House Divided

by Ben Ames Williams

  “Conscription will bring them back,” Trav suggested; but Faunt said harshly:

  “The Government can’t conscript gentlemen!” A bit of coughing silenced him, and Trav watched him with concern.

  On these frequent homecomings Trav delighted in the children. Peter was ten years old, a lively boy tremendously excited by great events preparing, hearing every day the sporadic cannonade at Yorktown, riding abroad to watch the soldiers marching or in their camps. Lucy was no longer a child, now at thirteen already wearing a sweet maturity, grave and quiet yet holding toward her father an unreserved affection which she did not hesitate to show. Trav found happiness with them, and with Faunt, too, but not with Enid. She made her distaste for his presence pitilessly clear. Once or twice he sought to win her to tenderness, but she met his affectionate advances with contempt. “For Heaven’s sake don’t try to be playful, Trav. You remind me of a capering elephant!”

  His mother, in another way, equally defeated him. Trav wished to persuade Mrs. Currain to go to Richmond for Vesta’s wedding; since, if she went, Cinda would keep her there and thus avoid the wrench that a forced departure from Great Oak would be. But Mrs. Currain could not be persuaded.

  “I’m much too settled in my ways to go visiting,” she declared. “Let Vesta bring her young man here to see me after they’re married.”

  She was immovable, and when the time came, she stayed at Great Oak, and Enid in some baffling petulance elected to stay with her. The shift of the army from Northern Virginia to the Peninsula had brought Burr and Julian and Rollin and Tommy Cloyd to the camps between Williamsburg and Yorktown; and Trav and Faunt joined them for the ride to Richmond; and Burr was pleased because the First Virginia Cavalry had elected Fitz Lee colonel. “He’s as good as Stuart,” he said confidently. “They’re always together whenever they can be.” He laughed. “At West Point Colonel Lee always signed his name F. Lee, so they called him ‘The Flea’, and the nickname fits him. I expect he’ll keep us jumping.” And Burr added: “He’s a great beau, too. They say he has a pocketful of rings ladies have given him.”

  “That’s once when electing officers worked well, then,” Trav suggested, and Burr agreed.

  “Yes, there’s no one any better than Fitz Lee.”

  They were all in festive humor that day, sharing Tommy’s happiness, laughing at remembered incidents of the winter which had now yielded to the seductions of the flooding spring; and Julian was the most voluble of them all. “Winter seemed pretty hard at the time,” he admitted. “But up north we could keep our huts clean, at least. When we came down here they put us in huts where some Louisiana men had spent the winter, and next day we were all scratching!” He laughed. “The Louisiana trash used to have louse races and bet on the winner. They’d put their vermin on pieces of canvas and the first one over the edge took the money. They had one race where each man put his louse on a tin plate, and one man heated his plate, so he won all the bets. We burned down the huts to get rid of the lice, as soon as the weather cleared, but I still itch!”

  “I’ve found a few on myself,” Burr admitted. “But don’t tell Mama. She’d be scandalized!”

  “Gosh, I won’t tell anyone,” Julian assured him. “I’m not bragging about it!” He told them about the famous battle of the frogs. A young officer, in the nervous hours of the night, heard splashing in the river, and thought the Yanks were coming. He ordered his men to open fire, and sent for reinforcements, and staged a lively skirmish till older heads checked the firing and a Yankee called derisively through the darkness: “Well, Rebs, how many frogs did ye kill with all that shootin’?”

  Julian told them too how Colonel McKinney, who had been a professor at the academy in Charlotte, one day walked along the top of the wall of sandbags at Dam No. 2 in defiance of Yankee sharpshooters till a bullet crashed into his head. “You feel kind of naked,” Julian declared, “with the Yankee balloons up in the air all day looking right down at you, seeing every move you make.”

  They found Brett and Tony in Richmond before them, and after the first hubbub of their arrival quieted, Brett drew Trav aside to speak of Great Oak, and Faunt and Tony followed them. “We’ll hold Yorktown till McClellan is ready to attack,” Trav said. “But he’s getting siege guns into position, and we’ll withdraw before he can use them. General Longstreet promises to let me know in time to get Mama away; but if we want to take anything out of the house we ought to do it now.”

