Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley Page A

matter what he might believe. How often, she wondered, was “often enough to keep down gossip”?
    Scarlett couldn’t get to sleep that night. Every time she closed her eyes she saw the wide front door of Aunt Pitty’s house, closed and bolted against her. It was India’s doing, she told herself. Uncle Henry couldn’t possibly be right that every door in Atlanta was going to be closed.
    But she hadn’t thought he was right about the Panic, either. Not until she read the newspapers, and then she discovered it was even worse than he’d told her.
    Insomnia was no stranger to her; she’d learned years before that two or three brandies would calm her down and help her sleep. She padded silently downstairs and to the dining room sideboard. The cut-glass decanter flashed rainbows from the light of the lamp she held in her hand.
    The next morning she slept later than usual. Not because of the brandy but because, even with its aid, she’d been unable to sleep until just before dawn. She couldn’t stop worrying about what Uncle Henry had said.
    On her way down to the store she stopped in at Mrs. Merriwether’s bakery. The clerk behind the counter looked through her and turned a deaf ear when she spoke.
    She treated me like I didn’t even exist, she realized with horror. As she crossed the sidewalk from the shop to her carriage, she saw Mrs. Elsing and her daughter approaching on foot. Scarlett paused, ready to smile and say hello. The two Elsing ladies stopped dead when they saw her, then, without a word or a second look, turned and walked away. Scarlett was paralyzed for a moment. Then she scurried into her carriage and hid her face in the shadowy corner of the deep enclosure. For one horrible instant she was afraid she was going to be sick all over the floor.
    When Elias stopped the carriage in front of the store, Scarlett stayed in the sanctuary of her carriage. She sent Elias inside with the clerks’ pay envelopes. If she got out, she might see someone she knew, someone who would cut her dead. It was unbearable even to think of it.
    India Wilkes must be behind this. And after I was so generous with her, too! I won’t let her get away with it, I won’t. Nobody can treat me this way and get away with it.
    “Go to the lumberyard,” she ordered Elias when he returned. She’d tell Ashley. He’d have to do something to stop India’s poison. Ashley wouldn’t stand for it, he’d make India behave, and all India’s friends, too.
    Her already heavy heart sank even lower when she saw the lumberyard. It was too full. Stacks and stacks of pine boards were golden and sweetly resinous in the autumn sun. There wasn’t a wagon to be seen, or a loader. Nobody was buying.
    Scarlett wanted to cry. Uncle Henry said this would happen, but I never thought it could be this bad. How could people not want that beautiful clean lumber? She inhaled deeply. Fresh-cut pine was the sweetest perfume in the world to her. Oh, how she missed the lumber business, she would never understand how she’d let Rhett trick her into selling it to Ashley. If she was still running it, this would never have happened. She would have sold the lumber somehow to someone. Panic touched the edge of her mind and she pushed it away. Things were awful all around, but she mustn’t fuss at Ashley. She wanted him to help her.
    “The yard looks wonderful!” she said brightly. “You must have the sawmill running day and night to keep such a good stock up, Ashley.”
    He looked up from the account books on his desk and Scarlett knew that all the cheerfulness in the world be wasted on him. He looked no better than when she’d given him the talking-to.
    He stood, tried to smile. His ingrained courtesy was stronger than his exhaustion, but his despair was greater than both.
    I can’t tell him anything about India, Scarlett thought, or about the business either. He’s got all he can bear just making himself draw the next breath. It’s like there’s nothing holding