Gone with the wind

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.

"And how you would love to have money enough to bribe officials, so you could do likewise!"

"The very idea—" She began to ruffle.

"But perhaps you will make enough money to get into bribery on a large scale some day. Maybe you'll get rich off those convicts you leased."

"Oh," she said, a little disconcerted, "how did you find out about my gang so soon?"

"I arrived last night and spent the evening in the Girl of the Period Saloon, where one hears all the news of the town. It's a clearing house for gossip. Better than a ladies' sewing circle. Everyone told me that you'd leased a gang and put that little plug- ugly, Gallegher, in charge to work them to death."

"That's a lie," she said angrily. "He won't work them to death. I'll see to that."

"Will you?"

"Of course I will! How can you even insinuate such things?"

"Oh, I do beg your pardon, Mrs. Kennedy! I know your motives are always above reproach. However, Johnnie Gallegher is a cold little bully if I ever saw one. Better watch him or you'll be having trouble when the inspector comes around."

"You tend to your business and I'll tend to mine," she said indignantly. "And I don't want to talk about convicts any more. Everybody's been hateful about them. My gang is my own business— And you haven't told me yet what you do in New Orleans. You go there so often that everybody says—" She paused. She had not intended to say so much.

"What do they say?"

"Well—that you have a sweetheart there. That you are going to get married. Are you, Rhett?"

She had been curious about this for so long that she could not refrain from asking the point-blank question. A queer little pang of jealousy jabbed at her at the thought of Rhett getting married, although why that should be she did not know.

His bland eyes grew suddenly alert and he caught her gaze and held it until a little blush crept up into her cheeks.

"Would it matter much to you?"

"Well, I should hate to lose your friendship," she said primly and, with an attempt at disinterestedness, bent down to pull the blanket closer about Ella Lorena's head.

He laughed suddenly, shortly, and said: "Look at me, Scarlett."

She looked up unwillingly, her blush deepening.

"You can tell your curious friends that when I marry it will be because I couldn't get the woman I wanted in any other way. And I've never yet wanted a woman bad enough to marry her."

Now she was indeed confused and embarrassed, for she remembered the night on this very porch during the siege when he had said: "I am not a marrying man" and casually suggested that she become his mistress—remembered, too, the terrible day when he was in jail and was shamed by the memory. A slow malicious smile went over his face as he read her eyes.

"But I will satisfy your vulgar curiosity since you ask such pointed questions. It isn't a sweetheart that takes me to New Orleans. It's a child, a little boy."

"A little boy!" The shock of this unexpected information wiped out her confusion.

"Yes, he is my legal ward and I am responsible for him. He's in school in New Orleans. I go there frequently to see him."

"And take him presents?" So, she thought, that's how he always knows what kind of presents Wade likes!

"Yes," he said shortly, unwillingly.

"Well, I never! Is he handsome?"

"Too handsome for his own good."

"Is he a nice little boy?"

"No. He's a perfect hellion. I wish he had never been born. Boys are troublesome creatures. Is there anything else you'd like to know?"

He looked suddenly angry and his brow was dark, as though he already regretted speaking of the matter at all.

"Well, not if you don't want to tell me any more," she said loftily, though she was burning for further information. "But I just can't see you in the role of a guardian," and she laughed, hoping to disconcert him.

"No, I don't suppose you can. Your vision is pretty limited."

He said no more and smoked his cigar in silence for a while. She cast about for some remark as rude as his but could think of none.

"I would appreciate it if you'd say nothing of this to anyone," he said finally. "Though I suppose that asking a woman to keep her mouth shut is asking the impossible."

"I can keep a secret," she said with injured dignity.

"Can you? It's nice to learn unsuspected things about friends. Now, stop pouting, Scarlett. I'm sorry I was rude but you deserved it for prying. Give me a smile and let's be pleasant for a minute or two before I take up an unpleasant subject."

Oh, dear! she thought. Now, he's going to talk about Ashley and the mill! and she hastened to smile and show her dimple to divert him. "Where else did you go, Rhett? You haven't been in New Orleans all this time, have you?"

"No, for the last month I've been in Charleston. My father died."