House Divided

by Ben Ames Williams

  “Then isn’t this the road to Warrenton? Brett and I have visited up here. I’ve heard of Waterloo.”

  “Yes.” Anne saw Burr’s eyes shine. “We’ve slipped around the Yankee flank,” he said exultantly. “Stuart’s gone on to Warrenton ahead of us with a strong force, to hit the railroad behind Pope.”

  The bridge rattled under the hoofs of their horses; and when they emerged from the shadowed depths of the forest Anne realized that the sky was dark with angry clouds. Cinda asked: “Will we reach to Warrenton before it rains?”

  “We may not,” Burr admitted. “We’ll have to keep scouting ahead to make sure we don’t run into trouble.”

  Anne was interested in their procedure. From the river to Warrenton the road was all up hill and down across a series of ridges, so that it might be half a mile from one ridge down into the valley and up to the ridge beyond. Faunt and Mosby rode well ahead of Burr and Anne and Cinda. When these three reached each crest, they saw the two scouts on the next ridge in silhouette against the sky, waiting to signal them on. Then they let their horses haste down the slopes into the valleys and up toward another vantage; but Burr always checked them short of the summit while he rode ahead to make sure that at least as far as the next ridge the road was clear.

  Cinda was forever looking back over her shoulder to where black and menacing storm clouds that had been piled above the bulwark of the mountains now raced to overtake them. Those angry clouds were shot through with fitful lightning glares, and sometimes Anne saw outlined for an instant against the blackness of the clouds the naked lancing flame of the flash itself. There was an electric tension in the air. Thunder murmured behind them like the bass chords of the song of distant battle, and it came nearer. The storm moved faster than they. It sent night ahead, and when they were still a mile or two short of Warrenton they rode in darkness broken only by the spasmodic flickering of lightning, while the thunder like galloping hoof beats trod upon their heels. The hiss and whisper and rising roar of pelting rain rushed to overtake them; the first drops struck singly, then the pressing downpour. As though satisfied that its prey was seized and helpless, the storm ceased its growling; rain brought the blackness of unrelieved night and Anne felt icy threads of water trickle from cheek and throat down inside her collar, over her shoulders and her bosom.

  The horses with bowed heads moved at a plodding walk, and Uncle Faunt and Mr. Mosby waited to ride with Anne and Cinda through black and sluicing rain across the last level and up into the town. Anne saw the dark mass of a large building dim against the night sky, and Burr said: “There’s the court house.” Mosby led them aside to the wide steps of Norris Tavern, and the men were quick to help them to the ground and up the steps and so to shelter.

  Cinda thought they must have a room, but Burr said regretfully: “I think you’d better get as dry as you can at the fire here, Mama. You’ll want supper; but you’ll have to go on tonight. This damned rain—sorry, Mama. This rain will make it unpleasant, but Uncle Faunt’s gone to find a carriage to take you to Centerville.”

  “We’ll never get to Centerville tonight!”

  “No, but you can’t stay here. The rain will give Stuart a fine chance to surprise the Yankees. He’s going to hit them at Catlett’s Station; but he’ll come back this way, and they’ll be chasing him. There’s likely to be fighting right here in Warrenton before daylight, so you’d better be away.”

  A brilliant hissing flash lighted the window, and close on its heels came the thunder crash. “I’m a coward in a thunderstorm,” Cinda confessed.

  Burr said apologetically: “I wish we could have managed better. You’ll probably get wet; but we’ll stay near you till we see you meet a Yankee picket. They’ll treat you all right.”

  “I’m too scared of this thunder and lightning to be afraid of anything else,” Cinda assured him; and Anne wished she could say as much. She rather liked the deafening bombardment from the skies; but the thought that presently she and Cinda would be prisoners of the Yankees was a terrifying one. “But of course we’ll do what you say,” Cinda promised, and Burr nodded and smiled proudly.

  “I’m not worried about your being afraid,” he said.

  When Faunt returned, he had been unable to find a carriage. “But we’ve got a cart with a cover to keep off the rain,” he said. “And a negro to drive it. The Yankees won’t be moving in this wet, so there’s no hurry. Mr. Mosby and Burr and I will ride a piece with you.” He added quietly: “If we suddenly disappear don’t be surprised. We’ll be near you till you’re safe in Yankee hands.”

