第100章

Crowds formed at the depot, hoping for news from incoming trains, at the telegraph office, in front of the harried headquarters, before the locked doors of the newspapers. They were oddly still crowds, crowds that quietly grew larger and larger. There was no talking. Occasionally an old man’s treble voice begged for news, and instead of inciting the crowd to babbling it only intensified the hush as they heard the oft-repeated: “Nothing on the wires yet from the North except that there’s been fighting.” The fringe of women on foot and in carriages grew greater and greater, and the heat of the close-packed bodies and dust rising from restless feet were suffocating. The women did not speak, but their pale set faces pleaded with a mute eloquence that was louder than wailing.

There was hardly a house in town that had not sent away a son, a brother, a father, a lover, a husband, to this battle. They all waited to hear the news that death had come to their homes. They expected death. They did not expect defeat. That thought they dismissed. Their men might be dying, even now, on the sun-parched grass of the Pennsylvania hills. Even now the Southern ranks might be falling like grain before a hailstorm, but the Cause for which they fought could never fall. They might be dying in thousands but, like the fruit of the dragon’s teeth, thousands of fresh men in gray and butternut with the Rebel yell on their lips would spring up from the earth to take their places. Where these men would come from, no one knew. They only knew, as surely as they knew there was a just and jealous God in Heaven, that Lee was miraculous and the Army of Virginia invincible.

Scarlett, Melanie and Miss Pittypat sat in front of the Daily Examiner office in the carriage with the top back, sheltered beneath their parasols. Scarlett’s hands shook so that her parasol wobbled above her head, Pitty was so excited her nose quivered in her round face like a rabbit’s, but Melanie sat as though carved of stone, her dark eyes growing larger and larger as time went by. She made only one remark in two hours, as she took a vial of smelling salts from her reticule and handed it to her aunt, the only time she had ever spoken to her, in her whole life, with anything but tenderest affection.

“Take this, Auntie, and use it if you feel faint. I warn you if you do faint you’ll just have to faint and let Uncle Peter take you home, for I’m not going to leave this place till I hear about—till I hear. And I’m not going to let Scarlett leave me, either.”

Scarlett had no intention of leaving, no intention of placing herself where she could not have the first news of Ashley. No, even if Miss Pitty died, she wouldn’t leave this spot. Somewhere, Ashley was fighting, perhaps dying, and the newspaper office was the only place where she could learn the truth.

She looked about the crowd, picking out friends and neighbors, Mrs. Meade with her bonnet askew and her arm though that of fifteen-year-old Phil; the Misses McLure trying to make their trembling upper lips cover their buck teeth; Mrs. Elsing, erect as a Spartan mother, betraying her inner turmoil only by the straggling gray locks that hung from her chignon; and Fanny Elsing white as a ghost (Surely Fanny wouldn’t be so worried about her brother Hugh. Had she a real beau at the front that no one suspected?) Mrs. Merriwether sat in her carriage patting Maybelle’s hand. Maybelle looked so very pregnant it was a disgrace for her to be out in public, even if she did have her shawl carefully draped over her. Why should she be so worried? Nobody had heard that the Louisiana troops were in Pennsylvania. Probably her hairy little Zouave was safe in Richmond this very minute.

There was a movement on the outskirts of the crowd and those on foot gave way as Rhett Butler carefully edged his horse toward Aunt Pitty’s carriage. Scarlett thought: He’s got courage, coming here at this time when it wouldn’t take anything to make this mob tear him to pieces because he isn’t in uniform. As he came nearer, she thought she might be the first to rend him. How dared he sit there on that fine horse, in shining boots and handsome white linen suit so sleek and well fed, smoking an expensive cigar, when Ashley and all the other boys were fighting the Yankees, barefooted, sweltering in the heat, hungry, their bellies rotten with disease?

Bitter looks were thrown at him as he came slowly through the press. Old men growled in their beards, and Mrs. Merriwether who feared nothing rose slightly in her carriage and said clearly: “Speculator!” in a tone that made the word the foulest and most venomous of epithets. He paid no heed to anyone but raised his hat to Melly and Aunt Pitty and, riding to Scarlett’s side, leaned down and whispered: “Don’t you think this would be the time for Dr. Meade to give us his familiar speech about victory perching like a screaming eagle on our banners?”

Her nerves taut with suspense, she turned on him as swiftly as an angry cat, hot words bubbling to her lips, but he stopped them with a gesture.

“I came to tell you ladies,” he said loudly, “that I have been to headquarters and the first casualty lists are coming in.”

At these words a hum rose among those near enough to hear his remark, and the crowd surged, ready to turn and run down Whitehall Street toward headquarters.

“Don’t go,” he called, rising in his saddle and holding up his hand. “The lists have been sent to both newspapers and are now being printed. Stay where you are!”

“Oh, Captain Butler,” cried Melly, turning to him with tears in her eyes. “How kind of you to come and tell us! When will they be posted?”

“They should be out any minute, Madam. The reports have been in the offices for half an hour now. The major in charge didn’t want to let that out until the printing was done, for fear the crowd would wreck the offices trying to get news. Ah! Look!”