“Brute!” said Sally. Scarlett saw the look they exchanged and her heart cramped with envy.

“What fascinating thing were you talking about with Edward Cooper for so long? I’m starving.” She looked at Rhett, and the pain grew worse. I won’t think about it. I won’t ruin this perfect night.

“He was informing me that, due to my bad influence, Tommy’s grades in school are falling. As a punishment he’s selling the little boat the boy loves so much.”

“That’s cruel!” Scarlett exclaimed.

“The boy will get it back. I bought it. Now let’s get to supper before all the oysters are gone. For once in your life, Scarlett, you’re going to have more food than you can possibly eat. Even ladies gorge themselves. It’s traditional. The Season is over, and it’s almost Lent.”


It was shortly after two when the doors to the Hibernian Hall opened. The young black torch boys were yawning when they took their positions to light the revellers out. As their torches were lit, the dark waiting streetcar on Meeting Street came to life on its tracks. The driver turned up the blue-globed lamp on its roof and the tall-chimneyed lanterns by the doors. The horses stamped their feet and bobbed their heads. A white-aproned man swept the canvas walkway free of the scattering of leaves that had accumulated then slid back the long iron bolt and swung wide the gates. He disappeared into the shadows just as the sound of voices poured from the building. For three blocks along the street carriages waited to move in turn to collect their passengers. “Wake up, they’re coming,” Ezekiel growled to the sleeping boys in the footman livery. They jerked at his prodding finger, then grinned and scrambled down from their resting place at his feet.

People came pouring through the open doors, talking, laughing, pausing on the porch, reluctant to see the end of the evening. As they did every year, they said that this had been the best Saint Cecilia ever, the best orchestra, the best food, the best punch, the best time they had ever had.

The streetcar driver spoke to his horses. “I’ll get you to your stable, boys, don’t you fret.” He pulled the handle near his head and the brightly polished bell beside the blue light clanged its summons.

“Good night, good night,” cried obedient riders to the people on the porch and first one couple, then three, then a laughing avalanche of young people ran along the white canvas path. Their elders smiled and made comments about the tirelessness of youth. They moved at a slower, more dignified pace. In some cases their dignity failed to hide a certain unsteadiness of the legs.

Scarlett plucked Rhett’s sleeve. “Oh, do let’s ride the car, Rhett. The air feels so good and the carriage will be stuffy.”

“There’s a long walk after we get off.”

“I don’t care. I’d love to walk some.”

He took a deep breath of the fresh night air. “I would, too,” he said. “I’ll tell Mama. Go on to the car and save us a place.”


They hadn’t far to ride. The streetcar turned east on Broad Street, only a block away, then moved grandly through the silent city to the end of Broad in front of the Post Office building. It was a merry, noisy continuation of the party. Almost everyone on the crowded car joined in the song started by three laughing men when the car teetered around the corner. “Oh, the Rock Island Line, its a fine line! The Rock Island Line, it is the road to ride . . .”

Musically the performance left much to be desired but the singers neither knew nor cared. Scarlett and Rhett sang as loudly as the rest. When they stepped down from the car she continued to join in every time the chorus was repeated. “Get your ticket at the station for the Rock Island Line.” Rhett and three other volunteers helped the driver unharness the horses, lead them to the opposite end of the car, and rehitch them for the journey back along Broad then up Meeting to the terminal. They returned waves and cries of “good night” as the car moved away, taking the singers with it.

“Do you suppose they know any other song?” Scarlett asked.

Rhett laughed. “They don’t even know that one, and to tell the truth neither do I. It didn’t seem to make much difference.”

Scarlett giggled. Then she put her hand over her mouth. Her giggle had sounded very loud now that “The Rock Island Line” was faint in the distance. She watched the lighted car become smaller, then stop, then start, then disappear as it turned the corner. It was very quiet, and very dark outside the pool of light thrown by the street lamp in front of the Post Office. A breath of wind played with the fringe on her shawl. The air was balmy and soft. “It’s real warm,” she whispered to Rhett.

He murmured a wordless affirmative and took out his pocket watch, held it in the lamplight. “Listen,” he said quietly.

Scarlett listened. Everything was still. She held her breath to listen harder.