  The big house was full of treasures that could not be left behind, and they made their plans to save what could be moved. Brett, since the Howitzers were now on duty in North Carolina and he must rejoin them, could not go to Great Oak; but Tony and Faunt would ride down Monday morning, and presumably Cinda and Tilda would want to go with them. These four would begin sorting and packing while Trav at Longstreet’s headquarters waited to warn them when the army’s retreat was to begin.

  Next day, after the wedding, Brett left at once; and Sunday morning Trav and the younger men, Burr and Julian and Rollin, rode back to Yorktown. Not till they reached there did Trav hear that New Orleans had fallen. This word that the most populous city in the South had surrendered without resistance, this concrete demonstration of Northern power, was ominous and frightening. If one city fell, would not others topple, too? Might not the whole structure of the Confederacy be as easily overturned?

  Monday he rode over to Great Oak for dinner, and his sisters and Faunt and Tony, after an early start from Richmond, reached there as soon as he. They too had heard of the loss of New Orleans. “Mrs. Randolph told us, after church yesterday,” Cinda explained. “It’s the worst news of all, isn’t it, Travis ? If the North can control the Mississippi they’ll cut the Confederacy in two.”

  “It’s bad, yes,” he admitted. “But we’ve troubles closer home.”

  “I should say we have, right here at Great Oak,” Tilda agreed. “But New Orleans was terrible. Trav, you know Mrs. Preston. They had lots of property in New Orleans.” There was something almost greedy in Tilda’s tones. “She says they’re ruined! Just paupers!”

  Enid had pleaded a headache and stayed in her room, and at dinner Mrs. Currain was gay with delight in this gathering of all her children around her. “I don’t know when we’ve been together,” she declared. “Just ourselves! Not even an in-law! Of course I’m fond of Enid and Brett, and Redford Streean, too, Tilda; but it’s nice for once to just have my own children—and grandchildren of course.” For Lucy and Peter were here. “I declare I don’t know when I’ve been so pleased as having you all come and surprise me this way.”

  When she left them for that after-dinner nap which she never missed, Tony said wonderingly: “She didn’t ask why we were here, why we were so solemn.”

  Cinda pressed her eyes with her finger tips as though to deaden pain. “So many old people have died, these last months, this last winter. Of broken hearts, perhaps, from seeing the sorrow all around. Maybe part of Mama, the part that can be hurt, has died. Do you notice how often she has that little burr, as though she were a girl again? I hope she never does realize what’s going on.”

  During the crowded days that followed, Mrs. Currain wore a protective blindness, moving to and fro upon her morning routine without appearing conscious of the turmoil all around her. Enid still kept to her room; and Trav was too deeply absorbed to mark this and wonder at it. Till the army prepared to retreat he could use some of his wagons for transport; and at the big house Cinda and Tilda fell into a sort of frenzy that was half heartbreak, directing Uncle Josh and old Thomas and his son and Big Mill while they stowed in the wagons bureaus and armoires and wardrobes, pictures stripped from the walls, books from the shelves, silver and china packed with jealous care.

  Before dinner on Tuesday the first train of wagons started for Richmond in Tony’s charge. Everything was to be taken to Cinda’s, where there was ample storage room. Tilda suggested that she would be glad to have and to use some of the furniture and china. “I know you won’t want it, C
inda. Mahogany and walnut wouldn’t go with your lovely things. But I’d like it.”

  Cinda said curtly: “After all, Mama isn’t dead yet, Tilda!”

  “Why, Cinda, I just thought——”

  “I know what you thought! But as long as Mama’s alive we won’t start dividing up her things!”

  Tilda bit her lip to hide the hurt, and Trav said, trying to reassure her: “Cinda’s upset, Tilda. Don’t let her make you unhappy.” Tilda turned away, and Cinda tried to justify herself.