  “Will that be safe for you?” Cinda asked.

  “Oh, Mr. Mosby and I are as much at home behind the Yankee lines as behind our own.”

  When they had supped, the cart was ready, and Burr and Faunt helped them in. Anne set her teeth to keep them from chattering, for she was determined not to let Faunt see her terror; but once they were on the road, she took Cinda’s hand in the darkness and clung to it. “You may not be scared, but I’m just frightened to death, Aunt Cinda.”

  “So am I,” Cinda admitted. Lightning was almost constant, the flickering glares briefly revealing the muddy ruts and the road like a brook bed deep in water. “I don’t mind the flashes so much, but when it thunders I want to pull a feather bed over my head and scream!”

  “Oh, I love the storm,” Anne declared. “It’s the Yankees I’m afraid of.”

  Cinda chuckled. “That’s fine. You be scared of them and I’ll be scared of the lightning. Then we can reassure each other.”

  The cart lurched on through blackness constantly dispelled and constantly returning, the driver swaying on his seat above them, the wheels sluicing through mud. The canvas cover leaked little drips and streams of water which they could not avoid. Once or twice Burr or Faunt came with a splashing of hoof beats to speak to them through the open rear end of the cart; but usually their escorts rode ahead, singly, an interval between. Time dragged wearily on, till Anne surrendered to exhaustion and lay down, her head on Cinda’s knees; and despite the uproar of the storm she slept.

  She was waked by sudden light across her eyes, and sat up to face a lantern’s glare and a bearded countenance dimly seen, and to hear a harsh question:

  “Who are you?”

  Anne’s heart raced and she pressed her hands to her lips, but Cinda said calmly: “A Southern mother on her way to see her wounded son in hospital in Washington.”

  “Slipping through the lines in the dead of night, in this rain?”

  “I’m going to my son.”

  “M-m! Who’s this?” He peered at Anne. She thought hopefully that his voice was not unkind.

  Cinda’s hesitation was only momentary. “My son’s betrothed,” she said. Anne was so astonished that she was instantly wide awake. Aunt Cinda was clever, to think of that answer so quickly. She would play her part. The lantern light fell on her face again and after a moment’s scrutiny the questioner said courteously:

  “Your son is to be congratulated, madame.” Why, he was real nice, for a Yankee! “But I must send you to headquarters at Centerville. If you’re what you say you are, you’ll be passed on to Alexandria, and I trust to Washington.”

  He moved away; and in the lantern’s light, Anne saw horsemen on the road. She thought them Faunt and Burr and Mr. Mosby; but then she realized that when the Yankees approached these guardians would have moved aside into the concealing darkness. Probably they were still near, listening; and she bit her lip to keep from crying out to them. Then their questioner called orders. “Morrison! Frame! Conduct these ladies . . .”

  So the cart proceeded on its way. Anne whispered a question: “Where are Burr and the others?”

  “They saw the lantern and the campfire ahead, and slipped off into the woods. This was what they expected, you know. We’re all right, dear.”

  The horsemen who were their escort were dark figures in the darkness behind the cart, and Anne thought she ought to be afraid; but she was more sleepy than frigh
tened. She lay down again and slept again, and it was broad daylight when she woke to find that they were plodding into Centerville. There were many soldiers here, in blue uniforms soaked through by the night’s rain; and while Anne and Cinda waited for the commanding officer to be ready to see them, someone brought them tin cups of coffee and cold hard bread and hot fried bacon. Anne thought Yankees were not at all what she had expected them to be.

  But she was not so sure when Aunt Cinda had to face a new and more rigid interrogation, and when all their possessions were thoroughly searched. These Yankees were polite enough, to be sure; but they were frighteningly stern. “I’ll send you on to Union Mills,” the officer at last decided. “You can get aboard a train there, but you must promise to report yourselves to the Provost Marshal in Alexandria.”

  “Certainly,” Cinda assented. “It’s to Alexandria we want to go.”

