House Divided

by Ben Ames Williams

“Of course, dear.” He heard the mocking in her tones. “So you’d be proud of me, instead of feeling disgraced, wouldn’t you? So it’s all settled.”

  He considered this, his thoughts plodding. Settled? For her to leave him, for him to see her no more? Yet if she went away she would be no farther from him than for months past she had been. And how could he keep her if she wished to go? “I reckon I can’t stop you,” he admitted.

  “No, you can’t stop me, Trav.”

  Let her go. Let her go. He had had so many hurts from her. Let her go. “I’ll see you don’t want for money.”

  “Of course you will, darling! After all, you wouldn’t like your wife to be a beggar on the streets of Richmond. Would you?”

  He rose slowly. “Well, all right. I have to go back to headquarters.” He hesitated, felt his own inadequacy. Some men in such an hour as this would know what to say, what to do; but for the life of him he could think of nothing that seemed worth saying, or doing. “Well, good-by,” he said.

  “Good-by.”

  “I reckon you don’t want me to kiss you.”

  “I reckon I don’t,” she drawled.

  He turned away, but from the hall he heard her chiding voice. “Trav, you forgot to close the door.” When he came back to do so, she spoke again. “I won’t make it too pointed, of course,” she promised. “I’ll go to Cinda’s first; and after a few days I’ll tell her I’m going to visit Mama, and then I’ll just stay on at Mama’s.”

  “Have you told Mrs. Albion what you’re going to do?”

  “Oh no, darling.” She smiled in derisive amusement. “You’re the very first to know!”

  This time, when he went out, he latched the door.

  34

  May, 1862

  TILDA came to Great Oak with a lively anticipation. If the big house were to be abandoned to Yankee occupancy, if she and Cinda and her brothers were to remove from it everything they wished to preserve, then many coveted things might fall to her share. The house in Richmond that had been her wedding present was furnished with makeshifts, for Streean thought there were better ways to spend money than for gewgaws; but Great Oak was full of beautiful things, and Cinda already had more than she needed. So Tilda expected a lavish bounty; and when Cinda flatly rejected her suggestion that some of the furniture be sent to her house she was miserable with despair.

  But Cinda, to her delight, relented. Thursday morning, after Enid and old April and the children had been sent off in Mrs. Currain’s second-best carriage to Richmond, Cinda said frankly: “Tilda, I was horrid to say what I did to you. I mean about Mama’s things. When we get home you pick out what you want. They might as well be used, till we can open up Great Oak again.”

  Tilda was confident that temporary possession would become permanent. Probably Mama would not live much longer. She was already in her dotage, ridiculously pretending that all this turmoil was no more than an incident of spring housecleaning. Redford said the war would last for years, and that before it was over they would be wealthy. And before it was over, Mama would certainly be dead; and even if Enid and Trav came back to live at Great Oak, Tilda meant to hold fast to everything on which now she could lay her hands.

  She was greedily happy as a bee in a newly discovered garden; and her happiness—which she hid behind a doleful countenance—was accented by Cinda’s sadness at this disruption of everything in their lives which had seemed so settled and secure. Cinda, Tony, Faunt, Trav and Enid, they had always had so much more than she. Now they were losing and she was gaining. Let them grieve! She was as busy as a terrier, trotting through the empty rooms, nosing into every closet and cupboard. Trav had said they should all start for Richmond this evening, but she delayed them, insisting that there was still so much to do.

  “We’re sure to overlook something if we hurry,” she argued; and since there was a threat of rain that might be avoided by delay she prevailed upon Cinda to wait till Friday and make the journey by daylight. Mrs. Currain, although she had accepted the suggestion of a visit to Richmond calmly enough, that morning developed an unsuspected obstinacy. Faunt had not yet returned and she said they must wait for him. Also, Trav would surely ride over to see her depart. Probably he would come for dinner, and Faunt would be here by that time, so they had better all stay and have dinner here.

