Friends?
Get off this place before I call Mr. Benteen and Mr. Wilkes."
Under the words, Emmie broke her husband's hold and fled for the carriage, scrambling in with a flash of patent-leather boots with bright-red tops and red tassels.
Now Jonas shook with a fury equal to Scarlett's and his sallow face was as red as an angry turkey gobbler's.
"Still high and mighty, aren't you?
Well, I know all about you.
I know you haven't got shoes for your feet. I know your father's turned idiot--"
"Get off this place!"
"Oh, you won't sing that way very long.
I know you're broke.
I know you can't even pay your taxes.
I came out here to offer to buy this place from you--to make you a right good offer.
Emmie had a hankering to live here.
But, by God, I won't give you a cent now!
You highflying, bog-trotting Irish will find out who's running things around here when you get sold out for taxes.
And I'll buy this place, lock, stock and barrel--furniture and all--and I'll live in it."
So it was Jonas Wilkerson who wanted Tara--Jonas and Emmie, who in some twisted way thought to even past slights by living in the home where they had been slighted.
All her nerves hummed with hate, as they had hummed that day when she shoved the pistol barrel into the Yankee's bearded face and fired.
She wished she had that pistol now.
"I'll tear this house down, stone by stone, and burn it and sow every acre with salt before I see either of you put foot over this threshold," she shouted.
"Get out, I tell you!
Get out!"
Jonas glared at her, started to say more and then walked toward the carriage.
He climbed in beside his whimpering wife and turned the horse.
As they drove off, Scarlett had the impulse to spit at them.
She did spit.
She knew it was a common, childish gesture but it made her feel better.
She wished she had done it while they could see her.
Those damned nigger lovers daring to come here and taunt her about her poverty!
That hound never intended offering her a price for Tara.
He just used that as an excuse to come and flaunt himself and Emmie in her face.
The dirty Scallawags, the lousy trashy poor whites, boasting they would live at Tara!
Then, sudden terror struck her and her rage melted.
God's nightgown!
They will come and live here!
There was nothing she could do to keep them from buying Tara, nothing to keep them from levying on every mirror and table and bed, on Ellen's shining mahogany and rosewood, and every bit of it precious to her, scarred though it was by the Yankee raiders.
And the Robillard silver too.
I won't let them do it, thought Scarlett vehemently.
No, not if I've got to burn the place down!
Emmie Slattery will never set her foot on a single bit of flooring Mother ever walked on!
She closed the door and leaned against it and she was very frightened.
More frightened even than she had been that day when Sherman's army was in the house.
That day the worst she could fear was that Tara would be burned over her head.
But this was worse-- these low common creatures living in this house, bragging to their low common friends how they had turned the proud O'Haras out.
Perhaps they'd even bring negroes here to dine and sleep.
Will had told her Jonas made a great to-do about being equal with the negroes, ate with them, visited in their houses, rode them around with him in his carriage, put his arms around their shoulders.
When she thought of the possibility of this final insult to Tara, her heart pounded so hard she could scarcely breathe.
She was trying to get her mind on her problem, trying to figure some way out, but each time she collected her thoughts, fresh gusts of rage and fear shook her.
There must be some way out, there must be someone somewhere who had money she could borrow.
Money couldn't just dry up and blow away.