Scarlett (29 page)

She settled herself obediently on a cushioned bench in the small cabin, but as soon as Rhett stepped up on deck she jumped up to examine the intricate arrangement of cupboards, shelves, supplies and equipment, each thing in a place obviously designed for its storage. She was still busily satisfying her curiosity as the sloop moved slowly along the riverbank for a short distance and then tied up again. Rhett called out crisp orders. “Pass those bundles over and tie them down on the bow.” Scarlett poked her head up from the hatch to see what was going on.

Gracious peace, what was all this? Dozens of black men were leaning on picks and shovels and watching as a series of bulky sacks were thrown to a crewman on the sloop. Where on earth could they be? This place looked like the back side of the moon. There was a huge clearing in the woods with a big pit dug in it and gigantic piles of what looked like pale chunks of rock on one side. Chalky dust filled the air and, soon, her nostrils, and she sneezed.

Pansy’s echoing sneeze from the rear deck caught her attention. No fair, she thought. Pansy had a good view of everything. “I’m coming up,” Scarlett shouted.

“Cast off,” Rhett said at the same time.

The sloop moved quickly, caught by the fast river current, sending Scarlett tumbling down from the short ladder-stair into a graceless sprawl in the cabin. “Damn you, Rhett Butler, I could have broken my neck.”

“You didn’t. Stay put. I’ll be down shortly.”

Scarlett heard the creaking of ropes, and the sloop picked up speed. She scrambled to one of the benches and pulled herself up.

Almost immediately Rhett stepped easily down the ladder, his head bent to clear the hatch. He straightened up, and his head grazed the polished wood above it. Scarlett glared at him.

“You did that on purpose,” she grumbled.

“Did what?” He opened one of the small portholes and closed the hatch. “Good,” he said then, “we’ve got a following wind and a strong current. We’ll be in the city in record time.” He dropped onto the bench opposite Scarlett and lounged back, sleek and sinuous as a cat. “I assume you won’t object if I smoke.” His long fingers dipped into the interior pocket of his coat and extracted a cheroot.

“I object a lot. Why am I shut up down here in the dark? I want to go upstairs in the sun.”

“Above,” Rhett corrected automatically. “This is a rather small craft. The crew is black, Pansy is black, you are white and a woman. They get the cockpit, you get the cabin. Pansy can roll her eyes at the two men, laugh at their somewhat indelicate gallantries, and they’ll all three have a pleasant time. Your presence would spoil it.

“So at the same time that the underclass is enjoying the journey, you and I, the privileged élite, will be thoroughly miserable cooped up in each other’s company while you continue to pout and whine.”

“I’m not pouting and whining! And I’ll thank you not to talk to me as if I was a child!” Scarlett pulled in her lower lip. She hated it when Rhett made her feel foolish. “What was that quarry we stopped at?”

“That, my dear, was the salvation of Charleston and my passport back into the bosom of my people. It is a phosphate mine. There are dozens of them scattered along both rivers.” He lit his cigar with prolonged appreciation and the smoke spiraled upward to the porthole. “I see your eyes gleaming, Scarlett. It’s not the same as a gold mine. You can’t make coins or jewelry out of phosphate. But, ground and washed and treated with certain chemicals, it makes the best quick-acting fertilizer in the world. There are customers waiting for as much of it as we can produce.”

“So you’re getting richer than ever.”

“Yes, I am. But, more to the point, this is respectable, Charleston money. I can spend as much of my ill-gotten, speculator profit as I like now without disapproval. Everyone can tell themselves that it comes from phosphates, even though the mine is puny in size.”

“Why don’t you make it bigger?”

“I don’t have to. It serves my purpose just as it is. I have a foreman who doesn’t cheat me much, a couple of dozen laborers who work almost as much as they loaf, and respectability. I can spend my time and money and sweat on what I care about, and right now, that’s restoring the gardens.”

