House Divided

by Ben Ames Williams

  “I’d admire to git my sights on one of them Republican abolitionists, all the same. Anyone says I got to have niggers pulling up to my table, marrying my gals!” He spat with listless violence.

  Trav was careful not to smile. Matt was one of those individuals who never stood when he could sit, never sat when he could lie down. Most farmers hereabouts were thrifty and hard-working men; but Matt never did a lick. Trav thought any Negro who sat at Matt’s table would be still hungry when he rose; and of course Matt had no daughters. Many white men were poor, but Matt was ‘poor white,’ a very different thing. Such men as he had nothing except their white skins of which to boast, so they hated Negroes and abolitionists with an equal venom. “Well, I doubt if it will come to anything,” he said, and Matt was appeased.

  Talk turned to crops and weather, and Chelmsford Lowman came over from the Post Office to wait for the mail sack the stage would bring, and at last the thudding of hoofs on the dusty road announced its coming. The four horses drawing the clumsy vehicle turned into the wide street, lumbered nearer, stopped at the tavern steps; and Trav rose to watch for Enid’s mother to descend. She alighted prettily, her gray merino pelisse and soft gray hat somehow managing despite the dusty journey to make her appear immaculate; and even before he stepped forward she recognized him with a quick, welcoming smile.

  He offered his hand, but she kissed him. “It’s good to see you, Trav my dear.” She looked at him in calm appraisal. “You’re handsomer than ever! I always thought you were just about the nicest-looking man I’d ever seen.”

  She said this so simply that it left him unembarrassed. He handed her into the carriage, called a Negro to fetch her baggage from the boot, and turned the horses homeward. His awkward politenesses she answered pleasantly. Her trip had been a hard one, yes. “But it’s worth it, to be here, and nice of you to meet me.” As they left the town behind she exclaimed with delight at a trumpet flower in full bloom, and then at the laurel which clad every hillside in bright blossoms; and Trav warmed to her praise of the beauty of this region which he loved.

  “Lots of flowers and flowering trees here,” he assured her. “There’s nothing any prettier than a fringe tree, and the redbuds and the dogwoods just make a garden out of the whole place when they’re in bloom. You see a tulip tree all covered with yellow- and copper-colored blossoms and it will take your breath away; and the smell of the olive blossoms in spring is about the sweetest smell there is. We’ve got a strawberry tree, right by the porch, and we did have some Carolina jessamines, but Enid didn’t like the smell, so I had to root them up.” He added mildly: “She’s not much for flowers.”

  He felt her eyes touch his face, and she led him to talk about Chimneys, to recount what he had done, and to recite the things he planned to do. He expected to increase his acreage in orchards and vineyards, and he explained to her why this region was good fruit country.

  “We seldom get frost after mid-April, or before late October, and we have a lot of slopes that are well above the frosts that hit the bottom lands, and at the same time not high enough to get the freezes in the hills.”

  She asked the right questions. “Isn’t it hard to farm on the steep hillsides?”

  “We plow them crosswise so the rain won’t run down the furrows and wash the soil away. You won’t find any bad gullies on the place anywhere. There were plenty when I came, but we’ve thrown brush in, and planted wild honeysuckle and ground vines to catch the silt.” Under her prompting he told her about the tobacco that was his special pride. “The idea is, you put in just enough guano to give the plant a good growth, but not too much. That way, when it’s grown it begins to starve, and the leaves turn yellow, just like trees in a dry summer, and the flavor gets better at the same time. It needs light, sandy soil; but we’ve got two ridges that are good for it.”

  She asked for Emmy Shandon, but he had not seen these neighbors recently. “We don’t have much in common,” he confessed. “Mr. Shandon’s not my kind. He’s so stirred up about politics that he’s letting his place run down.”

  “Aren’t you interested in politics? No one thinks of anything else in Richmond.”

  He moved his whip in a wide gesture that embraced the scene before them. “I’m too busy with all this to bother.”

  “But, Trav,” she urged, “if the abolitionists have their way you won’t have this. You couldn’t do anything without slaves.”

