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Authors: Alexandra Ripley
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“The cows went dry for a week when the twins tried to get themselves a pail of milk to drink.”
Everyone had a story about the Tarleton twins, and those stories led to others about their friends and older brothers—Lafe Munroe, Cade and Raiford Calvert, Tom and Boyd Tarleton, Joe Fontaine—all the boys who’d never come home. The stories were the shared wealth of memory and of love, and as they were told the shadows in the corners of the room became populated with the smiling, shining youth of those who were dead but now—at last—no longer lost because they could be remembered with fond laughter instead of desperate bitterness.
The older generation wasn’t forgotten, either. All those around the table had rich memories of Old Miss Fontaine, Alex and Tony’s sharp-tongued, soft-hearted grandmother. And of their mother, called Young Miss until the day she died on her sixtieth birthday. Scarlett discovered that she could even share the affectionate chuckling about her father’s tell-tale habit of singing Irish songs of rebellion when he had, as he put it, “taken a drop or two,” and even hear her mother’s kindness spoken of without the heartbreak that had always before been her immediate response to the mention of Ellen O’Hara’s name.
Hour after hour, long after plates were empty and the fire only embers on the hearth, still the talk went on, and the dozen survivors brought back to life all those loved ones who could not be there to welcome Tony home. It was a happy time, a healing time. The dim, flickering light of the oil lamp in the center of the table showed none of the scars of Sherman’s men in the smoke-stained room and its mended furniture. The faces around the table were without lines, the clothes without patches. For these sweet moments of illusion, it was as if Mimosa was transported to a timeless place and hour where there was no pain and there had never been a War.
Many years before, Scarlett had vowed to herself that she would never look back. Remembering the halcyon pre-War days, mourning them, yearning for them would only hurt and weaken her, and she needed all her strength and determination to survive and to protect her family. But the shared memories in the dining room at Mimosa were not at all a source of weakness. They gave her courage; they were proof that good people could suffer every kind of loss and still retain the capacity for love and laughter. She was proud to be included in their number, proud to call them her friends, proud that they were what they were.
Will walked in front of the buggy on the way home, carrying a pitch pine torch and leading the horse. It was a dark night, and it was very late. Overhead the stars were bright in a cloudless sky, so bright that the quarter-moon looked almost transparently pale. The only sound was the slow clop-clop of the horse’s hooves.
Suellen dozed off, but Scarlett fought her sleepiness. She didn’t want the evening to end, she wanted the warm comfort and happiness of it to last forever. How strong Tony looked! And so full of life, so pleased with his funny boots, with himself, with everything. The Tarleton girls acted like a bunch of red-haired tabby kittens looking at a bowl of cream. I wonder which one will catch him. Beatrice Tarleton’s sure going to see to it that one of them does!
An owl in the woods beside the road said “whoo, whoo?” and Scarlett giggled to herself.
They were more than halfway to Tara before she realized that she hadn’t thought about Rhett for hours. Then melancholy and worry clamped down on her like lead weights, and she noticed for the first time that the night air was cold and her body was chilled. She pulled her shawl close around her and silently urged Will to hurry.
I don’t want to think about anything, not tonight. I don’t want to spoil the good time I had. Hurry, Will, it’s cold and it’s dark.
The next morning Scarlett and Suellen drove the children over in the wagon to Mimosa.
Everyone had a story about the Tarleton twins, and those stories led to others about their friends and older brothers—Lafe Munroe, Cade and Raiford Calvert, Tom and Boyd Tarleton, Joe Fontaine—all the boys who’d never come home. The stories were the shared wealth of memory and of love, and as they were told the shadows in the corners of the room became populated with the smiling, shining youth of those who were dead but now—at last—no longer lost because they could be remembered with fond laughter instead of desperate bitterness.
The older generation wasn’t forgotten, either. All those around the table had rich memories of Old Miss Fontaine, Alex and Tony’s sharp-tongued, soft-hearted grandmother. And of their mother, called Young Miss until the day she died on her sixtieth birthday. Scarlett discovered that she could even share the affectionate chuckling about her father’s tell-tale habit of singing Irish songs of rebellion when he had, as he put it, “taken a drop or two,” and even hear her mother’s kindness spoken of without the heartbreak that had always before been her immediate response to the mention of Ellen O’Hara’s name.
Hour after hour, long after plates were empty and the fire only embers on the hearth, still the talk went on, and the dozen survivors brought back to life all those loved ones who could not be there to welcome Tony home. It was a happy time, a healing time. The dim, flickering light of the oil lamp in the center of the table showed none of the scars of Sherman’s men in the smoke-stained room and its mended furniture. The faces around the table were without lines, the clothes without patches. For these sweet moments of illusion, it was as if Mimosa was transported to a timeless place and hour where there was no pain and there had never been a War.
Many years before, Scarlett had vowed to herself that she would never look back. Remembering the halcyon pre-War days, mourning them, yearning for them would only hurt and weaken her, and she needed all her strength and determination to survive and to protect her family. But the shared memories in the dining room at Mimosa were not at all a source of weakness. They gave her courage; they were proof that good people could suffer every kind of loss and still retain the capacity for love and laughter. She was proud to be included in their number, proud to call them her friends, proud that they were what they were.
Will walked in front of the buggy on the way home, carrying a pitch pine torch and leading the horse. It was a dark night, and it was very late. Overhead the stars were bright in a cloudless sky, so bright that the quarter-moon looked almost transparently pale. The only sound was the slow clop-clop of the horse’s hooves.
Suellen dozed off, but Scarlett fought her sleepiness. She didn’t want the evening to end, she wanted the warm comfort and happiness of it to last forever. How strong Tony looked! And so full of life, so pleased with his funny boots, with himself, with everything. The Tarleton girls acted like a bunch of red-haired tabby kittens looking at a bowl of cream. I wonder which one will catch him. Beatrice Tarleton’s sure going to see to it that one of them does!
An owl in the woods beside the road said “whoo, whoo?” and Scarlett giggled to herself.
They were more than halfway to Tara before she realized that she hadn’t thought about Rhett for hours. Then melancholy and worry clamped down on her like lead weights, and she noticed for the first time that the night air was cold and her body was chilled. She pulled her shawl close around her and silently urged Will to hurry.
I don’t want to think about anything, not tonight. I don’t want to spoil the good time I had. Hurry, Will, it’s cold and it’s dark.
The next morning Scarlett and Suellen drove the children over in the wagon to Mimosa.
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