|
Tomorrow, maybe, or the next daySally don't want me putting holes
in
her walls
"I didn't say shoot them, I said show them Alex grinned at his
friends"They've got carved ivory handles," he boasted, "and just
wait till my little brother rides over to visit you on the big old
Western saddle of hisIt's got so much silver on it you'll half go
blind from the shine of it
Tony and Alex had always been the most dandified men in all North
GeorgiaTony obviously hadn't changed a bitHigh heels on fancy
boots and silver on his saddleShe'd be willing to bet he came home
with his pockets as empty as when he left on the run from the
hangman
It was major foolishness to have silver saddles when the house at
Mimosa really needed a new roofBut for Tony it was rightIt meant
that he was still TonyAnd Alex was as proud of him as if he'd come
with a wagon-load of goldHow she loved them, both of them! They
might be left with nothing but a farm that they had to work
themselves,
but the Yankees hadn't beaten the Fontaines, they chanel replica hadn't even been
able
to put a dent in them"Lord, wouldn't the boys have loved to prance
around tall as a tree and polish silver with their bottoms," said
Beatrice Tarleton"I can see the twins now, they'd just eat it up
Scarlett caught her breathTarleton have to ruin
everything that way? Why ruin such a happy time by reminding
everybody
that almost all of their old friends were dead? But nothing was
ruined"They wouldn't be able to keep their saddles for a week, Miss
Beatrice, you know that," Alex said"They'd either lose them in a
poker game or sell them to buy champagne for a party that was
running
out of steam
Remember when Brent sold all the furniture in his room at the
University
and bought dollar cigars for all the boys who'd never tried smoking?"
"And when Stuart lost his dress suit cutting cards and had to skulk
away
from that cotillion wrapped in a rug?" Tony added"Remember when
they pawned Boyd's law books?" said Jim Tarleton"I thought you'd
skin them alive, Beatrice
"They always grew back the miu miu black handbag skin," MrsTarleton said, smiling"I
tried to break their legs when they set the ice house on fire, but they
ran too fast for me to catch them That was the time they came over
to Lovejoy and hid in our barn," said Sally"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 homeThe 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 bitternessThe older generation
wasn't forgotten, eitherAll those around the table had rich memories
of Old Miss Fontaine, Alex and Tony's sharp-tongued, soft-hearted
grandmotherAnd of their dolce and gabbana cheap replica handbags mother, called Young Miss until the day she
died on her sixtieth birthdayScarlett 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 homeIt 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 furnitureThe faces around the table were without lines,
the clothes without patchesFor these sweet moments of illusion, it
was as if Mimosa was transported to a timeless place and hour gucci mens wallets where
there was no pain and there had never been a WarMany years
before,
Scarlett had vowed to herself that she would never look back
Remembering the halcyon preWar 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 familyBut the shared
memories in the dining room at Mimosa were not at all a source of
weaknessThey gave her courage; they were proof that good people
could suffer every kind of loss and still retain the capacity for love
and laughterShe was proud to be included in their number, proud to
call them her friends, proud that they were what they wereWill
walked in front of the buggy on the way home, carrying a pitch pine
torch and leading the horseIt 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 paleThe only sound was
the
slow clop-clop of the horse's hoovesSuellen dozed olf, but Scarlett
fought her wholesale chanel bags sleepiness |
| 