At last there was a brief moment when the only customers were a mother and her three daughters who were looking through four boxes of laces. “I’ll talk like a rushing river, then, while I can,” said Jamie. “Uncle James will be longing to see you, Katie Scarlett. He’s an old gentleman, but still active enough. He’s here every day until dinnertime. You may not know it, but his wife died, God rest her soul, and Uncle Andrew’s wife as well. It took the heart out of Uncle Andrew, and he followed her within a month. May they all be resting in the arms of the angels. Uncle James lives in the house with me and my wife and children. It’s not far from here. Will you come to tea this afternoon and see them all? My boy Daniel will be back soon from making deliveries, and I’ll walk you to the house. We’re celebrating my daughter Patricia’s birthday today. All the family will be there.”

Scarlett said she’d love to go to tea. Then she took off her hat and cape and walked over to the ladies at the laces. There was more than one O’Hara who knew how to run a store. Besides, she was too excited to sit still. A birthday for her cousin’s daughter! Let’s see, she’ll be my first cousin once removed. Although Scarlett had grown up without the usual many-generation family network of the South, she was still a Southerner, and could name the exact relationship of cousins to the tenth remove. She had revelled in watching Jamie while he worked, because he was the living confirmation of everything Gerald O’Hara had told her. He had the dark curly hair and blue eyes of the O’Haras. And the wide mouth and short nose in the round, florid face. Most of all, he was a big man, tall and broad through the chest with strong thick legs like the trunks of trees that could withstand any storm. He was an impressive figure. “Your Pa is the runt of the litter,” Gerald had said without shame for himself but with enormous pride in his brothers. “Eight children my mother had, and all boys, and me the last and the only one not as big as a house.” Scarlett wondered which of the brothers was Jamie’s father. No matter, she’d find out at the tea. No, not tea, the birthday party! For her first cousin once removed.

35

Scarlett looked up at her cousin Jamie with carefully concealed curiosity. In the daylight of the open street the lines and pouches beneath his eyes weren’t blended away by shadows, the way they were inside the store. He was a middle-aged man, running to weight and softness. She’d assumed somehow that because he was her cousin he must be her age. When his son came in, she was shocked to be introduced to a grown man, not a boy who delivered packages. And a grown man with flaming red hair, to boot. It took some getting used to.

So did the sight of Jamie in daylight. He . . . he wasn’t a gentleman. Scarlett couldn’t specify how she knew that, but it was as clear as glass. There was something wrong with his clothes; his suit was dark blue, but not dark enough, and it fit him too closely through the chest and shoulders and too loosely everywhere else. Rhett’s clothing was, she knew, the result of superlative tailoring and, on his part, demanding perfectionism. She wouldn’t expect Jamie to dress like Rhett—she’d never known man who dressed like Rhett. But any still, he could do something—whatever it was that men did—so that he wouldn’t look so . . . so common. Gerald O’Hara had always looked like a gentleman, no matter how worn or rumpled his coat might be. It didn’t occur to Scarlett that her mother’s quiet authority and influence might have been at work on her father’s transformation to gentleman landowner. Scarlett only knew that she’d lost most of her joy in discovering the existence of her cousin. Well, I only have to have a cup of tea and a piece of cake, and then I can leave. She smiled brilliantly at Jamie. “I’m so thrilled to be meeting your family that I’ve taken leave of my senses, Jamie. I should have bought a present for your daughter’s birthday.”

“Aren’t I bringing her the best gift of all when I walk in with you on my arm, Katie Scarlett?”

He does have a twinkle in his eye, just like Pa, Scarlett told herself. And Pa’s teasing brogue. If only he wasn’t wearing a Derby hat! Nobody wears Derby hats.

“We’ll be walking past your grandfather’s house,” Jamie said, striking horror to Scarlett’s heart. What if her aunts saw them—suppose she had to introduce them? They always thought Mother married beneath her; Jamie would be all the proof they could ever want. What was he saying? She had to pay attention.

“. . . leave off your servant-girl there. She’d feel out-of-place with us. We don’t have any servants.”