  “Maybe I could.” They passed a small house, and Trav raised his hat to the man splitting lightwood by the corn crib. “That’s Ed Blandy. Take him, for instance. He gets twice as much per acre out of his little patch here, with just Mrs. Blandy and his boy to help him, as I get per acre with all my people. I’d rather have white men if I could get them; but around here the white men all have their own farms, and work them.” He added, quiet pride in his tones: “I know to work is sort of disreputable all over the South, because it’s mostly negroes that work; but that’s not true here. It’s loafing that’s disreputable here.”

  “If you raised more cotton, or if you raised rice, I expect you’d want slaves.”

  This was doubtless true, and he did not argue the point. “This is where our land begins,” he said.

  “I think I’d have known. The fields are so neat and clean.”

  He nodded, silent now, his eyes alert, looking for tasks that needed doing; and she did not speak for long minutes, till they came to the turning where his driveway left the road. As it topped the first rise of its winding ascent, the big house, hidden till now by a roll of the land, came into view, still well above them; and she cried: “Oh, Trav, it’s beautiful! But it wasn’t white before? It’s brick, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, built of big bricks they used to make around here, nine inches long, laid up in Flemish bond. But Enid thought it would look better painted white, and we’ve put on a fresh coat, specially for you.” He added, his eyes on the big house as they approached: “We’ve taken off the old tile roof, too. Mr. Brettany, the man who built the place, brought the tiles from Salem. They were shaped like shingles, a foot long, and furrowed to let the water run down. The men who made them used to mark those furrows in the soft clay with their fingers before they baked the tiles. The old roof was a mighty pretty red, but the wind got under the tiles sometimes, loosened them, drove water in, and that bothered Enid.”

  “It didn’t bother you?”

  “Well, I liked the old tiles, and the plain brick walls, but Enid thinks the paint looks nice.”

  His eyes were on the house, and hers too. The ascent from the road was moderate, but the horses took a foot pace, switching their tails, ears pricked, glad to come home. A clump of oaks for a moment shut off their view, but when they rounded the trees Trav saw Enid waiting on the wide westward-facing veranda. He pulled up the horses at the foot of the steps, and Enid, lovely as a child, came running to kiss her mother, and to kiss Trav too in this happy hour. She swept Mrs. Albion away upstairs, and Trav left Joseph to tend Mrs. Albion’s bags while he himself went down to the cool shadowed room on the ground floor to hear James Fiddler’s report of the day’s activities.

  When later he had changed his clothes, Joseph brought his julep out to the veranda and he sat at ease, watching the sun drop toward the distant mountains while lengthening shadows reached toward him across the cultivated bottom lands. Knowing his delight in them, Vigil fetched the children; and Lucy stood in the crook of her father’s arm and Peter wriggled on his knee.

  Then Enid and her mother appeared, and Enid said in a sharp tone: “Vigil!” The black girl guiltily snatched her snuff stick out of her mouth, and tried to hide it in her skirts. “I declare,” Enid protested, “that worthless nigger drives me distracted. Sometimes I wish we hadn’t sold Sapphira!”

  Mrs. Albion, already making friends with the children, asked lightly, “Who was Sapphira?”

  “Oh, she was a bright, and much too uppity.” Enid added maliciously: “Of course Trav liked her!”

  Trav felt Mrs.
Albion’s eyes rest on him for a moment, but then she said something to make the children laugh, and he thought she knew how to please people. She had changed in these years, was more attractive, not at all alarming. Her visit promised pleasantly.

  3

  July, 1859

  IN THAT interval after her arrival when she and her daughter were alone together abovestairs, Mrs. Albion decided that Enid was as pretty as ever, if she only knew how to do her hair. It hung in ringlets, with a frizzed bang; but coronet braids in the current fashion were so much more becoming unless your hair was naturally curly. Enid’s, though it was a delicious honey color, was as straight as a string; and people with straight hair, if they were intelligent, arranged it simply and almost severely. Enid’s gown, too, was atrocious, the sort of thing you gave away quickly to your servants. Mrs. Albion thought: “But there, I mustn’t blame her. It’s my fault. I didn’t teach her these things when she was a child. It’s lucky I came.”

