Tomorrow is Another Day
Gone with the Wind was published in 1936. In the years that followed, it swept the world. Copies flew from the shelves. A film was released in 1939 starring Vivian Leigh and Clark Gable. It dazzled.
A year later, Susan and Lucy Pevensie went into town with the pocket money that Mrs. Macready had given them for candy or hair ribbons. (Professor Kirke had grown strangely indulgent towards the four children in recent weeks, so naturally his staff followed suit.) But instead of buying trinkets, the two girls pooled their money and came home with a paperback copy of Gone with the Wind. Something to get their mind off the past, Susan said when they passed Betty in the entry way.
Lucy read it first, voraciously. Twice, she was nearly caught reading it under the dinner table. Another time, she flouted her bedtime in order to stay up and finish a particularly engrossing section. After she finished it, Peter found her in tears in the Wardrobe Room. It took nearly five minutes for him to realize that she had simply gone in there to read, and that she was crying over Scarlett O’Hara rather than Narnia.
(“Oh Peter, I did so hope!”
“I know Lu, I know.”
“And even now, everything might still be alright in the end. But so much lost time!”
“I know it hurts. But here now, I thought we were all doing better? How about that book of yours?”)
She passed it off to Susan that night, careful not to give anything away. Susan read rather more slowly. She slogged through the first several chapters, until the Twelve Oaks barbeque. After that, she was hooked, but she still read slowly in order to savor the story. Several times, she shut the book abruptly and put it aside for days at a time, letting the story percolate in her mind.
“Did you like it?” Lucy asked when Susan had finished. She sat down beside her sister on the window seat and handed her a cup of tea.
“Yes,” said Susan, “and no. It was a complicated sort of story, don’t you think? The people were complicated.”
Lucy nodded. “Melly reminded me of you. How you used to be, I mean. Susan the Gentle; a great lady.”
“Not as naïve as Melanie, I hope,” Susan said pleasantly.
“Oh, I don’t think Melly was naïve. She gave people the benefit of the doubt, like you always did.”
Now Susan’s brow furrowed. She took a sip of her tea, then said, “I don’t think I would have stood by Scarlett all those years without ever realizing that she was after Ashley. Surely I was a better judge of character than that.”
“I don’t know,” said Lucy, “remember Rabadash?”
Susan objected strenuously to this characterization. “It didn’t take me ten years to understand his game! I knew he was a brute once I’d been in Calormen all of a week!”
“True,” Lucy said, “but then, Scarlett was no Rabadash.”
“But Ashley was dreadful too! And Melanie never realized that either.”
Lucy was losing ground. She drank her cup to the dregs, giving herself time to formulate a response.
“It’s like Rhett said. Melly was the only real great lady in the book. She was all heart.”
Susan’s nose wrinkled. “That wasn’t a compliment when Rhett said it.”
“I don’t think it was an insult. She wasn’t tough like Scarlett, but she was principled. Good and kind and gracious. She had a gift for hospitality. People looked up to her.”
Susan still wasn’t convinced, so Lucy made a final attempt. “I don’t mean to say that you’re only like Melly. I can’t imagine her as much of an archer, for example, or winning swimming trophies. But I can imagine you sacrificing your wedding ring if it was all you had to give (to a better cause, I would say—but that’s beside the point). And I can imagine you standing up for Scarlett the way Melly did, gracious and poised but quietly unyielding.”
“Alright, alright, I understand.” Susan was thoughtful. “And I suppose I’m flattered by the comparison in a way. Melly’s greatest flaw was that she was too loyal, too forgiving maybe. There are much worse flaws to have.”
.
Susan rolled over in her bed and looked over at the still form of her sister in the other bed. “Lucy? Are you awake?” she whispered.
“I’m awake,” came Lucy’s voice a moment later.
“I’ve been thinking—” Susan began, then hesitantly said, “you know, Scarlett reminded me a little—a very little—of you. Scarlett at her best, I mean. Her courage.”
“Lucy the Valiant,” replied Lucy with a little laugh. “But Scarlett was so selfish! And she was beastly to Melly and her sisters. To all the men she married. She took Rhett for granted until it was too late. I don’t think courage makes up for all that.”
“Scarlett was strong,” replied Susan slowly. “No matter what came against her, she didn’t ever break. And she was a pillar of strength to the people around her, even if they never realized it.”
“But that doesn’t begin to justify—”
“No, of course not.” Susan had known that Lucy wouldn’t appreciate the comparison, but she wanted to make her point. “But it’s not about justifying. Someone has got to be the strong one. Someone has to gather up the courage and pass it off to everyone else. Most of us don’t know how, not intuitively. But Scarlett did. And so do you.”
“Oh Su, I don’t know about that.”
“I do.” Susan drew herself up on her elbow and looked squarely in Lucy’s eyes. “Peter drew his courage from you. You know that. I drew my faith, Edmund his confidence. You’re a well of strength, Lucy Pevensie, whether you realize it or not. You're brave and you're stubborn and you've got teeth like a lion. We followed you into Narnia, and once they’d put crowns on our heads we never really stopped.”
“Peter was High King. And Aslan. I followed Aslan,” Lucy protested.
“I know. I thought about Peter too. A few more days to tote the weary load… But when Scarlett collapsed on her bed, thinking of all the people who’d come before her… When she vowed before God not to let herself be beaten…Each time she looked hardship in the face and said 'tomorrow is another day'... Lucy, that was all you.”
.
“You wish you were more like Scarlett,” Lucy realized a few days later.
Susan looked down at her breakfast. “Maybe I do,” she said. “Maybe I wish—sometimes, I think I’m all air. Like one day, I might just float away. Especially now: I feel fragile. Transient. Like I don’t have enough courage or faith to hold my own self up, never mind anyone else. I think I’d be willing to be a little less good and kind if I could have a bit of Scarlett’s strength.”
“Well, that isn’t true. You're in no danger of floating away, Su.” Lucy put her hand on Susan’s and squeezed it. “You know, Melanie was strong in her own way. She supported Scarlett as much as Scarlett supported her. And she did it with poise and with kindness, unlike Scarlett.”
“Melanie would have died if Scarlett hadn’t delivered her baby or gotten her out of Atlanta. Fed her, taken care of her after the war. Provided for her…”
“Yes,” said Lucy, “and if Melly hadn’t stood by Scarlett through all of it, she’d have been an outcast. And she’d have been awfully lonely too.”
“Do you really think that having Melanie around made Scarlett less lonely?”
“I do.” Lucy polished off her tea, then licked around the rim of the cup to get the last bit of sugar off. She speared a sausage.
“More importantly, I think they were both better people for it. What is it Mr. Beaver would say? ‘Strength without kindness is cruelty; kindness without strength is foolishness.’ They made each other better.”
Susan nodded, pondering. “Scarlett never would have gone out wandering before dawn just to see the hills at sunrise.”
“And Melanie never would have picked up a shovel and spent four days digging after that dwarven mine collapse.”
“You’re right, of course. In more ways than one. We need each other, Lucy; now more than ever.”
Lucy grinned. “You be the gracious lady,” she said.
Susan laughed in response. “And you be the stubborn fighter. So long as we don’t fall in love with the same man, I think we’ll be okay.”
“Yes,” said Lucy. “We’ll be okay. After all, tomorrow is another day.”