Scarlett was annoyed almost past bearing. Wasn’t that just like Rhett to fall into a tub of butter? And to waste the chance? No matter how rich he was, he could stand to get richer. There was no such thing as too much money. Why, if he took over from the foreman and got a decent day’s work out of those men, he could triple the yield. With another couple of dozen laborers, he could double that…

“Forgive me for interrupting your empire building, Scarlett, but I have a serious question to ask you. What would it take to convince you that you should leave me in peace and go back to Atlanta?”

Scarlett gaped at him. She was genuinely astonished. He couldn’t possibly mean what he was saying, not after he had held her so tenderly last night. “You’re joking,” she accused.

“No, I am not. I’ve never been more serious in my life, and I want you to take me seriously. It has never been my habit to explain to anyone what I’m doing or what I’m thinking; nor do I have any real confidence that you will understand what I’m going to tell you. But I’m going to try.

“I am working harder than I’ve ever had to work in my life, Scarlett. I burned my bridges in Charleston so thoroughly and so publicly that the stench of the destruction is still in the nostrils of everyone in town. It’s immeasurably stronger than the worst Sherman could do, because I was one of their own, and I defied everything they built their lives on. Winning my way back into Charleston’s good graces is like climbing an ice-covered mountain in the dark. One slip, and I’m dead. So far I’ve been very cautious and very slow, and I’ve made some small headway. I can’t take the risk of your destroying all I’ve done. I want you to leave, and I’m asking your price.”

Scarlett laughed with relief. “Is that all? You can set your mind at rest if that’s what’s worrying you. Why, everybody in Charleston just loves me. I’m rushed off my feet with invitations to this and that, and not a day goes by that somebody doesn’t come up to me in the Market and ask my advice about her shopping.”

Rhett drew on his cigar. Then he watched the bright end of it cool and become ash. “I was afraid I’d be wasting my breath,” he said at last. “I was right. I’ll admit you’ve lasted longer and been more restrained than I expected—oh, yes, I hear some news from town when I’m on the plantation—but you’re like a powder keg lashed to my back on that ice-mountain, Scarlett. You’re dead weight—unlettered, uncivilized, Catholic, and an exile from everything decent in Atlanta. You could blow up in my face any minute. I want you gone. What will it take?”

Scarlett seized on the only accusation she could defend. “I’d be grateful if you’d tell me what’s wrong with being a Catholic, Rhett Butler! We were God-fearing long before you Episcopalians were ever heard of.”

Rhett’s sudden laughter made no sense to her. “
Pax
, Henry Tudor,” he said, which made no sense either. But his next words struck to the bone with their accuracy. “We won’t waste time debating theology, Scarlett. The fact is—and you know it as well as I do—that, for no defensible reason, Roman Catholics are looked down on in Southern society. In Charleston today you can attend Saint Phillip’s or Saint Michael’s or the Huguenot church or First Scots Presbyterian. Even the other Episcopal and Presbyterian churches are slightly suspect, and any other Protestant denomination is considered rank individualistic display. Roman Catholicism is beyond the pale. It’s not reasonable, and God knows it’s not Christian, but it is a fact.”

Scarlett was silent. She knew he was right. Rhett used her momentary defeat to repeat his original question. “What do you want, Scarlett? You can tell me. I’ve never been shocked at the darker corners of your nature.”

He really means it, she thought with despair. All the tea parties I’ve sat through, and the dreary clothes I had to wear, and tramping through the cold dark every morning to the Market—it was all for nothing. She had come to Charleston to get Rhett back, and she had not won.

“I want you,” Scarlett said with stark honesty.

This time it was Rhett who was silent. She could see only his outline and the pale smoke from his cigar. He was so near; if she moved her foot a few inches it would touch his. She wanted him so much that she felt physical pain. She wanted to double over to ease it, hold it inside her so it couldn’t grow any worse. But she sat tall, waiting for him to speak.

O
verhead Scarlett could hear a rumble of voices punctuated by Pansy’s high-pitched giggle. It made the silence in the cabin seem even worse.

“A half million in gold,” said Rhett.

“What did you say?” I must have heard wrong. I told him what was in my heart and he hasn’t answered.

