“I never said I came here for that.”

“Only to speak thanks? Is that the all of it?”

“Yes, it is, and now I’ve done it and I must go before I’m missed at the house.”

“I ask your forgiveness,” the wise woman said. “There are few feel thankful when I enter their lives. I wonder you don’t feel anger at what I did to your body.”

“You saved my life and my baby’s too.”

“But I took life away from all other babes. A doctor might have known how to do more.”

“Well, I couldn’t get a doctor, or I would have had one!” Scarlett closed her lips firmly over her quick tongue. She’d come to say thank you, not to insult the wise woman. But why was she talking riddles in her raspy scary voice? It gave a person gooseflesh.

“I’m sorry,” said Scarlett, “that was rude of me. I’m sure no doctor could have done any better. More likely not even half as well. And I don’t know what you mean about other babies. Are you saying I was having twins and the other one died?” It was certainly a possibility, Scarlett thought. She’d been so big when she was pregnant. But surely Mrs. Fitz or Colum would have told her. Maybe not. They hadn’t told her about Old Katie Scarlett dying until two weeks after it happened.

A feeling of unbearable loss squeezed Scarlett’s heart. “Was there another baby? You’ve got to tell me!”

“Shhh, you’re bothering Katie Colum,” said Grainne the wise woman. “There was no second child in the womb. I did not know you would mistake my words. The woman with white hair looked knowledgeable, I believed she understood and would tell you. I lifted the womb with the baby, and I had not the skills to restore it. You will never have another child.”

There was a terrible finality in the woman’s words and the way she said them, and Scarlett knew absolutely that they were true. But she couldn’t believe them, she wouldn’t. No more babies? Now, when she’d finally discovered the encompassing joy of being a mother, when she’d learned—so late—what it was to love? It couldn’t be. It was too cruel.

Scarlett had never understood how Melanie could have knowingly risked her life to have another baby, but she did now. She would do the same. She’d go through the pain and the fear and the blood again and again to have that moment of seeing her baby’s face for the first time.

Cat made a soft mewing sound. It was her warning that she was getting hungry. Scarlett felt her milk begin to flow in response. What am I taking on so for? Don’t I already have the most wonderful baby in the whole world? I’m not going to lose my milk fretting about imaginary babies when my Cat is real and wants her mother.

“I’ve got to go,” said Scarlett. “It’s close to time to feed the baby.” She held out her hands for Cat.

“One more word,” said Grainne. “A warning.”

Scarlett felt afraid. She wished she hadn’t brought Cat. Why didn’t the woman give her back?

“Keep your babe close, there are those who say she was brought by a witch and must be bewitched therefrom.”

Scarlett shivered.

Grainne’s stained fingers gently undid Cat’s grasp. She brushed her soft wisp-covered head with a kiss and a murmur. “Go well, Dara.” Then she gave the baby to Scarlett. “I will call her ‘Dara’ in my memory. It means oak tree. I am grateful for the gift of seeing her, and for your thanks. But do not bring her again. It is not wise for her to have aught to do with me. Go now. Someone is coming and you should not be seen . . . No, the path the other takes is not yours. It is the one from the north used by foolish women who buy potions for love or beauty or harm to those they hate. Go. Guard the babe.”

Scarlett was glad to obey. She plodded doggedly through the cold rain that had begun to fall. Her head and back were bent to protect her baby from harm. Cat made sucking noises beneath the shelter of Scarlett’s cloak.


Mrs. Fitzpatrick eyed the wet cloak on the floor by the fire, but she made no comment. “Miss Piles seems to have a nice light hand with a batter,” she said. “I’ve brought scones with your tea.”

“Good, I’m starving.” She’d fed Cat and had a nap and the sun was shining again. Scarlett was confident now that the walk had done her a world of good. She wouldn’t take no for an answer the next time she wanted to go out.

Mrs. Fitz didn’t attempt to stop her. She recognized futility when she met it.

When Colum came home Scarlett walked down to his house for tea. And advice.

“I want to buy a small closed buggy, Colum. It’s too cold to go around in the trap, and I need to do things. Will you pick one out for me?”

He’d be willing, said Colum, but she could do her own choosing if she’d prefer. The buggy makers would bring their wares to her. As would the makers of anything else she fancied. She was the lady of the Big House.

