"I still don't understand, Uncle Rhett." Ella Kennedy Parrish cocked her blonde head. "Your offer is certainly welcome. We didn't ask you for an investment before because you've been so generous."
Rhett Butler smiled at Ella as they sat by the front door of the "Peachtree Emporium." What a marvelous compromise.
Some twenty years ago, when Scarlett had taken over Frank's store, she'd wanted to change the name to something classy, with the word "Emporium" in it.
Rhett had mischievously suggested "Caveat Emptorium"
And, for a time, the store had lived up to that moniker. But now that Ella ran it, the buyers no longer had to beware. No more purchasing shoddy goods, they'd stopped sanding the sugar and selling aged venison as beef.
And, Ella had also extended lines of credit to poorer members of Atlanta's community. Sometimes she'd forgiven debts as well, if the customer was especially indigent or had children to rear.
But the downside of Ella and her pleasant if rather dreamy husband Rodney's charge of the store and the mills had been of course that honesty and generosity could be crippling policies.
Paying a "livable" wage to the mill hands could have been ruinous and as a result the Parrishes had been forced to take in partnerships and of course had suffered because they charged a bit more for their good, usable wood.
"You are a fool, like your grandmother O'Hara." Scarlett had told Ella contemptuously. "My mother died because she couldn't stop nursing contagious white trash."
Rhett had taken a broader view of Ella's kind heart, and he'd given the business infusions of cash now and then.
So, when he'd built the Coca-Cola factory there in Atlanta, he'd convinced his partners to take Ella's bid for sawmill wood.
Plus a construction crew, hired by the Peachtree Emporium and made up, in Scarlett's words of "Drunks, charity cases and the worst kind of free issue niggers."
But it hadn't been enough, Rhett's help...the Emporium had been forced to ask for investors and moneylenders.
But Rhett was there again, to cover the debts and not ask for much in the way of interest or stock options.
But there were codicils to his generosity.
"I heard about Uncle Ashley having returned and the...difficulties." Ella said slowly. "But of course we'd never hire him again, although it would be nice to have an-er, working male manager about the place.
Ella smiled weakly as a sound of Rodney's lute-or was it his mandolin? He was so talented at both emitted from the back room as well as the plinking of piano keys.
"Ragtime music, eh?" Rhett said heartily. "I'm not partial to complimenting Yankees, but Rod seems to have some talent, and quite a following in town. I've been to one of his concerts."
"Yes," Ella responded bravely.
"Is that young darky still playing the piano for him?" Rhett asked curiously. "My son, who plays piano at an establishment I'm invested in, auditioned for Rodney's band, but young Jasper was much better."
Ella had turned pink at the mention of Rhett's other "establishment". She could never get over his open-ness about owning a bordello.
"Not Jasper, the boy's name was Joplin, Scott Joplin. I think his folks used to belong to the Joplins of Americus. But no, Rodney...he wanted Scott to just write music, and instead Scott was offering suggestions on the songwriting."
"Ah yes." Rhett said smoothly. "No artist likes to have his creative process interrupted."
Uncle Rhett was so polite. "Yes, um, Rodney felt Scott was blocking his way to possible fame. Rod is not-not primarily interested in managing our business interests."
Rhett just smiled, so Ella continued.
"Why-when Rodney was in the Yankee army, and they were supposed to be pillaging plantations, he would-would sneak off to play blues with the darkies, and have such a good time that he sometimes forgot to tell them that they were free now."
"How popular that must have made him with his sergeant." Rhett said jocularly. So is that Rodney playing the piano? My son told me that he sold his old one to Rodney, as the one at home wasn't enough."
"That's-that's right, Uncle Rhett." Ella said, looking somewhat downcast. "Rodney made the courageous choice to spend money on a second piano for the store, using money that I'm afraid I allocated for a new roof."
From the barrel of sorghum that Rhett was perched on, he noted holes in the store's ceiling, and some soaking wet textiles that had probably suffered in last night's rain.
"Well, a new roof's in the budget of my investment, Ella. All I ask if two things-of course that you don't support Ashley Wilkes, and that should be easier now that his son is no longer keeping books at the mills."
They were both quiet for a moment. Beau Wilkes, having been blinded after his retinas had been detached in a riding accident in puberty, had had his sight restored in one eye for a few precious years, but thanks to a fall on the ice last winter, the retina was detached, irreplaceably once more.
