“I promise you, Scarlett aroon.”

“Thank you. I feel worlds better. Now I’ve got to go. Will you come up to the house for dinner in my fancy morning room though it’s at night?”

“I cannot, Scarlett aroon. I’m meeting a friend.”

“Bring him, too. With the cook fixing food for those nine million servants I’ve got all of a sudden, I’m sure there’ll be enough to feed you and your friend.”

“Not tonight. Another time.”

Scarlett didn’t press him, she had gotten what she wanted. Before she went home she detoured to the little chapel and made confession to Father Flynn. Losing her temper with Colum was of it, but not the main part. She was there to be absolved of the sin that made her own blood run cold. She had thanked God when John Morland told her that six months earlier Rhett’s wife had lost her baby.


Not long after Scarlett left, Colum O’Hara entered the confessional. He had lied to her, a heavy sin. After doing his penance he went to the arsenal in the Anglican church to make sure the arms were sufficiently well concealed in the event she decided to investigate.


Charlotte Montague and Scarlett left for the house party that was Scarlett’s debut after she went to early Mass on Sunday. The party was to last a week. Scarlett didn’t like being away from Cat for so long, but the birthday party was only just over—Mrs. Fitz was still in a tight-lipped fury about the damage all the running children had done to the parquet in the ballroom—and she was certain that Cat wouldn’t miss her. With all the new furnishings to inspect and new servants to investigate, Cat was a very busy little girl.

Scarlett, Charlotte, and Evans, Charlotte’s maid, rode in Scarlett’s elegant brougham to the train station in Trim. The house party was in County Monaghan, too far to go by road.

Scarlett was more excited than nervous. Going to John Morland’s first had been a good idea. Charlotte was nervous enough for both of them, although it didn’t show; Scarlett’s future in the fashionable world would be decided by the way she impressed people this week. Charlotte’s future, also. She glanced at Scarlett to reassure herself. Yes, she looked lovely in her green merino travelling costume. Those eyes of hers were a gift from God, so distinctive and memorable. And her slim uncorseted body was sure to set tongues wagging and the pulses of men racing. She looked precisely like what Charlotte had insinuated to chosen friends: a beautiful, not-too-young American widow with fresh Colonial looks and charm; somewhat gauche, but refreshing as a result; romantically Irish, as only a foreigner could be; substantially, perhaps even phenomenally wealthy, so much so that she could afford to be a free spirit; well bred, with an aristocratic French bloodline, but vigorous and exuberant from her American background; unpredictable but well-mannered, naive yet experienced; all in all an intriguing and amusing addition to the circles of people who knew too much about one another and were avid for someone new to talk about.

“Perhaps I should tell you again who is likely to be at the party,” Charlotte suggested.

“Please don’t, Charlotte, I’ll forget again anyhow. Besides, I know the important part. A duke is more important than a marquess, then comes an earl, and after that viscount, baron, and baronet. I may call all the men ‘sir’ just like in the South, so I needn’t worry about that ‘milord’ and ‘your grace’ business, but I must never call the ladies ‘ma’am’ the way we do in America, because that’s reserved for Queen Victoria, and she’s definitely not going to be there. So, unless I’m asked to use the Christian name, I just smile and avoid using anything. A plain old ‘mister’ or ‘miss’ is hardly worth bothering with at all unless they’re ‘honourable.’ I do think that’s funny. Why not ‘respectable’ or something else like that?”

Charlotte shuddered inside. Scarlett was too confident, too breezy. “You haven’t paid attention, Scarlett. There are some names with no title at all, not even ‘honourable,’ that are equally as important as any non-royal dukes. The Herberts, Burkes, Clarkes, Lefroys, Blennerhassetts—”

Scarlett giggled. Charlotte stopped. What would be, would be.


The house was an immense Gothic-style structure with turrets and towers, stained-glass windows as tall as a cathedral’s, corridors that extended for more than a hundred yards. Scarlett’s confidence ebbed when she saw it. “You’re The O’Hara,” she reminded herself and she marched up the stone entrance steps with her chin at an angle that dared anyone to challenge her.

By the end of dinner that night she was smiling at everyone, even the footman behind her tall-backed chair. The food was excellent, copious, exquisitely presented, but Scarlett barely tasted it. She was feasting on admiration. There were forty-six guests in the house party, and they all wanted to know her.

