House Divided

by Ben Ames Williams

  Cinda exclaimed: “Of all the insulting idiots! Why didn’t you—slap his face, or call him out?”

  “I’m afraid he wouldn’t have come!” Brett told her smilingly.

  Clayton asked: “Papa, is Mr. Seward as black as he’s painted?”

  “I doubt it,” Brett told him. “Of course, he’s an abolitionist; but he’s a New Yorker, and his friends there won’t let him make too much trouble.”

  Cinda said: “But you’re worried, Brett Dewain.”

  “Yes,” he admitted. “Yes, I am. Our Southern hotbloods, men like Ruffin and Roger Pryor and Rhett and Yancey, are ready to secede on any pretext—or to make one.”

  “Men my age have been brought up to expect secession,” Clayton reminded him, and Brett saw the proud light in his son’s eyes. Young men were so sure of their strength. Probably Burr felt as Clayton did. Yes, and Julian too.

  “Have you heard from Julian?” he asked Cinda. The youngster had gone off to the Institute at Charlotte before he himself left for Charleston.

  “Oh yes, a long letter.” She smiled. “He insists he isn’t the least bit homesick. That’s not very flattering to us, is it?”

  “Probably he’s just bragging. He wouldn’t admit it if he were.”

  “I’m not sure we did right to send him there. Major Hill doesn’t sound very impressive. Julian says he’s a shabby sort of man, never gets the right buttons into the right button holes, little and peaked and almost hunchbacked, always peering at you over his spectacles.”

  “His record is good,” Brett assured her. “Trav knows him, and I looked him up. He ranked well at West Point and did fine work in Mexico. Trav likes him because he’s a mathematician.” They smiled together. “But he has other qualities—though perhaps Julian is too young to appreciate them.” He asked: “How does Julian get along with his work?”

  “He claims he’s doing well. He says being a ‘Newy’ is rather strenuous. The older boys make their lives miserable, and even Major Hill teases them a good deal, in little ways. But Julian says he’s sure he can get a ‘minus demerit’ every month—whatever that is. It’s all in his letter.” The carriage turned into the drive and she said happily: “Oh, I’m glad you’re home.”

  Vesta and Jenny and the children met them with riotous greetings, and Brett and Clayton and Vesta went to see Rollin Lyle, still in bed, his head swathed in bandages and his jaw bound so that he could not talk. But Rollin’s eyes made their apologies to Brett for what had happened, and Brett understood and reassured him. When later they were alone he told Cinda: “The youngster blames himself; but boys that age are a high-spirited lot.”

  “I blame Dolly,” Cinda retorted. “She’s an outrageous coquette, Brett Dewain—and heartless and cruel besides. She’s—well, I’m afraid she’s always going to make trouble wherever she goes. She’s too beautiful!” She smiled at him. “You can be thankful that I’m homely as a hedge fence.” He came to kiss her, and for a moment she clung to him. “Don’t ever leave me,” she whispered. “Don’t ever leave me again.”

  11

  May–June, 1860

  CINDA was interested in anything that interested Brett. Before was interested in anything that interested Brett. Before they went abroad he had paid little attention to political matters; but she saw that he was deeply troubled now. The morning after his return from Charleston, they heard of the dreadful tragedy at Boykin’s Mill Pond the evening before, when another picnic had ended in disaster. Two or three score boys and girls put out into the pond in a big flatboat which sank under them, and twenty-four were drowned. The whole neighborhood was saddened, and Cinda and Brett, Clayton and Jenny did what they could to ease the general grief. Cinda was secretly almost grateful for this distraction which helped them all forget Mr. Eader’s death, and Rollin’s hurt; she hoped it would wash Brett’s mind clear of political anxieties.

  It did, but not for long. By the time they returned to Richmond, the Constitutional Union party had nominated John Bell of Tennessee for President, and Brett had some hope the Democracy would unite again to support him. “He’s a good man,” he told Cinda. “He’s always stood against disunion.” He added doubtfully: “But of course he voted against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and opposed the Lecompton constitution for Kansas, and his own party has disowned him.”