"And the other condition, I'm afraid is, that your mother receive no help or profit from the Peachtree Emporium or the sawmills. None whatsoever, Ella."
Ella looked a bit despondent, but her stepfather's brow was thunderous.
Ella, of course had heard of Rhett's horrible discovery-or was it a misunderstanding? Ashley and Scarlett, time and time again...
Ella recalled in early childhood, that her mother and Ashley had been caught in an embrace at the mills.
Although Ashley's late wife Melanie had ignored the gossip-indeed, she'd asked Scarlett to receive guests with her that night at Ashley's birthday party-the rest of Atlanta had chattered.
Ella remembered kicking little Monique Picard in the shins when the chatty five year old had repeated gossip she'd heard from her irrepressible grandmother, Mrs. Meriwether.
As children do, Ella and Monique made up the next day, but still Ella sometimes saw a glint in Monique's eyes when Ella spoke of Scarlett.
And, implacably, Rhett was continuing. "I of course understand if you want your mother to live with you, and you give her a dollar or two now and then, out of what you allocate from your salary, Ella, but I am firm on this.
Scarlett once promised not to support Ashley if I gave her money to buy the mills, and she broke that promise, and then of course Ashley repaid her handsomely by embezzling. This time, I mean it!"
"It seems somewhat spiteful, Uncle Rhett." Ella said, frowning. True, she needed money desperately, any cash infusion. The business was going into bankruptcy, and her ex-Yankee minstrel husband was of little help.
Ella loved Rod with all her heart, those engaging hazel eyes!-and he was a kind and decent man...but his troubador-ing kept him from doing his duty, and, in the second generation of a woman running the Emporium and sawmills...Ella knew now she would never get to stay at home.
Did she want to? To grow into a comfortable matron-hood? With little to do but gossip like that worthless Dolly Meriwether?
Perhaps not...Ella had two darling little girls, and she often wished she spent more time with them. After all, she'd suffered pangs from missing Scarlett as a mother, although Scarlett had often been irritable.
But Rodney was so good with the children. He told them stories and sang them songs, and in fact, helped them to get ready for school in the morning!
Perhaps in time, Rod would take an interest in the business at hand, and limit his songwriting and band appearances to a few hours a week. And Ella could be at home with Marjorie and Clementine.
But not now.
She looked at Rhett, who she really believed was being petty. He'd thrown her mother out of his house, was that not bad enough?
"Spiteful or not, that is my condition." Rhett said with a frown. "I'll be having an in-house manager here to ensure there is no temptation to cook the books on your part, Ella. If you agree with my proposal, I will send for my son Silas to be here full time, and I'll pay him out of my own pocket."
"You don't have to send for him." Ella said listlessly. "Silas is in the back room playing his piano while Rodney strums the lute. After Scott Joplin left town, Rod welcomed Silas into the "Rodney's Antebellum Rhapsodies". He's here all the time."
"So, Silas is as distracted by his-er, music as your husband is?" Rhett asked sadly. "I know he is not-not adept with figures, Silas, despite his expensive private education."
Ella read Rhett's mind. "Yes, he's useless, Uncle Rhett. You'll have to find someone else."
"Perhaps this music will at least distract Silas from his more destructive interests. Between paying his baccarat debts, the girls at-at my establishment that he's beaten and impregnated, and fixing windows he's drunkenly kicked in-"
"Rod likes to drink, too." Ella said faintly.
Speak of the devil, the two Rhapsodians walked into the front of the store, Silas greeting his father warmly.
"Pa, Wodney anb meh, we soun' good, wi?" Silas said with a grin. "Cause I toun-tie? Wod say I can't thing though. I di' wan be a thinger."
Rodney Parrish kissed his wife on the cheek as she leaned on the counter-another thing she loved about her expressive husband! Handsome, romantic, talented...
"Silas, you tickle the ivories like no other, singing's not that important, son. I'm just glad you can take time from playing at the cat-house to jam with me." Rodney said.
"Jam? Are you boys jamming berries?" Ella asked puzzledly.
"No, it's a Yankee term. It means we play music together. And one day we may sell songs. It might even make us rich, right Si?"
"Ah can' wait poo make Pa pwoud." Silas said with a grin.
Rhett smiled gamely. "You make me proud every day, son."