House Divided

by Ben Ames Williams

  “Who did tell you?”

  “Aunt Tilda.”

  “That woman!” Cinda’s voice was stern with anger. “I didn’t suppose even Tilda- would babble nastiness to you!”

  “I needn’t have asked her if you’d told me. Why didn’t you?”

  Cinda hesitated. “Why—for Aunt Enid’s sake, Vesta. For her sake, that’s one of the things none of us must ever seem to know.”

  Vesta said in a low tone: “There are lots of things like that, aren’t there? Things that women must pretend not to know.” Cinda looked at her sharply, and Vesta said gently: “I’m sorry, Mama. But—will you tell me things? Please? Because I’d rather hear them from you. I hate finding them out from other people.”

  “Who else has been telling you things?”

  “Why—Dolly, for one. Ugly things, about men. I said I didn’t believe her, and she said why did I suppose black girls like Sally, that servant in their house, have mulatto babies?”

  Cinda pressed her hands to her eyes. “We Southern women!” She made a weary gesture. “Our men keep telling us how beautiful and unstained we are, and we tell ourselves our daughters are too pure and innocent to know things. It’s just because we’re too stupid and lazy to talk to them in simple, honest ways. We don’t even talk honestly to our sons, so they learn for themselves, from vicious companions, or from the black girls. And our daughters learn for themselves—from people like Dolly!”

  She spoke so furiously that Vesta was half-frightened. “Are you mad at me?”

  “Heavens no, darling! But—oh, at our stupidity, at our way of thinking life’s a fairy tale. And I’m mad at bragging and strutting and war and sickness and death—and at myself for being a shiftless coward so long!”

  “You’ve never been a coward!”

  “I have been where you’re concerned, my darling! But not now! Never any more!”

  The new bond between her and Vesta seemed to Cinda in the days that followed to give her strength to meet whatever was to come. She knew from Tony that Julian’s regiment, the First North Carolina, would soon be mustered out; and she had pretended to herself that perhaps he would not enlist again. Clayton was gone, and Burr and Brett might go, but surely she might hope to keep Julian safe and secure. But as she and Vesta drew together she knew this hope was weakness; and when Julian came with his regiment to Richmond she asked steadily enough: “Have you decided what you’re going to do?”

  “Just about,” he told her. “I want to serve under General Hill. He’s a great man, Mama. Of course, lots of the men don’t like him. He’s pretty sarcastic sometimes. But—well, I started out with him and I’d like to go on with him. Most of the cadets feel the same way.”

  “Have you said anything to him about it?”

  “No, he was promoted, you know. He’s at Manassas now, but I’ve talked to Papa. I might go into the Fifth North Carolina, be with Tommy and Rollin.”

  She bit her lip. Julian was no longer a child; he was a young man, a soldier, and she would not have him otherwise. “Whatever you decide, we’ll be proud of you!”

  “Gosh, but you and Papa are wonderful.”

  She smiled. “So are our children.”

  “I miss Clayton terribly,” he said, after a moment. “Even if I didn’t see much of him lately, I always liked to think about him.”

  “Jenny says he’s more with her now than he ever was,” Cinda assented. “He—spends a good deal of the time with me, too, Julian.” She smiled faintly. “But with me he’s always just as he was when he was little. It’s as if he’d never grown up. Sometimes I get him mixed up with little Clayton, can’t tell which from which!” He came to kiss her in silent comforting.

  But he went out presently, and she knew he had gone to see Anne, and expected he would be late returning. She went to bed, but she heard him come in, earlier than she had expected, and called to him. “How was Anne, sonny?”

  “Oh just fine,” he said from the doorway.

  “You didn’t stay long.”

  “No.” His tone was lifeless. “No, she wasn’t alone.”

  “Who was there?”

  “Darrell.” Julian hesitated, and Cinda tried to know what to say. “She wanted me to stay, but I knew he wouldn’t leave as long as I was there.” She found no word. “Good night,” he said, and went on to his room.

  Within the week he was gone again. He had arranged for assignment to the Fifth North Carolina and went north to join Tommy and Rollin. He wrote gaily of outpost duty in sight of Washington, of picketing the line of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad.

