House Divided

by Ben Ames Williams

  “Yes, I was a despisable young one.” She saw that he took a perverted pleasure in the fact. “After Trav, there was Cinda, and Tilda, and Faunt. I was crowded more and more into the background, so I raised Cain. I used to carry a riding crop and slash at every nigger who crossed my path. They laughed and dodged my blows and kept out of my way. Except the wenches. They didn’t avoid me. I suppose my attentions flattered them.”

  If talk was all he wanted, let him talk! He went on with a sour relish.

  “Oh, I was a hellion! I took up with the son of the overseer on the next place. We used to steal whiskey from the sideboard. Papa and old Mose kept it locked, the decanters put away, but we could pick the lock.” He filled his glass, gulped the contents, filled the glass again. “I never told you about Tommy Williber, did I?” She shook her head, and he said: “Papa had been married before, to a girl named Sally Williber. When their first baby was coming there was to be a ball—it was soon after Christmas—at a neighbor’s twenty miles away; and she and Papa set out to ride over. They were caught in a storm of wind and cold and snow, and got lost, and finally came to a negro’s cabin and took shelter there, half-frozen. Before morning she fell sick and lost her baby; and after that they never had another. She was an invalid till she died. He married Mama three years afterward.” He looked at her uncertainly. “What was I saying? Oh, yes, I set out to tell you about Tommy Williber.”

  “You’re sleepy, Tony. Tell me in the morning.” But of course he would ignore the suggestion, would drink himself into a stupor here where he sat. How well she knew him; the little meannesses that were a part of him, the reasonless cruelties, the childish delight in praise and flattery, the readiness for self-pity. Their lives touched only at a tangent. He had his orbit, she had hers; and yet she knew him through and through.

  But this whining talk, this laying his secret shames open for her to see; this was something new. He seemed not to have heard her words.

  “Yes, Tommy Williber,” he repeated, “Papa’s first wife’s nephew. My cousin. He came to visit me at Great Oak, and he seemed to Sam and me—Sam was the overseer’s son—a damned self-righteous little prig. Wouldn’t drink, wouldn’t go prowling around the quarter after dark. We hated him, he was so damned good.

  “One day we went sailing. Sam had stolen a bottle of brandy, and he and I drank most of it. There was a squall coming up. Tommy wanted to turn back, but of course we refused. The squall hit us, and the next thing I remember is the field hands waking Sam and me, before day next morning. The boat had gone ashore above the landing, with us drunk and asleep.”

  He was silent till she prompted him. “Where was Tommy?”

  “I don’t know. No one ever saw him again.” He nodded. “Never again.” Self-pity swept him. “The worst of it was that his mother—his father was dead—his mother didn’t blame me. If she had, Papa and Mama might have taken my part, but she didn’t.”

  “Didn’t Sam know what had happened?”

  “He ran away. No one ever saw him again.” His head drooped. “Papa died the next year. He had some trouble with his heart, took to his bed. They thought he couldn’t move without help; but one day when they left him alone he got up and climbed the attic stairs. They found him dead, in his night shirt, at the head of the stairs. Mama said his shame for me had killed him.”

  “Why did he climb the stairs?”

  “I don’t know. Out of his head, probably. He must have been, because he had lighted the fire in his room before he went up to the attic, but it was a hot summer day.”

  “His name was Anthony, too, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. I’m the third Anthony Currain. He was the first. He lived up north of the Rappahannock when there was no head right on the Northern Neck, so he bought land, thousands of acres. That’s Belle Vue, where Faunt lives now. Grandpa was a friend of Washington and Lafayette. After Cornwallis surrendered, he bought Great Oak, and later Chimneys. He was always buying land. Quite a man. But Papa was not much.” He laughed in ugly mirth. “Except as a stud horse. He was forty odd when he married Mama, but they had two that died and five of us that lived. He was sixty when Faunt was born. Sam and I thought that was funny.”

  “I suppose you would.”

  “So I’m the third Tony Currain.” He shook his head. “There’ve been too many of us.” Another glass of wine. “Faunt’s the best of us now,” he repeated, “Faunt and Cinda. Tilda’s a fool, and I always hated Trav, till I persuaded Mama to send him off to Chimneys and got rid of him.”