  Their own cart would take them the few miles to Union Mills. On the way they found themselves a part of a throng of refugees, afoot or driving wagons laden with household goods. The skies cleared and the sun made that journey easier; and Anne said apologetically: “I wasn’t much company for you last night, sleeping all the time.”

  “I’m glad you did,” Cinda told her. “The road comes across the fields where the battle of Manassas was fought last year.” Anne remembered that Clayton had died in that battle. “There were signs enough of the fighting. I’m glad you didn’t have to see them. It was just about light enough to see, when we crossed Bull Run.”

  Anne said nothing, but she clasped Cinda’s hand in both hers and held it fast.

  At the railroad, after some waiting, a train appeared; and an empty cattle car returning to Alexandria for supplies for Pope’s army and which still bore plentiful traces of its recent occupants received them and their small trunk and as many of the other refugees as could crowd in. Anne was desperately weary. Her habit was still damp and she felt dirty and draggled and miserable; but Cinda was so serene that Anne took heart from her, enduring the lingering wretchedness of the journey.

  It was dusk when they reached Alexandria. In the confusion there, except to order them all out of the cattle car so that it could be loaded again, no one seemed to notice them. Soldiers and teamsters were everywhere busy at their tasks; but Cinda found a Negro to carry Anne’s small trunk on his shoulders and led the way through the crowds into the half-darkness of the dimly lighted streets.

  Anne asked: “What are we going to do now, Aunt Cinda?”

  “Polly Mason will take us in.”

  “Oh I know Dr. Mason. Papa and I used to come to Alexandria sometimes. They live on Fairfax Street, don’t they?”

  “Yes, just off Queen.”

  “In a high narrow brick house with carving above the windows,” Anne remembered.

  Cinda, the Negro following, found her way down Queen Street to Fairfax. Dr. Mason’s house was at first glance dark, but a faint light showed through the drawn curtains; and Cinda tugged at the bell and an old Negro cautiously opened the door and Cinda recognized him and said in a great relief: “It’s Mrs. Dewain, Uncle Ned. I haven’t seen you for years.”

  The old man’s teeth showed in a delighted grin; he bowed low. “Yes ma’am. Yes ma’am. I’m pleased tuh see y’all.” His glance at Anne included her in this welcome; and then Mrs. Mason, hearing Cinda’s voice, came into the hall.

  Anne forgot her weariness in the gladness of this sanctuary; yet she saw at once that the house was not as she remembered it. The floors were bare, the book shelves empty, and sheets covered much of the furniture. Mrs. Mason was older than Aunt Cinda, a slender little woman with burning eyes. Her sister, Mrs. Linwood, lived here with her; and Anne thought they were so much alike they might have been one person. Their conversation was an antiphony. If one began a sentence, the other finished it; Anne as she listened was forever turning from one to the other to follow the successive phrases.

  But their hospitality was generous and unstinted. Anne and Cinda were hurried away upstairs to be rid of their damp clothes, and warm wrappers were found for them. Uncle Ned brought the little trunk, and Cinda asked: “Where are our hoops? The boy had them too.” Uncle Ned, as stiffly as though he felt himself at fault, said there were no hoops, and Anne and Cinda were tired enough to laugh themselves halfway to hysterics at this mishap. Neither of the sisters could supply the deficiency, for they were both smaller than Cinda, larger than Anne; but Mrs. Mason said:

  “Never you mind, Cinda. You can manage over Sunday.” Her sister finished for her. “And you can buy what you need first thing Monday morning.”

  “Are there things to buy? Our Richmond stores are empty.”

  “Oh dear me, yes,” Mrs. Linwood assured her; and this time it was Mrs. Mason who completed the remark. “We can buy anything at all; but that can’t keep us happy, with our men all gone to war.”