  Late that month General Longstreet and Trav arrived in Richmond together and at once sought Cinda. Mrs. Longstreet was ready to come on from Lynchburg and bring the children. The General wished to find a home for her, and he asked Cinda’s advice and help.

  “Louisa won’t be satisfied, anyway,” he said. “But if you make the decision I can let you take the blame, so I’ll escape her wrath.”

  She laughed. “You men! Brave as lions against the enemy but afraid of your womenfolk.” She added thoughtfully: “But finding a place won’t be easy. There are twice as many people in Richmond today as there were six months ago—even without counting the soldiers.”

  “Who are they all?”

  “Oh, clerks and quartermasters and speculators and spies and gamblers and refugees from Maryland and Heaven knows what all. How long can you spend at this house-hunting?”

  “A day or two or three,” he said. The army was settling into winter quarters in Centerville; he could be spared. Cinda insisted that he, as well as Trav, lodge. this night with them; and at supper and afterward they talked for hours. Cinda produced her knitting, and Trav asked: “Isn’t that something new?”

  “Knitting? Yes, just this summer.” She smiled. “You menfolk wear out your socks so fast it keeps us all busy.” She did not tell him her deeper reason. Since Clayton’s death she had found her hands acquiring little betraying habits of their own. When some word or thought disturbed her, she could control her countenance and her voice, but unless she kept her fingers busy, they shook and trembled. “Knitting at least passes the time.” She looked at Longstreet, in faint apology. “I hate waiting for something to happen. Battles are terrible, of course; but in some ways waiting is worse.”

  “Our waiting is a mistake,” he commented. “Time runs against us. Our men lose interest. They fall sick, or desert, or their enlistments expire. The army’s down to half its summer strength now, and the Yankees know it; but they’re stronger all the time, so they’re in no hurry. Before spring General McClellan will have built an army big enough to crush us.”

  “Will he crush us?”

  He smiled. “Why, if he does, it will be done so deliberately we’ll hardly feel it. I know McClellan. He’ll work everything out to the last decimal point.” He added seriously: “If we wait long enough, he’ll crush us, yes; but if we strike him before he’s ready, he’ll be so distracted at the upsetting of his schedule that anything can happen.”

  He asked for news of Brett and the others, and she said: “Oh, Mr. Dewain is with his Howitzer Battalion down on Warwick River, near enough Great Oak so that he can see Mama and Travis’s family quite often. The Howitzers have built cabins with windows and doors and floors—all the comforts of home. They’re settled for the winter. Burr’s with Stuart, and Julian—the Bethel Regiment was mustered out—is a Lieutenant in the Fifth North Carolina. He wanted to be under General Hill.”

  “Wasn’t your older brother in the Bethel Regiment too?”

  “He’s at his plantation in North Carolina, planning to stay there, at least until the spring planting is done.”

  “I’m glad someone’s going to raise food for us.” Longstreet smiled at Trav. “If only for the peace of mind of Captain Currain here. He’s as nervous as a housewife wondering what she’ll give unexpected guests for dinner.”

  “And Faunt’s still in Western Virginia,” Cinda explained. “Though I don’t know what i
n the world he’s doing there. I hope he’ll at least get back for Christmas.”

  The General and Cinda set out next day to seek quarters for his family, but to find a house in any way adequate was impossible. For those that could be had, the rental was exorbitant. “After all,” Longstreet remarked, “my salary is only three hundred dollars a month. Three hundred and one, to be exact.” He laughed. “The men say the dollar is our pay and the three hundred is just flattery. I’d find it more profitable to stay here and go into the room-renting business—let some of these landladies command my division!” He had hoped to find a house; but after one day’s search he gave that up. “We’ll have to take rooms somewhere.”

  But this decision made their task at first no easier. Every regular boarding house was full—too full to receive Mrs. Longstreet and four children—and even those private homes which had space to spare had already, either for kindness or for cash, taken folk to lodge. “I’m not sure Louisa hadn’t best stay on in Lynchburg,” the General reflected, thoroughly discouraged.

