Gone with the Wind (136 page)

Some mornings he dismissed the maid and brought her the breakfast tray himself and fed her as though she were a child, took the hairbrush from her hand and brushed her long dark hair until it snapped and crackled. Yet other mornings she was torn rudely out of deep slumber when he snatched all the bed covers from her and tickled her bare feet. Sometimes he listened with dignified interest to details of her businesses, nodding approval at her sagacity, and at other times he called her somewhat dubious tradings scavenging, highway robbery and extortion. He took her to plays and annoyed her by whispering that God probably didn't approve of such amusements, and to churches and, sotto voce, retailed funny obscenities and then reproved her for laughing. He encouraged her to speak her mind, to be flippant and daring. She picked up from him the gift of stinging words and sardonic phrases and learned to relish using them for the power they gave her over other people. But she did not possess his sense of humor which tempered his malice,
nor his smile that jeered at himself even while he was jeering others.

He made her play and she had almost forgotten how. Life had been so serious and so bitter. He knew how to play and swept her along with him. But he never played like a boy; he was a man and no matter what he did, she could never forget it. She could not look down on him from the heights of womanly superiority, smiling as women have always smiled at the antics of men who are boys at heart.

This annoyed her a little, whenever she thought of it. It would be pleasant to feel superior to Rhett. All the other men she had known she could dismiss with a half-contemptuous “What a child!” Her father, the Tarleton twins with their love of teasing and their elaborate practical jokes, the hairy little Fontaines with their childish rages, Charles, Frank, all the men who had paid court to her during the war—everyone, in fact, except Ashley. Only Ashley and Rhett eluded her understanding and her control for they were both adults, and the elements of boyishness were lacking in them.

She did not understand Rhett, nor did she trouble to understand him, though there were things about him which occasionally puzzled her. There was the way he looked at her sometimes, when he thought she was unaware. Turning quickly she frequently caught him watching her, an alert, eager, waiting look in his eyes.

“Why do you look at me like that?” she once asked irritably. “Like a cat at a mouse hole!”

But his face had changed swiftly and he only laughed. Soon she forgot it and did not puzzle her head about it any more, or about anything concerning Rhett. He was
too unpredictable to bother about and life was very pleasant—except when she thought of Ashley.

Rhett kept her too busy to think of Ashley often. Ashley was hardly ever in her thoughts during the day but at night when she was tired from dancing or her head was spinning from too much champagne—then she thought of Ashley. Frequently when she lay drowsily in Rhett's arms with the moonlight streaming over the bed, she thought how perfect life would be if it were only Ashley's arms which held her so closely, if it were only Ashley who drew her black hair across his face and wrapped it about his throat.

Once when she was thinking this, she sighed and turned her head toward the window, and after a moment she felt the heavy arm beneath her neck become like iron, and Rhett's voice spoke in the stillness: “May God damn your cheating little soul to hell for all eternity!”

And, getting up, he put on his clothes and left the room despite her startled protests and questions. He reappeared the next morning as she was breakfasting in her room, disheveled, quite drunk and in his worst sarcastic mood, and neither made excuses nor gave an account of his absence.

Scarlett asked no questions and was quite cool to him, as became an injured wife, and when she had finished the meal, she dressed under his bloodshot gaze and went shopping. He was gone when she returned and did not appear again until time for supper.

It was a silent meal and Scarlett's temper was straining because it was her last supper in New Orleans and she wanted to do justice to the crawfish. And she could not enjoy it under his gaze. Nevertheless she ate a large one, and drank a quantity of champagne. Perhaps
it was this combination that brought back her old nightmare that evening, for she awoke, cold with sweat, sobbing brokenly. She was back at Tara again and Tara was desolate. Mother was dead and with her all the strength and wisdom of the world. Nowhere in the world was there anyone to turn to, anyone to rely upon. And something terrifying was pursuing her and she was running, running till her heart was bursting, running in a thick swimming fog, crying out blindly seeking that nameless, unknown haven of safety that was somewhere in the mist about her.

