Inside the package she found a square shallow box of oxblood leather, finely tooled in gold. The hinged top lifted and Scarlett gasped. The case was lined in padded gray velvet, shaped and compartmented to display a necklace, two bracelets, and a pair of earrings.

The settings were fashioned of heavy old gold with a dull, almost bronze finish. The jewels were pigeon’s blood rubies, matched stones, each as large as her thumb nail. The earrings were single oval ruby drops from an intricately shaped boss. Bracelets held a dozen stones each, and the necklace was made up of two rows of stones linked by swagged thick chains. For the first time Scarlett understood the difference between jewelry and jewels. No one would ever refer to these rubies as jewelry. They were too exceptional and too valuable. They were, without doubt, jewels. Her fingers were trembling when she clasped the bracelets on her wrists. She couldn’t do the necklace by herself, she had to ring for Peggy Quinn. When she saw herself in the looking glass, Scarlett drew in a long breath. Her skin looked like alabaster with the dark richness of the rubies against it. Her hair was in some way darker and more lustrous. She tried to remember what the tiara looked like. It, too, was set with rubies. She would look like a queen when she was presented to the Queen. Her green eyes narrowed slightly. London was going to be a much more challenging game than Dublin. She might even learn to like London very much.


Peggy Quinn lost no time telling the news to the other servants and her family in Ballyhara town. The magnificent parure plus the ermine-trimmed robe plus the weeks of morning coffee could only mean one thing. The O’Hara was going to wed the rack-renting villain Earl of Fenton.

And what will become of us? The question and apprehension spread from hearth to hearth like a brushfire.


Scarlett and Cat rode together through the wheat fields in April. The child wrinkled her nose at the strong smell of freshly spread manure. The stables and barns never reeked this way; they were mucked out daily. Scarlett laughed at her. “Don’t you ever make faces at manured land, Cat O’Hara. It’s sweet perfume to a farmer, and you’ve got farmers’ blood in your veins. I don’t want you ever to forget it.” She looked over the plowed and planted and enriched acres with pride. This is mine. I brought it back to life. She knew she’d miss this part of her life most of all when they moved to London. But she’d always have the memory and the satisfaction. In her heart, she would forever be The O’Hara. And someday Cat could return, when she was grown and could protect herself. Then she would earn the name “The O’Hara” for herself. “Never, ever forget where you come from,” Scarlett told her child. “Be proud.”


“You’ll have to swear on a stack of Bibles not to tell a soul,” Scarlett warned Mrs. Sims.

Dublin’s most exclusive dressmaker gave Scarlett her most freezing stare. “No one has ever had cause to question my discretion, Mrs. O’Hara.”

“I’m to be married, Mrs. Sims, and I want you to create my gown.” She held out the jewel case in front of her and opened it. “These will be worn with it.”

Mrs. Sims’ eyes and mouth made O’s. Scarlett felt repaid for all the hours of torture she’d spent in the dressmaker’s dictator fittings. She must have shocked ten years off the woman’s life.

“There’s a tiara also,” Scarlett said in an off-handed manner, “and I’ll want my train edged in ermine.”

Mrs. Sims shook her head vigorously. “You cannot do that, Mrs. O’Hara. Tiaras and ermine are only for the grandest ceremonies at Court. Most particularly ermine. In all likelihood, it hasn’t been worn since Her Majesty’s wedding.”

Scarlett’s eyes glittered. “But I don’t know all that, do I, Mrs. Sims? I’m only an ignorant American who will become a countess overnight. People are going to cluck-cluck and shake their heads no matter what I do. So I’m going to do what I want, the way I want it!” The misery in her heart became cutting imperiousness in her voice.

Mrs. Sims cringed inwardly. Her agile mind swiftly sorted through Society gossip to identify Scarlett’s future husband. They’ll be a well-matched pair, she thought. Trample all decent tradition and be admired the more for it. What was the world coming to? Still, a woman had to make her way in it, and people would be talking about the wedding for years to come. Her handiwork would be on display as never before. It must be magnificent.

Mrs. Sims’ habitual haughty certainty returned. “There’s only one gown that will do justice to ermine and these rubies,” she said. “White silk velvet with overlaid lace, Galway would be best. How long do I have? The lace must be made, then sewn onto the velvet around each petal of each flower. It takes time.”