  They had a long hour together while Mrs. Albion repaired the disorders of her journey. Enid was exclamatory with welcome. “Oh, Mama, it’s so wonderful to have you here! Trav and I just go on and on, year in, year out, never seeing anybody! Except, of course, he goes away on business sometimes; but he never takes me!”

  Mrs. Albion marked her querulous tone for future attention. “What a pretty dress! Did Trav pick it out for you, on those trips of his?”

  “Trav? Heavens, Mama, he never thinks of bringing back anything —except of course head cloths for the women and Barlow knives for the hands! Never anything for me. No, I made this over. It’s one I got in Raleigh three years ago. I haven’t been away from the place since! Can you imagine that? The children and the place, up at daylight, go to bed at dark; that’s Trav’s idea of the way to live! He never considers me!”

  Mrs. Albion’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “You talk as though you and Trav didn’t get along.”

  “Oh, I guess he’s satisfied, but it’s awful for me. We just live like poor whites.”

  “In this lovely house? With everything you want?” The older woman’s tone sharpened. “Don’t be silly! You’ve nothing to whine about!”

  “You don’t know Trav!”

  “I’ve known—other men.”

  “Trav isn’t Tony, by miles!”

  There was a hint of malice in Enid’s tone, and Mrs. Albion heard it. Probably the little snip had guessed the truth about Tony long ago. Well, let her! “Whining does no good, with men,” the older woman suggested. “It just makes them feel guilty, so they get mad. A man’s like a cat, or a mule. Pushing and pulling and hauling makes men stubborn; but they can be gently led to do anything, if you’re clever.”

  “I notice you never married Tony, all the same!”

  “Tony? Why, Heavens, he’s an old man, dear!” The best defense was always to attack. “I’m surprised you haven’t been able to handle Trav. You were clever enough to make him marry you.”

  “I just did it to spite you! I wish I’d let you have him!”

  “Well, you made your bed! It’s your own fault Trav is in it.” She was busy with her hair. “I never get this braid to look right. I should have kept Tessie. She was good with it, but she was a bother other ways.” Tessie knew too much, for one thing; Mrs. Albion, ignoring her entreaties, had mercilessly sold her to a slave trader from Louisiana. So far away her tongue could do no harm.

  “Let me try.”

  “Oh, I might as well learn now as later.” Nell’s tone became lightly casual. “By the way, speaking of Tony, I hear he’s run Great Oak into debt. Trav’s made Chimneys pay, hasn’t he?” She was more intent than she pretended. It was for this, above all else, that she had come.

  “I guess so. He used to brag about it all the time; but it bored me, so I never listen now.”

  “You should. Men—even husbands—like to talk about themselves and their work.” Her hair suited her at last. “There, that will do. Enid, I think Tony may decide to take Chimneys over, now that Great Oak doesn’t earn its way.”

  “Oh, nobody will ever get Trav away from here.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to live at Great Oak?”

  Enid’s eyes shone. “Of course I would! Trav’s never even taken me there! I was always going to have a baby or something. It must be wonderful, people to see, things to do!”

  “Someone said Mrs. Currain felt that since Trav had done so well with Chimneys he might be able to bring Great Oak back. If she wants Trav there, you ought to make him go.”

  “Make him? Why, Mama, no one can make Trav do anything he doesn’t want to do! You can argue and argue, but it’s like pounding pillows. He just grunts and does what he was going to do anyway.”

  Mrs. Albion smiled, sure of her powers; and she held to her design. Out of Tony’s past generosity she had saved, in secret ways, a considerable sum; but now that he had cast her off, she would have to spend her savings, and money spent was gone. Yet, if Tony had Chimneys, she was sure she could recall him to her side. “You can manage Trav if you try,” she urged. “But perhaps you don’t really want to move to Great Oak.”

  “Oh, I do!”