  “She infuriates me, Travis, poking and prying everywhere, like a greedy little boy looking for goodies! Fondling everything like a miser!” She watched the wagons departing and caught her breath with a sound like a sob. “Oh, Travis, I’d like to get my fingers into Abe Lincoln’s beard! I wonder if he knows how we hate him!”

  Next day at Faunt’s reminder the wine closet under the slope of the roof, where the sun’s rays helped ripen the contents of casks and barrels, was emptied of its treasure. Old cognac, fine Madeira, peach brandy laid away sixty years before, apple brandy, hundreds of bottles of golden sherry, jugs and demijohns and kegs of gin and whiskey, all found their place; and packed in among the kegs and bottles went kitchen ware, feather beds, barrels of flour and salt meat and fish, beef, pickles, vinegar, jellies and jams, a full hundred hickory-smoked hams, sheets and table linen. The last of the furniture was lashed securely in the wagons; the caravan departed; the task was done.

  That evening at headquarters Longstreet took Trav aside. “Currain, this is for your ear alone,” he said. “I promised you due warning. General Johnston has decided to evacuate the lines here on Friday night.” He added: “Ewell has finally been sent to the Valley; but it’s too late for a diversion there. A month ago, yes; but now McClellan is ready to strike, so we’ll retreat again.”

  Trav thought it best to ride back to Great Oak that night, to tell them this decision. He felt some concern, for now that the army was to move, his wagons would be needed. When he reached Great Oak, everyone was abed, but he roused the house; and to his relief he found that Tony had returned, that the wagons had halted for the night at Six-Mile Ordinary.

  “You’ll have to put whatever you have left into farm carts, or load it on mules,” Trav told them. “I’ll need all the army wagons tomorrow and next day.” He spoke in quiet authority, shaping his plans as he shaped his words. “Mama and all of you must leave here tomorrow night at the latest.”

  Cinda protested: “But, Travis, you said Friday. We’ve still two days.”

  “Go tomorrow,” Trav insisted. “The Yankees will be on our heels as soon as they know we’re moving. I’ll check over my books and papers tonight and pack what I want, in case I’m not able to come again.”

  Enid had not come down, but when Cinda and the others went back upstairs, Cinda called over the rail that Enid wished Trav to say good-by to her before he left, and he promised to do so. He spent hours at his desk in the plantation office, a small building a little apart from the house toward the south gardens, sorting out ledgers he wished to save and letters that should be preserved, and burning the rest. Before he finished, he was stupefied with fatigue, and he forgot Enid’s request; but when he walked around the house to where Big Mill had kept watch beside his waiting horse, he saw a light in Enid’s window and remembered.

  Surely she must have gone to sleep long ago. The night was well spent, dawn not far away. Yet the thought of seeing her, even though only for a moment, was good, so he bade Mill wait a little longer and went indoors and softly up the stairs. If she were asleep he would not wake her, so his hand on the knob was light; but when he opened the door she was awake, lying in bed with a candle burning beside her.

  He shut the door and came to the bedside. She said lightly: “Well, you were long enough! You knew I wanted to see you.”

  “I was busy till just now.” He spoke in dull weariness. “I’ve got to go along.”

  “Where? Why?”

  “Back to headquarters. To get our trains ready to move.”

  “You and your trains! I suppose the children and I can manage for ourselves, for all you care.”

  “Tony’s here, and Faunt will be. They’ll take care of you.”

  “Where do you expect us to go?” Her tone was cold as ice.

  He had not considered this question, but there was only one present answer. “To Cinda’s, I suppose, at least for the time being.”

  “I’m a little tired of being an unwelcome visitor!”

  “Why, Cinda’s glad to have you. And she has lots of room. Or you can go to Chimneys if you’d rather. Tony’ll not mind.”

  She looked up at him with hot eyes. “I’ll never go back there!”

  He was too tired to think clearly, wished only to appease her. “There’s no one but the overseer at the Plains, but I guess you could go there.”

  She said in a remote and empty tone: “You’re a strange man, Trav. Doesn’t it ever occur to you that you should have made a home for your wife and children a long time ago? After all, we’ve been married fourteen years, you and I.”

  “You’ve always had a home, Enid.”

