Gone With the Wind《飘》Part 8

“He insulted us all and the Confederacy too,” said Mrs. Merriwether, and her stout bust heaved violently beneath its glittering passementerie trimmings. “Saying that we were fighting for money! Saying that our leaders had lied to us! He should be put in jail. Yes, he should. I shall speak to Dr. Meade about it. If Mr. Merriwether were only alive, he’d tend to him! Now, Pitty Hamilton, you lis¬ten to me. You mustn’t ever let that scamp come into your house again!”
“Oh,” mumbled Pitty, helplessly, looking as if she wished she were dead. She looked appealingly at the two girls who kept their eyes cast down and then hopefully toward Uncle Peter’s erect back. She knew he was listen¬ing attentively to every word and she hoped he would turn and take a hand in the conversation, as he frequently did. She hoped he would say: “Now, Miss Dolly, you let Miss Pitty be,” but Peter made no move. He disapproved heart¬ily of Rhett Butler and poor Pitty knew it. She sighed and said: “Well, Dolly, if you think—”
“I do think,” returned Mrs. Merriwether firmly. “I can’t imagine what possessed you to receive him in the first place. After this afternoon, there won’t be a decent home in town that he’ll be welcome in. Do get up some gump¬tion and forbid him your house.”
She turned a sharp eye on the girls. “I hope you two are marking my words,” she continued, “for it’s partly your fault, being so pleasant to him. Just tell him politely but firmly that his presence and his disloyal talk are dis¬tinctly unwelcome at your house.”
By this time Scarlett was boiling, ready to rear like a horse at the touch of a strange rough hand on its bridle. But she was afraid to speak. She could not risk Mrs. Mer¬riwether writing another letter to her mother.
“You old buffalo!” she thought, her face crimson with suppressed fury. “How heavenly it would be to tell you just what I think of you and your bossy ways!”
“I never thought to live long enough to hear such disloyal words spoken of our Cause,” went on Mrs. Merri¬wether, by this time in a ferment of righteous anger. “Any man who does not think our Cause is just and holy should be hanged! I don’t want to hear of you two girls ever even speaking to him again— For Heaven’s sake, Melly, what ails you?”
Melanie was white and her eyes were enormous.
“I will speak to him again,” she said in a low voice. “I will not be rude to him. I will not forbid him the house.”
Mrs. Merriwether’s breath went out of her lungs as ex¬plosively as though she had been punched. Aunt Pitty’s fat mouth popped open and Uncle Peter turned to stare.
“Now, why didn’t I have the gumption to say that?” thought Scarlett, jealousy mixing with admiration. “How did that little rabbit ever get up spunk enough to stand up to old lady Merriwether?”
Melanie’s hands were shaking but she went on hur¬riedly, as though fearing her courage would fail her if she delayed.
“I won’t be rude to him because of what he said, be¬cause— It was rude of him to say it out loud—most ill ad¬vised—but it’s—it’s what Ashley thinks. And I can’t forbid the house to a man who thinks what my husband thinks. It would be unjust.”
Mrs. Merriwether’s breath had come back and she char¬ged.
“Melly Hamilton, I never heard such a lie in all my life! There was never a Wilkes who was a coward—”
“I never said Ashley was a coward,” said Melanie, her eyes beginning to flash. “I said he thinks what Captain Butler thinks, only he expresses it in different words. And he doesn’t go around saying it at musicales, I hope. But he has written it to me.”
Scarlett’s guilty conscience stirred as she tried to recall what Ashley might have written that would lead Melanie to make such a statement, but most of the letters she had read had gone out of her head as soon as she finished reading them. She believed Melanie had simply taken leave of her senses.
“Ashley wrote me that we should not be fighting the Yankees. And that w