Rosemary put her hands to her head in a dramatic gesture of despair. “I cannot credit what I’m hearing. Who would want to go to Georgia, for pity’s sake? I want to go to Rome, the real Rome, the Eternal City. In Italy!”

Scarlett felt the color rising in her cheeks. I should have known she meant Italy.

But before she could burst out as noisily as Rosemary, the door to the dining room crashed open with a bang that silenced all of them with shock, and Ross stumbled, panting for breath, into the candlelit room.

“Help me,” he gasped, “the Guard is after me. I shot the Yankee who’s been breaking into bedrooms.”

In seconds Rhett was at his brother’s side, holding his arm. “The sloop’s at the dock, and there’s no moon; the two of us can sail her,” he said with calming authority. As he left the room, he turned his head to speak quietly over his shoulder. “Tell them I left as soon as I delivered Rosemary so that I could catch the tide upriver, and you haven’t seen Ross, don’t know anything about anything. I’ll send word.”

Eleanor Butler rose from her chair without haste, as if this were a normal evening and she had finished eating supper. She walked to Scarlett, put an arm around her. Scarlett was shaking. The Yankees were coming. They’d hang Ross for shooting one of them, and they’d hang Rhett for trying to help Ross escape. Why couldn’t he let Ross take care of himself? He had no right to leave his women unprotected and alone when the Yankees were coming.

Eleanor spoke, and there was steel in her voice even though it was as soft and slow as ever. “I’m going to take Rhett’s dishes and silver into the kitchen. The servants must be told what to say and there must be no indication that he was here. Will you and Rosemary please rearrange the table for three settings?”

“What are we going to do, Miss Eleanor? The Yankees are coming.” Scarlett knew she should stay calm; she despised herself for being so frightened. But she couldn’t control her fear. She had come to think that the Yankees were toothless, only laughable and in the way. It was shattering to be reminded that the occupying Army could do anything it wanted, and call it law.

“We’re going to finish our supper,” said Mrs. Butler. Her eyes began to laugh. “Then I think I shall read aloud from Ivanhoe.”


“Don’t you have anything better to do with your time than bully a household of women?” Rosemary glared at the Union captain, her fisted hands on her hips.

“Sit down and be quiet, Rosemary,” said Mrs. Butler. “I apologize for my daughter’s rudeness, Captain.”

 The officer was not won over by Eleanor’s conciliatory politeness. “Go ahead and search the house,” he ordered his men.

Scarlett lay supine on the couch with chamomile compresses on her sunburned face and swollen eyes. She was grateful for their protection; she didn’t have to look at the Yankees. What a cool head Miss Eleanor had, to think of arranging a sickroom scene in the library. Still, curiosity was nearly killing her. She couldn’t tell what was going on with only sound to guide her. She could hear footsteps, and doors closing, and then silence. Was the captain gone? Were Miss Eleanor and Rosemary gone, too? She couldn’t stand it. She moved one hand slowly up to her eyes and lifted a corner of the damp cloth that covered them.

Rosemary was sitting in the chair near the desk, calmly reading a book.

“Ssst,” Scarlett whispered.

Rosemary quickly closed the book and covered the title with her hand. “What is it?” she said, also whispering. “Did you hear something?”

“No, I don’t hear a thing. What are they doing? Where’s Miss Eleanor? Did they arrest her?”

“For heaven’s sake, Scarlett, what are you whispering for?” Rosemary’s normal voice sounded terribly loud. “The soldiers are searching the house for weapons; they’re confiscating all the guns in Charleston. Mama’s following them around to make sure they don’t confiscate anything else.”

Was that all? Scarlett relaxed. There were no guns in the house; she knew because she’d looked for one herself. She closed her eyes and drifted near sleep. It had been a long day. She remembered the excitement of the water foaming alongside the swift-moving sloop, and for a moment she envied Rhett sailing under the stars. If only she could have been with him instead of Ross. She wasn’t worried that the Yankees would catch him; she never worried about Rhett. He was invincible.

