Cannon to the south! And to the south lay Jonesboro and Tara – and Ellen.
Yankees perhaps at Tara, now, this minute! She listened again but the blood thudding in her ears all but blurred out the sound of far-off firing. No, they couldn’t be at Jonesboro yet. If they were that far away, the sound would be fainter, more indistinct. But they must be at least ten miles down the road toward Jonesboro, probably near the little settlement of Rough and Ready. But Jonesboro was scarcely more than ten miles below Rough and Ready.
Cannon to the south, and they might be tolling the knell of Atlanta’s fall. But to Scarlett, sick for her mother’s safety, fighting to the south only meant fighting near Tara. She walked the floor and wrung her hands and for the first time the thought in all its implications came to her that the gray army might be defeated. It was the thought of Sherman’s thousands so close to Tara that brought it all home to her, brought the full horror of the war to her as no sound of siege guns shattering windowpanes, no privations of food and clothing and no endless rows of dying men had done. Sherman’s army within a few miles of Tara! And even if the Yankees should be defeated, they might fall back down the road to Tara. And Gerald couldn’t possibly refugee out of their way with three sick women.
Oh, if she were only there now, Yankees or not. She paced the floor in her bare feet, her nightgown clinging to her legs and the more she walked the stronger became her foreboding. She wanted to be at home. She wanted to be near Ellen.
From the kitchen below, she heard the rattle of china as Prissy prepared breakfast, but no sound of Mrs. Meade’s Betsy. The shrill, melancholy minor of Prissy was raised, “Jes’ a few mo’ days, ter tote de wee-ry load . . .” The song grated on Scarlett, its sad implications frightening her, and slipping on a wrapper she pattered out into the hall and to the back stairs and shouted: “Shut up that singing, Prissy!”
A sullen “Yas’m” drifted up to her and she drew a deep breath, feeling suddenly ashamed of herself.
“Where’s Betsy?”
“Ah doan know. She ain’ came.”
Scarlett walked to Melanie’s door and opened it a crack, peering into the sunny room. Melanie lay in bed in her nightgown, her eyes closed and circled with black, her heart-shaped face bloated, her slender body hideous and distorted. Scarlett wished viciously that Ashley could see her now. She looked worse than any pregnant woman she had ever seen. As she looked, Melanie’s eyes opened and a soft warm smile lit her face.
“Come in,” she invited, turning awkwardly on her side. “I’ve been awake since sun-up thinking, and, Scarlett, there’s something I want to ask you.”
She entered the room and sat down on the bed that was glaring with harsh sunshine.
Melanie reached out and took Scarlett’s hand in a gentle confiding clasp.