  “I’ve heard of Democrats and Republicans,” she hazarded, “but I never heard of this party of his. Is it important?”

  “Well, they had delegates from twenty-two states at their convention,” he told her, “and their platform is equally against abolition and disunion. A lot of people would like to stand on that middle ground.”

  “In a fight, it’s the ones in the middle that get hurt, isn’t it?” Since these matters filled Brett’s thoughts, she must try to understand.

  He nodded soberly. “That’s Virginia’s danger now,” he commented. “We’ll be besought by both sides. We’re a big state, the biggest in the Union except Texas; and we’re rich and powerful. Our. state bonds sell higher in New York and in London than the national obligations. So we’re a prize worth playing for. The North will try to persuade us to side with her, and the South will try to win us over.”

  Sometimes when she heard his grave tones her heart froze with fear. “Do you seriously think—trouble is coming?”

  “I don’t know,” he confessed. “I talked today with a number of gentlemen, Mr. Harvie and Mr. Robinson and Mr. Haxall and several others.” He smiled doubtfully. “All business men, of course; and men of business are slow to believe that anything can upset the settled order of things. From their point of view, it’s absurd to think of trouble when the South’s as prosperous as it is now. Especially the Gulf States. Mr. Haxall spoke of a Louisiana man named Burnside who has made six million dollars in sugar; and with the huge cotton crop last year, and another big crop coming, land and slaves are worth more every day. So these gentlemen find it hard to take Yancey and Roger Pryor and old Mr. Ruffin and such men seriously.”

  Cinda said with some vehemence: “Well, so do I!”

  Brett smiled. “By the way,” he said, “Mr. Robinson’s resigning.” Edwin Robinson was president of the Fredericksburg railroad, in which considerable Currain funds were invested. “Mr. Daniel will take his place.”

  “What does Mr. Daniel think about all this?”

  “Oh, he’s optimistic,” Brett assured her; and he caught to some extent the infection of their hopefulness. John Brown’s raid had sent a wave of passionate anger across the South, awakening as it did that fear of a slave insurrection which lay dormant in every Southern mind; and most Southern states passed laws making more rigorous the restrictions on the slaves themselves and forbidding the publication or circulation even by word of mouth of abolitionist tracts. But after the legislatures had acted, fears and the anger they bred began to subside; mobs were not so ready to cowhide or to tar and feather any suspected abolitionists, nor the courts to bring them to trial. There was a proposal in North Carolina to tax slaves as property; but that was a part of the dangerously increasing pressure to take political control out of the hands of the wealthy and presumably the wise and statesmanlike and give it to the mob. Brett agreed with the men he knew best that any extension of the voting power of men with neither property nor political wisdom was a mistake. Even war, if it checked the growing power of the illiterate and irresponsible, might be a good thing.

  But he could not believe that war was coming. When the Republican Convention met in Chicago, he told Cinda: “If the Republicans nominate Seward we can surely work something out.”

  “Will they nominate him?”

  “Well, all the best men in the North seem to be for him, and a majority of the delegates.”

  “Then—doesn’t that make it pretty sure?”

  He nodded. “I think so, yes.” He laughed. “But anything can happen in a place like Chicago.”

  “I remember you didn’t like it when you were out there four years ago.”

&nbs
p; “No, I didn’t,” he agreed, and smiled. “They called it the Mudhole of the Prairies, and the name fitted. The streets were just a mire. barely above the level of the lake; but even when I was there, they were lifting the whole city out of the mud. I stayed at the Tremont Hotel, and you had to walk down a flight of steps to get from the sidewalk to the office; but soon after I left, they put five thousand jacks under it, took twelve hundred workmen, and just lifted the hotel bodily to grade level. I told you, anything can happen in Chicago.”

  “If they nominate Seward we’ll be all right, won’t we?”

  “I hope so.” He laughed his own fears aside. “Oh, I’m sure we will. There’s no one else who has even a possible choice. I’m not so worried as I sound.”

  He thought the Convention would make its nomination on the second day; and that evening he was late coming home. “I’ve been in Jennings Wise’s office,” he explained. “Waiting for news; but they’ve adjourned till tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be glad when it’s settled.”