Rhett was leaning over her when she woke, and without a word he picked her up in his arms like a child and held her close, his hard muscles comforting, his wordless murmuring soothing, until her sobbing ceased.

“Oh, Rhett, I was so cold and so hungry and so tired and I couldn't find it. I ran through the mist and I ran but I couldn't find it.”

“Find what, honey?”

“I don't know. I wish I did know.”

“Is it your old dream?”

“Oh, yes!”

He gently placed her on the bed, fumbled in the darkness and lit a candle. In the light his face with bloodshot eyes and harsh lines was as unreadable as stone. His shirt, opened to the waist, showed a brown chest covered with thick black hair. Scarlett, still shaking with fright, thought how strong and unyielding that chest was, and she whispered: “Hold me, Rhett.”

“Darling!” he said swiftly, and picking her up he sat down in a large chair, cradling her body against him.

“Oh, Rhett, it's awful to be hungry.”

“It must be awful to dream of starvation after a seven-course
dinner including that enormous crawfish.” He smiled but his eyes were kind.

“Oh, Rhett, I just run and run and hunt and I can't ever find what it is I'm hunting for. It's always hidden in the mist. I know if I could find it, I'd be safe for ever and ever and never be cold or hungry again.”

“Is it a person or a thing you're hunting?”

“I don't know. I never thought about it. Rhett, do you think I'll ever dream that I get there to safety?”

“No,” he said, smoothing her hair, “I don't. Dreams aren't like that. But I do think that if you get used to being safe and warm and well fed in your everyday life, you'll stop dreaming that dream. And, Scarlett, I'm going to see that you are safe.”

“Rhett, you are so nice.”

“Thanks for the crumbs from your table, Mrs. Dives. Scarlett, I want you to say to yourself every morning when you wake up: ‘I can't ever be hungry again and nothing can ever touch me so long as Rhett is here and the United States government holds out.'”

“The United States government?” she questioned, sitting up, startled, tears still on her cheeks.

“The ex-Confederate money has now become an honest woman. I invested most of it in government bonds.”

“God's nightgown!” cried Scarlett, sitting up in his lap, forgetful of her recent terror. “Do you mean to tell me you've loaned your money to the Yankees?”

“At a fair per cent.”

“I don't care if it's a hundred per cent! You must sell them immediately. The idea of letting the Yankees have the use of your money!”

“And what must I do with it?” he questioned with a smile, noting that her eyes were no longer wide with fright.

“Why—why buy property at Five Points. I'll bet you could buy all of Five Points with the money you have.”

“Thank you, but I wouldn't have Five Points. Now that the Carpetbagger government has really gotten control of Georgia, there's no telling what may happen. I wouldn't put anything beyond the swarm of buzzards that's swooping down on Georgia now from north, east, south and west. I'm playing along with them, you understand, as a good Scallawag should do, but I don't trust them. And I'm not putting my money in real estate. I prefer bonds. You can hide them. You can't hide real estate very easily.”

“Do you think—” she began, paling as she thought of the mills and the store.

“I don't know. But don't look so frightened, Scarlett. Our charming new governor is a good friend of mine. It's just that times are too uncertain now and I don't want much of my money tied up in real estate.”

He shifted her to one knee and, leaning back, reached for a cigar and lit it. She sat with her bare feet dangling, watching the play of muscles on his brown chest, her terrors forgotten.

“And while we are on the subject of real estate, Scarlett,” he said, “I am going to build a house. You might have bullied Frank into living in Miss Pitty's house, but not me. I don't believe I could bear her vaporings three times a day and, moreover, I believe Uncle Peter would assassinate me before he would let me live under the sacred Hamilton roof. Miss Pitty can get Miss India Wilkes to stay with her and keep the bogyman away. When we get back to Atlanta we are going to stay in the bridal suite of the National Hotel until our house is finished. Before we left Atlanta I was dickering for that big lot on
Peachtree, the one near the Leyden house. You know the one I mean?”

“Oh, Rhett, how lovely! I do so want a house of my own. A great big one.”

