But you've got nothing to sustain you, have you, child?"
"No," answered Scarlett, helping the old lady up the steps, faintly surprised at the truth that sounded in the reedy old voice.
"I've never had anything to sustain me--except Mother."
"But when you lost her, you found you could stand alone, didn't you?
Well, some folks can't.
Your pa was one.
Will's right.
Don't you grieve.
He couldn't get along without Ellen and he's happier where he is.
Just like I'll be happier when I join the Old Doctor."
She spoke without any desire for sympathy and the two gave her none.
She spoke as briskly and naturally as if her husband were alive and in Jonesboro and a short buggy ride would bring them together.
Grandma was too old and had seen too much to fear death.
"But--you can stand alone too," said Scarlett.
"Yes, but it's powerful uncomfortable at times."
"Look here, Grandma," interrupted Mrs. Tarleton, "you ought not to talk to Scarlett like that.
She's upset enough already.
What with her trip down here and that tight dress and her grief and the heat, she's got enough to make her miscarry without your adding to it, talking grief and sorrow."
"God's nightgown!" cried Scarlett in irritation.
"I'm not upset!
And I'm not one of those sickly miscarrying fools!"
"You never can tell," said Mrs. Tarleton omnisciently.
"I lost my first when I saw a bull gore one of our darkies and--you remember my red mare, Nellie?
Now, there was the healthiest-looking mare you ever saw but she was nervous and high strung and if I didn't watch her, she'd--"
"Beetrice, hush," said Grandma.
"Scarlett wouldn't miscarry on a bet.
Let's us sit here in the hall where it's cool.
There's a nice draft through here.
Now, you go fetch us a glass of buttermilk, Beetrice, if there's any in the kitchen.
Or look in the pantry and see if there's any wine.
I could do with a glass.
We'll sit here till the folks come up to say goodby."
"Scarlett ought to be in bed," insisted Mrs. Tarleton, running her eyes over her with the expert air of one who calculated a pregnancy to the last minute of its length.
"Get going," said Grandma, giving her a prod with her cane, and Mrs. Tarleton went toward the kitchen, throwing her hat carelessly on the sideboard and running her hands through her damp red hair.
Scarlett lay back in her chair and unbuttoned the two top buttons of her tight basque.
It was cool and dim in the high-ceilinged hall and the vagrant draft that went from back to front of the house was refreshing after the heat of the sun.
She looked across the hall into the parlor where Gerald had lain and, wrenching her thoughts from him, looked up at the portrait of Grandma Robillard hanging above the fireplace.
The bayonet-scarred portrait with its high-piled hair, hall-exposed breasts and cool insolence had, as always, a tonic effect upon her.
"I don't know which hit Beetrice Tarleton worse, losing her boys or her horses," said Grandma Fontaine.
"She never did pay much mind to Jim or her girls, you know.
She's one of those folks Will was talking about.
Her mainspring's busted.
Sometimes I wonder if she won't go the way your pa went.
She wasn't ever happy unless horses or humans were breeding right in her face and none of her girls are married or got any prospects of catching husbands in this county, so she's got nothing to occupy her mind.
If she wasn't such lady at heart, she'd be downright common. . . . Was Will telling the truth about marrying Suellen?"
"Yes," said Scarlett, looking the old lady full in the eye.
Goodness, she could remember the time when she was scared to death of Grandma Fontaine!
Well, she'd grown up since then and she'd just as soon as not tell her to go to the devil if she meddled in affairs at Tara.
"He could do better," said Grandma candidly.
"Indeed?" said Scarlett haughtily.