  “I won’t hear of that till we’ve turned the last stone,” Cinda declared. “There must be something.”

  Luck helped them. The third day, on a matter of military business, Longstreet called upon General Gorgas, chief of ordnance; and he came striding back to Fifth Street to find Cinda. “General Gorgas tells me he’s been living at the Arlington House, right down here at the corner of Main and Sixth, but he’s going to move to the Armory, and we can have his rooms. Come along and inspect them with me. I’ll need your opinion, to report to Louisa.”

  “Why, of course!” she exclaimed. “I was stupid not to think of it, right under our noses.” The Arlington was only two blocks away, substantial and comfortable, set a little back from the street, facing on Main Street and with a pleasantly shady garden on the Sixth Street side. “I stayed there myself two years ago while the workmen were doing this house over and moving the furniture. It’s very nice, and some pleasant people live there. Come, we’ll go right down.”

  They met at first with disappointment; the quarters General Gorgas had occupied were not large enough to accommodate Longstreet’s family; but there was a corner room looking diagonally across Main Street toward the Second Baptist Church which would serve as a parlor, and two bedrooms across the hall. One of these would do for the three boys, the other had space for the baby’s crib beside the double bed.

  Yet Cinda said doubtfully: “You’ll be crowded. I wouldn’t dare commit Cousin Louisa to this.”

  “Beggars—and generals—can’t be choosers!” he said cheerfully. “But we’ll let her decide. I’ll send for her to come and see for herself.”

  Cinda felt his longing to have his family near; so she assented. “That’s it!” she agreed. “And when she comes, you let me handle her. If she acts too uppity, I’ll tell her a thing or two.”

  So, early in December Mrs. Longstreet arrived in Richmond; and to Cinda’s relief the other said the rooms would do. “Of course they’re not perfect,” she admitted, linking her hand through her husband’s arm. “But I’m tired of living with relatives! They’re so obviously being patient and long-suffering about the children! I’d rather be with Jeems!” She looked up at him with an impish smile. “He doesn’t mind the little scamps!”

  Cinda laughed. “I’d forgotten how tiny you are, Louisa, till I saw you two together! You look like a reticule hanging on his arm! When will you fetch the children?”

  “I’ll want time to get new curtains, a new rug, a comfortable chair for the General. You won’t know the place when I’ve fixed it up.” Next day they went to Bulkley’s on Eagle Square, and to Habliston’s, and to John Regnault to look at carpets and rugs and curtain goods, and Mrs. Longstreet bought with a lavish prodigality and a disregard of prices which startled Cinda.

  “After all,” she protested, “it’s not a house you’re furnishing.”

  “Oh, I like nice things around me,” the other insisted, and wrinkled her small nose in mischievous delight. “And Jeems likes me to have what I like!”

  Cinda laughed. “You’re a spoiled little hussy, if you ask me.”

  “I’m not, really. I spoil him terribly.” Their shopping was done, they were back at Cinda’s, weary and glad to rest. “I’m just coming to Richmond to please him. You know how husbands are, just babies if we’re not around to tell them they’re wonderful; and of course he loves having the children where he can see them. He’s just wrapped up in Baby, and ridiculously proud of the boys!”

  They had a long hour together, and Mrs. Longstreet, with little prompting, talked of many things. She spoke of their years in Texas and New Mexico; and Cinda thought it must have been hard to be buried alive so far away.

  “Mercy, no!” the other assured her. “After all, all our closest friends were there, and we were very gay, making our own good times.” Her eyes saddened. “It was a terrible wrench for the General to resign. Most of the officers he knew best were Union men. The army’s just a big family, you know. All the older men more or less know each other. Most of them were in Mexico together. And the General—oh, he’s gay, and likes a pretty face, and loves to play poker and loves a good time—but underneath all that he’s the most conscientious man I know.” She said seriously: “He’s absolutely immovable about what he thinks is right and what he thinks is wrong. When he had to decide whether to go against the Union or against his state, there were nights he didn’t sleep. I used to wake and see him sitting by the window in the dark, just thinking, and sometimes he’d be down on his knees, praying.” She said with a choke in her voice: “It was really touching, Cousin Cinda, to see that great, big, bearded, strong man in his night shirt, praying.”