  “It seems to be safe enough for Seward,” he said, “but I want to know as soon as possible. There are some investments I will change if things go wrong.”

  Next day things did go wrong. When he returned from the Enquirer office, he was blackly despondent, and at Cinda’s quick question he said soberly: “Why, they nominated that man I told you about, that Lincoln.”

  “Lincoln? Why—what you said—he sounds like white trash!

  He nodded. “I know.” He grinned mirthlessly. “I told you anything could happen in Chicago.”

  “But how did it happen, Brett Dewain? How could they?”

  “Well, Chicago’s just a crazy frontier city,” he explained. “They built a special hall for this convention and named it the ‘Wigwam,’ as though they were a tribe of wild Indians gathering for a powwow! And Lincoln is an Illinois man, so the crowd, the local mob, was for him.” Sudden scornful anger hardened his tone. “‘The Rail Splitter’ they call him. He’s a cheap politician, a country lawyer with no background whatever.” He cried, almost as though she were to blame: “What sort of nation is this, Cinda, where a man like that can be seriously considered for the Presidency?”

  “You thought he made a good speech that time you heard him. Maybe he’ll turn out all right.”

  “Oh, it’s possible, of course. But—why even his nomination was just the mob’s work. They packed the galleries with backwoodsmen and stinking riffraff, and the crowds shouted Seward out, shouted Lincoln in.”

  “Shouted him in? How do you mean?”

  “Oh, they raised the roof, ten thousand of them, all bellowing his name at the top of their lungs.”

  She said disgustedly: “How disgraceful! I declare, Brett Dewain, it sounds just like a negro revival

  “Well, it’s done.” His lip curled. “Democracy! The country’s turned over to a damned mob.”

  “What do people think about it?”

  “Why—everyone is just stumped. Not twenty men in Richmond ever heard of this damned Lincoln. Outside of a few politicians, I suppose I’m the only man in Virginia who ever heard him speak, ever saw him.” He added strongly: “But that man hates the South. We’ve got to beat him, Cinda.”

  “Why in the world would anyone want such a man for President?”

  “It was the Westerners,” he told her, calmer now. “They’re a poverty-stricken, uneducated, ignorant lot; so they hate anybody who has money, hate all cultivated, well-to-do people.” He spoke broodingly, thinking aloud. “Lincoln wasn’t nominated because he hates slavery. Seward is just as violent against slavery as he. But Seward was honest enough to condemn John Brown, and the North wouldn’t stand for that. You know the North made a hero out of that murderous old lunatic! Seward was the only public man in the North with the courage to say that what John Brown did was sedition and treason. That probably cost him the nomination; that and the fact that he represents money, ease, culture, decency—all the things those Westerners despise. They nominated this country lout because he’s their own kind, took him and shouted him in.”

  “Maybe the East won’t vote for him.” She tried to find some word of comfort.

  “Maybe not. I suppose if we unite we can still save ourselves.” He said soberly: “This wouldn’t hit me so hard if I hadn’t been so sure of Seward’s victory.”

  She kissed him, teasing him as if he were a small boy. “There, there! We’re all wrong sometimes, Mr. Dewain. Don’t look so humble! I was even wrong myself, once. I remember it well.”

  Together they laughed their fears away, and during the days that followed, when the Richmond papers searched the record of the Republican nominee, they began to take hope again. Lincoln was poor white trash, the son of a shiftless squatter; he had tried keeping a store, and everyone in the South knew Yankee store keepers were a lying, cheating, penny-pinching, depraved, disreputable lot; he had won some petty political success by his skill at wrestling, boat racing, pitching horseshoes, and telling vulgar stories like any tavern loafer; he insisted that the Supreme Court should allow itself to be overruled by popular vote, that right was not right but was simply what the majority of voters at any given time believed; he stood for popular sovereignty in spite of the fact that the South, ruled by men of wealth and character, had through seventy years’ dominance in national affairs made the United States the greatest country in the world; he looked like an ape; he was uneducated, violent in his language, lacking political prestige, a dull and witless monster distinguished only by his hatred for the South—and so completely contemptible that the Republican party, by nominating him, had destroyed itself. Even Brett began to be reassured. It was incredible that such a man could be elected President of the United States.

