第239章

“If they can’t pay, why do they keep on buying?” she thought irritably. “And if he knows they can’t pay, why does he keep on selling them stuff? Lots of them could pay if he’d just make them do it. The Elsings certainly could if they could give Fanny a new satin dress and an expensive wedding. Frank’s just too soft hearted, and people take advantage of him. Why, if he’d collected half this money, he could have bought the sawmill and easily spared me the tax money, too.”

Then she thought: “Just imagine Frank trying to operate a sawmill! God’s nightgown! If he runs this store like a charitable institution, how could he expect to make money on a mill? The sheriff would have it in a month. Why, I could run this store better than he does! And I could run a mill better than he could, even if I don’t know anything about the lumber business!”

A startling thought this, that a woman could handle business matters as well as or better than a man, a revolutionary thought to Scarlett who had been reared in the tradition that men were omniscient and women none too bright. Of course, she had discovered that this was not altogether true but the pleasant fiction still stuck in her mind. Never before had she put this remarkable idea into words. She sat quite still, with the heavy book across her lap, her mouth a little open with surprise, thinking that during the lean months at Tara she had done a man’s work and done it well. She had been brought up to believe that a woman alone could accomplish nothing, yet she had managed the plantation without men to help her until Will came. Why, why, her mind stuttered, I believe women could manage everything in the world without men’s help—except having babies, and God knows, no woman in her right mind would have babies if she could help it.

With the idea that she was as capable as a man came a sudden rush of pride and a violent longing to prove it, to make money for herself as men made money. Money which would be her own, which she would neither have to ask for nor account for to any man.

“I wish I had money enough to buy that mill myself,” she said aloud and sighed. “I’d sure make it hum. And I wouldn’t let even one splinter go out on credit.”

She sighed again. There was nowhere she could get any money, so the idea was out of the question. Frank would simply have to collect this money owing him and buy the mill. It was a sure way to make money, and when he got the mill, she would certainly find some way to make him be more businesslike in its operation than he had been with the store.

She pulled a back page out of the ledger and began copying the list of debtors who had made no payments in several months. She’d take the matter up with Frank just as soon as she reached home. She’d make him realize that these people had to pay their bills even if they were old friends, even if it did embarrass him to press them for money. That would probably upset Frank, for he was timid and fond of the approbation of his friends. He was so thin skinned he’d rather lose the money than be businesslike about collecting it.

And he’d probably tell her that no one had any money with which to pay him. Well, perhaps that was true. Poverty was certainly no news to her. But nearly everybody had saved some silver or jewelry or was hanging on to a little real estate. Frank could take them in lieu of cash.

She could imagine how Frank would moan when she broached such an idea to him. Take the. jewelry and property of his friends! Well, she shrugged, he can moan all he likes. I’m going to tell him that he may be willing to stay poor for friendship’s sake but I’m not. Frank will never get anywhere if he doesn’t get up some gumption. And he’s got to get somewhere! He’s got to make money, even if I’ve got to wear the pants in the family to make him do it.

She was writing busily, her face screwed up with the effort, her tongue clamped between her teeth, when the front door opened and a great draft of cold wind swept the store. A tall man came into the dingy room walking with a light Indian-like tread, and looking up she saw Rhett Butler.

He was resplendent in new clothes and a greatcoat with a dashing cape thrown back from his heavy shoulders. His tall hat was off in a deep bow when her eyes met his and his hand went to the bosom of a spotless pleated shirt. His white teeth gleamed startlingly against his brown face and his bold eyes raked her.

“My dear Mrs. Kennedy,” he said, walking toward her. “My very dear Mrs. Kennedy!” and he broke into a loud merry laugh.

At first she was as startled as if a ghost had invaded the store and then, hastily removing her foot from beneath her, she stiffened her spine and gave him a cold stare.

“What are you doing here?”

“I called on Miss Pittypat and learned of your marriage and so I hastened here to congratulate you.”

The memory of her humiliation at his hands made her go crimson with shame.

“I don’t see how you have the gall to face me!” she cried.

“On the contrary! How have you the gall to face me?”

“Oh, you are the most—”

“Shall we let the bugles sing truce?” he smiled down at her, a wide flashing smile that had impudence in it but no shame for his own actions or condemnation for hers. In spite of herself, she had to smile too, but it was a wry, uncomfortable smile.

“What a pity they didn’t hang you!”

“Others share your feeling, I fear. Come, Scarlett, relax. You look like you’d swallowed a ramrod and it isn’t becoming. Surely, you’ve had time to recover from my—er—my little joke.”

“Joke? Ha! I’ll never get over it!”

“Oh, yes, you will. You are just putting on this indignant front because you think it’s proper and respectable. May I sit down?”

“No.”

He sank into a chair beside her and grinned.

“I hear you couldn’t even wait two weeks for me,” he said and gave a mock sigh. “How fickle is woman!”

When she did not reply he continued.

“Tell me, Scarlett, just between friends—between very old and very intimate friends—wouldn’t it have been wiser to wait until I got out of jail? Or are the charms of wedlock with old Frank Kennedy more alluring than illicit relations with me?”