered carrying high a halfburned candle stuck in a saucer.
The dark cave came to life, the sagging old sofa on which they sat, the tall secretary reaching toward the ceiling with Mother’s fragile carved chair before it, the racks of pigeonholes, still stuffed with papers written in her fine hand, the worn carpet—all, all were the same, except that Ellen was not there, Ellen with the faint scent of lemon verbena sachet and the sweet look in her up-tilted eyes.
Scarlett felt a small pain in her heart as of nerves numbed by a deep wound, struggling to make themselves felt again.
She must not let them come to life now; there was all the rest of her life ahead of her in which they could ache.
But, not now!
Please, God, not now!
She looked into Gerald’s putty-colored face and, for the first time in her life, she saw him unshaven, his once florid face covered with silvery bristles.
Pork placed the candle on the candle stand and came to her side.
Scarlett felt that if he had been a dog he would have laid his muzzle in her lap and whined for a kind hand upon his head.
“Pork, how many darkies are here?”
“Miss Scarlett, dem trashy niggers done runned away an’ some of dem went off wid de Yankees an’—”
“How many are left?”
“Dey’s me, Miss Scarlett, an’ Mammy.
She been nussin’ de young Misses all day.
An’ Dilcey, she settin’ up wid de young Misses now.
Us three, Miss Scarlett.”
“Us three” where there had been a hundred.
Scarlett with an effort lifted her head on her aching neck.
She knew she must keep her voice steady.
To her surprise, words came out as coolly and naturally as if there had never been a war and she could, by waving her hand, call ten house servants to her.
“Pork, I’m starving.
Is there anything to eat?”
“No'm. Dey tuck it all.”
“But the garden?”
“Dey tuhned dey hawses loose in it.”
“Even the sweet potato hills?”
Something almost like a pleased smile broke his thick lips.
“Miss Scarlett, Ah done fergit de yams.
Ah specs dey’s right dar.
Dem Yankee folks ain’ never seed no yams an’ dey thinks dey’s jes’ roots an’—”
“The moon will be up soon.
You go out and dig us some and roast them.
There’s no corn meal?
No dried peas?
No chickens?”
“No'm. No'm. Whut chickens dey din’ eat right hyah dey cah'ied off ‘cross dey saddles.”
They-They-They-Was there no end to what ‘They” had done?
Was it not enough to burn and kill?
Must they also leave women and children and helpless negroes to starve in a country which they had desolated?
“Miss Scarlett, Ah got some apples Mammy buhied unner de house.