“Yes—but I’m afraid she knows it.” Her thoughts drifted. “We’re a queer, mixed sort of family, Brett Dewain; we Currains. Three of us are pretty nice, and the other two——”
“Nice?” As though in doubt. “Let me see now, which ones——”
“Oh, you be still! You know as well as I do. I’m nice, and so are Travis and Faunt; but Tilda’s an idiot, and Tony’s a scoundrel. I wonder why we’re so different. Why do some ancestors leave their mark on us, and not others? Faunt used to fly into rages when he was a boy, and Mama always said he got his high temper from Grandpa Currain; and that’s where Travis gets his industry and his love for land, and his—oh, unshakableness, if there is such a word. Heaven knows where I get all the things in me! From you, I guess. You’re a fine man, Mr. Dewain.” She kissed his cheek; and after a moment, thoughtfully: “Brett, why do people like some people and not like others? Tilda’s my own kid sister, and I try to be nice to her, but I never liked her. Nobody does.”
“I do.”
“Oh, you like everyone. That’s why everyone likes you. But you know what I mean. Tilda’s sort of pathetic. I’ve always said dreadful things to people, and she’s always said nice things to them, and yet people never seem to mind what I say, but she—well, you’d think sometimes she had insulted them! You’d think it would be me they’d —avoid.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’ve managed to stand you for twenty-five years —though it seems like more!” “Beast! Just for that, I shan’t speak another word to you tonight.”
Before dinner next day Mrs. Currain ordered up the big carriage and took Cinda and Tilda, Jenny and Enid upon a round of calls. When they returned and even before they alighted, they heard Redford Streean’s angry voice from indoors.
“Mercy,” Cinda exclaimed, “Mr. Streean’s making a speech!” The sounds came from the library, and they all turned that way. Cinda, the first to reach the door, saw Darrell. He must have come from Richmond, for he was still hot and dusty from the long ride. She heard his father cry:
“Well, if the damned abolitionists want a fight, they’ll get it, mighty quick!”
Their faces were all so grave that she realized this was not mere ranting. “What is it?” she asked; and when they swung at her word she went quickly toward her husband. “Brett Dewain, what’s happened?”
Redford Streean shouted, in a voice hoarse with rage: “The abolitionists have invaded Virginia to raise the niggers against us.” But Brett, without replying in words, turned with a newspaper open in his hand and gave it to Cinda. She saw the headline:
INSURRECTIONARY OUTBREAK IN VIRGINIA
Below there were three lines in smaller type:
Seizure of the U. S. Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry
Governor Wise at the Scene of Action Ferry
Troops Ordered from Richmond
And while their voices went on around her, Cinda read the story below.
The startling intelligence reached this city yesterday that an insurrectionary outbreak had occurred at Harper’s Ferry Sunday, and that negroes to the number of 500, aided by 200 white men under the command of a white captain named Anderson, had seized the U. S. Arsenal at that place and captured the town itself.
There was a telegram from President Garnett of the Baltimore and Ohio reporting the outbreak, and the paper said soldiers from Jefferson County, soldiers from Richmond, marines and artillery from Washington and from Fortress Monroe were rushing to the scene. The main story was followed by short dispatches. From Frederick, Maryland: “Armed abolitionists have full possession of the United States Arsenal . . . one negro killed. . . .” From Baltimore: “The special train with Colonel Lee’s command passed Monocacy Bridge at II½ o’clock. . . .” From Washington: “The Mayor of the city, fearing the servile insurrection may extend, has made suitable preparation to quell sit. . . .”
She put the newspaper down, going to her mother’s side in an instinctive protectiveness. “Don’t worry, Mama,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. Yet—a slave revolt? That was the nightmare that haunted one’s dreams. The Negroes were so many, their masters so few.
But Mrs. Currain was undisturbed. “I’m too old to worry. Besides, I’ve seen it happen before.” Her word caught them all. “You children, all of you except Faunt, are old enough to remember Nat Turner.”
“I do, yes,” Cinda agreed. “I was terrified, couldn’t sleep for weeks.”