  Cinda said gently: “You love him as I love Brett Dewain.”

  “Oh, I get furious with him sometimes; but other times just thinking about him makes me so happy I cry! He’s so gentle, and really humble, and—nice.” She laughed. “When you’ve been married to a man thirteen years, you come to know him pretty well, don’t you?”

  “Is there anything on earth more fun than being happily married? I suppose not. And yet men can be awfully exasperating!”

  “I’ve been separated from Jeems so long I sha’n’t mind what he does for a while.”

  “Wasn’t it wretchedly hot in Mississippi all summer?”

  “Not for me!” Mrs. Longstreet laughed. “After all, I’d been in Texas and New Mexico for years; and I like hot weather, anyway. Sometimes I’m just frozen in Lynchburg. I stay with Mrs. Garland, on Garland Hill, and you can see huge mountains all around to the north and east, and cold mornings they’re covered with snow. It makes my teeth chatter just to look at them!” Cinda laughed with her. There was something quizzical and amusing in the other’s piquant countenance; the upward slanting brows, the curving lips that seemed about to smile, the suggestion of a dimple in her cheeks, the gently mirthful eyes. “And besides, I like the General’s kinfolks better than. I like my own.”

  “His mother’s dead, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, she died a few years ago. But his brother Bill has a charming home just north of Macon, and there are five sisters. All except Ann have married since they moved to Macon. We stayed with Sister Maria. She married a Mr. Dismukes. He likes his juleps and his toddies as well as Jeems does, such a jolly man. Sister Maria scolds him, but he was mighty nice to us. And we visited around—Sister Eliza and Sister Sarah and all of them.” She added honestly: “But of course we were so far away. I know I shall enjoy being right here in the middle of things. I hear Richmond’s very gay.”

  “It is now,” Cinda assented. “There was a while, with the hospitals full of wounded men, when people wore long faces.” She was glad she had her knitting. To keep her fingers busy was curiously steadying. “But now there are charades and tableaux and amateur theatricals and parties, dancing, singing, almost every night.”

  “I love parties.”

  Cinda smiled faintly. “They’re not for you and me, Honey. When a girl
marries in Richmond she pays her bridal calls, and maybe goes to a few dances; but then she puts away her pretties and stays at home. It’s the unmarrieds who have all the gay times.”

  “I declare! It wasn’t like that in the old army! It was we wives who ruled the roost.”

  “Well, you’ll find the quiet set is pleasant company,” Cinda assured her. “We have our good times all to ourselves.”

  The other laughed, her eyes on Cinda’s clicking needles. “And you all sit around and knit, I suppose. I refuse to be pushed into your old quiet set! Why don’t we all rebel at these bossy little Miss Somebodies?”

  Cinda smiled. “Oh, I like things as they are. I call on whom I choose, and I needn’t be agreeable unless I wish; needn’t flatter stupid. men nor flirt with nice ones; needn’t go to balls and spend an evening hopping and panting. It’s really most agreeable when we older people get together at Mrs. Ives’s or Mrs. Macfarland’s, or—oh a dozen others. You’ll meet the most interesting men in Richmond at Mrs. Stanard’s. Don’t worry, Louisa. You’ll find plenty of people to see, and things to do.”

  “Well, it doesn’t sound very exciting.” Mrs. Longstreet laughed. “But there, darling; you can teach me to knit, and we’ll pretend we’re two old ladies in the chimney corner together!”

  When she had seen her purchases installed in the rooms at the Arlington and the new curtains fitted and hung, she departed for Lynchburg to bring the children. It happened that Brett came to Richmond next day, and Cinda told him of Mrs. Longstreet’s arrival, and she said: “Cousin Louisa’s just as nice as ever, but she’s changed more than I expected. Have I grown old and ugly, Brett Dewain?”

  “Well, let me see.” He looked at her appraisingly, his head on one side, and she laughed and said:

  “Beast! You should answer quickly! Of course I never was as pretty in my best days as she is even now. She’s lovely, but she’s—well, older.”