“Sang!
You woke the echoes singing the
‘Lament.” “'Tis nothing I’m remembering.”
“The neighbors will remember it till their dying day and so will Miss Pittypat and Melanie.”
“Mother of Sorrows,” moaned Gerald, moving a thickly furred tongue around parched lips. “'Tis little I’m remembering after the game started.”
“Game?”
“That laddybuck Butler bragged that he was the best poker player in—”
“How much did you lose?”
“Why, I won, naturally.
A drink or two helps me game.”
“Look in your wallet.”
As if every movement was agony, Gerald removed his wallet from his coat and opened it.
It was empty and he looked at it in forlorn bewilderment.
“Five hundred dollars,” he said.
“And ‘twas to buy things from the blockaders for Mrs. O’Hara, and now not even fare left to Tara.”
As she looked indignantly at the empty purse, an idea took form in Scarlett’s mind and grew swiftly.
“I’ll not be holding up my head in this town,” she began.
“You’ve disgraced us all.”
“Hold your tongue, Puss.
Can you not see me head is bursting?”
“Coming home drunk with a man like Captain Butler, and singing at the top of your lungs for everyone to hear and losing all that money.”
“The man is too clever with cards to be a gentleman.
He—”
“What will Mother say when she hears?”
He looked up in sudden anguished apprehension.
“You wouldn’t be telling your mother a word and upsetting her, now would you?”
Scarlett said nothing but pursed her lips.
“Think now how ‘twould hurt her and her so gentle.”
“And to think, Pa, that you said only last night I had disgraced the family!
Me, with my poor little dance to make money for the soldiers.
Oh, I could cry.”
“Well, don’t,” pleaded Gerald. “'Twould be more than me poor head could stand and sure ’tis bursting now.”
“And you said that I—”
“Now Puss, now Puss, don’t you be hurt at what your poor old father said and him not meaning a thing and not understanding a thing!
Sure, you’re a fine well-meaning girl, I’m sure.”
“And wanting to take me home in disgrace.”
“Ah, darling, I wouldn’t be doing that.
‘Twas to tease you.
You won’t be mentioning the money to your mother and her in a flutter about expenses already?”
“No,” said Scarlett frankly,
“I won’t, if you’ll let me stay here and if you’ll tell Mother that ‘twas nothing but a lot of gossip from old cats.”
Gerald looked mournfully at his daughter.
“'Tis blackmail, no less.”
“And last night was a scandal, no less.”
“Well,” he began wheedlingly, “we’ll be forgetting all that.
And do you think a fine pretty lady like Miss Pittypat would be having any brandy in the house?
The hair of the dog—”
Scarlett turned and tiptoed through the silent hall into the dining room to get the brandy bottle that she and Melly privately called the “swoon bottle” because Pittypat always took a sip from it when her fluttering heart made her faint—or seem to faint.
Triumph was written on her face and no trace of shame for her unfilial treatment of Gerald.
Now Ellen would be soothed with lies if any other busybody wrote her.