  12

  June–july, 1860

  ENID had counted on Cinda’s promise to invite her for a visit had counted on Cinda’s promise to invite her for a visit in Richmond; had waited at first with eagerness and then with impatience and then with anger. “She’s forgotten all about me, stuck off down here,” she told Trav. “I suppose I have to expect to be ignored by your family!”

  But this summer, soon after Lincoln’s nomination, Cinda sent the promised invitation. She wrote much about their stay at the Plains, and about the babies, and about Julian going off to school, and finally about their return to Richmond.

  We’re so happy in this lovely house. Vesta’s here with us, of course; and Burr too. He decided not to go back to college, even if Judge Longstreet would have him; and we’re just as well pleased. There’s too much big talk down there about fighting the North. We’d rather have him here in Virginia where people are more sensible. He’s glad to be here too; and he’s suddenly interested in Barbara Pierce. She’s a sweet girl, but still young enough to enjoy keeping him dangling. Brett says Burr has a head for business. They’re forever talking about banks, and money at interest and things.

  There was much more in like vein, for Cinda was as vocal with her pen as with her tongue; but for Enid the best part of the letter was in the last paragraph.

  So now that we’re all settled down and humdrum, I want you and Enid to come for a visit. Travis too, of course, if you can drag him away. You’ll be perfectly comfortable here, and I’ll send Burr down to fetch you whenever you say the word. Don’t argue. Just say when you’ll come.

  Love

  Cinda

  Enid’s eyes shone. “Oh, Mama, that’s wonderful! Won’t we have fun!”

  Mrs. Currain smiled. “I’m afraid it’s out of the question for me, Honey. I haven’t been away from Great Oak in years, except once to the Plains to pay my respects to my first great-grandchild; and I vowed then I’d never go away again. Things were all at sixes and sevens when I got home.”

  “You’d enjoy it, Mama, once you made the effort. Trav will keep things running here.”

  Mrs. Currain shook her head. “No, I’ll stay at Great Oak. But of course you must go.”

  Enid wanted to dance with delight, but she dutifully
protested: “Darling, you know I can’t leave you alone!”

  “Why, the very idea!” Mrs. Currain tossed her head. “As if I couldn’t take care of myself. Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you must go.”

  So Enid made happy plans. Burr came to serve as her escort. They would travel by stage. Rising early on the morning appointed, Enid while she dressed called along the hall to Vigil to bring the baby and the older children to say good-by. A moment later she heard little Henrietta scream with pain, heard Vigil’s frightened wail; and she raced to the nursery and snatched the baby from Vigil’s arms, and saw blood trickling from Henrietta’s eye, and herself began to weep aloud, adding her tears and cries to the child’s anguished screams.

  “Oh, my baby, my baby! Vigil, what did you do to her?” She was already furious, realizing instantly that now she could not possibly go to Richmond today, blaming Vigil as much for her own disappointment as for the baby’s hurt. The colored girl confessed her fault, mumbling through her lamentations.

  “It uz de snuff stick, ma’am. When I went. to pick her up it done jab her in de eye.”

  “Oh, you worthless nigger!” Enid was almost screaming in her rage. “I’ve told you a thousand times—” April, drawn by the outcry, plunged into the room and heard enough to understand; and she snatched Vigil, spinning her headlong. Enid, beside herself, cried: “Kill her, April! Kill her!” April caught up a stick of firewood from the iron basket by the hearth and struck at the cringing girl, and Vigil howled and raced blindly to escape, April a fury on her heels.

  Then others were here. Trav had gone on his morning rounds of the plantation; but Burr appeared, and Mrs. Currain. The older woman, competent and steady, hushed Enid’s passionate wrath and sent Burr full gallop to Williamsburg to fetch the doctor, and brought flax seed to poultice Hetty’s eye and told Enid again to be still. “You’re making a fool of yourself, child. Behave!”