No servants? Good Lord! Everybody has servants, everybody! What kind of place do they live in, a tenement? Scarlett squared her jaw. This is Pa’s own brother’s son, and Uncle James is Pa’s own brother. I won’t disgrace his memory by being too cowardly to take a cup of tea with them, even if there are rats running across the floor. “Pansy,” she said, “when we get to the house, you go on in. I’ll be back directly, you tell them . . . You will walk me home, won’t you, Jamie?” She was brave enough to face a rat running across her foot, but she wasn’t willing to ruin her reputation for all time by walking alone on the street. Ladies just didn’t do that.


To Scarlett’s relief they walked along the street behind her grandfather’s house, not by the square in front of it where her aunts liked to promenade under the trees for their “constitutionals.” Pansy went willingly through the gate into the garden, already yawning anticipation of going back to sleep. Scarlett tried not to look anxious. She’d heard Jerome complaining to her aunts about the deterioration of the neighborhood. Only a few blocks to the east the fine old homes had degenerated into ramshackle boardinghouses for the sailors who manned the ships in and out of Savannah’s busy port. And for the waves of immigrants who arrived on some of the ships. Most of them, according to the snobbish, elegant old black man, were unwashed Irish.

James escorted her straight ahead, and she sighed silently with relief. Then, very soon, he turned onto the handsome, well-kept avenue called South Broad and announced, “Here we are,” in front of a tall, substantial brick house.

“How nice!” Scarlett said, with all her heart.

It was almost the last thing she got to say for some time. Instead of climbing the stairs to the big door on the high stoop, Jamie opened a smaller door at street level and ushered her into the kitchen and an overwhelming onslaught of people, all of them redheaded and all of them noisily welcoming when he shouted out above the hubbub of greetings, “This is Scarlett, my uncle Gerald O’Hara’s beautiful daughter come all the way from Atlanta to see Uncle James.”

There are so many of them, Scarlett thought when they rushed toward her. Jamie’s laughter when the youngest girl and a little boy grabbed him around the knees made it impossible to understand what he was saying.

Then a large stout woman, with hair redder than any of them, held out a roughened hand to Scarlett. “Welcome to the house,” she said placidly. “I’m Jamie’s wife, Maureen. Pay no attention to these savages; come sit by the fire and have a cup of tea.” She took Scarlett’s arm in a firm grip and drew her into the room. “Quiet, you heathens, let your Pa catch his breath, can’t you? Then wash your faces and come meet Scarlett one by one.” She plucked Scarlett’s fur cape from her shoulders. “Put this in a safe place, Mary Kate, else the baby will think it’s a kitten to pull the tail on, so soft is it.” The larger of the girls bobbed a curtsey in Scarlett’s direction and held out eager hands for the fur. Her blue eyes were huge with admiration. Scarlett smiled at her. And at Maureen, even though Jamie’s wife was pushing her down onto a Windsor chair as if she thought Scarlett was one of her children to be ordered around.

In an instant Scarlett found herself holding the biggest cup she had ever seen in one hand while, with the other, she was shaking hands with a startlingly beautiful young girl who whispered, “She looks like a princess,” to her mother, and, “I’m Helen,” to Scarlett.

“You should touch the furs, Helen,” said Mary Kate importantly.

“Is Helen the guest here, then, that you’re addressing yourself to her?” Maureen said. “What a disgrace for a mother to have such an eejit child.” Her voice was warm with affection and suppressed laughter.

Mary Kate’s cheeks stained with embarrassment. She curtseyed again and held out her hand. “Cousin Scarlett, I ask your pardon. I forgot myself in looking at your elegances. I’m Mary Kate, and it’s proud I am to be cousin to such a grand lady.”

Scarlett wanted to say no pardon was needed, but she had no chance. Jamie had taken off his hat and his suit coat and unbuttoned his vest. Under his right arm he was holding a child, a kicking, squealing, chubby, redheaded bundle of delighted struggle. “And this little devil is Sean, named John like a good American boy because he was born right here in Savannah. We call him Jacky. Say hello to your cousin, Jacky, if you’ve got a tongue in your head.”

“Hello!” shouted the little boy, then shrieked with excitement when his father turned him upside down.

“What’s all this now?” The noise, except for Jacky’s giggles, died down at once when the thin querulous tones cut through the racket. Scarlett looked across the kitchen and saw a tall old man who must be her Uncle James. There was a pretty girl with dark curly hair at his side. She looked alarmed and timid.

“Jacky woke Uncle James from his rest,” she said. “Is he hurt, then, to be howling so and to bring Jamie home early?”