“Then at last we are agreed on something. What about a white stucco with wrought-iron work like these Creole houses here?”

“Oh, no, Rhett. Not anything old fashioned like these New Orleans houses. I know just what I want. It's the newest thing because I saw a picture of it in—let me see—it was in that
Harper's Weekly
I was looking at. It was modeled after a Swiss chalet.”

“A Swiss what?”

“A chalet.”

“Spell it.”

She complied.

“Oh,” he said and stroked his mustache.

“It was lovely. It had a high mansard roof with a picket fence on the top and a tower made of fancy shingles at each end. And the towers had windows with red and blue glass in them. It was so stylish looking.”

“I suppose it had jigsaw work on the porch banisters?”

“Yes.”

“And a fringe of wooden scrollwork hanging from the roof of the porch?”

“Yes. You must have seen one like it.”

“I have—but not in Switzerland. The Swiss are a very intelligent race and keenly alive to architectural beauty. Do you really want a house like that?”

“Oh, yes!”

“I had hoped that association with me might improve your taste. Why not a Creole house or a Colonial with six white columns?”

“I tell you I don't want anything tacky and old-fashioned looking. And inside let's have red wall paper and red velvet portieres over all the folding doors and oh, lots of expensive walnut furniture and grand thick carpets and—oh, Rhett, everybody will be pea green when they see our house!”

“It is very necessary that everyone shall be envious? Well, if you like they shall be green. But, Scarlett, has it occurred to you that it's hardly in good taste to furnish the house on so lavish a scale when everyone is so poor?”

“I want it that way,” she said obstinately. “I want to make everybody who's been mean to me feel bad. And we'll give big receptions that'll make the whole town wish they hadn't said such nasty things.”

“But who will come to our receptions?”

“Why, everybody, of course.”

“I doubt it. The Old Guard dies but it never surrenders.”

“Oh, Rhett, how you run on! If you've got money, people always like you.”

“Not Southerners. It's harder for speculators' money to get into the best parlors than for the camel to go through the needle's eye. And as for Scallawags—that's you and me, my pet—we'll be lucky if we aren't spit upon. But if you'd like to try, I'll back you, my dear, and I'm sure I shall enjoy your campaign intensely. You can have all the cash you want for the house and all you want for your fal-lals. And if you like jewelry, you can have it but I'm going to pick it out. You have such execrable taste, my pet. And anything you want for Wade or Ella. And if Will Benteen can't make a go of the cotton, I'm willing to chip in and help out on that white elephant
in Clayton County that you love so much. That's fair enough, isn't it?”

“Of course. You're very generous.”

“But listen closely. Not one cent for the store and not one cent for that kindling factory of yours.”

“Oh,” said Scarlett, her face falling. All during the honeymoon she had been thinking how she could bring up the subject of the thousand dollars she needed to buy fifty feet more of land to enlarge her lumber yard.

“I thought you always bragged about being broad minded and not caring what people said about my running a business, and you're just like every other man—so afraid people will say I wear the pants in the family.”

“There's never going to be any doubt in anybody's mind about who wears the pants in the Butler family,” drawled Rhett. “I don't care what fools say. In fact, I'm ill bred enough to be proud of having a smart wife. I want you to keep on running the store and the mills. They are your children's. When Wade grows up he won't feel right about being supported by his stepfather, and then he can take over the management. But not one cent of mine goes into either business.”

“Why?”

“Because I don't care to contribute to the support of Ashley Wilkes.”

“Are you going to begin that again?”

“No. But you asked my reasons and I have given them. And another thing. Don't think you can juggle books on me and lie about how much your clothes cost and how much it takes to run the house, so that you can use the money to buy more mules or another mill for Ashley. I intend to look over and carefully check your expenditures and I know what things cost. Oh, don't get
insulted. You'd do it. I wouldn't put it beyond you. In fact, I wouldn't put anything beyond you where either Tara or Ashley is concerned. I don't mind Tara. But I must draw the line at Ashley. I'm riding you with a slack rein, my pet, but don't forget that I'm riding with curb and spurs just the same.”