Enid asked sharply: “Who’s Nat Turner? What did he do?”
“Why, he was a slave.” Mrs. Currain spoke as though she were explaining something to a child; as though she were telling things everyone knew. “In Southampton. He had taught himself to read, and they say he thought he was God, but I always thought it was from drinking apple brandy. I remember it was in August, the same month we had the spotted sun.”
“Spotted sun, Mama? Whatever was that?”
“No one ever knew, Enid. When the sun rose that day it was all pale green, and then it turned blue, and long before dinner time it was white as silver; just a tremendous silver disc, with a hideous dark spot in the middle of it. The people were all sure it was a sign something awful was going to happen, and when Nat Turner started cutting up, they knew that was it.”
“What did he do?”
“Why, he and five or six others got drunk one night and broke into the house and killed Turner’s master and all his family with axes and then went around the neighborhood killing all the white folks they could find. They killed over fifty that night, mostly women and children; but as soon as one white man—old Mr. Blount, and he was chair-bound with the gout—stood up to them, that was the end of it. The soldiers soon caught them all, shot them or hanged them or cut off their heads and stuck them up on poles.” She laughed in her brisk little fashion. “It was really quite exciting for a while. Everyone expected the same sort of thing would start up everywhere, so we all made perfect fools of ourselves. Boys organized militia companies, people left their farms and moved into town where they’d be safe. All over the South people acted like a lot of chickens when a hawk flies over. In North Carolina mobs kept grabbing poor negroes and whipping them till they admitted they were plotting to kill their masters and then killing them. As far away as Louisiana, silly women shivered in their beds, and the men were just as bad. The legislatures everywhere kept passing laws that slaves mustn’t do this and they mustn’t do that. Nat Turner could read, so they made laws that no one should teach negroes to read. It went on for years, this silly panic.”
Faunt said thoughtfully: “I’ve wondered sometimes how many of the things we do come out of our secret fear of the negroes.” He added: “I remember we used to make up games about it, when we were children. We’d make one of the negro boys play captive, and we’d make-believe torture him till he confessed, and then we’d shoot him. Not actually, of course; just a game.” He looked at Trav. “You remember? Big Mill was our favorite victim. I think he used to have as much fun out of it as we did. Of course he could have handled the lot of us if he had wanted to.”
“I’d outgrown games by that time,” Trav reminded the other. He was ten years older than Faunt. “Mill’s the best hand on the place now. I’m going to make him driver.”
“But that fear’s always in the back of our minds,” Faunt suggested. “Remember three years ago, after the last presidential campaign, lots of people believed the Republicans had organized a slave revolt that was going to start right after Christmas. That scare went all over the South. I’ve heard that at least forty negroes were hanged in Tennessee. Actually, of course, the slaves didn’t make the slightest trouble anywhere. Except in our minds.”
Enid cried: “But maybe they just put it off till now. Maybe this is the start of it!”
Mrs. Currain said calmly: “We’ll talk ourselves into hysterics. Let’s eat our dinner and forget about it”
“Forget about it? Heavens, I’ll not sleep a wink tonight.”
“Nonsense! There’s nothing to be so upset about.�
��
At dinner and afterward Mrs. Currain refused to permit any further discussion of the news Darrell had brought; but when she went for her afternoon nap, she wanted Cinda with her. “I wouldn’t admit it to the others,” she confessed when they were alone. “But it does make the cold shivers run up and down my spine, Cinda. You can say what you like, the people can kill us all in our beds any time they want to.”
Cinda stayed with her till at early dusk they descended to join the others. Cinda found herself watching with new attention the servants who brought the loaded supper trays and set them out on the little tables, trying to read the thoughts behind those cheerful, dark faces. She well remembered the Nat Turner days, and the fear that for months thereafter was never quite forgotten. Now came this fresh reminder. Would she ever again feel at peace and secure with these black people always at her elbow, serving her, preparing every mouthful she ate, spying on each move she made? They were always laughing and singing and they seemed content and serene; but who could know the thoughts behind the sable masks they wore? Could a slave ever forget he was a slave, ever cease to hate his master? Not even animals submitted tamely to the dominance of man; in the gentlest horse or dog lurked always a seed of revolt. Were Negroes less spirited than horses, than mules? In sudden surrender to her secret fear she spoke to the black butler. “Uncle Josh, draw the curtains at the windows.” Who knew what malevolent eyes watched them from the covert of the outer dark? To be hidden from those possible watchers was somehow to be safe.