“Now!” said Rhett. Saint Michael’s bells chimed once, twice. The notes hung in the warm night for a long time. “Half past,” Rhett said with approval. He replaced the watch in its pocket.

Both of them had taken quite a bit of punch. They were in the condition known as “high flown,” where everything was somewhat magnified in effect. The darkness was blacker, the air warmer, the silence deeper, the memory of the pleasant evening even more enjoyable than the ball itself. Each felt a quietly glowing inner well-being. Scarlett yawned happily and tucked a hand into Rhett’s elbow. Without a word they began to walk into the darkness toward home. Their footsteps were loud on the brick sidewalk, bounced back from the buildings. Scarlett looked uneasily from side to side, and over her shoulder at the looming Post Office. She couldn’t recognize anything. It’s so quiet, she thought, like we were the only people on the face of the earth.

Rhett’s tall form was a part of the darkness, his white shirt front covered by his black evening cape. Scarlett tightened her hold on his arm, above the crook of the elbow. It was firm and strong, the powerful arm of a powerful man. She moved a little closer to his side. She could feel the warmth of his body, sense the bulk and strength of it.

“Wasn’t that a wonderful party?” she said too loudly. Her voice echoed, sounding strange to her ears. “I thought I’d laugh out loud at old look-down-your-nose Hannah. My grief, when she got a taste of how Southerners treat folks, her head was so turned I expected her to start walking backwards to see where she was going.”

Rhett chuckled. “Poor Hannah,” he said, “she may never again in her life feel so delightfully attractive and witty. Townsend’s no fool. He told me he wants to move back to the South. This visit will probably make Hannah agree. There’s a foot of snow on the ground in Philadelphia.” Scarlett laughed softly into the balmy darkness, then smiled with warm contentment. When she and Rhett walked through the light of the next streetlamp, she saw that he was smiling, too. There was no further need to talk. It was enough that they were both feeling good, both smiling, walking together, in no hurry to be any place else.

Their route took them past the docks. The sidewalk abutted a long row of ships chandlers, narrow buildings with tightly shuttered shops on street level and the darkened windows of living quarters above. Many of the windows were open to the almost-summery warmth of the night. A dog barked half-heartedly at the sound of their steps. Rhett commanded it to be quiet, his own voice muted. The dog whimpered once, then was still.

They walked forward, past widely spaced street lamps. Rhett adjusted his long stride automatically to match Scarlett’s shorter one, and the sound of heels on brick became a single clack clack clack clack—testimony of the comfortable unity of the moment.

One street lamp had gone out. In the patch of greater darkness Scarlett noticed for the first time that the sky seemed very near, its spangling of stars brighter than she could remember them ever before. One star looked almost close enough to touch. “Rhett, look at the sky,” she said softly. “The stars look so close.” He stopped walking, put his hand over hers to signal her to stop, too. “It’s because of the sea,” he said, the sound of his voice low and warm. “We’re past the warehouses now, and there’s only water. Listen and you can hear it breathing.” They stood very still.

Scarlett strained to hear. The rhythmic slap slap of the moving water against the invisible pilings of the seawall became audible. Gradually it seemed to get louder, until she was amazed she hadn’t been hearing it all the time. Then another sound merged with the cadence of the tidal river. It was music, a thin high slow procession of notes. The purity of them made her eyes fill with unexpected tears.

“Do you hear it?” she asked fearfully. Was she imagining things?

“Yes. It’s a homesick sailor on the ship anchored out there. The tune is ‘Across the Wide Missouri.’ They make those flute-like whistles themselves. Some of them have a real gift for playing. He must have the watch. See, there’s a lantern in the rigging, that’s where the ship is. The lantern’s supposed to warn any other ship traffic that she’s anchored there, but you always have a man on watch, too, to look for anything approaching. Maybe two in busy lanes like this river. There are always small boats, people who know the river moving at night when no one can see them.”

“Why would they do that?”

“A thousand reasons, all of them either dishonest or noble, depending on who’s telling the story.” Rhett sounded as if he were talking to himself more than to Scarlett.

She looked at him but it was too dark to see his face. She looked back at the ship’s lantern that she had mistaken for a star and listened to the tide and the music of the yearning, anonymous sailor. Saint Michael’s bells rang the three-quarter hour.