  Tilda welcomed the further delay, since she was by no means satisfied that she had investigated every nook and corner; and Tony was willing to humor his mother. So Cinda was overborne and they stayed on. Faunt did arrive for dinner, but not Trav. “I’ve been over to see him, and he was too busy to come, Mama,” Faunt explained; but when after dinner Mrs. Currain insisted on her nap, he told the others: “Trav thinks you’ve gone. He won’t be over. The withdrawal will begin tonight; but Trav had to get all the sick and the wounded off to Richmond first, and see the ordnance and rations loaded, and put all the division’s baggage on the road before the army moves.” He said the Richmond Turnpike was deep with mud. “And it will be worse tomorrow. We ought to get started as soon as we can.”

  Mrs. Currain was slow in waking, and Cinda while they waited gave way briefly to tears. She and Tilda were alone, Tony and Faunt belowstairs. “I’d almost rather stay,” she confessed. “It’s like pulling up our roots, Tilda.”

  Tilda saw, laid with Cinda’s cloak and bonnet, two bundles; one was small, one was long and wrapped in oilcloth. “What are those?” she asked, jealously curious.

  “The little bundle’s an old rag doll I had when I was a baby. I couldn’t bear to leave it.” Cinda’s eyes were streaming. “The long thing is Papa’s sword. Mama wants me to give it to Travis, because he used to love to play with it when he was a little boy.”

  “Why, Cinda! Then she knows what’s happening!”

  “Of course she does!” Cinda spoke through sobs. “Letting on that she doesn’t is just her way of being brave. Oh, she’s so darling. I could blubber like a baby!”

  Tilda pretended a sadness she did not feel. “So could I! Every little thing reminds me of so many things I’d forgotten.” From the window she saw in the early twilight of this cloudy, threatening day the fine new carriage draw up to the door. Old Thomas was on the box, young Tom beside him. From the quarter some of the people, carrying bundles or leading mules laden with their small belongings, came toward the big house. “The carriage is ready,” she said.

  Cinda decided to wake Mrs. Currain. She dried her eyes, splashed her face, went to her mother’s room. Tilda picked up the packet which Cinda had said was a doll, and turned it in her hand, wanting to laugh. How ridiculous for a woman Cinda’s age to be so sentimental! She too had had dolls, when she was a girl; and she remembered seeing one of them, a ridiculous thing made out of a corn cob, in the chest of drawers in the attic, and she decided to go and get it. She could be as sentimental as Cinda, if it came to that!

  It was dark enough so that she took a candle when she climbed the attic stairs. The drawer in which she remembered seeing the doll, when she tried to open it, stuck; she tugged and jerked and could not move it. So she drew out the next drawer above and laid it on the floor and lifted the candle to peer in through this opening for the doll she sought.

  When she did so, she saw that two boards, one thinner than the other, ran from side to side across the rear end of this drawer. They were an inch or so apart; and the space between them looked as though it might have been designed as a hiding place. At full stretch of her arm she was able to slide her fingers down into this crevice, and touched something, and managed to lay hold on it and draw it out.

  It was a packet wrapped in yellowed paper and tied with a string. Tilda in the liveliest curiosity knelt on the floor, set the candle beside her, and untied the knot. Within were half a dozen folded sheets of paper of varying sizes. Tilda unfolded the uppermost. There was a date at the top, 1781. The letter itself was written in a different hand, yet despite an occasional misspelled word it was easy enough to read.

  Dear Tony, Mrs. Dodsworth is writing
this for me. Mr. Cavett is going to Virginia, so I will send these few lines by him to carry to you if he can. Tony, Pa moved to Mike’s Run, it is a little dreen runs into Patterson crick Mr. Cavett will tell you where. Tony, I guess you have forgot the little girl that loved you but she didn’t forget you. She still loves only you, Tony. If you want to fetch her, Mr. Cavett will tell you where to come. Pa says he will shoot you sure, so come careful. I don’t want him to hurt you but if you don’t come I will die pretty soon I guess. Ma says I am prettier but thin as a shadder. We been here since summer now since two weeks after the last time I saw you. Pa fetched me away on account of you. Come soon as you can to your Lucy.