Out of respect to Mrs. Currain’s wishes, no one at supper or afterward spoke of this which was in all their minds; but that night, to Brett, Cinda said wearily:
“Oh, Brett Dewain, I’m so scared, and so confused! What does it mean?”
He was slow in replying. “Faunt and I rode into Williamsburg this afternoon,” he said. “Mr. Lively at the Gazette office says the men who made the trouble were killed or captured this morning by the marines under Colonel Lee. The leader was a man named John Brown. Lieutenant Stuart recognized him. You probably never heard of him, but he’s supposed to have murdered half a dozen men in the Kansas troubles; took them out of bed and chopped them to bits with sabres.” She clung to him, and he added slowly: “Brown is a fanatic, probably insane. There can’t be many men even in the North who would try to start a slave revolt—or who would think it possible to do so.”
“Don’t you think it’s possible? I do. I never feel I know what the negroes really think of us.”
He said firmly: “No, it’s not possible. For one thing, even if the negroes had real grievances, they’ve no leaders.” He added: “But—men on both sides, North and South, will be angry now; angrier than ever. Even Faunt was in a deadly rage today.”
“Will this—start us all fighting?”
He hesitated. “There’s no reason why it should; but of course the politicians will make a great to-do.” He added in an even tone: “Faunt and I are going to Richmond tomorrow, and Clayton will go back to the Plains, in case this stirs up any trouble there.”
She shivered. “I don’t like being left alone.”
He held her close. “You’ll feel better in daylight. I wouldn’t leave you if I thought there was any danger.”
“Trav will be here, of course,” she reflected, “and Burr and Julian.”
“I’ll probably go to the Plains with Clayton,” he told her. “I’ll send Caesar and June to Richmond and some of the people. You’ll need them to help unpack the things from England. You can stay at the Arlington till the house is habitable.”
She laughed in quick fondness. “Clever Brett Dewain, trying to get my mind on other things. You always know how to comfort me. And you’re right, of course. If I keep busy, I won’t have time for worrying.”
7
October–December, 1859
RICHMOND, beautiful on rolling hills, had not yet felt the harsh touch of coming winter; but here and there the trees began to put on brighter colors, just as a woman conscious of encroaching age chooses new cosmetics and becomes more beautiful for a while before she fades. Faunt, happiest at Belle Vue, seldom came to the city; and today he found the crowded, dusty streets, with groups of men in hot discussion everywhere, disturbing and oppressive. The very air seemed to him heavy, as it may be on a sultry afternoon before a thunderstorm. Redford Streean had offered them hospitality, but at Faunt’s suggestion they put up at the first hotel they came to, the Exchange on Franklin Street, two blocks down the hill from Capitol Square.
“I always get indoors as quickly as I can, whenever I come to town,” Faunt confessed. “I’m jumpy as a fresh-broken colt in crowds, ready to sheer across the nearest ditch at any alarm, wall-eyed as a scared darky.”
Neither Brett nor Clayton shared this feeling. “I suppose living with Cinda has made me used to crowds,” Brett remarked. “She’s a crowd in herself. And Clayton here is young enough to enjoy being in the middle of things.”
Clayton assented. “Yes, I like it, seeing so many people, watching their faces, wondering about them.”
“Strangers?” Faunt objected.
Clayton held his ground. “Yes, strangers! I like to try to guess what their—well, what they’re thinking. What do they hope to make of their lives? What do they dream about? Do they think they’re pretty fine fellows? No one can ever really know any man but himself, I suppose; but trying to guess about strangers seems to me mighty interesting.” He stood at the window, watching the throngs on Franklin Street and up toward Capitol Square. “Look at them, ladies, gentlemen, children; some going one way and some another. Where are they going? Why?”
