“What’s it all about? What did he mean? If you don’t tell me I’ll go crazy!” Scarlett laid hands on Melanie and shook her violently as if by force she could shake an answer from her.
“Mean? It means you’ve probably been the cause of Ashley’s and Mr. Kennedy’s death!” In spite of the agony of fear there was a note of triumph in India’s voice. “Stop shaking Melly. She’s going to faint.”
“No, I’m not,” whispered Melanie, clutching the back of a chair.
“My God, my God! I don’t understand! Kill Ashley? Please, somebody tell me-”
Archie’s voice, like a rusty hinge, cut through Scarlett’s words.
“Set down,” he ordered briefly. “Pick up yore sewin’. Sew like nothin’ had happened. For all we know, the Yankees might have been spyin’ on this house since sundown. Set down, I say, and sew.”
Trembling they obeyed, even Pitty picking up a sock and holding it in shaking fingers while her eyes, wide as a frightened child’s went around the circle for an explanation.
“Where is Ashley? What has happened to him, Melly?” cried Scarlett.
“Where’s your husband? Aren’t you interested in him?” India’s pale eyes blazed with insane malice as she crumpled and straightened the torn towel she had been mending.
“India, please!” Melanie had mastered her voice but her white, shaken face and tortured eyes showed the strain under which she was laboring. “Scarlett, perhaps we should have told you but-but-you had been through so much this afternoon that we-that Frank didn’t think-and you were always so outspoken against the Klan-”
“The Klan-”
At first, Scarlett spoke the word as if she had never heard it before and had no comprehension of its meaning and then:
“The Klan!” she almost screamed it. “Ashley isn’t in the Klan! Frank can’t be! Oh, he promised me!”
“Of course, Mr. Kennedy is in the Klan and Ashley, too, and all the men we know,” cried India. “They are men, aren’t they? And white men and Southerners. You should have been proud of him instead of making him sneak out as though it were something shameful and-”
“You all have known all along and I didn’t-”
“We were afraid it would upset you,” said Melanie sorrowfully.
“Then that’s where they go when they’re supposed to be at the political meetings? Oh, he promised me! Now, the Yankees will come and take my mills and the store and put him in jail-oh, what did Rhett Butler mean?”
India’s eyes met Melanie’s in wild fear. Scarlett rose, flinging her sewing down.
“If you don’t tell me, I’m going downtown and find out. I’ll ask everybody I see until I find-”
“Set,” said Archie, fixing her with his eye. “I’ll tell you. Because you went gallivantin’ this afternoon and got yoreself into trouble through yore own fault, Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Kennedy and the other men are out tonight to kill that thar nigger and that thar white man, if they can catch them, and wipe out that whole Shantytown settlement. And if what that Scallawag said is true, the Yankees suspected sumpin’ or got wind somehow and they’ve sont out troops to lay for them. And our men have walked into a trap. And if what Butler said warn’t true, then he’s a spy and he is goin’ to turn them up to the Yankees and they’ll git kilt just the same. And if he does turn them up, then I’ll kill him, if it’s the last deed of m’ life. And if they ain’t kilt, then they’ll all have to light out of here for Texas and lay low and maybe never come back. It’s all yore fault and thar’s blood on yore hands.”
Anger wiped out the fear from Melanie’s face as she saw comprehension come slowly across Scarlett’s face and then horror follow swiftly. She rose and put her hand on Scarlett’s shoulder.
“Another such word and you go out of this house, Archie,” she said sternly. “It’s not her fault. She only did-did what she felt she had to do. And our men did what they felt they had to do. People must do what they must do. We don’t all think alike or act alike and it’s wrong to-to judge others by ourselves. How can you and India say such cruel things when her husband as well as mine may be-may be-”
“Hark!” interrupted Archie softly. “Set, Ma’m. Thar’s horses.”
Melanie sank into a chair, picked up one of Ashley’s shirts and,
bowing her head over it, unconsciously began to tear the frills into small ribbons.
The sound of hooves grew louder as horses trotted up to the house. There was the jangling of bits and the strain of leather and the sound of voices. As the hooves stopped in front of the house, one voice rose above the others in a command and the listeners heard feet going through the side yard toward the back porch. They felt that a thousand inimical eyes looked at them through the unshaded front window and the four women, with fear in their hearts, bent their heads and plied their needles. Scarlett’s heart screamed in her breast: “I’ve killed Ashley! I’ve killed him!” And in that wild moment she did not even think that she might have killed Frank too. She had no room in her mind for any picture save that of Ashley, lying at the feet of Yankee cavalrymen, his fair hair dappled with blood.
