She heard the servants come back as night fell and it seemed to her that they were very silent as they moved about preparing supper. Or was it her guilty conscience? Mammy came to the door and knocked but Scarlett sent her away, saying she did not want any supper. Time passed and finally she heard Rhett coming up the steps. She held herself tensely as he reached the upper hall, gathered all her strength for a meeting but he passed into his room. She breathed easier. He hadn’t heard. Thank God, he still respected her icy request that he never put foot in her bedroom again, for if he saw her now, her face would give her away. She must gather herself together enough to tell him that she felt too ill to go to the reception. Well, there was time enough for her to calm herself. Or was there time? Since the awful moment that afternoon, life had seemed timeless. She heard Rhett moving about in his room for a long time, speaking occasionally to Pork. Still she could not find courage to call to him. She lay still on the bed in the darkness, shaking.
After a long time, he knocked on her door and she said, trying to control her voice: “Come in.”
“Am I actually being invited into the sanctuary?” he questioned, opening the door. It was dark and she could not see his face. Nor could she make anything of his voice. He entered and closed the door.
“Are you ready for the reception?”
“I’m so sorry but I have a headache.” How odd that her voice sounded natural! Thank God for the dark! “I don’t believe I’ll go. You go, Rhett, and give Melanie my regrets.”
There was a long pause and he spoke drawlingly, bitingly in the dark.
“What a white livered, cowardly little bitch you are.”
He knew! She lay shaking, unable to speak. She heard him fumble in the dark, strike a match and the room sprang into light. He walked over to the bed and looked down at her. She saw that he was in evening clothes.
“Get up,” he said and there was nothing in his voice. “We are going to the reception. You will have to hurry.”
“Oh, Rhett, I can’t. You see—”
“I can see. Get up.”
“Rhett, did Archie dare—”
“Archie dared. A very brave man, Archie.”
“You should have killed him for telling lies—”
“I have a strange way of not killing people who tell the truth. There’s no time to argue now. Get up.”
She sat up, hugging her wrapper close to her, her eyes searching his face. It was dark and impassive.
“I won’t go, Rhett I can’t until this—misunderstanding is cleared up.”
“If you don’t show your face tonight, you’ll never be able to show it in this town as long as you live. And while I may endure a trollop for a wife, I won’t endure a coward. You are going tonight, even if everyone, from Alex Stephens down, cuts you and Mrs. Wilkes asks us to leave the house.”
“Rhett, let me explain.”
“I don’t want to hear. There isn’t time. Get on your clothes.”
“They misunderstood—India and Mrs. Elsing and Archie. And they hate me so. India hates me so much that she’d even tell lies about her own brother to make me appear in a bad light. If you’ll only let me explain—”
Oh, Mother of God, she thought in agony, suppose he says: “Pray do explain!” What can I say? How can I explain?
“They’ll have told everybody lies. I can’t go tonight.”
“You will go,” he said, “if I have to drag you by the neck and plant my boot on your ever so charming bottom every step of the way.”
There was a cold glitter in his eyes as he jerked her to her feet He picked up her stays and threw them at her.
“Put them on. I’ll lace you. Oh yes, I know all about lacing. No, I won’t call Mammy to help you and have you lock the door and skulk here like the coward you are.”
“I’m not a coward,” she cried, stung out of her fear.
“Oh, spare me your saga about shooting Yankees and facing Sherman’s army. You’re a coward—among other things. If not for your own sake, you are going tonight for Bonnie’s sake. How could you further ruin her chances? Put on your stays, quick.”
Hastily she slipped off her wrapper and stood clad only in her chemise. If only he would look at her and see how nice she looked in her chemise, perhaps that frightening look would leave his face. After all, he hadn’t seen her in her chemise for ever and ever so long. But he did not look. He was in her closet, going through her dresses swiftly. He fumbled and drew out her new jade-green watered-silk dress. It was cut low over the bosom and the skirt was draped back over an enormous bustle and on the bustle was a huge bunch of pink velvet roses.
“Wear that,” he said, tossing it on the bed and coming toward her. “No modest, matronly dove grays and lilacs tonight. Your flag must be nailed to the mast, for obviously you’d run it down if it wasn’t. And plenty of rouge. I’m sure the woman the Pharisees took in adultery didn’t look half so pale. Turn around.”
He took the strings of the stays in his hands and jerked them so hard that she cried out, frightened, humiliated, embarrassed at such an untoward performance.
“Hurts, does it?” He laughed shortly and she could not see his face. “Pity it isn’t around your neck.”
Melanie’s house blazed lights from every room and they could hear the music far up the street. As they drew up in front, the pleasant exciting sounds of many people enjoying themselves floated out. The house was packed with guests. They overflowed on verandas and many were sitting on benches in the dim lantern-hung yard.
I can’t go in—I can’t, thought Scarlett, sitting in the carriage, gripping her balled-up handkerchief. I can’t. I won’t. I will jump out and run away, somewhere, back home to Tara, Why did Rhett force me to come here? What will people do? What will Melanie do? What will she look like? Oh, I can’t face her. I will run away.
As though he read her mind, Rhett’s hand closed upon her arm in a grip that would leave a bruise, the rough grip of a careless stranger.
“I’ve never known an Irishman to be a coward. Where’s your much-vaunted courage?”
“Rhett, do please, let me go home and explain.”
“You have eternity in which to explain and only one night to be a martyr in the amphitheater. Get out, darling, and let me see the lions eat you. Get out.”