Gone with the Wind

“Miss Melly, I’ve come to ask a very great favor of you and,” he smiled and his mouth twisted down, “to enlist your aid in a deception from which I know you will shrink.”

“A-deception?”

“Yes. Really, I’ve come to talk business to you.”

“Oh, dear. Then it’s Mr. Wilkes you’d better see. I’m such a goose about business. I’m not smart like Scarlett.”

“I’m afraid Scarlett is too smart for her own good,” he said, “and that is exactly what I want to talk to you about. You know how-ill she’s been. When she gets back from Tara she will start again hammer and tongs with the store and those mills which I wish devoutly would explode some night. I fear for her health, Miss Melly.”

“Yes, she does far too much. You must make her stop and take care of herself.”

He laughed.

“You know how headstrong she is. I never even try to argue with her. She’s just like a willful child. She won’t let me help her-she won’t let anyone help her. I’ve tried to get her to sell her share in the mills but she won’t. And now, Miss Melly, I come to the business matter. I know Scarlett would sell the remainder of her interest in the mills to Mr. Wilkes but to no one else, and I want Mr. Wilkes to buy her out.”

“Oh, dear me! That would be nice but-” Melanie stopped and bit her lip. She could not mention money matters to an outsider. Somehow, despite what he made from the mill, she and Ashley never seemed to have enough money. It worried her that they saved so little. She did not know where the money went. Ashley gave her enough to run the house on, but when it came to extra expenses they were often pinched. Of course, her doctors bills were so much, and then the books and furniture Ashley ordered from New York did run into money. And they had fed and clothed any number of waifs who slept in their cellar. And Ashley never felt like refusing a loan to any man who’d been in the Confederate Army. And-

“Miss Melly, I want to lend you the money,” said Rhett.

“That’s so kind of you, but we might never repay it.”

“I don’t want it repaid. Don’t be angry with me, Miss Melly! Please hear me through. It will repay me enough to know that Scarlett will not be exhausting herself driving miles to the mills every day. The store will be enough to keep her busy and happy… Don’t you see?”

“Well-yes-” said Melanie uncertainly.

“You want your boy to have a pony don’t you? And want him to go to the university and to Harvard and to Europe on a Grand Tour?”

“Oh, of course,” cried Melanie, her face lighting up, as always, at the mention of Beau. “I want him to have everything but-well, everyone is so poor these days that-”

“Mr. Wilkes could make a pile of money out of the mills some day,” said Rhett. “And I’d like to see Beau have all the advantages he deserves.”

“Oh, Captain Butler, what a crafty wretch you are!” she cried, smiling. “Appealing to a mother’s pride! I can read you like a book.”

“I hope not,” said Rhett, and for the first time there was a gleam in his eye. “Now will you let me lend you the money?”

“But where does the deception come in?”

“We must be conspirators and deceive both Scarlett and Mr. Wilkes.”

“Oh, dear! I couldn’t!”

“If Scarlett knew I had plotted behind her back, even for her own good-well, you know her temper! And I’m afraid Mr. Wilkes would refuse any loan I offered him. So neither of them must know where the money comes from.”

“Oh, but I’m sure Mr. Wilkes wouldn’t refuse, if he understood the matter. He is so fond of Scarlett.”

“Yes, I’m sure he is,” said Rhett smoothly. “But just the same he would refuse. You know how proud all the Wilkes are.”

“Oh, dear!” cried Melanie miserably, “I wish-Really, Captain Butler, I couldn’t deceive my husband.”

“Not even to help Scarlett?” Rhett looked very hurt. “And she is so fond of you!”

Tears trembled on Melanie’s eyelids.

“You know I’d do anything in the world for her. I can never, never half repay her for what she’s done for me. You know.”

“Yes,” he said shortly, “I know what she’s done for you. Couldn’t you tell Mr. Wilkes that the money was left you in the will of some relative?”

“Oh, Captain Butler, I haven’t a relative with a penny to bless him!”

“Then, if I sent the money through the mail to Mr. Wilkes without his knowing who sent it, would you see that it was used to buy the mills and not-well, given away to destitute ex-Confederates?”

At first she looked hurt at his last words, as though they implied criticism of Ashley, but he smiled so understandingly she smiled back.

“Of course I will.”

“So it’s settled? It’s to be our secret?”

“But I have never kept anything secret from my husband!”

“I’m sure of that, Miss Melly.”