"I'll thank you to let me manage my children," cried Scarlett as Wade obediently trotted from the room.
"You're a damned poor manager. You've wrecked whatever chances Ella and Wade had,
but I won't permit you to do Bonnie that way. Bonnie's going to be a little princess and everyone in the world is going to want her. There's not going to be any place she can't go. Good God, do you think I'm going to let her grow up and associate with the riffraff that fills this house?"
"They are good enough for you--"
"And a damned sight too good for you, my pet. But not for Bonnie. Do you think I'd let her marry any of this runagate gang you spend your time with? Irishmen on the make, Yankees, white trash, Carpetbag parvenus--My Bonnie with her Butler blood and her Robillard strain--"
The O'Haras--"
The O'Haras might have been kings of Ireland once but your father was nothing but a
smart Mick on the make. And you are no better--But then, I'm at fault too. I've gone through life like a bat out of hell, never caring what I did, because nothing ever mattered to me. But Bonnie matters. God, what a fool I've been! Bonnie wouldn't be received in Charleston, no matter what my mother or your Aunt Eulalie or Aunt Pauline did--and it's obvious that she won't be received here unless we do something quickly--"
"Oh, Rhett, you take it so seriously you're funny. With our money--"
"Damn our money! All our money can't buy what I want for her. I'd rather Bonnie was
invited to eat dry bread in the Picards' miserable house or Mrs. Elsing's rickety barn than to be the belle of a Republican inaugural ball. Scarlett, you've been a fool. You should have insured a place for your children in the social scheme years ago--but you didn't. You didn't even bother to
keep what position you had. And it's too much to hope that you'll mend your ways at this late date. You're too anxious to make money and too fond of bullying people."
"I consider this whole affair a tempest in a teapot," said Scarlett coldly, rattling her papers to indicate that as far as she was concerned the discussion was finished.
"We have only Mrs. Wilkes to help us and you do your best to alienate and insult her. Oh, spare me your remarks about her poverty and her tacky clothes. She's the soul and the center of everything in Atlanta that's sterling. Thank God for her. She'll help me do something about it."
"And what are you going to do?"
"Do? I'm going to cultivate every female dragon of the Old Guard in this town, especially Mrs. Merriwether, Mrs. Elsing, Mrs. Whiting and Mrs. Meade. If I have to crawl on my belly to every fat old cat who hates me, I'll do it. I'll be meek under their coldness and repentant of my evil ways. I'll contribute to their damned charities and I'll go to their damned churches. I'll admit and brag about my services to the Confederacy and, if worst comes to worst, I'll join their damned Klan--though a merciful God could hardly lay so heavy a penance on my shoulders as that. And I shall not hesitate to remind the fools whose necks I saved that they owe me a debt.
And you, Madam, will kindly refrain from undoing my work behind my back and foreclosing
mortgages on any of the people I'm courting or selling them rotten lumber or in other ways insulting them. And Governor Bullock never sets foot in this house again. Do you hear? And none of this gang of elegant thieves you've been associating with, either. If you do invite them, over my request, you will find yourself in the embarrassing position of having no host in your home. If they come in this house, I will spend the time in Belle Watling's bar telling anyone who cares to hear that I won't stay under the same roof with them."
Scarlett, who had been smarting under his words, laughed shortly.
"So the river-boat gambler and the speculator is going to be respectable! Well, your first move toward respectability had better be the sale of Belle Watling's house."
That was a shot in the dark. She had never been absolutely certain that Rhett owned the
house. He laughed suddenly, as though he read her mind.
"Thanks for the suggestion."
Had he tried, Rhett could not have chosen a more difficult time to beat his way back to
respectability. Never before or after did the names Republican and Scalawag carry such odium, for now the corruption of the Carpet bag regime was at its height. And, since the surrender, Rhett's name had been inextricably linked with Yankees, Republicans and Scalawags.
Atlanta people had thought, with helpless fury, in 1866, that nothing could be worse than the harsh military rule they had then, but now, under Bullock, they were learning the worst.