“. . . and on New Year’s Day, I have to knock on every single door in the town, go in, go out, go in again and drink a cup of tea. I declare, I don’t know why I don’t turn yellow as a Chinaman drinking half the tea in China the way I do,” she said gaily to the man on her left. He was fascinated by the duties of The O’Hara.

When the hostess “turned” the table, Scarlett enchanted the retired general on her right with a day-by-day account of the siege of Atlanta. Her Southern accent was not at all what one expected an American to sound like, they reported later to anyone who’d listen, and she’s a damn’d intelligent woman.

She was also a “damn’d attractive woman.” The excessively big diamond-and-emerald engagement ring she’d received from Rhett sparkled impressively on her bare-but-not-too-bare bosom. Charlotte had ordered it remade into a pendant that hung from a white gold chain so fine that it was nearly invisible.

After dinner Scarlett played whist with her customary skill. Her partner won enough money to cover her losses at three previous house parties, and Scarlett became a sought-after companion among ladies as well as gentlemen.

The following morning, and for five mornings after, there was a hunt. Even on a mount from her host’s stables Scarlett was adept and fearless. Her success was assured. The Anglo-Irish gentry as a whole admired nothing quite as much as they did a fine rider.

Charlotte Montague had to be vigilant, or she’d be caught looking like a cat who’d just finished a bowl of thick cream.


“Did you enjoy yourself?” she asked Scarlett on the way back to Ballyhara.

“Every minute, Charlotte! Bless you for getting me invited. Everything was perfect. It’s so thoughtful having those sandwiches in the bedroom. I always get hungry late at night, I guess everybody does.”

Charlotte laughed until her eyes were streaming with tears. It made Scarlett hurry. “I don’t see what’s so funny about a healthy appetite. With the card game lasting until all hours, it’s a long time after dinner when you go to bed.”

When Charlotte could speak, she explained. At the more sophisticated houses the ladies’ bedrooms were supplied with a plate of sandwiches that could be used as a signal to admirers. Set on the floor of the corridor outside a lady’s room, the sandwiches were an invitation for a man to come in.

Scarlett blushed crimson. “My grief, Charlotte, I ate every crumb. What must the maids think?”

“Not just the maids, Scarlett. Everyone in the house party must be wondering who the fortunate man was. Or men. Naturally no gentleman would claim the title, or he wouldn’t be a gentleman.”

“I’ll never be able to look anyone in the face again. That’s the most scandalous thing I ever heard. It’s disgusting! And I thought they were all such nice people.”

“But my dear child, it’s precisely the nice people who devise these discretions. Everyone knows the rules, and no one refers to them. People’s amusements are their own secrets, unless they choose to tell.”

Scarlett was about to say that where she came from people were honest and decent. Then she remembered Sally Brewton in Charleston. Sally had talked the same way, all about “discretion” and “amusements” as if infidelity and promiscuity were a normal, accepted thing.

Charlotte Montague smiled complacently. If any one thing had been needed to create a legend for Scarlett O’Hara, the mistake about the sandwiches had accomplished it. Now she’d be known as refreshingly Colonial, but satisfactorily sophisticated.

Charlotte began to make preliminary schedules in her mind for her retirement. Only a few more months to go, and she’d never again suffer through boredom at a fashionable party of any kind.

“I shall arrange for delivery of the Irish Times every day,” she said to Scarlett, “and you must study every word in it. Everyone you will meet in Dublin will expect you to be familiar with the news it reports.”

“Dublin? You didn’t tell me we were going to Dublin.”

“Didn’t I? I thought surely I had. I do apologize, Scarlett. Dublin is the center of everything, you will love it. It’s a real city, not an overgrown country town like Drogheda or Galway. And the Castle is the most thrilling thing you will ever experience in your entire life.”

“A Castle? Not a ruin? I didn’t know there was such a thing. Does the Queen live there?”

“No, thank heaven. The Queen is a fine ruler but an extremely dull woman. No, the Castle in Dublin is ruled by Her Majesty’s representative, the Viceroy. You will be presented to him and to the Vicereine in the Throne Room . . .” Mrs. Montague painted a word picture for Scarlett of pomp and splendor beyond anything she’d ever heard of. It made Charleston’s Saint Cecilia sound like nothing at all. And it made Scarlett want success in Dublin society with all her heart. That would put Rhett Butler in his place. He wouldn’t be important to her at all.