And after all I've done for him, he comes to me and tells me-- I shouldn't have been a bit sorry if Ashley had shot him.
Well, I packed him off with a large flea in his ear, I can tell you!
And he's left town.
"And as for India, the vile thing!
Darling, I couldn't help noticing from the first time I saw you two together that she was jealous of you and hated you, because you were so much prettier and had so many beaux.
And she hated you especially about Stuart Tarleton.
And she's brooded about Stuart so much that--well, I hate to say it about Ashley's sister but I think her mind has broken with thinking so much!
There's no other explanation for her action. . . . I told her never to put foot in this house again and that if I heard her breathe so vile an insinuation I would--I would call her a liar in public!"
Melanie stopped speaking and abruptly the anger left her face and sorrow swamped it.
Melanie had all that passionate clan loyalty peculiar to Georgians and the thought of a family quarrel tore her heart.
She faltered for a moment. But Scarlett was dearest, Scarlett came first in her heart, and she went on loyally:
"She's always been jealous because I loved you best, dear.
She'll never come in this house again and I'll never put foot under any roof that receives her.
Ashley agrees with me, but it's just about broken his heart that his own sister should tell such a--"
At the mention of Ashley's name, Scarlett's overwrought nerves gave way and she burst into tears.
Would she never stop stabbing him to the heart?
Her only thought had been to make him happy and safe but at every turn she seemed to hurt him.
She had wrecked his life, broken his pride and self-respect, shattered that inner peace, that calm based on integrity.
And now she had alienated him from the sister he loved so dearly.
To save her own reputation and his wife's happiness, India had to be sacrificed, forced into the light of a lying, half-crazed, jealous old maid--India who was absolutely justified in every suspicion she had ever harbored and every accusing word she had uttered.
Whenever Ashley looked into India's eyes, he would see the truth shining there, truth and reproach and the cold contempt of which the Wilkeses were masters.
Knowing how Ashley valued honor above his life, Scarlett knew he must be writhing.
He, like Scarlett, was forced to shelter behind Melanie's skirts.
While Scarlett realized the necessity for this and knew that the blame for his false position lay mostly at her own door, still--still-- Womanlike she would have respected Ashley more, had he shot Archie and admitted everything to Melanie and the world.
She knew she was being unfair but she was too miserable to care for such fine points.
Some of Rhett's taunting words of contempt came back to her and she wondered if indeed Ashley had played the manly part in this mess.
And, for the first time, some of the bright glow which had enveloped him since the first day she fell in love with him began to fade imperceptibly.
The tarnish of shame and guilt that enveloped her spread to him as well.
Resolutely she tried to fight off this thought but it only made her cry harder.
"Don't!
Don't!" cried Melanie, dropping her tatting and flinging herself onto the sofa and drawing Scarlett's head down onto her shoulder.
"I shouldn't have talked about it all and distressed you so.
I know how dreadfully you must feel and we'll never mention it again.
No, not to each other or to anybody. It'll be as though it never happened.
But," she added with quiet venom, "I'm going to show India and Mrs. Elsing what's what.
They needn't think they can spread lies about my husband and my sister-in-law.
I'm going to fix it so neither of them can hold up their heads in Atlanta.
And anybody who believes them or receives them is my enemy."
Scarlett, looking sorrowfully down the long vista of years to come, knew that she was the cause of a feud that would split the town and the family for generations.
Melanie was as good as her word.
She never again mentioned the subject to Scarlett or to Ashley.
Nor, for that matter, would she discuss it with anyone.
She maintained an air of cool indifference that could speedily change to icy formality if anyone even dared hint about the matter.
During the weeks that followed her surprise party, while Rhett was mysteriously absent and the town in a frenzied state of gossip, excitement and partisanship, she gave no quarter to Scarlett's detractors, whether they were her old friends or her blood kin.
She did not speak, she acted.
She stuck by Scarlett's side like a cocklebur.
She made Scarlett go to the store and the lumber yard, as usual, every morning and she went with her.
She insisted that Scarlett go driving in the afternoons, little though Scarlett wished to expose herself to the eager curious gaze of her fellow townspeople.
And Melanie sat in the carriage beside her.
Melanie took her calling with her on formal afternoons, gently forcing her into parlors in which Scarlett had not sat for more than two years.