Southern Rose [Gone with the Wind]

Since Emile didn't like Leonardo, she didn't ask Josephine to dress up too well, just ordinary.

Beauty needs clothes to match it. Even if it is beautiful in a sack, it must be a clean sack. No one can be "beautiful" if they are disheveled and sloppy.

Josephine brought back innumerable materials and skirts from Paris, and she did not have a single dress that could be called "plain". Even the home skirts were made of fine British printed muslins in bright colors, such as the one she wore today. I wore a home skirt with pink flowers on a blue background.

Leonardo arrived at Robillard's house in the afternoon.

"Hello, Mrs. Robillard. Hello, Miss Robillard." He held his cap politely and nodded to the Robillard mother and daughter.

"Hello, Mr. Darcy." Emile looked serious.

"Hello, Leonardo Darcy." Josephine called his name affectionately.

He showed a gentle smile, "I shouldn't have come too early?"

"It's too early. It's too early for dinner. It's only five o'clock in the afternoon. Why don't we play cards for a while. What do you like to play?"

He looked natural, "I can play whatever you know how to play."

Whist bridge is popular in the south now, regardless of gender, class, or skin color. The rules are complicated. Josephine is not very good at it, but Leonardo is very good at it. Sometimes he can win, but he is confused. Li confusedly let Josephine win.

Emile pretended to be reading at the side, but actually observed the two of them playing cards, thinking that Darcy knew how to make women happy.Josephine was willful since she was a child, and she wanted to win in everything she played. John and Charles spoiled her unconditionally since she was a child, and because of this, she developed an overly willful temperament.

She is worried about her daughter's waywardness, but she hasn't seen her for several years. Now Josephine is 22 years old and is also a mother. She looks much more sensible than when she left home before. Find a suitable husband, you can really rest assured.

Thinking about it again, she disliked Darcy as an "unlucky" person, but Josephine was also a widow, so there was nothing to find fault with him.He is in good health, and it is said that he doesn't even have a cold. Charles also said that he is an expert in hunting, good at riding, rich in property, has several plantations, grows tobacco and cotton, and uses more than 300 black slaves; The family house is also very large, and there is also a house in Richmond.

And the best thing was that he didn't have parents, so he could make his own decisions. Josephine didn't have to deal with her husband's mother. As everyone knew, her mother-in-law was a bit picky, and no matter how good her temperament was, it was inevitable.When she married, old Mrs. Robillard was dead, and she had absolutely no experience with her husband's mother, and had little experience to impart to her daughter.

The other wives will speak ill of the mother-in-law more or less. The mother-in-law is picky about the daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law also has a lot of opinions on the mother-in-law.

Thinking about it this way, I feel that Leonardo Darcy has a greater advantage than Louis Mayville or Francis Beauval.

Of course, she knew what kind of woman Mrs. Mayville was, and she would definitely not be used to Josephine's outfit. Mrs. Mayville would not say that Josephine was bad in front of her, but it was hard to say what she would say behind her back.

She understood that Josephine should not return to her original surname, and should wear black every day, but how could she be willing to wear old-fashioned black for her daughter, who was as delicate as a rose?

Leonardo lived in a hotel in Savannah, brought more than a dozen slaves to wait on him, and brought his own carriage, as well as several boxes of clothes, shoes and hats.

"I thought you had your own house in Savannah."

"I don't come to Savannah very often."

"Savannah is too small, and Charleston is equally small. You should go to Paris. Paris is a real big city, bigger than New York and Washington. Can you believe it? There are more than 100 million people living in Paris! There are too many people, and there are not enough places to live for so many people. After the emperor ascended the throne, he began to rebuild the city, the roads became wider, the old houses were demolished, and new buildings were built.” Josephine is in Paris, which is undergoing major transformation , I found it interesting to compare before and after, "But the bad thing is that sometimes it is very inconvenient to go out, roads are being built everywhere, and when it rains, the ground is muddy, and it is impossible to go out at all."