“Now why didn’t I think of that?” said Scarlett.

 Within a week she was driving a neat black buggy with a thin yellow stripe on its side, behind a neat gray horse that lived up to the seller’s promise that it had good go in it with hardly a mention of the whip ever needed.

She also had a “parlor suite” of green-upholstered shiny oak furniture with ten extra chairs that could be pulled near the hearth, and a marble-topped round table large enough to seat six for a meal. All these sat on a Wilton carpet in the room adjoining her bedroom. No matter what outrageous tales Colum might tell about French women entertaining crowds while they lounged in their beds, she was going to have a proper place to see her visitors. And no matter what Mrs. Fitz said, she saw no reason at all to use the downstairs rooms for entertaining when there were plenty of empty rooms upstairs and handy.

She didn’t have her big desk and chair yet because the carpenter in Ballyhara was making them. What point was there in having a town of your own if you weren’t smart enough to support the businesses in it? You could be sure of getting your rent if they were earning money.

Cat’s padded basket was beside her on the buggy seat everywhere Scarlett went. She made baby noises and blew bubbles and Scarlett was sure that they were singing duets when she drove along the road. She showed Cat off at every shop and house in Ballyhara. People crossed themselves when they saw the dark-skinned baby with the green eyes and Scarlett was pleased. She thought they were blessing the baby.

As Christmas came nearer, Scarlett lost much of the elation she’d felt when she was freed from the captivity of convalescence. “I wouldn’t be in Atlanta for all the tea in China, even if I was invited to all the parties, or in Charleston, either, with their silly dance cards and receiving lines,” she told Cat, “but I’d like to be somewhere that’s not so damp all the time.”

Scarlett thought it would be nice to be living in a cottage so that she could whitewash it and paint the trim the way Kathleen and the cousins were doing. And all the other cottagers too, in Adamstown and beside the roads. When she walked over to Kennedy’s bar on December 22 and saw the shops and houses being limed and painted over the almost-new jobs done in the autumn, she pranced with delight. Her pleasure in the neat prosperity of her town took away the slight sadness that she often felt when she went to her own bar for companionship. It sometimes seemed as if the conversation turned stiff as soon as she entered.


“We’ve got to decorate the house for Christmas,” she announced to Mrs. Fitz. “What do the Irish do?”

Holly branches on mantels and over doors and windows, said the housekeeper. And a big candle, usually red, in one window to light the Christ Child’s way. We’ll have one in every window, Scarlett declared, but Mrs. Fitz was firm. One window. Scarlett could have all the candles she wanted on tables—or the floor, if it made her happy—but only one window should have a candle. And that one could only be lighted on Christmas Eve when the Angelus rang.

The housekeeper smiled. “The tradition is that the youngest child in the house lights a rush from the coals on the hearth as soon as the Angelus is heard, then lights the candle with the flame from the rush. You might have to help her a bit.”


Scarlett and Cat spent Christmas at Daniel’s house. There was nearly enough admiration for Cat to satisfy even Scarlett. And enough people coming through the open door to keep her mind off the Christmases at Tara in the old days when the family and house servants went out onto the wide porch after breakfast in response to the cry, “Christmas Gift.” When Gerald O’Hara gave a drink of whiskey and a plug of tobacco to every field hand as he handed him his new coat and new boots. When Ellen O’Hara said a brief prayer for each woman and child as she gave them lengths of calico and flannel together with oranges and stick candy. Sometimes Scarlett missed the warm slurrings of black voices and the flashing smiles on black faces almost more than she could bear.


“I need to go home, Colum,” Scarlett said.

“And aren’t you home now, on the land of your people that you made O’Hara land again?”

“Oh, Colum, don’t be Irish at me! You know what I mean. I’m homesick for Southern voices and Southern sunshine and Southern food. I want some corn bread and fried chicken and grits. Nobody in Ireland even knows what corn is. That’s just a word for any kind of grain to them.”

“I do know, Scarlett, and I’m sorry for the heartache you’re feeling. Why not go for a visit when good sailing weather comes? You can leave Cat here. Mrs. Fitzpatrick and I will take care of her.”

“Never! I’ll never leave Cat.”

There was nothing to be said. But from time to time the thought popped up in Scarlett’s head: it’s only two weeks and a day to cross the ocean, and sometimes the dolphins play alongside for hours on end.