  “That’s where I met him,” she remarked. “I set my cap for him, you know.”

  “You? For old Trav?” He chuckled.

  “M-hm! We hadn’t a penny, Enid and I. What money Mr. Albion left I spent, and after that we visited and visited till we wore our welcome thin everywhere. Enid was fifteen, but I’d practically kept her in pinafores, so I could pass for thirty easily enough; but I knew I had to hurry. We were visiting at Emmy Shandon’s, and Trav was so shy and awkward that he seemed an easy catch. I led him to talk about his farming at Chimneys, and he loved it.”

  “Can’t imagine what you’d see in Trav.”

  “Why, money, and position!” His mood for reminiscent confidences infected her. “I’d have got him, too, if it hadn’t been for Enid. She played the adoring child, and I suppose it didn’t occur to him to be afraid of her till too late. I’d persuaded him to give a party at Chimneys, and I was to play hostess for him. Enid wasn’t supposed to go, but she did over a dress of mine and put up her hair and made an appearance. She was lovely, of course; and she went to his head. Even then I could have beaten her game, I suppose; but you appeared, so I let her have him.”

  “Thought you could marry me?”

  “Oh, I never thought that.”

  He asked curiously: “Were you ever in love with me, Nell?”

  “Enough. I needed you.” She laughed lightly. “I hadn’t a penny, you see.”

  He grinned with sudden malice in his eyes. “Speaking of pennies, Nell, reminds me why I came tonight. The turn of the cards at Merrihay’s took my last one. My last penny. And—you’re an expensive luxury, my dear.”

  The attack was so sudden that for a moment she lost her composure. “You’ve always Great Oak!”

  “Oh, it hasn’t paid its way for years.” He laughed briefly. “Normally I’d go to Cinda’s husband. Brett Dewain’s the banker of the family, handles all the Currain money. I’ve had to stand up to his cross-examinations in the past. But now—well, he and Cinda are abroad, won’t be back till October. No, this is final, Nell.”

  There was a racing panic in her; she had so long depended on him, could not easily accept this overturn of her world, sought some expedient. “If you need money, sell some negroes South.”

  “We Currains don’t sell our people.”

  “You virtuous Currains!” She was frightened and angry too. “Then take Chimneys away from Trav. Enid says it’s prosperous, and it’s yours as much as his.”

  “It’s Mama’s, not Trav’s,” he corrected. “She’s willed Great Oak to me, and Chimneys to Trav, and Faunt gets Belle Vue, and Cinda the Plains; but they’re all Mama’s as long as she lives. And she may live for years.”

  “You can get around her!” She fought to hold him. “I’ll go to Chimneys with you.” His eyes met hers in a sardonic glance that warned her his decision was made. “But I suppose you have some other plan?” He grinned. “I see.” He was flicking her with a light lash, playing one of his cruel games, thinking she would weep, threaten, cajole. “You want to—want us to part, Tony?” He wished to savor her flattering supplications; but pride came to her rescue, steadied her tones. “Why, very well, if that’s what you want!”

  She saw that her easy assent had shaken him. From the bottle beside him he poured the last drop, tilted the glass to his lips, spilled a little, took his handkerchief, touched his chin and beard. She watched him coldly. What had he expected? She was no snivelling, love-sick child.

  “Wha
t will you do?” His words were faintly blurred.

  “Why, I’ve thought of going to Washington.” She spoke as though she had long considered the question, wishing to hurt him if she could. “I hear so much politics talked by the gentlemen who call upon me. It interests me. And Washington is the place for politics.”

  He mumbled drowsily, his eyelids drooped with sleep; and for a long time, while Mrs. Albion watched him with level glance, he sat with bent head, his inhalations becoming audible. The fumes of brandy and of wine suddenly had overwhelmed him. Occasionally in the past she had seen him thus succumb, with little or no warning, going in an instant from a surface sobriety to sodden slumber; and sometimes she had been amused. But not tonight. She watched him with narrowed eyes, a little desperate; he had been her reliance for so long. Fear made her angry now. She spoke at last in sharp tones to rouse him.

  “Yes, Tony, I’ll go to Washington.”

