登陆注册
14726500000250

第250章

Now she knew what Reconstruction meant, knew as well as if the house were ringed about by naked savages, squatting in breech clouts. Now there came rushing to her mind many things to which she had given little thought recently, conversations she had heard but to which she had not listened, masculine talk which had been checked half finished when she came into rooms, small incidents in which she had seen no significance at the time, Frank’s futile warnings to her against driving out to the mill with only the feeble Uncle Peter to protect her. Now they fitted themselves together into one horrifying picture.

The negroes were on top and behind them were the Yankee bayonets. She could be killed, she could be raped and, very probably, nothing would ever be done about it. And anyone who avenged her would be hanged by the Yankees, hanged without benefit of trial by judge and jury. Yankee officers who knew nothing of law and cared less for the circumstances of the crime could go through the motions of holding a trial and put a rope around a Southerner’s neck.

“What can we do?” she thought, wringing her hands in an agony of helpless fear. “What can we do with devils who’d hang a nice boy like Tony just for killing a drunken buck and a scoundrelly Scalawag to protect his women folks?”

“It isn’t to be borne!” Tony had cried and he was right. It couldn’t be borne. But what could they do except bear it, helpless as they were? She fell to trembling and, for the first time in her life, she saw people and events as something apart from herself, saw clearly that Scarlett O’Hara, frightened and helpless, was not all that mattered. There were thousands of women like her, all over the South, who were frightened and helpless. And thousands of men, who had laid down their arms at Appomattox, had taken them up again and stood ready to risk their necks on a minute’s notice to protect those women.

There had been something in Tony’s face which had been mirrored in Frank’s, an expression she had seen recently on the faces of other men in Atlanta, a look she had noticed but had not troubled to analyze. It was an expression vastly different from the tired helplessness she had seen in the faces of men coming home from the war after the surrender. Those men had not cared about anything except getting home. Now they were caring about something again, numbed nerves were coming back to life and the old spirit was beginning to burn. They were caring again with a cold ruthless bitterness. And, like Tony, they were thinking: “It isn’t to be borne!”

She had seen Southern men, soft voiced and dangerous in the days before the war, reckless and hard in the last despairing days of the fighting. But in the faces of the two men who stared at each other across the candle flame so short a while ago there had been something that was different, something that heartened her but frightened her—fury which could find no words, determination which would stop at nothing.

For the first time, she felt a kinship with the people about her, felt one with them in their fears, their bitterness, their determination. No, it wasn’t to be borne! The South was too beautiful a place to be let go without a struggle, too loved to be trampled by Yankees who hated Southerners enough to enjoy grinding them into the dirt, too dear a homeland to be turned over to ignorant negroes drunk with whisky and freedom.

As she thought of Tony’s sudden entrance and swift exit, she felt herself akin to him, for she remembered the old story how her father had left Ireland, left hastily and by night, after a murder which was no murder to him or to his family. Gerald’s blood was in her, violent blood. She remembered her hot joy in shooting the marauding Yankee. Violent blood was in them all, perilously close to the surface, lurking just beneath the kindly courteous exteriors. All of them, all the men she knew, even the drowsy-eyed Ashley and fidgety old Frank, were like that underneath—murderous, violent if the need arose. Even Rhett, conscienceless scamp that he was, had killed a negro for being “uppity to a lady.”

“Oh, Frank, how long will it be like this?” she leaped to her feet.

“As long as the Yankees hate us so, Sugar.”

“Is there nothing anybody can do?”

Frank passed a tired hand over his wet beard. “We are doing things.”

“What?”

“Why talk of them till we have accomplished something? It may take years. Perhaps—perhaps the South will always be like this.”

“Oh, no!”

“Sugar, come to bed. You must be chilled. You are shaking.”

“When will it all end?”

“When we can all vote again, Sugar. When every man who fought for the South can put a ballot in the box for a Southerner and a Democrat.”

“A ballot?” she cried despairingly. “What good’s a ballot when the darkies have lost their minds—when the Yankees have poisoned them against us?”

Frank went on to explain in his patient manner, but the idea that ballots could cure the trouble was too complicated for her to follow. She was thinking gratefully that Jonas Wilkerson would never again be a menace of Tara and she was thinking about Tony.

“Oh, the poor Fontaines!” she exclaimed. “Only Alex left and so much to do at Mimosa. Why didn’t Tony have sense enough to—to do it at night when no one would know who it was? A sight more good he’d do helping with the spring plowing than in Texas.”

Frank put an arm about her. Usually he was gingerly when he did this, as if he anticipated being impatiently shaken off, but tonight there was a far-off look in his eyes and his arm was firm about her waist.