  Lucey Hanks

  The signature was scrawled in an uncertain hand. Tilda before she finished was breathless with a heart-shaking excitement. Without waiting to fold that letter she opened the next. This too had a date, 1784; the body of the letter again was in a different hand.

  Tony, dear husband, because you are, for me anyway, because we said so to each other is all that matters. Tony, Pa is going west taking us. He don’t even speak to me because I stand up to him. He’s got the misry in his jynts. Tony, our baby is sweet, a little girl. Tony, you don’t know about her because I couldn’t send word and I thought you’d surely come before now. I don’t know where we’re going this time only west but Mrs. Dodsworth says she’ll send you this letter. She’s writing it because I can’t write good yet. I’ll send word first chance where we go to, so you can come and fetch your baby and your Lucy. Tony I have named her Nancy after Ma. Pa don’t know for sure it’s yours. He says he’s going to kill whoever it was if he finds out but I will never tell him. Pa is a hard man and worse since he got the misry but I am as hard as he is when I git mad and I do.

  Your loving wife, Lucey Currain

  This time, too, the signature was a laborious scrawl. Tilda snatched up the third letter. It was short, her greedy eyes read it at a glance; but then Trav called from belowstairs, a shouted summons. “Tilda!” She had forgotten the waiting carriage, her mother and the others ready to set out for Richmond. If Trav were here, he had come to tell them they must hurry away; but they must wait to hear these letters! She wanted to watch their faces as they listened to this fine morsel of scandal from her father’s youth. She caught up all the letters and the candle, and scrambled to her feet. On the way down the attic stairs she made such haste that the candle blew out, but there was light enough. From the stair head she saw them all in the hall below, Trav and Tony and Faunt, Cinda and her mother, dressed for their journey. Candles flickered in the tall stand there.

  She ran down the stairs, crying out in her excitement, panting, scarce able to speak. “Listen! Look!” She waved the sheaf of letters. “I found these in that old chest of drawers in the attic. Mama! Cinda! I can’t believe——The most horrible thing! I——”

  Cinda grasped her arm. “Tilda, we’re starting!”

  “But we can’t!” Tilda cried. “We can’t till you hear! Listen! Let me read! They’re letters to Papa from some wretched girl named Lucy.”

  “Lucy?” Mrs. Currain echoed the word; and she seemed for a moment to lose her balance, seemed about to fall. Trav caught her arm, and holding fast to him she sat down in the tall chair beside the candle stand, nervously adjusting her bonnet and her shawl. Her frail old hands were shaking. “Named Lucy,” she repeated.

  “Lucy, yes,” Tilda exclaimed. “Some nasty hussy! Oh, Mama——”

  Trav said urgently: “Tilda, you have to get to the pike before the trains.”

  But Mrs. Currain leaned back in the big chair. “Letters? From someone named Lucy?” Her voice was soft. “We can wait. Read them to us, Tilda.”

  The candles beside the old woman’s chair gave light enough. Tilda pressed close, fumbling with the sheets of paper in her hands, and began to read.

  35

  May, 1862

  MRS. CURRAIN meant to listen, but at once the words Tilda read awoke so many memories. These were letters from a girl named Lucy to that Anthony Currain whom she herself had married—how long ago? They were married in eighteen hundred and seven, and this was eighteen hundred and sixty-two. How long ago was it?

  Travis could tell her instantly the answer to that question. He was always quick at figures. Yet figures meant so little. To these children of hers, who would always be children to her though they were now in their middle years, eighteen hundred and seven was a long time ago; but not to her. Why, she could still smell the Cape jessamine that had been in bloom outside the door of the church the day she and Anthony were married. This girl who wrote the letter which Tilda now was reading called him Tony, but she herself had always called him Anthony, or Mr. Currain. She could hear even now the merry voices and the laughter of their wedding party; she could see the little dust of snuff that Anthony always seemed to have on his waistcoat, and the silver knob on the cane he carried; she could taste the wine in which she toasted him with the others, after they had all toasted the bride and before she and Anthony stood smiling while their joint healths were drunk. Was that long ago? Why, how absurd! No, it was yesterday!