When Eleanor Butler returned to the library after seeing the Union soldiers out, she tucked her cashmere shawl around Scarlett, who had fallen into a deep sleep. “No need to disturb her,” she said quietly, “she’ll be comfortable here. Let’s go to bed, Rosemary. You’ve had a long trip, and I’m tired, and tomorrow’s bound to be very active.” She smiled to herself when she saw the bookmark placed well along in the pages of Ivanhoe. Rosemary was a fast reader. And not nearly as modern as she liked to think she was.


The Market was abuzz with indignation and ill-conceived plans the next morning. Scarlett listened to the agitated conversations around her with scorn. What did they expect, the Charlestonians? That the Yankees would let people go around shooting them and do nothing? All they were going to do was make things worse if they tried to argue or protest. What difference did it make after all this time that General Lee had talked Grant into allowing Confederate officers to keep their sidearms after the surrender at Appomattox? It was still the end of the South, and what good did a revolver do you if you were too poor to buy bullets for it? As for duelling pistols! Who on earth would care about saving them? They weren’t good for anything except men showing off how brave they were and getting their fool heads blown off.

She kept her mouth shut and concentrated on the shopping. Otherwise it would never get done. Even Miss Eleanor was running around like a chicken with its head cut off, talking to everybody in a barely audible, urgent tone.

“They say the men all want to finish what Ross started,” she told Scarlett when they were walking home. “It’s more than they can bear to have their homes ransacked by the troops. We women are going to have to manage things; the men are too hot under the collar.”

Scarlett felt a chill of terror. She’d thought it was all talk. Surely no one was going to make things worse! “There’s nothing to manage!” she exclaimed. “The only thing to do is lie low till it blows over. Rhett must have gotten Ross away safely or we’d have heard.”

Mrs. Butler looked astonished. “We cannot allow the Union Army to get away with this, Scarlett, surely you see that. They’ve already searched our houses, and they’ve announced that curfew will be enforced, and they’re arresting all the black-market dealers in rationed goods. If we let them keep on the way they’re going, soon we’ll be back where we were in ’sixty-four when they had their boots on our necks, governing every breath of our lives. It simply won’t do.”

Scarlett wondered if the whole world was going mad. What did a bunch of tea-drinking, lace-making Charleston ladies think they could do against an army?

She found out two nights later.

Lucinda Wragg’s wedding had been scheduled for January twenty-third. The invitations were addressed, and waiting to be delivered on January second, but they were never used. “Terrible efficiency” was Rosemary Butler’s tribute to the efforts of Lucinda’s mother, her own mother, and all the other ladies of Charleston. Lucinda’s wedding took place on December nineteenth, at Saint Michael’s Church, at nine o’clock in the evening. The majestic chords of the wedding march sounded through the open doors and windows of the packed and beautifully decorated church precisely at the hour the curfew began. They could be heard clearly in the Guardhouse across the street from Saint Michael’s. Some officer later told his wife in the hearing of their cook that he had never seen the men in his command so nervous, not even before they marched into the Wilderness. The whole city heard the story the following day. Everyone had a good laugh, but no one was surprised.

At nine-thirty the entire population of Old Charleston exited from Saint Michael’s and went on foot along Meeting Street to the reception at the South Carolina Hall. Men and women and children, aged five to ninety-seven years old, strolled laughing in the warm night air, breaking the law with flagrant defiance. There was no way the Union command could claim to be unaware of the occurrence; it took place under their very noses. Nor was there any way they could arrest the miscreants. The Guardhouse had twenty-six jail cells. Even if the offices and corridors had been used, there was not enough room to hold all the people. Saint Michael’s pews had had to be moved to its peaceful graveyard to create enough space for everyone to crowd inside, standing shoulder to shoulder.

During the reception people had to take turns to get out onto the columned porch outside the crowded ballroom for a breath of air and a view of the helpless patrol marching in futile discipline along the empty street.

Rhett had returned to the city that afternoon with the news that Ross was safely in Wilmington. Scarlett confessed to him out on the porch that she’d been afraid to go to the wedding, even with him as escort. “I couldn’t believe that a bunch of tea-party ladies could lick the Yankee Army. I’ve got to say it, Rhett. These Charleston folks have got all the gumption in the world.”

He smiled. “I love the arrogant fools, every one of them. Even poor old Ross. I do hope he never learns that he missed the Yankee by a mile, he’d be very embarrassed.”