  “At Chimneys? With no friends, no contact with people of my own kind? Or here, where I’ve been just an unpaid companion to your mother? And now you want me to be a visitor in your sister’s house! You’ve never thought of me—except to turn to me as a hog turns to the trough.”

  “Well, what do you want me to do?”

  “Nothing. I don’t want you to do anything, Trav.”

  He shook his head in dull bewilderment. “Then I don’t see what we’re talking about.”

  She smiled. “I’m just coming to that, Trav. I’ve decided that I’m tired of being just your breeding wench. I’m going to leave you That’s what we’re talking about. I’m never going to live with you again.”

  Either this was nonsense, or he was too tired to comprehend. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I mean I’m going away.”

  “Away? Why, you’ve nowhere to go.”

  This seemed to him obvious; but at his word she sat up in bed with a movement so swift and sudden that the coverings fell away from her white shoulders and her bright hair caught the candlelight. “So?” she whispered furiously. “So?” Her hot words came in a torrent. “You think I’m a slave? You think that if I run away, you can have me fetched back and whipped and put in chains under lock and key?” Her voice rose in anger and scorn. “That’s like you—you dull, unthinking, blind lump of a man!” Rage choked her. “Oh, why can’t you be gallant and gentle and fine like Faunt?”

  He asked in new bewilderment: “What’s Faunt got to do with it?” She lay down again, not answering, watching him with suddenly wary eyes; and when she did not speak he tried to find words. “I’m too tired to think straight, I guess. I’m sorry you’re upset.”

  “Oh, I’m not upset.”

  “Well, what I’m trying to say—Well, I know the way you feel about me. Probably I’m not a very good husband. But I can’t help being the way I am.”

  “Well, I can help living with you.”

  “I don’t see how you can help it, Enid. After all, we’re married.”

  “I won’t stay married any longer. I’d rather be dead!” Her voice suddenly was shrill. “Dead, do you hear?”

  “Well—you’re not dead, Enid.”

  “No, and I’m not going to kill myself, either!”

  “I don’t see what you can do!” This was not complacency on his part; it was simply a confession. After all, what could she do?

  She laughed. “Do? Why, I told you. I can leave you, darling. Women aren’t as helpless as you think. Mama had nothing, after Papa died; but she’s managed to get along.”

  “I thought she had your father’s estate.”

  She laughed. “He had no more estate than a grasshopper! But Mama’s clever! She’s ever so much cleverer than you, for that matter! All you know is how to raise corn and tobacco and wheat and hogs; and even the
n you turn the money over to Brett because you don’t know enough to take care of it! But my mother has made a home and a fortune for herself.” She hesitated and he thought she was about to say something else, but she only said: “I’ll go live with her. She’ll be glad to have me.”

  “She’s mighty nice,” he agreed. “I always liked her.”

  “Then why didn’t you take care of her, instead of making her—in—stead of just leaving her without a penny to her name?”

  He shook his head, ignoring that question. “If you did go to live with her—” He hesitated. “Eriid, are you talking about being divorced? It doesn’t seem as though I could let you do that.”

  “Let me?” Her word was lightly derisive. “How could you prevent me, Trav?”

  “Well, I don’t know; but I don’t think you can. I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t think you can.”

  She said, in an almost friendly tone: “And of course it would be a disgrace to the Currains if I did, wouldn’t it? But I won’t disgrace you, unless you feel disgraced by my leaving you.”

  “What about Lucy and Peter?”

  “You can get Vigil back to take care of them. You always thought she was so wonderful!” His eyes struck her like a blow and she added hastily: “Oh, I just mean with the children, of course! You can do as you choose with the children, darling.” The endearing word was a lash across his cheek. “They hate me as much as I hate them.” And she said in a casual, reflective tone: “I may decide to help in the hospitals.” She smiled. “Wouldn’t that be fun, Trav? If you get shot, if a cannon ball cuts off your leg or something, I might even take care of you! I liked taking care of Faunt. If you were hurt badly enough I might even like you!”

  “Well, I reckon they’ll need all the help they can get in the hospitals, when fighting starts.”