“There are things more important now than plowing, Sugar. And scaring the darkies and teaching the Scalawags a lesson is one of them. As long as there are fine boys like Tony left, I guess we won’t need to worry about the South too much. Come to bed.”

“But, Frank—”

同类推荐
  • 增订医方歌诀

    增订医方歌诀

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 墨庄漫录

    墨庄漫录

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • Alfred Tennyson

    Alfred Tennyson

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 辽小史

    辽小史

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
  • 亳州牡丹史

    亳州牡丹史

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。
热门推荐
  • 噬梦狂神

    噬梦狂神

    一代修魂,万代狂神,狂神降临,唯吾独尊!
  • 心灵穿梭者

    心灵穿梭者

    儿时的一场家庭变故让他在脑海里激发了神秘的“原点”,预见将要发生的事情;大好河山,名胜古迹,无解谜案,想出现在哪里就出现在哪里!原本平凡的少年开启不平凡的精彩人生……
  • 被富家少爷爱过的那几天

    被富家少爷爱过的那几天

    校园三大浪子:欧阳家族的欧阳笑,林氏家族的林子冲,丁氏集团的丁辛一;林子冲喜欢上一个贫困女生简洁,欧阳笑为他探路却沉陷其中,生性倔强林子冲为了爱情而放弃了尊严,为了得到自己喜欢的女孩子的青睐,他甘愿放学后同她在一个杂货店做小工……女主角简洁的出现让三个不懂理节的富家公子改变了……这部小说讲述了一个唯美的校园爱情,有钱人的孩子为了爱情而挑战生活,最终让他所爱的女孩子说出了那句:我爱你。这是一部青春校园励志小说,年轻的孩子们不能把钱当作归属品,只要努力年轻时拥有的东西会很多。
  • 清清相钰

    清清相钰

    轻轻相遇,每个人都相遇见,却又有谁能留下谁?穆青清承受着是孤儿的痛苦,不过很幸运的事她身边还有她的哥哥。直到遇到梁钰,认定是一辈子良人,良人并非如此。“穆青清,再给我一次机会。这次说什么我都不会放开你的手。”“没关系,我放开你的手就行。”“你要我怎么做,你告诉我,我应该怎么做?”“一,离我远点,二,离我远点,三离我远点!”
  • 杀手的诱惑:绝色娇宠

    杀手的诱惑:绝色娇宠

    为了完成任务,她诱惑了他,破了他的童子之身!五年后的相遇,她被他拐了!为了取得解药,她甘愿留在他身边,成为他的玩物,却又一次落到另一个男人的手里……沈君毅:御龙山庄的庄主!武功天下无敌,没有女人敢直视他冷冽霸气傲视天地的眼神,只有她,不仅敢直视,还敢挑衅。她是唯一一个能够让他心动的女人!齐书剑:江湖第一剑客,本无情无欲,冷漠的他,却爱上了她,为她愿意赴汤蹈火,失去生命也在所不惜!花无宸:冥阳宫的宫主!天下第一美男!长得比女人还美,却心狠手辣,下手从不留情,可始终对她下不了手!到底谁才是她真正的归宿?
  • 穿越之对亦错

    穿越之对亦错

    如果你知道一开始就是个错,你还会这样做出选择吗?我是谁?从何而来?为何穿越?这一切究竟是意外还是命?意外穿越不是意外?只是个陪赠品?没关系,为了她我愿意。不小心喜欢上他,他只当我是一个好妹妹。可是他们却相爱了,我......
  • 上古世纪:命运之钥

    上古世纪:命运之钥

    开端,只是命运的羁绊。当两个世界的人交汇在一起,命运的安排指向何方?相遇既是有缘,命运的交织,他与众神和十二英雄之间又有什么关联?璀璨过后必会凋零,是什么埋没了一切?是时间?是命运?还是信仰?历史的真相往往会淹没在岁月的长河之中,流传下来的只是一些零散的神话传说。两千年前,各个种族在内米河流域走向大融合,各种族文明在此碰撞融合,大陆的首都“光辉的德翡纳”成为一个异常开放的自由之都。原大陆迎来了最为辉煌繁盛的时期——璀璨世纪。既然选择了远方,便只顾风雨兼程。既然目标是地平线,留给世界的只能是背影。当命运的齿轮开始转动……凋零,仅是开始!一切,都在意料之中!
  • 相爱穿梭十二年

    相爱穿梭十二年

    因为小时的约定,更是爱着对方的一颗心。使这场爱恋能一直穿搜十二年后,继续这场未完结的爱恋
  • 寻仙之逆境之巅

    寻仙之逆境之巅

    纯正中国风,此境在寻仙!回味寻仙,尽在逆境之巅.....
  • 轮回鸟

    轮回鸟

    十指抒成断肠赋,一斗绿酒了相思