"I haven't traveled to Europe yet, never had a chance..."

"Oh, you should really travel, if you get the chance."

"If there is a chance." Leonardo smiled, "Do you like Paris?"

"It's okay. But I like Spain more, and I heard that Italy is also very good. Mom, can we travel to Italy next year?"

Emile was a little surprised, "To travel?"

"Yeah, I haven't been to Italy. It would be great if you and Dad took me to Italy."

"You have been there, you forgot, you were still very young at that time, only 6 years old."

"Really? But I don't even remember it. It's probably too young."

Leonardo waited for the mother and daughter to finish talking about the trip before taking out his pocket watch and looking, "Can I go now? It's past 6 o'clock."

Josephine stood up. "I'll go upstairs and change."

It took her half an hour to change clothes, and she finally wore a peach pink dress with pearl flowers on the skirt, a snow-white fox fur shawl, white lambskin gloves reaching to the elbow, and a dark red velvet round hat. The cap fits perfectly on her cute little head.

It was obvious that she had applied lipstick, and her red lips were delicate and charming, and her lips were shaped like Cupid's bow.

Leonardo stood at the bottom of the stairs and waited for her. He looked up at her face and smiled restrainedly.

She knew she was beautiful, and she knew he was attracted to her.His eyes were bright, bright like some kind of beast.

Strangely, this man looks like a traditional and ordinary southern gentleman, far from the charm of French men, and he is not as sweet-talking as French men, but there is a strange suppressed enthusiasm in him, which makes her unable to help Guess what the real face of this person is.

Men, those who are too young are mostly impulsive and stupid, and those who are a little older will become sophisticated and vulgar, so although there are many men, there are not many interesting men, and very few of them can be husbands.

If you're in a society where women can't initiate divorce, and you can't stay married, it's best to either choose a guy who dies quickly, or carefully pick a man who lives a long life and doesn't bore you too quickly choose.

When she reached the last step of the stairs, she stretched out her arm to him, and he gently took her hand and led her down the last step.

Dinner was great.

Savannah is not big, and there are not many good restaurants. The upper-class families treat guests in their own restaurants, and they are proud of having a good cook. .

Classy people like to compare everything, even if there is a good cook in the family, if there is a beautiful daughter in the family, of course it will be an item of comparison.

Emile was very satisfied to see that almost everyone in the restaurant was looking at her daughter.Since Josephine returned to Savannah, she immediately became the object of imitation by local women. The style of the skirt she wore, the way of knotting the bow at the waist, the style of the hat and the angle of wearing it all became samples.

Local ladies in Savannah are very fond of Parisian fashion styles. Due to timeliness, it will take at least half a month for the Parisian fashion catalog to arrive, and it will take another half month for the local tailors to learn how to do it. , but in fact the trend in the southern United States was at least a year later than in France, for reasons no one can quite figure out.

Mrs. Valenti was extremely busy, recruiting 4 apprentices to do odd jobs, and it is said that 4 more apprentices will be recruited, and orders continue to flow until next spring.

When Scarlett left, she brought two large suitcases of luggage, all of which were new dresses, and she loved them so much.Sue Lun and Karin also made two new dresses each, and they were very satisfied.

Leonardo asked Mrs. Robillard to order first, and then asked the waiter to serve the wine.

Georgia does not produce wine, and good wine is imported from France. The United States exports cotton to Britain and France, and imports cotton cloth, silk, wine and other luxury goods.

While waiting for the food to be served, Leonardo piqued Josephine's interest by mentioning that he had a gold mine in California.

"Have you seen how the workers pan for gold? Why don't you watch it?"

"I have a supervisor. I hand over the gold mine to him. He gives me a certain weight of gold a year, and I don't care about the rest."