  “Maybe I can help you with Trav.” Certainly Enid had no notion how to handle him. She rose, and they came downstairs, and she thought that reference to Sapphira, when they joined Trav on the veranda, was just plain silly. Sensible wives, if they suspected that their husbands had noticed one of the wenches from the quarter, pretended not to see. Enid was a fool, no doubt of that; but Trav could be managed. When they were at table—she had taken care to make herself perfection, in a low-necked lilac-colored gown with angel sleeves that did not conceal her round arms—she watched him appraisingly. Enid ignored him, chattering as though he did not exist; so Mrs. Albion sought to draw him into their conversation. She expressed some opinion, asked him directly: “Trav, don’t you agree?”

  Enid spoke in a quick impatience. “Oh, don’t bother Trav, Mama. He doesn’t like to talk when he’s eating. Always thinking about his crops, I suppose.”

  “Well,” Mrs. Albion smilingly commented, “he thinks to some purpose, I can see that.” All men liked flattery. “The change in Chimneys since I first saw it is just unbelievable. Trav, does your mother ever come here?”

  “No,” he confessed. “She never has.”

  “Not even to our wedding!” Enid’s tone was sharp with resentment.

  “She’s pretty old to travel,” Trav said defensively.

  “She’d be mighty pleased to see all you’ve done here,” Mrs. Albion suggested.

  “Oh, she won’t come,” Enid said positively. “I’ve never laid eyes on her. Trav goes to see her every year, but he doesn’t take me. He always says it’s just a business trip to Richmond; but then he goes down to Great Oak too. I think he’s ashamed of me!” And as though weary of this topic: “Mama, have you sold your house in Richmond? Why are you moving to Washington?”

  “Oh, Trav’s not interested in my doings, Enid.” Mrs. Albion held him in play. “Trav, is Great Oak as prosperous as Chimneys?”

  “No.” He added as though in apology: “I reckon Tony’s not much of a farmer.”

  “Too bad you can’t take charge there for a year or two, put it on its feet again. Now that Chimneys is in such splendid condition.” Enid was about to speak, but the older woman caught her eye, warned her to silence. “You’d enjoy that, I expect.”

  “It would be a hard pull.” Yet she saw the stir of interest in his eyes. Great Oak would challenge his capacities.

  “I expect you like a hard pull, don’t you? Is Mr. Fiddler still overseer? I remember he was here when you and Enid were married.”

  “Yes, he’s a good man.”

  “Well then, with him in charge, Chimneys would go on all right.” She would tell Tony, some day, how deftly she had prepared the way for him; it would amuse him to hear how she had played on Trav.

  “Yes, James Fiddler could handle things,” Trav reflected. Clearly, she had set him thinking, so the fight w
as half won.

  “Could Great Oak be brought back, do you suppose?”

  “Oh yes, certainly.” On firm ground now, his tone was sure, and quick with interest. “Yes, it could be done. Edmund Ruffin found out years ago how to revive worn-out land. Manure did it no good, but he decided that was because the land was sour——”

  “Heavens, I didn’t know land could be sour—or sweet either, for that matter. What do you mean?”

  “Why, sour land has too much acid in it. Some of it comes from rotting vegetation; and some plants, the roots throw off acid. Mr. Ruffin decided that lime would counteract acid, and there were plenty of marl beds—full of fossils, really lime—on Coggin’s Point, where his farm was; so he dug up a lot of marl and spread it on fields where he’d been getting five or ten bushels of corn or wheat to the acre, and even the first year he doubled his yield.” There was a high admiration in his tone. “I wanted Tony to try it at Great Oak, but he never would.”

  Enid made an impatient sound, weary of this conversation; but they ignored her. Mrs. Albion asked, in lively interest: “Do people know about Mr. Ruffin’s way?”

  “Oh, yes. He used to publish a farmer’s magazine full of advice about using marl and about draining wet lands and about farming with machinery. Then he gave his Coggin’s Point place to his son and bought a worked-out farm up on the Pamunkey. He named it Malbourne and in three years he had it producing again.” Well-launched, he became eloquent. Let him talk; he would persuade himself. “Yes,” he concluded. “All those old fields at Great Oak could be put back to work.”

  “Then it’s certainly a pity to let Great Oak go downhill.” But she must not press him too hard. Men hated to be hurried. “Is your mother well?”