  She remembered herself and Anthony in the carriage with Moses proudly on the box. Moses was a fine-looking darky. As soon as she was mistress here, she made him leave the stables and come into the house as her butler. But of course he was dead many a year ago, and now Uncle Josh was in his place. She and Anthony came to Great Oak in the fine carriage, and Anthony lifted her in his arms to carry her across the threshold into this very hall.

  Her eyes turned all around; she looked once more, knowing this would be the last time, at the familiar scene. She had never seen anywhere such a wide, high-ceiled hall as this. “Big enough,” Anthony told her on that happy wedding day, “big enough so Moses could drive the carriage in one door and out the other, if the doors were as wide and high as the hall.” The hall ran clear through the house. Once Anthony had told her that this huge old mansion was in its design a big brother of the “dog-run” cabins of the Carolina mountains. There, humble men built a one-room shanty, and by and by as their families grew larger they built another room, with a narrow passage between the two through which if he chose a dog might run. Here at Great Oak and elsewhere across the South, as men prospered, those small cabins became larger units at first of two rooms and then of four or more; the passage was roofed over to serve as a hall; second stories were added, and attics, and stairs were set in the passage to reach those upper rooms—and so, by and by, you had such a noble house as this here at Great Oak, where she had lived so long, had known such happiness and sorrow, such anguish and such bliss, such peace and pain.

  Yet sitting here tonight, half-listening to Tilda’s trembling words, watching the others, she thought happiness had outweighed all else. Anthony was not always happy, to be sure; there were days when he did not smile, when his thoughts seemed to be haunted by irrevocable sorrow and she had to cheer him as she could. When things went well, he was merry enough, tender or teasing, ardent or gay; but when sadness came to them he brooded and grieved. Yet on the whole they were happy, living the rich and serene life which went with these great homes, calling upon their friends, receiving callers in their turn, visited and visiting, loving each other, loving their children.

  Probably they were as happy as two people could be, when a man of forty-two married a girl of nineteen. Travis, like his father, had married a girl much younger than himself; and Mrs. Currain was not so blind as she pretended to be to the friction between him and Enid. That was probably inevitable when husband and wife were a generation apart. Yet somehow she had never thought of Anthony as old, not even in those last days before he died, when he kept his bed, immersed in sorrow and shame for Tony’s sake after Tommy Williber was drowned. No, Anthony never seemed old to her. He was in most ways, in his easy gaiety and his easy despair, in his heedless happiness and his sudden depressions, in his lack of foresight and his remorse for the past, more boy than man, as unstable and as charming as a c
hild.

  Yes, this big old house had been all her life a happy place for her; this familiar home which was now as empty as a blown egg, as an oyster’s rifled shell. Everything that was easily portable was gone out of it. This great chair in which she sat was so old, the upholstery so worn, that it would be left behind; and the candle stand beside it was like a tree, too tall for any ordinary home. Through the door diagonally opposite, Mrs. Currain could see faded window hangings not worth taking down, the corner of the heavy oak table which would have needed the strength of four men to move. Here and there through the house other things had been left, to be defiled perhaps by Yankee hands; but almost everything was gone.

  Though she had armed herself against grief by pretending not to understand the activity of the last few days, that armor was pretense and nothing more. Of all that was happening and of every detail of her familiar surroundings here, Mrs. Currain was in this hour acutely conscious; and of all this which she loved she took farewell. She would always think of this house as the hearth in the room which was her life; the hearth on which glowed a warm fire of familiar tenderness. It was true that beyond the fireglow lay waiting shadows; but one could look only at the fire, and turn one’s back upon the shadows and forget that they were there.

  This was her home; here grouped around her were her children. She watched them, scarce hearing for a while Tilda’s excited words.

  “I haven’t read all these letters yet,” Tilda explained as she began. She spoke with haste, catching her breath. “I went up to the attic to get an old doll I had when I was a baby. I knew it was in that big chest of drawers. You know, Mama; the one with the glass drawer pulls and the broken leg. I accidentally pulled one of the drawers clear out, and these letters were in the back end of the drawer below, in a secret place, tucked away where no one would ever see them, tied together with a piece of string.”