"I will sell!" she cried furiously. "Now, what do you think of that?"
There was the faintest gleam of triumph in Rhett's eyes as he bent to tie Bonnie's shoe string.
"I think you'll regret it," he said.
Already she was regretting the hasty words. Had they been spoken to anyone save Rhett she would have shamelessly retracted them. Why had she burst out like that? She looked at Rhett with an angry frown and saw that he was watching her with his old keen, cat-at-a-mouse-hole look. When he saw her frown, he laughed suddenly, his white teeth flashing. Scarlett had an uncertain feeling that he had jockeyed her into this position.
"Did you have anything to do with this?" she snapped.
"I?" His brows went up in mock surprise. "You should know me better. I never go about the world doing good deeds if I can avoid it."
That night she sold the mills and all her interest in them to Ashley. She did not lose thereby for Ashley refused to take advantage of her first low offer and met the highest bid that she had ever had for them. When she had signed the papers and the mills were irrevocably gone and Melanie was passing small glasses of wine to Ashley and Rhett to celebrate the transaction, Scarlett felt bereft as though she had sold one of her children.
The mills had been her darlings, her pride, the fruit of her small grasping hands. She had started with one little mill in those black days when Atlanta was barely struggling up from ruin and ashes and want was staring her in the face. She had fought and schemed and nursed them through the dark times when Yankee confiscation loomed, when money was tight and smart men going to the wall. And now when Atlanta was covering its scars and buildings were going up everywhere and newcomers flocking to the town every day, she had two fine mills, two lumber yards, a dozen mule teams and convict labor to operate the business at low cost Bidding farewell to them was like closing a door forever on a part of her life, a bitter, harsh part but one which she recalled with a nostalgic satisfaction.
She had built up this business and now she had sold it and she was oppressed with the certainty that, without her at the helm, Ashley would lose it all -- everything that she had worked to build. Ashley trusted everyone and still hardly knew a two-by-four from a six-by-eight. And now she would never be able to give him the benefit of her advice -- all because Rhett had told him that she liked to boss everything.
"Oh, damn Rhett!" she thought and as she watched him the conviction grew that he was at the bottom of all this. Just how and why she did not know. He was talking to Ashley and his words brought her up sharply.
"I suppose you'll turn the convicts back right away," he said.
Turn the convicts back? Why should there be any idea of turning them back? Rhett knew perfectly well that the large profits from the mills grew out of the cheap convict labor. And why did Rhett speak with such certainty about what Ashley's future actions would be? What did he know of him?
"Yes, they'll go back immediately," replied Ashley and he avoided Scarlett's dumbfounded gaze.
"Have you lost your mind?" she cried. "You'll lose all the money on the lease and what kind of labor can you get, anyway?"
"I'll use free darkies," said Ashley.
"Free darkies! Fiddle-dee-dee! You know what their wages will cost and besides you'll have the Yankees on your neck every minute to see if you're giving them chicken three times a day and tucking them to sleep under eiderdown quilts. And if you give a lazy darky a couple of licks to speed him up, you'll hear the Yankees scream from here to Dalton and you'll end up in jail. Why, convicts are the only --"
Melanie looked down into her lap at her twisted hands. Ashley looked unhappy but obdurate. For a moment he was silent Then his gaze crossed Rhett's and it was as if he found understanding and encouragement in Rhett's eyes -- a glance that was not lost on Scarlett.
"I won't work convicts, Scarlett," he said quietly.
"Well, sir!" her breath was taken away. "And why not? Are you afraid people will talk about you like they do about me?"
Ashley raised his head.
"I'm not afraid of what people say as long as I'm right. And I have never felt that convict labor was right."
"But why --"
"I can't make money from the enforced labor and misery of others."
"But you owned slaves!"
"They weren't miserable. And besides, I'd have freed them all when Father died if the war hadn't already freed them. But this is different, Scarlett. The system is open to too many abuses. Perhaps you don't know it but I do. I know very well that Johnnie Gallegher has killed at least one man at his camp. Maybe more -- who cares about one convict, more or less? He said the man was killed trying to escape, but that's not what I've heard elsewhere. And I know he works men who are too sick to work. Call it superstition, but I do not believe that happiness can come from money made from the sufferings of others."
"God's nightgown! You mean -- goodness, Ashley, you didn't swallow all the Reverend Wallace's bellowings about tainted money?"
"I didn't have to swallow it I believed it long before he preached on it."
"Then, you must think all my money is tainted," cried Scarlett beginning to be angry. "Because I worked convicts and own saloon property and --" She stopped short. Both the Wilkes looked embarrassed and Rhett was grinning broadly. Damn him, thought Scarlett, vehemently. He's thinking that I'm sticking my finger in other people's pies again and so is Ashley. I'd like to crack their heads together! She swallowed her wrath and tried to assume an aloof air of dignity but with little success.
"Of course, it's immaterial to me," she said.
"Scarlett, don't think I'm criticizing you! I'm not. It's just that we look at things in different ways and what is good for you might not be good for me."