  His lids opened and hurriedly closed again, as though light hurt his eyes. “Washington, eh? Well then go.” He grunted and chuckled. “Joke on me! I thought you’d make a great fuss.”

  “Really? Why, Tony, you should know me better.” She wished to provoke him to discussion, but his muttering voice trailed into silence, and his head sagged forward. The flicker of the dying fire laid shadows on his bony countenance; he looked like a bearded skull. For a while she sat where she was, her eyes on him, her thoughts casting backward. Had she sold ten years of her life to this old man?

  With a quick motion at last she rose. It was high time she was rid of him. She went into the hall.

  “Tessie! Tessie!”

  From below came Tessie’s drowsy answer. “Yes, ma’am?”

  Nell had meant to bid Tessie hustle him into the street; but she hesitated, her fingernail tapping her teeth, looking back through the open door at him asleep in his chair. He was old, yes; yet if he had Chimneys he would be rich again, and lean years had taught her to value riches, and in the long run she could always manage him. She might speak to him again of Chimneys, and more urgently, in the morning. Her anger faded; she called to Tessie:

  “Come help me put Mr. Currain to bed.”

  2

  July, 1859

  THE CURRAINS, through their Courdain forebears, had been Virginians for a hundred and fifty years, since in 1703 Jules Courdain immigrated from French vineyards and set himself up as a victualler, distilling the spirits which he sold, and prospered thriftily. His son Jules married Annette Harrison, and their second son they named Antoine. When he became a man that son Antoine, at behest of pretty Molly O’Hara whom he wished to wed, changed his name to Anthony, and to Currain.

  In that first Anthony Currain, the wholesome blends of good peasant stock came to strong fruition. He turned to the soil, to the planting of tobacco; and he sought always more land to replace that which his ruthless cropping impoverished. Ten years after the Revolution, anticipating the decline in Virginia agriculture which would at last leave Mount Vernon a waste and reduce Thomas Jefferson in his old age to destitution, he set out to investigate the wilderness beyond the mountains. He proposed to follow the new trail through Danville and Salisbury and on southwesterly; but he turned aside to see and to admire the solid brick houses built by the Moravians who had come down from Pennsylvania to establish a religious colony at Betharaba and Salem and Bethania. When he resumed his journey, riding westward through forest broken by an occasional farm, he caught now and then glimpses from some mild eminence of a bold peak off to the north, twenty or thirty or forty miles away. Its shape reminded him of a camel with two humps, one of them jutting confidently upward against the sky; and he remembered that he had been told to look for Pilot Knob as a landmark useful to travellers hereabouts.

  He rode slowly, and came into a region where farms were more numerous; and as the sun dropped down the western sky he emerged from a belt of forest into a ten-acre clearing under good cultivation. To his left, set among oaks and junipers on a low saddleback that paralleled his road, a neat and spacious house promised hospitality. He turned aside. The lane led between a grassy meadow and a garden hedged with junipers to the door.

  His chance host proved to be an old acquaintance. Colonel Joseph Williams, commanding the Surry County militia, had served well through the Revolution; and Anthony Currain had met him at Yorktown. So there was a warm welcome waiting. In the cool of that first evening the two friends walked together in the garden, and Colonel Williams showed Anthony Currain the small shoots of box brought from Hanover County in Virginia to outline the garden beds.

  “And these along the hedge are tree box,” he said. “They will grow tall to replace the junipers by and by. And that sapling yonder will be a fine magnolia some day. Just savor the fragrance of this rose, if you please, Mr. Currain. I propose to make a pleasant garden here, with lanes and vistas, and an arbor of scuppernongs, and fruit trees well nurtured.”

  He was a man of many plans and projects; and he led Anthony Currain beyond the garden to a small walled enclosure. “The bricks in that wall were made on the place, sir, like the bricks in the house,” he said quietly. “When I no longer sleep in the house, I shall come to sleep in this lovely spot, and my generations after me.”

  They leaned on the farther wall to watch a doe and two fawns in the glade below. “I call that my deer pasture, Mr. Currain,” the Colonel explained. “They come to drink at the springs. We never molest them, and they seem to know themselves secure against man; yes, and against panthers, too. This is Panther Creek, but the beasts seldom approach the house.”

