第307章

While she watched him, Archie turned suddenly toward the fire and spat a stream of tobacco juice on it with such vehemence that India, Melanie and Pitty leaped as though a bomb had exploded.

“Need you expectorate so loudly?” cried India in a voice that cracked with nervous annoyance. Scarlett looked at her in surprise for India was always so self-contained.

Archie gave her look for look.

“I reckon I do,” he answered coldly and spat again. Melanie gave a little frowning glance at India.

“I was always so glad dear Papa didn’t chew,” began Pitty, and Melanie, her frown creasing deeper, swung on her and spoke sharper words than Scarlett had ever heard her speak.

“Oh, do hush, Auntie! You’re so tactless.”

“Oh, dear!” Pitty dropped her sewing in her lap and her mouth pressed up in hurt. “I declare, I don’t know What ails you all tonight You and India are just as jumpy and cross as two old sticks.”

No one answered her. Melanie did not even apologize for her crossness but went back to her sewing with small violence.

“You’re taking stitches an inch long,” declared Pitty with some satisfaction. “You’ll have to take every one of them out. What’s the matter with you?”

But Melanie still did not answer.

Was there anything the matter with them, Scarlett wondered? Had she been too absorbed with her own fears to notice? Yes, despite Melanie’s attempts to make the evening appear like any one of fifty they had all spent together, there was a difference due to their alarm and shock at what had happened that afternoon. Scarlett stole glances at her companions and intercepted a look from India. It discomforted her because it was a long, measuring glance that carried in its cold depths something stronger than hate, something more insulting than contempt.

“As though she thought I was to blame for what happened,” Scarlett thought indignantly.

India turned from her to Archie and, all annoyance at him gone from her face, gave him a look of veiled anxious inquiry. But he did not meet her eyes. He did however look at Scarlett, staring at her in the same cold hard way India had done.

Silence fell dully in the room as Melanie did not take up the conversation again and, in the silence, Scarlett heard the rising wind outside. It suddenly began to be a most unpleasant evening. Now she began to feel the tension in the air and she wondered if it had been present all during the evening—and she too upset to notice it. About Archie’s face there was an alert waiting look and his tufted, hairy old ears seemed pricked up like a lynx’s. There was a severely repressed uneasiness about Melanie and India that made them raise their heads from their sewing at each sound of hooves in the road, at each groan of bare branches under the wailing wind, at each scuffing sound of dry leaves tumbling across the lawn. They started at each soft snap of burning logs on the hearth as if they were stealthy footsteps.

Something was wrong and Scarlett wondered what it was. Something was afoot and she did not know about it. A glance at Aunt Pitty’s plump guileless face, screwed up in a pout, told her that the old lady was as ignorant as she. But Archie and Melanie and India knew. In the silence she could almost feel the thoughts of India and Melanie whirling as madly as squirrels in a cage. They knew something, were waiting for something, despite their efforts to make things appear as usual. And their inner unease communicated itself to Scarlett, making her more nervous than before. Handling her needle awkwardly, she jabbed it into her thumb and with a little scream of pain and annoyance that made them all jump, she squeezed it until a bright red drop appeared.

“I’m just too nervous to sew,” she declared, throwing her mending to the floor. “I’m nervous enough to scream. I want to go home and go to bed. And Frank knew it and he oughtn’t to have gone out. He talks, talks, talks about protecting women against darkies and Carpetbaggers and when the time comes for him to do some protecting, where is he? At home, taking care of me? No, indeed, he’s gallivanting around with a lot of other men who don’t do anything but talk and—”

Her snapping eyes came to rest on India’s face and she paused. India was breathing fast and her pale lashless eyes were fastened on Scarlett’s face with a deadly coldness.

“If it won’t pain you too much, India,” she broke off sarcastically, “I’d be much obliged if you’d tell me why you’ve been staring at me all evening. Has my face turned green or something?”

“It won’t pain me to tell you. I’ll do it with pleasure,” said India and her eyes glittered. “I hate to see you underrate a fine man like Mr. Kennedy when, if you knew—”

“India!” said Melanie warningly, her hands clenching on her sewing.

“I think I know my husband better than you do,” said Scarlett, the prospect of a quarrel, the first open quarrel she had ever had with India, making her spirits rise and her nervousness depart. Melanie’s eyes caught India’s and reluctantly India closed her lips. But almost instantly she spoke again and her voice was cold with hate.

“You make me sick, Scarlett O’Hara, talking about being protected! You don’t care about being protected! If you did you’d never have exposed yourself as you have done all these months, prissing yourself about this town, showing yourself off to strange men, hoping they’ll admire you! What happened to you this afternoon was just what you deserved and if there was any justice you’d have gotten worse.”

“Oh, India, hush!” cried Melanie.

“Let her talk,” cried Scarlett “I’m enjoying it. I always knew she hated me and she was too much of a hypocrite to admit it. If she thought anyone would admire her, she’d be walking the streets naked from dawn till dark.”

India was on her feet her lean body quivering with insult.