"No. I'm not holding it. I just wanted to know. Have another drink, Mammy. Have the whole bottle. Drink up, Wade! Give us a toast."
To Sissy," cried Wade and gulped the liquid down. Choking he began to cough and hiccough and the other two laughed and beat him on the back.
From the moment his daughter was born, Rhett's conduct was puzzling to all observers and he upset many settled notions about himself, notions which both the town and Scarlett were loath to surrender. Whoever would have thought that he of all people would be so shamelessly, so openly proud of fatherhood? Especially in view of the embarrassing circumstance that his first-born was a girl and not a boy.
The novelty of fatherhood did not wear off. This caused some secret envy among women whose husbands took offspring for granted, long before the children were christened. He buttonholed people on the street and related details of his child's miraculous progress without even prefacing his remarks with the hypocritical but polite: "I know everyone thinks their own child is smart but --" He thought his daughter marvelous, not to be compared with lesser brats, and he did not care who knew it. When the new nurse permitted the baby to suck a bit of fat pork, thereby bringing on the first attack of colic, Rhett's conduct sent seasoned fathers and mothers into gales of laughter. He hurriedly summoned Dr. Meade and two other doctors, and with difficulty he was restrained from beating the unfortunate nurse with his crop. The nurse was discharged and thereafter followed a series of nurses who remained, at the most, a week. None of them was good enough to satisfy the exacting requirements Rhett laid down.
Mammy likewise viewed with displeasure the nurses that came and went, for she was jealous of any strange negro and saw no reason why she could not care for the baby and Wade and Ella, too. But Mammy was showing her age and rheumatism was slowing her lumbering tread. Rhett lacked the courage to cite these reasons for employing another nurse. He told her instead that a man of his position could not afford to have only one nurse. It did not look well. He would hire two others to do the drudgery and leave her as Mammy-in-chief. This Mammy understood very well. More servants were a credit to her position as well as Rhett's. But she would not, she told him firmly, have any trashy free issue niggers in her nursery. S
o Rhett sent to Tara for Prissy. He knew her shortcomings but, after all, she was a family darky. And Uncle Peter produced a great-niece named Lou who had belonged to one of Miss Pitty's Burr cousins.
Even before Scarlett was able to be about again, she noticed Rhett's preoccupation with the baby and was somewhat nettled and embarrassed at his pride in her in front of callers. It was all very well for a man to love his child but she felt there was something unmanly in the display of such love. He should be offhand and careless, as other men were.
"You are making a fool of yourself," she said irritably, "and I don't see why."
"No? Well, you wouldn't. The reason is that she's the first person who's ever belonged utterly to me."
"She belongs to me, too!"
"No, you have two other children. She's mine."
"Great balls of fire!" said Scarlett. "I had the baby, didn't I? Besides, honey, I belong to you."
Rhett looked at her over the black head of the child and smiled oddly.
"Do you, my dear?"
Only the entrance of Melanie stopped one of those swift hot quarrels which seemed to spring up so easily between them these days. Scarlett swallowed her wrath and watched Melanie take the baby. The name agreed upon for the child was Eugenic Victoria, but that afternoon Melanie unwittingly bestowed a name that clung, even as "Pittypat" had blotted out all memory of Sarah Jane.
Rhett leaning over the child had said: "Her eyes are going to be pea green."
"Indeed they are not," cried Melanie indignantly, forgetting that Scarlett's eyes were almost that shade. "They are going to be blue, like Mr. O'Hara's eyes, as blue as -- as blue as the bonnie blue flag."
"Bonnie Blue Butler," laughed Rhett, taking the child from her and peering more closely into the small eyes. And Bonnie she became until even her parents did not recall that she had been named for two queens.
CHAPTER LI
WHEN SHE WAS FINALLY able to go out again, Scarlett had Lou lace her into stays as tightly as the strings would pull. Then she passed the tape measure about her waist. Twenty inches! She groaned aloud. That was what having babies did to your figure! Her waist was a large as Aunt Pitty's, as large as Mammy's.
"Pull them tighter, Lou. See if you can't make it eighteen and a half inches or I can't get into any of my dresses."
"It'll bust de strings," said Lou. "Yo' wais' jes' done got bigger, Miss Scarlett, an' dar ain' nuthin' ter do 'bout it."
"There is something to do about it," thought Scarlett as she ripped savagely at the seams of her dress to let out the necessary inches. "I just won't have any more babies."
Of course, Bonnie was pretty and a credit to her and Rhett adored the child, but she would not have another baby. Just how she would manage this she did not know, for she couldn't handle Rhett as she had Frank. Rhett wasn't afraid of her. It would probably be difficult with Rhett acting so foolishly about Bonnie and probably wanting a son next year, for all that he said he'd drown any boy she gave him. Well, she wouldn't give him a boy or girl either. Three children were enough for any woman to have.
When Lou had stitched up the ripped seams, pressed them smooth and buttoned Scarlett into the dress, she called the carriage and Scarlett set out for the lumber yard. Her spirits rose as she went and she forgot about her waist line, for she was going to meet Ashley at the yard to go over the books with him. And, if she was lucky, she might see him alone. She hadn't seen him since long before Bonnie was born. She hadn't wanted to see him at all when she was so obviously pregnant. And she had missed the daily contact with him, even if there was always someone around. She had missed the importance and activity of her lumber business while she was immured. Of course, she did not have to work now. She could easily sell the mills and invest the money for Wade and Ella. But that would mean she would hardly ever see Ashley, except in a formal social way with crowds of people around. And working by Ashley's side was her greatest pleasure.
When she drove up to the yard she saw with interest how high the piles of lumber were and how many customers were standing among them, talking to Hugh Elsing. And there were six mule teams and wagons being loaded by the negro drivers. Six teams, she thought, with pride. And I did all this by myself!
Ashley came to the door of the little office, his eyes joyful with the pleasure of seeing her again and he handed her out of her carriage and into the office as if she were a queen.
But some of her pleasure was dimmed when she went over the books of his null and compared them with Johnnie Gallegher's books. Ashley had barely made expenses and Johnnie had a remarkable sum to his credit. She forbore to say anything as she looked at the two sheets but Ashley read her face.
"Scarlett, I'm sorry. All I can say is that I wish you'd let me hire free darkies instead of using convicts. I believe I could do better."
"Darkies! Why, their pay would break us. Convicts are dirt cheap. If Johnnie can make this much with them --"