“Will five months do?”

Mrs. Sims’ well-kept hands dishevelled her well-groomed hair. “So short . . . Let me think . . . If I get two extra needlewomen . . . if the nuns will do only this . . . It will be the most talked-about wedding in Ireland, in Britain . . . It must be done, no matter what.” She realized she was talking aloud, and her fingers covered her mouth. Too late.

Scarlett took pity on her. She stood and held out her hand. “I leave the gown in your care, Mrs. Sims. I have every confidence in you. Let me know when you need me to come to Dublin for the first fitting.”

Mrs. Sims took her hand and squeezed it. “Oh, I’ll come to you, Mrs. O’Hara. And it would please me if you called me Daisy.”


In County Meath the sunny day made no one happy. Farmers worried about another year like the year before. At Ballyhara they shook their heads and predicted doom. Wasn’t the changeling seen coming from the witch’s cottage by Molly Keenan? And another time by Paddy Conroy, though what he was doing going there himself he wouldn’t say outside the confessional. They did say, too, that there’d been owls heard in daylight over to Pike Corner, and Mrs MacGruder’s prize calf had died in the night for no cause at all. Rain, when it came the next day, did nothing to stop the rumors.


Colum went with Scarlett to the hiring fair in Drogheda in May. The wheat was well begun, the meadow grass very nearly ready for cutting, the rows of potatoes bright green with healthy foliage. Both of them were unusually quiet, each of them preoccupied with private concerns. For Colum the worry came from the increase in militia and constabulary troops all over County Meath. An entire regiment was coming to Navan, said his informants. The Land League’s work was good; he’d be the last to deny the good of reduced rents. But the rent strikes had stirred up the landlords. Now evictions were done without prior warning and the thatch burned before the people could drag their furnishings out of the house. It was said two children had burned to death. Two soldiers were wounded the next day. Three Fenians had been arrested in Mullingar, including Jim Daly. Inciting violence was the charge although he’d been serving drinks in his bar day and night all the week.

Scarlett remembered the hiring fair for only one thing. Rhett had been with Bart Morland there. She avoided even looking in the direction of the horse sales; when Colum suggested they walk around and enjoy the fair, she all but shouted when she told him no, she wanted to get home. There’d been a distance between them ever since she told Colum she was going to marry Fenton. He didn’t say anything harsh, but he didn’t have to. Anger and accusation were hot in his eyes.

It was the same with Mrs. Fitz. Who did they think they were anyhow, judging her like that? What did they know about her sorrows and her fears? Wasn’t it enough that they’d have Ballyhara to themselves after she left? That was all they had ever really wanted. No, that wasn’t fair. Colum was her almost-brother, Mrs. Fitz her friend. All the more reason they should be sympathetic. It wasn’t fair. Scarlett began to think she saw disapproval everywhere, even on the faces of Ballyhara’s shopkeepers when she made the special effort to think of things to buy from them in these lean month before the harvest. Don’t be a fool, she told herself, you’re imagining things because you’re not really sure yourself about what you’re going to do. It’s the right thing, it is, for Cat and for me. And it’s nobody else’s business what I do. She was irritable with everyone except Cat, and she saw little of her. One time she even climbed several rungs of the new rope ladder, but then she backed down. I’m a grown woman, I can’t go boohooing to a little child for comfort. She worked in the hayfields day after day, glad to be busy, grateful for the ache in her arms and legs after the labor. Grateful, most of all, for the rich crop. Her fears about another bad harvest gradually went away.

Midsummer Night, June 24, completed the cure. The bonfire was the biggest ever, the music and dancing were what she’d been needing to relax her tense nerves and restore her spirits. When, as timeless tradition demanded, the toast to The O’Hara was shouted over the fields of Ballyhara, Scarlett felt that all was right with the world.

Still, she was a little sorry she’d refused all the house party invitations for the summer. She had to, she was afraid to leave Cat. But she was lonely, and she had too much time on her hands, too much time to think and worry. She was almost happy when she received the semi-hysterical telegram from Mrs. Sims, saying that the lace had not arrived from the convent in Galway, nor had she had any reply to her letters and telegrams.

Scarlett was smiling when she drove her buggy to the train depot in Trim. She was an old hand at battling with Mother Superiors, and she was glad to have a clear-cut reason for a fight.