  Uncle Ned brought waiters loaded down with good things, and Anne’s young appetite did them justice. Cinda said the Yankees clearly were not starving them; but the two sisters in a sort of duologue insisted that the Yankees were hateful as could be. That was why the house was so bare, all the nice things hidden away, the silver and the best china buried under the cellar floor, the best furniture in the attic. Cinda asked whether the Yankees had actually taken anything. No, but they were sure to try to, one of these days! It was frightful, never knowing what moment would bring disaster. A body could not sleep of nights! Why, even the first day the Yankees came they just butchered poor Mr. Jackson, down at the Marshall House. But didn’t he shoot Colonel Ellsworth, Cinda inquired; and the sisters said of course he did. The Yankee had pulled down Mr. Jackson’s flag, so what else would you expect him to do? And Dr. Mason had to hide in the attic for days till a pass could be got to send him through the line. Did the Yankees come hunting for him? No, but they might have! Oh it was horrible to know that at any hour of the day or night the scoundrels might batter down the door, break into the house, into your very bed rooms, anywhere. One dare not prepare for the night for fear of what might happen before dawn. Had any soldiers actually come into the house? No, but there was nothing to stop them if they chose to do so! Were not some of the officers gentlemen? Gentlemen? Why, one did not even notice their existence! If it was necessary to step outside your own door, you simply pretended not to see them.

  When she and Cinda were at last alone, Anne asked wonderingly: “But Aunt Cinda—why do they talk that way? After all, the Yankees haven’t bothered them.”

  “They’re afraid, darling,” Cinda told her. “Just two frightened little old ladies, talking to keep their courage up.”

  “But they—” Anne laughed a little. “They talk so biggity, too!”

  “Even men do that,” Cinda assured her. “They brag the loudest when they’re afraid.”

  “You’d think they’d be used to it by this time. The Yankees have been in Alexandria over a year now.”

  Cinda pressed her hands to her eyes, hard; she shook her head, as though to clear her vision. “Men get used to things,” she assented. “But women aren’t—adaptable, Anne.” And she added thoughtfully: “Southern men may forgive the North, some day, for this war. The best of them will. But Southern women will always keep the old wounds open.” She smiled sadly: “The South is very feminine, you know; so quick to boast, so proud of victories, so sure each victory is decisive, so eager to believe what she hopes is true.”

  Anne asked thoughtfully: “Aunt Cinda, do you think the North will beat us?”

  Cinda laughed. “Heavens, that’s for men to worry about. Let’s go to sleep now, child.”

  The long Sunday in that half-furnished house behind drawn shades seemed to Anne a weary time; and when on Monday she and Cinda went to the Provost Marshal’s office it was through streets shadowed by an almost determined gloom. For a year and a half no lover of the South had dared to speak in public here an honest word; so the older people kept to their homes and it was only young children, jealously attended by their black gua
rdians, who freely moved abroad.

  At the Provost Marshal’s they met a disarming courtesy. Cinda told the officer who they were—Anne found it amusing to be introduced again as Julian’s betrothed—and their errand.

  “To Washington?” he echoed. “Then I’m sure you will wish to take the oath of allegiance?” Yet his tone was mild, and Cinda smiled.

  “No, thank you. I believe even the Northern custom is to accord courtesy to those who go through the lines to help the wounded. That is our only purpose. I’m sure you would not expect us to swear falsely, even for the boy Miss Tudor and I both love.”

  “H-m! Well, frankly, madame, I expect nothing; but I must require you, for your own protection, to report yourselves when you reach Washington.”

  “You take so many precautions as almost to suggest some doubt of your own strength.”

  The other colored. “I assure you—” he began stiffly; but then he laughed. “There, I suppose it amuses you to—twit us.”

  Cinda said quietly: “Nothing about this war amuses me. My eldest son and my son-in-law have already been killed; my youngest son has been insensible in one of your hospitals since May. So nothing amuses me now, Captain.”

  The officer hesitated, and Anne thought he was about to say some sympathetic word; but he only nodded and wrote a permission for them to go by one of the steamers that several times every day passed between Alexandria and Washington. Next morning, waiting to go aboard, seeing on the wharves great piles of stores, shells, guns, pontoons, all the tremendous variety of supplies needed by a great army, Anne felt the oppression of dismay. Surely there was enough here to crush the South. From the steamer they were to take, huge guns were slung ashore; the horses that would draw them were led off the gangplank. All along the wharves other craft were unloading or waiting to unload; and Anne, watching, held fast to Cinda’s steady arm. When at last, their passes checked, they went aboard and the paddle wheels began to slap the water, it was a relief to leave all that evidence of Northern strength behind.