  Anthony Currain liked the remote peace and the gentle beauty of the spot, and he lingered, listening to his host’s stories of the day in February 1781, when Cornwallis and his army crossed the Yadkin at the ford a mile northwest of the house. When he told his errand, Colonel Williams eagerly displayed all the beauty and the promise of this region, urging that if it was land the other wanted, here was his perfect goal.

  “Fifty years from now, sir,” the enthusiast predicted, “all along the Yadkin here will be strung, like beads on a rosary, scores of rich and fruitful farms. Anything a man can want this soil will produce. It’s only necessary to girdle the trees and drop a few seeds. I began to build here before the Revolution, but I never found time to finish my house till after Cornwallis surrendered.” He chuckled. “In fact, it’s not yet finished. The walls bulge every time my family increases. And this is a land for good increase, Mr. Currain. Stay here and you’ll be glad all your days.”

  “I had a thought to pass the mountains and see what lies beyond,” Anthony Currain confessed; and after hours of talk the Colonel saw he could not be shaken.

  “Ride on, then,” he agreed. “But I know a place will hold you. It’s a long day’s ride due west, in the friendly hills. Cross at Shallow Ford and go on; but avoid the road to Wilkesboro. Mulberry Field Meeting-House, we used to call it, but they’re making a town there now, and you and I have no love for towns. Ask your way to a place called Chimneys. Any man you meet will direct you. It’s a great house, all of brick, with twin chimneys at the ends. Thomas Brettany came from Betharaba to build it and brought his bride there; but she and their first-born died together, and now the place is ashes in his mouth. He’d sell for the merest song.”

  So Anthony Currain made his farewells and rode on; and at the day’s end, following many words of direction, he came up a winding drive to a great house that looked off for miles south and west: southward over the long swell of gently rolling hills, westward across fertile bottom lands and past the flank of an isolated mountain mass to where many lesser heights rose in a crescendo to the pale distant silhouette of tall peaks against the setting sun.

  There he found that lonely man of whom Colonel Williams had spoken, and Thomas Brettany would sell, so Anthony Currain looked no further. He bought Chimneys and established there his younger son, and he himself went home to Great Oak and lived and died. When that younger son of his died childless, Chimneys fell back into the weak
hands of the second Anthony Currain, who sold it on terms to two brothers named Higpen. They made rapacious play with the rich bottoms till in the 1830’s the gold rush to placer workings in the mountains a few miles southeastward lured them away; and the discoveries around Gold Hill kept them enchanted there till they were penniless. When the second Anthony Currain died, their unpaid debt put the place back in his widow’s hands, and greedy tenants worked the land till Tony—the third Anthony Currain—persuaded his mother to send Travis, his younger brother, there to take charge.

  For Trav the move was promising; the prospect of freedom from Tony’s many impositions was an attractive one. Two passions were strong in him: a passion for keeping good land healthy and at work, and a love for the poetry of numbers. When one of his tutors while he was still a boy introduced him to Welch’s Improved American Arithmetic, Trav read it through as one reads a novel, hungrily; he turned back to pore over it page by page. What was alligation? Why were some fractions vulgar? What was double fellowship, the rule of three, tare, tret, cloff, suttle?

  The answers led him inevitably to an exploration of the plantation ledgers; he became their custodian. But at Great Oak, Tony and a succession of sloven overseers made the crops, and Trav had only the figures to set down. At Chimneys the double responsibility would be his. He welcomed it, and since then a dozen years had failed to bring satiety.

  Riding homeward in the late afternoon Travis checked his horse on a rise of ground and turned to look out across the low hills clad in pine and chestnut through which many little streams hurried to fatten the south fork of the Yadkin a few miles away. He and James Fiddler had gone toward his eastern bounds to inspect a sandy slope where a young vineyard of scuppernongs began to show fine promise; and now the overseer reined in beside him. Trav was a big man in his early forties, heavy-shouldered so that he seemed to stoop, with soft brown hair thinning a little, eyes mildly blue. He was close shaven; and even on this hot evening in early July, after a long day in the saddle, there was cleanness about him. The dust upon his garments and his boots and heavy on the brim of his soft old hat, and the sweat that darkened his shirt were superficial; the shirt had been fresh that morning, the boots scrupulously polished.