No one in the world could say that foolish word of endearment as caressingly as Rhett, even when he was joking, but he did not look as if he were joking now. She raised tormented eyes to his face and somehow found comfort in the blank inscrutability she saw there. She did not know why this should be, for he was such an unpredictable, callous person. Perhaps it was because, as he often said, they were so much alike. Sometimes she thought that all the people she had ever known were strangers except Rhett.
"Can't you tell me?" he took her hand, oddly gentle. "It's more than old Frank leaving you? Do you need money?"
"Money? God, no! Oh, Rhett, I'm so afraid."
"Don't be a goose, Scarlett, you've never been afraid in your life."
"Oh, Rhett, I am afraid!"
The words bubbled up faster than she could speak them. She could tell him. She could tell Rhett anything. He'd been so bad himself that he wouldn't sit in judgment on her. How wonderful to know someone who was bad and dishonorable and a cheat and a liar, when all the world was filled with people who would not lie to save their souls and who would rather starve than do a dishonorable deed!
"I'm afraid I'll die and go to hell."
If he laughed at her she would die, right then. But he did not laugh.
"You are pretty healthy -- and maybe there isn't any hell after all."
"Oh, but there is, Rhett! You know there is!"
"I know there is but it's right here on earth. Not after we die. There's nothing after we die, Scarlett. You are having your hell now."
"Oh, Rhett, that's blasphemous!"
"But singularly comforting. Tell me, why are you going to hell?"
He was teasing now, she could see the glint in his eyes but she did not mind. His hands felt so warm and strong, so comforting to cling to.
"Rhett, I oughtn't to have married Frank. It was wrong. He was Suellen's beau and he loved her, not me. But I lied to him and told him she was going to marry Tony Fontaine. Oh, how could I have done it?"
"Ah, so that was how it came about! I always wondered."
"And then I made him so miserable. I made him do all sorts of things he didn't want to do, like making people pay their bills when they really couldn't afford to pay them. And it hurt him so when I ran the mills and built the saloon and leased convicts. He could hardly hold up his head for shame. And Rhett, I killed him. Yes, I did! I didn't know he was in the Klan. I never dreamed he had that much gumption. But I ought to have known. And I killed him."
" 'Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?' "
"What?"
"No matter. Go on."
"Go on? That's all. Isn't it enough? I married him, I made him unhappy and I killed him. Oh, my God! I don't see how I could have done it! I lied to him and I married him. It all seemed so right when I did it but now I see how wrong it was. Rhett, it doesn't seem like it was me who did all these things. I was so mean to him but I'm not really mean. I wasn't raised that way. Mother --" She stopped and swallowed. She had avoided thinking of Ellen all day but she could no longer blot out her image.
"I often wondered what she was like. You seemed to me so like your father."
"Mother was -- Oh, Rhett, for the first time I'm glad she's dead, so she can't see me. She didn't raise me to be mean. She was so kind to everybody, so good. She'd rather I'd have starved than done this. And I so wanted to be just like her in every way and I'm not like her one bit I hadn't thought of that -- there's been so much else to think about -- but I wanted to be like her. I didn't want to be like Pa. I loved him but he was -- so -- so thoughtless. Rhett, sometimes I did try so hard to be nice to people and kind to Frank, but then the nightmare would come back and scare me so bad I'd want to rush out and just grab money away from people, whether it was mine or not."
Tears were streaming unheeded down her face and she clutched his hand so hard that her nails dug into his flesh.
"What nightmare?" His voice was calm and soothing.
"Oh -- I forgot you didn't know. Well, just when I would try to be nice to folks and tell myself that money wasn't everything, I'd go to bed and dream that I was back at Tara right after Mother died, right after the Yankees went through. Rhett, you can't imagine -- I get cold when I think about it. I can see how everything is burned and so still and there's nothing to eat. Oh, Rhett, in my dream I'm hungry again."
"Go on."
"I'm hungry and everybody, Pa and the girls and the darkies, are starving and they keep saying over and over: 'We're hungry' and I'm so empty it hurts, and so frightened. My mind keeps saying: 'If I ever get out of this, I'll never, never be hungry again' and then the dream goes off into a gray mist and I'm running, running in the mist, running so hard my heart's about to burst and something is chasing me, and I can't breathe but I keep thinking that if I can just get there, I'll be safe. But I don't know where I'm trying to get to. And then I'd wake up and I'd be cold with fright and so afraid that I'd be hungry again. When I wake up from that dream, it seems like there's not enough money in the world to keep me from being afraid of being hungry again. And then Frank would be so mealy mouthed and slow poky that he would make me mad and I'd lose my temper. He didn't understand, I guess, and I couldn't make him understand. I kept thinking that I'd make it up to him some day when we had money and I wasn't so afraid of being hungry. And now he's dead and it's too late. Oh, it seemed so right when I did it but it was all so wrong. If I had it to do over again, I'd do it so differently."
"Hush," he said, disentangling her frantic grip and pulling a clean handkerchief from his pocket. "Wipe your face. There is no sense in your tearing yourself to pieces this way."
She took the handkerchief and wiped her damp cheeks, a little relief stealing over her as if she had shifted some of her burden to his broad shoulders. He looked so capable and calm and even the slight twist of his mouth was comforting as though it proved her agony and confusion unwarranted.