“I said I’ll give you half a million dollars in gold if you will go away. Whatever pleasure you’re finding in Charleston can hardly be worth that much to you. I’m offering you a handsome bribe, Scarlett. Your greedy little heart can’t possibly prefer a futile attempt to save our marriage to a fortune bigger than you ever hoped for. As a bonus, if you agree I’ll resume payments for expenses of that monstrosity on Peachtree Street.”

“You promised last night that you’d send the money to Uncle Henry today,” she said automatically. She wished he’d be quiet for a minute. She needed to think. Was it really “a futile attempt”? She refused to believe it.

“Promises are made to be broken,” Rhett said calmly. “What about my offer, Scarlett?”

“I need to think.”

“Think, then, while I finish my cigar. Then I want your answer. Think what it will be like if you have to pour your own money into that horror of a house you love so much on Peachtree Street; you have no conception of the cost. And then think about having a thousand times the money you’ve been hoarding all these years—a king’s ransom, Scarlett, all at one time and all yours. More than even you could ever spend. Plus the house expenses paid by me. I’ll even give you title to the property.” The end of his cigar glowed bright.

Scarlett began to think with desperate concentration. She had to find a way to stay. She couldn’t go away, not for all the money in the world.

Rhett rose to his feet and walked to the porthole. He threw the cigar out and looked through the opening at the riverbank for a moment until he saw a landmark. The sunlight was bright on his face. How much he’s changed since he left Atlanta! thought Scarlett. Then he had been drinking as if he was trying to blot out the world. But now he was Rhett again, with his sun-darkened skin drawn tight over the fine sharp planes of his face and his clear eyes as dark as desire. Under his elegant tailored coat and linen, his muscles were hard, visibly swelling when he moved. He was everything a man should be. She wanted him back, and she was going to get him, no matter what. Scarlett took a deep breath. She was ready when he turned toward her and raised one eyebrow in interrogation. “What’s it to be, Scarlett?”

“You want to make a deal you said, Rhett.” Scarlett was businesslike. “But you’re not bargaining, you’re flinging threats at my head like rocks. Besides, I know you’re just bluffing about cutting off the money you send to Atlanta. You’re almighty concerned about being welcome in Charleston, and folks don’t have a very high opinion of a man who doesn’t take care of his wife. Your mother wouldn’t be able to hold her head up if word got around.

“The second thing—the pile of money—you’re right. I’d be glad to have it. But not if it means going back to Atlanta right now. I might as well show my cards ’cause you already know about it. I did some mighty foolish things, and there’s no taking them back. Right this minute I haven’t got a friend in the whole state of Georgia.

“I’m making friends in Charleston, though. You might not want to believe it, but it’s true. And I’m learning a lot, too. As soon as people in Atlanta have enough time to forget a few things, I figure I can make up for my mistakes.

“So I’ve got a deal to offer you. You stop acting so hateful to me, you act nice and help me have a good time. We go through the Season like a devoted, happy husband and wife. Then, come spring, I’ll go home and start over.”

She held her breath. He had to say yes, he just had to. The Season lasted for almost eight weeks, and they’d be together every day. There wasn’t a man on two feet that she couldn’t have eating out of her hand if he was around her that much. Rhett was different from other men, but not that different. There’d never been a man she couldn’t get.

“With the money, you mean.”

“Well of course with the money. Do you take me for a fool?”

“That’s not exactly my idea of a deal, Scarlett. There’s nothing in it for me. You take the money I’m willing to pay you to leave, but you don’t leave. How do I benefit?”

“I don’t stay forever, and I don’t tell your mother what a skunk you are.” She was almost certain that she saw him smile.

“Do you know the name of the river we’re on, Scarlett?”

What a silly question. And he hadn’t yet agreed to the Season. What was going on?

“It’s the Ashley River.” Rhett pronounced the name with exaggerated distinctness. “It calls to mind that estimable gentleman, Mr. Wilkes, whose affections you once coveted. I was a witness to your capacity for dogged devotion, Scarlett, and your single-minded determination is a terrifying thing to behold. You have recently been so amiable as to mention that you have decided to put me in the elevated place once occupied by Ashley. The prospect fills me with alarm.”