“I'm your man,”said Johnnie shortly.“I'll tell Mr.Wellburn I'm leaving him.”
As he rolled off through the crowd of masons and carpenters and hod carriers Scarlett felt relieved and her spirits rose.Johnnie was indeed her man.He was tough and hard and there was no nonsense about him.“Shanty Irish on the make,”Frank had contemptuously called him,but for that very reason Scarlett valued him.She knew that an Irishman with a determination to get somewhere was a valuable man to have,regardless of what his personal characteristics might be.And she felt a closer kinship with him than with many men of her own class,for Johnnie knew the value of money.
The first week he took over the mill he justified all her hopes,for he accomplished more with five convicts than Hugh had ever done with his crew of ten free negroes.More than that,he gave Scarlett greater leisure than she had had since she came to Atlanta the year before,because he had no liking for her presence at the mill and said so frankly.
“You tend to your end of selling and let me tend to my end of lumbering,”he said shortly.“A convict camp ain't any place for a lady and if nobody else'll tell you so,Johnnie Gallegher's telling you now.I'm delivering your lumber,ain't I?Well,I've got no notion to be pestered every day like Mr.Wilkes.He needs pestering.I don't.”
So Scarlett reluctantly stayed away from Johnnie's mill,fearing that if she came too often he might quit and that would be ruinous.His remark that Ashley needed pestering stung her,for there was more truth in it than she liked to admit.Ashley was doing little better with convicts than he had done with free labor,although why,he was unable to tell.Moreover,he looked as if he were ashamed to be working convicts and he had little to say to her these days.
Scarlett was worried by the change that was coming over him.There were gray hairs in his bright head now and a tired slump in his shoulders.And he seldom smiled.He no longer looked the debonair Ashley who had caught her fancy so many years before.He looked like a man secretly gnawed by a scarcely endurable pain and there was a grim look about his mouth that baffled and hurt her.She wanted to drag his head fiercely down on her shoulder,stroke the graying hair and cry:“Tell me what's worrying you!I'll fix it!I'll make it right for you!”
But his formal,remote air kept her at arm's length.
Chapter 43
It was one of those rare December days when the sun was almost as warm as Indian summer.Dry red leaves still clung to the oak in Aunt Pitty's yard and a faint yellow green still persisted in the dying grass.Scarlett,with the baby in her arms,stepped out onto the side porch and sat down in a rocking chair in a patch of sunshine.She was wearing a new green challis dress trimmed with yards and yards of black rickrack braid and a new lace house cap which Aunt Pitty had made for her.Both were very becoming to her and she knew it and took great pleasure in them.How good it was to look pretty again after the long months of looking so dreadful!
As she sat rocking the baby and humming to herself,she heard the sound of hooves coming up the side street and,peering curiously through the tangle of dead vines on the porch,she saw Rhett Butler riding toward the house.
He had been away from Atlanta for months,since just after Gerald died,since long before Ella Lorena was born.She had missed him but she now wished ardently that there was some way to avoid seeing him.In fact,the sight of his dark face brought a feeling of guilty panic to her breast.A matter in which Ashley was concerned lay on her conscience and she did not wish to discuss it with Rhett,but she knew he would force the discussion,no matter how disinclined she might be.
He drew up at the gate and swung lightly to the ground and she thought,staring nervously at him,that he looked just like an illustration in a book Wade was always pestering her to read aloud.
“All he needs is earrings and a cutlass between his teeth,”she thought.“Well,pirate or no,he's not going to cut my throat today if I can help it.”
As he came up the walk she called a greeting to him,summoning her sweetest smile.How lucky that she had on her new dress and the becoming cap and looked so pretty!As his eyes went swiftly over her,she knew he thought her pretty,too.
“A new baby!Why,Scarlett,this is a surprise!”he laughed,leaning down to push the blanket away from Ella Lorena's small ugly face.
“Don't be silly,”she said,blushing.“How are you,Rhett?You've been away a long time.”
“So I have.Let me hold the baby,Scarlett.Oh,I know how to hold babies.I have many strange accomplishments.Well,he certainly looks like Frank.All except the whiskers,but give him time.”
“I hope not.It's a girl.”
“A girl?That's better still.Boys are such nuisances.Don't ever have any more boys,Scarlett.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to reply tartly that she never intended to have any more babies,boys or girls,but she caught herself in time and smiled,casting about quickly in her mind for some topic of conversation that would put off the bad moment when the subject she feared would come up for discussion.
“Did you have a nice trip,Rhett?Where did you go this time?”
“Oh—Cuba—New Orleans—other places.Here,Scarlett,take the baby.She's beginning to slobber and I can't get to my handkerchief.She's a fine baby,I'm sure,but she's wetting my shirt bosom.”
She took the child back into her lap and Rhett settled himself lazily on the banister and took a cigar from a silver case.
“You are always going to New Orleans,”she said and pouted a little.“And you never will tell me what you do there.”
“I am a hard-working man,Scarlett,and perhaps my business takes me there.”
“Hard-working!You!”she laughed impertinently.“You never worked in your life.You're too lazy.All you ever do is finance Carpetbaggers in their thieving and take half the profits and bribe Yankee officials to let you in on schemes to rob us taxpayers.”
He threw back his head and laughed.