"Ah, I understand. This is a good idea. What are you using your gold nuggets for? Have you sold them?" This means that the supervisor has contracted the gold mine and paid a certain amount of contract gold, and the rest is all for the supervisor.Since he can't stay in the gold mine to oversee the workers, it's better to let the overseers get some practical benefits. If the owner of the gold mine is not around, how can the overseers not secretly hide gold nuggets.

"Saved."

"Where does it exist? A bank?"

He smiled, "No, I don't really trust banks."

This is not surprising. Most of the immigrants are because they can’t survive in their original country, or because they want to make a fortune. During the reclamation period, the land price in the United States was so cheap that people today can’t imagine. Sometimes even a large piece of land can be obtained without money. Only then can the government collect taxes from the landlords, otherwise the land can only be land, leaving nothing for nothing.

Gold is the most practical hard currency. Britain, France and the United States are now on the gold standard. There is actually gold in gold coins. If it is a whole gold bar, it is even more hard currency in hard currency. meeting.

She was intrigued, "I see. Gold goes up in value, right?" What a shrewd man.

"Correct."

"What if I want to buy gold mines?"

"Go to the California Bureau of Mines, and you can buy it at a good location."

"Mom," she asked her mother right away, "I want a gold mine. Would Daddy want to buy one?" The Civil War didn't reach California, and it would be nice if they went there to dig for gold.

Emile dealt with her daughter's whims calmly, "You can go home and ask your father first."

"Let Charles go for a run."

"No, it's too far away." Emile vetoed it straight away, "Besides, it's not safe."

"It's okay for so many people to go from coast to coast."

"You don't need to go in person, I can ask my people to send a map, you choose the place, send it back, and my people will complete the formalities."

Emile was noncommittal, what if I didn't go and see for myself?Wouldn't it be a waste of money to buy a piece of land that had no gold at all?The experienced mother now feels that this Mr. Darcy is acting suspiciously. Didn't he come to deceive people to go to California to buy a waste mine that does not produce gold at all?

"How do I get to California?" Josephine was already asking how to get to California.

"There is no direct train, and the road is very difficult to walk. It takes a week to go across the Mississippi River by train, and then take a horse-drawn carriage to other cities that have trains."

"It's difficult to travel" dispelled Josephine's enthusiasm, "It's really troublesome!"

Leonardo glanced at Mrs. Emile, "Gold nuggets are just a store of value. There are many other ways to accumulate wealth, such as buying real estate and slaves."

Josephine took advantage of the situation and asked, "Do you want to buy slaves?"

"Don't want to buy just yet. Father freed some niggers before he died, and a few stayed, and the others left Charleston for the North."

"Haven't you considered letting the slaves redeem themselves?" Let's unify the values ​​first.

The author has something to say:

*A few days ago, I saw a fan of Piao Piao. The heroine is Scarlett’s twin sister. It was written that the heroine and Su Lun got married separately. After the war, Su Lun’s estate took in as many as 5000 black people.The author must not know the concept of 5000 people. Tara has more than 100 black slaves, and the Tarleton family also has more than 100 black slaves. This is considered a large plantation in Clayton County, and at least one supervisor is needed. That is, the foreman.There are white and black plantation foremen. In "Django", the three white brothers killed by Django in the cotton field are ruthless overseers.

What is the concept of using 5000 workers for a manor?How much housing is needed?How to manage?male to female ratio?How to do ideological work?How?Young and middle-aged men who are single and low-educated have always been a factor of social instability. Let alone hundreds or thousands, if there are more than a dozen troublemakers among them, your super manor of 5000 people will be ruined.For details, you can refer to the "zero-dollar purchases" on the streets of the United States this year. Collective anarchism is terrible. It takes only a few minutes for a white master to kill a family.

*In addition, refer to the data. During the 1800 years from 1860 to 60, the average number of black slaves who fled from the south to the north was 2000 per year.Atlanta, Charleston, and Savannah have a modern population of about 20. In 1860, the population was at most 3 to 4. 5000 is a lot of people, enough to do big things.