Gone with the Wind / Унесённые ветром

It doesn’t matter who you marry, as long as he thinks like you and is a gentleman and a Southerner. For a woman, love comes after marriage.”

“Oh, Pa, that’s such an Old Country notion!”

“And a good notion it is! All this American business of marrying for love, like servants, like Yankees! The best marriages are when the parents choose for the girl. For how can a silly piece like yourself tell a good man from a scoundrel?”

Gerald looked at her bowed head.

“It’s not crying you are?” he questioned, trying to turn her face upward.

“No,” she cried, jerking away.

“It’s lying you are, and I’m proud of it. And I want to see pride in you tomorrow at the barbecue.”

Gerald took her arm and passed it through his.

“We’ll be going in to supper now, and all this is between us. I’ll not be worrying your mother with this – nor do you do it either. Blow your nose, daughter.”

They started up the dark drive arm in arm, the horse following slowly. Near the house, Scarlett saw her mother and behind her was Mammy, holding in her hand the black leather bag in which Ellen O’Hara always carried the bandages and medicines she used in doctoring the slaves.

“Mr. O’Hara,” called Ellen as she saw the two coming up the driveway – Ellen belonged to a generation that was formal even after seventeen years of marriage – “Mr. O’Hara, there is illness at the Slattery house. Emmie’s baby has been born and is dying and must be baptized. I am going there with Mammy to see what I can do.

“In the name of God!” said Gerald. “Why should those white trash take you away just at your supper hour and just when I’m wanting to tell you about the war talk that’s going on in Atlanta! Go, Mrs. O’Hara. You’d not rest easy on your pillow the night if there was trouble and you not there to help.”

“Take my place at the table, dear,” said Ellen, patting Scarlett’s cheek softly.

Gerald helped his wife into the carriage and gave orders to the coachman to drive carefully.

Then, smiling, in anticipation of one of his practical jokes: “Come daughter, let’s go tell Pork that instead of buying Dilcey, I’ve sold him to John Wilkes.”

He had already forgotten Scarlett’s heartbreak. Scarlett slowly climbed the steps after him, her feet leaden. She thought that, after all, a mating between herself and Ashley could be no queerer than that of her father and Ellen Robillard O’Hara.