The older men exchanged glances and Brett crossed and touched Clayton’s shoulder, a deep affection in the gesture. “Well, I can tell you where I’m going, and why.” There was a chuckle in his tones. “I’m hungry. Come along, son.”
In the dining room and through the hours that followed they heard the attack on Harper’s Ferry discussed from every point of view. Indoors and out, till the hush of night belatedly descended, there was a clamor of excited and passionate voices in the air. By the more accurate reports it developed that the original version had been wildly exaggerated. Instead of two hundred white men and five hundred Negroes, there were only a score or so in John Brown’s party. Sunday evening they seized the town, stopped the twelve-forty train, killed a Negro porter, the ticket agent, the train conductor, two or three others. Monday morning the first troops came; the rioters took refuge in the engine house. That evening Colonel Lee and a small detachment of marines arrived; at daylight Tuesday morning, after a fruitless parley between Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart and John Brown, the engine house was stormed by marines, the raiders were all killed or captured. Now John Brown and the other survivors would be tried and hanged.
But these scant facts were the grains of wheat in a bushel of chaff; there were a thousand rumors. John Brown, the butcher of Osawatomie, had hoped to rouse the slaves to bloody insurrection; Northern abolitionists had backed him. That was the flagrant, the frightful, the unforgivable. Everywhere, in each excited group, furious voices rose.
Faunt and Brett during the evening became separated from Clayton, so when the two older men came back to their rooms they sat in talk for an hour or so. “I’ll probably not sleep anyway, till Clayton comes in,” Brett explained.
“That’s a fine son of yours, Brett.”
“Well, Cinda and I are almighty proud of him, don’t hesitate to admit it. In fact, we’re proud of all our children.” He added: “Clayton’s done a lot of living in his twenty-three years, Faunt; known all the nobler emotions—except sorrow.” His tone softened on the word.
Faunt nodded, reading the other’s thought. “Yes, I’d loved and lost a wife and a baby at his age.” His eyes were serene. “I’ve lived pretty well inside myself, since; but I don’t think I ever did have Clay’s interest in—other people. Friends, family, yes; but outside the close immediate circle of my world, people could do as they liked for all of me.” He met
Brett’s glance. “There’s a wonderfully comforting and satisfactory peace in solitude, Brett; in living close to the earth, your daily intimates the fields and forests, the trees, the blossoms in your garden, fresh ones opening to greet you at every dawning, the birds that seem to know you, calling a musical ‘God bless you’ as you pass. But I begin to wonder if it isn’t a selfish life. I wonder if to live so isn’t to dodge your responsibilities to—well, to the human race of which you are a part.”
“Except in stormy times, a man is free to do the thing that most contents him.”
“I don’t come close to men—or to women.” Faunt, in an unaccustomed self-searching, was thinking aloud. “Oh, we have a mannered intimacy; we smile, we say good morning or good evening; we exchange what might be called opinions. But I’m careful not to challenge the opinions of others—or to intrude any possibly disturbing opinions of my own. I sometimes feel—especially when I’m with adults—like an actor, playing the part expected of him. I’m more at ease with children.”
“Not many men are.”
“Perhaps they’re abashed at discovering in children something they themselves have lost. Children have so many gifts. They’re able in fancy to create for themselves in a moment a world complete and satisfying.”
“That’s true. Our children as babies were forever drawing pictures, telling each other stories, making poetry. But they got over it.”
“They do, yes. Why, Brett? Do we somehow stifle them, smother all those powers, reduce them to futility? I suppose my closest friend is a child, Judge Tudor’s daughter, Anne. Their place runs with Belle Vue on the west, you know. She and I have pleasant hours together, meeting casually when I ride that way, talking nonsense ever so seriously—or speaking of serious things lightly, as though to pretend we’re not serious.” He added: “But she’s growing up. I think she’s fourteen now, almost a young lady, so we’re not so comfortable together, not such good companions as we were two or three years ago. Why do children change?”
House Divided Page 11
