“It belongs to you. What did Wade Hampton ever do for Pa? Did he look after him when he was sick and feeble? Did he bathe him and dress him and shave him? Did he stick by him when the Yankees came? Did he steal for him? Don’t be a fool, Pork. If ever anyone deserved a watch, you do, and I know Pa would approve. Here.”
She picked up the black hand and laid the watch in the palm. Pork gazed at it reverently and slowly delight spread over his face.
“Fer me, truly, Miss Scarlett?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Well’m—thankee, Ma’m.”
“Would you like for me to take it to Atlanta and have it engraved?”
“Whut’s dis engrabed mean?” Pork’s voice was suspicious.
“It means to put writing on the back of it, like—like ‘To Pork from the O’Haras—Well done good and faithful servant.’ ”
“No’m—thankee. Ma’m. Never mind de engrabin’.” Pork retreated a step, clutching the watch firmly.
A little smile twitched her lips.
“What’s the matter, Pork? Don’t you trust me to bring it back?”
“Yas’m, Ah trus’es you—only, well’m, you mout change yo’ mind.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“Well’m, you mout sell it. Ah spec it’s wuth a heap.”
“Do you think I’d sell Pa’s watch?”
“Yas’m—ef you needed de money.”
“You ought to be beat for that, Pork. I’ve a mind to take the watch back.”
“No’m, you ain’!” The first faint smile of the day showed on Pork’s grief-worn face. “Ah knows you— An’ Miss Scarlett—”
“Yes, Pork?”
“Ef you wuz jes’ half as nice ter w’ite folks as you is ter niggers, Ah spec de worl’ would treat you better.”
“It treats me well enough,” she said. “Now, go find Mr. Ashley and tell him I want to see him here, right away.”
Ashley sat on Ellen’s little writing chair, his long body dwarfing the frail bit of furniture while Scarlett offered him a half-interest in the mill. Not once did his eyes meet hers and he spoke no word of interruption. He sat looking down at his hands, turning them over slowly, inspecting first palms and then backs, as though he had never seen them before. Despite hard work, they were still slender and sensitive looking and remarkably well tended for a farmer’s hands.
His bowed head and silence disturbed her a little and she redoubled her efforts to make the mill sound attractive. She brought to bear, too, all the charm of smile and glance she possessed but they were wasted, for he did not raise his eyes. If he would only look at her! She made no mention of the information Will had given her of Ashley’s determination to go North and spoke with the outward assumption that no obstacle stood in the way of his agreement with her plan. Still he did not speak and finally, her words trailed into silence. There was a determined squareness about his slender shoulders that alarmed her. Surely he wouldn’t refuse! What earthly reason could he have for refusing?
“Ashley,” she began again and paused. She had not intended using her pregnancy as an argument, had shrunk from the thought of Ashley even seeing her so bloated and ugly, but as her other persuasions seemed to have made no impression, she decided to use it and her helplessness as a last card.
“You must come to Atlanta. I do need your help so badly now, because I can’t look after the mills. It may be months before I can because—you see—well, because ...”
“Please!” he said roughly. “Good God, Scarlett!”
He rose and went abruptly to the window and stood with his back to her, watching the solemn single file of ducks parade across the barnyard.
“Is that—is that why you won’t look at me?” she questioned forlornly. “I know I look—”
He swung around in a flash and his gray eyes met hers with an intensity that made her hands go to her throat.
“Damn your looks!” he said with a swift violence. “You know you always look beautiful to me.”
Happiness flooded her until her eyes were liquid with tears.
“How sweet of you to say that! For I was so ashamed to let you see me—”
“You ashamed? Why should you be ashamed? I’m the one to feel shame and I do. If it hadn’t been for my stupidity you wouldn’t be in this fix. You’d never have married Frank. I should never have let you leave Tara last winter. Oh, fool that I was! I should have known you—known you were desperate, so desperate that you’d—I should have—I should have—” His face went haggard.
Scarlett’s heart beat wildly. He was regretting that he had not run away with her!
“The least I could have done was go out and commit highway robbery or murder to get the tax money for you when you had taken us in as beggars. Oh, I messed it up all the way around!”
Her heart contracted with disappointment and some of the happiness went from her, for these were not the words she hoped to hear.
“I would have gone anyway,” she said tiredly. “I couldn’t have let you do anything like that. And anyway, it’s done now.”
“Yes, it’s done now,” he said with slow bitterness. “You wouldn’t have let me do anything dishonorable but you would sell yourself to a man you didn’t love—and bear his child, so that my family and I wouldn’t starve. It was kind of you to shelter my helplessness.”
The edge in his voice spoke of a raw, unhealed wound that ached within him and his words brought shame to her eyes. He was swift to see it and his face changed to gentleness.
“You didn’t think I was blaming you? Dear God, Scarlett! No. You are the bravest woman I’ve ever known. It’s myself I’m blaming.”
