“Take the carriage, certainly,” Cinda agreed. “Use it whenever you wish. It will be nice for you to see something of her, now you’re so near.”
But this time, too, Enid was told that her mother was not at home. Remembering her former suspicions, she gave her name and asked when Mrs. Albion would return; and when the Negress seemed to her evasive, she said she would come in and wait. To her intense indignation, the girl shut the door in her face. With Cinda’s coachman watching, Enid could do nothing but depart.
Not till a third attempt, late in May, did she succeed. This time the maid ushered her into the drawing room, and Enid while she waited had time to decide that her mother’s things were sombre and ugly after the cheerful brightness of Cinda’s home. When Nell appeared, Enid thought with a resentful surprise that she was as beautiful as ever, with fresh cheeks and clear eyes and a smooth round throat as firm as a girl’s. Sometimes her own mirror testified that her fair hair was losing its sheen; sometimes turning her head this way and that, she detected a treacherous fulness under her chin. Certainly no one, seeing them together, would guess this woman was old enough to be her mother; and because Enid was furious at this realization she embraced Mrs. Albion with extravagant affection, and Nell said:
“I’m so glad to see you, darling. Milly said you came a week ago, and I hated missing you.”
“She slammed the door in my face,” Enid declared. “She needs a good whipping, Mama!”
Nell said in friendly apology: “It’s my fault, dear. With so many strangers in town, a woman alone has to be careful. I’ve told her under no circumstances to admit anyone unless I am at home; and she knows I mean what I say.” She added affectionately: “Of course I didn’t mean you, darling; but I didn’t expect you. After all, this is the first time, isn’t it?”
“The third,” Enid assured her, still indignant. “Last week, and once before that.”
“I mean when you’ve been in Richmond before,” Nell explained; and Enid, feeling herself put on the defensive, said:
“Oh I’ve always meant to; but we’ve come to Richmond so seldom, and there’s always so much to do.” She cried flatteringly: “You look so well, Mama. You look so happy!”
Nell smiled. “I am, darling.” She nodded, with a little chuckle of a laugh, as though at some secret of her own. “I don’t suppose there’s a happier woman in Richmond than I.”
“Living here all by yourself? Really?”
“I have Milly, and Rufus. They take care of me.”
“They certainly do! No one would ever guess you were in your fifties!”
The older woman smiled as though she felt the dart. “You’ve not taken care of yourself, have you, darling? It’s too bad very blonde people fade quickly. They’re so lovely when they’re young.”
Enid’s angry color rose; then she laughed disarmingly. “There, we’re acting like two cats, Mama! I’m sorry.” She needed her mother, would not risk a quarrel. “Your house is lovely, isn’t it?”
“I’ve always liked it.”
“Can we go all over it? I want to see just everything.”
“Of course.”
Enid heard faint curiosity in the other’s tone, as though her mother were beginning to wonder why she had come; and when they rose she linked arms. “Oh Mama, I’ve missed you. I’ve wanted you so many times. Now that I’m living in Richmond, I want us to see each other often, to be—good friends.”
“You plan to live in Richmond?” Nell had led the way into the dining room; and while they moved from room to room, between Enid’s cries of admiration at all she saw, question and answer went back and forth between them.
“Yes. We had to leave Great Oak. The Yankees came and burned it down.” She knew Faunt had set fire to the big house. Nothing he did could ever be anything but right in her eyes; yet others might blame him, and after all it was easy to accuse the Yankees. “So the children and I are living at Cinda’s. Of course Travis is never there, at least not for very long.” And as they came upstairs: “Oh Mama, what a charming room!”
“I use it for a sitting room. The drawing room is too formal, when I’m alone.”
Enid’s nose wrinkled daintily. “Do you smoke cigars when you’re alone?” Her tone was teasing. “Or is it Cousin Tony?”
Mrs. Albion smiled. “I haven’t seen Tony for some time; but I have many friends, you know.” She led the way out into the upper hall again. “And here’s my room.” Enid went to and fro, handling everything, admiring everything. Her mother showed her another bedroom, immaculate, obviously unused. “And that’s all,” she said.
“It’s really just a tiny house, isn’t it?” Enid commented. It was certainly so small that she could never bring the children here; but then she had no intention of doing so. They could be left at Cinda’s. “Where does Milly sleep?”
“Off the kitchen; and Rufus has his place in the yard.”
Enid turned back into that pleasant room, not too feminine, where she had smelled the faint persisting odor of cigars. “I like this best of all, Mama,” she declared, and sat down. “The fireplace, and the lovely pictures. Everything’s just perfect. No wonder you spend most of your time up here.” Her eyes twinkled. “With your cigar-smoking callers.”
“You’re a malicious little somebody, aren’t you?” Nell said smilingly.
“I’m not really,” Enid assured her. “Of course—” She hesitated, a little startled at her own temerity; but she meant to confide in her mother, to draw close to her. “Of course I’ve known about you and Uncle Tony. Almost from the first. But I never blamed you.”
“You’re ever so kind.” Nell’s tone was droll.
“I really admired you, your courage, doing what you wanted to do.”
“Thank you, darling.”
“I’ve always loved you just awfully, and thought you were simply wonderful, and envied you.”
“Envy? You’ve had everything anyone could want!”
Enid laughed. “With Trav? Really, Mama!” Then, leaning suddenly forward: “Mama, do you know what I’d like? I want to come and visit you, so we can get really to know each other. We’ve been separated so long. Really, Mama, I think that’s a wonderful idea. Let’s just the two of us be together for a while!”
Nell smiled. “That’s hardly practical, is it, darling?”
“I don’t see why not. You’ve a room for me, a beautiful room. I’d like to just not see anybody else but you for a while. I’ve missed you, all these years. Couldn’t we, please?”
“You’ve your children, you know.”
“They can stay with Cinda. She loves having them there. And I don’t mean forever.” She did, yet dared not yet say so. “I just mean—to visit for a while. Like two girls. You don’t seem any older than I do, really.”
“Nonsense, darling. As you reminded me, I’m in my fifties.”
Enid recognized the bite in her mother’s tone; and she pleaded: “Please don’t be—don’t hold that against me. I was just teasing. Don’t you think it would be sort of nice to get to really know each other again?”
“I’m used to having my house to myself, Enid.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do anything to change it.”
“You’re very persistent, aren’t you!”
“I want it so much, Mama.”
The older woman smiled. “It would never do, Enid. You were always an exasperating child. Oh, perhaps it was my fault. I kept you dressed like a child long after you thought of yourself as grown up. I was—we were desperately poor, you know. I hoped to seem young and attractive, to make a good marriage.” Enid started to speak, but her mother said quickly: “No, don’t deny it. If we’re to be—friends, let’s start with honesty. Yes, I was trying to find a husband. I had hopes of Trav till you decided to take him away from me. You were young and lovely, and you took him.”
“I wish I hadn’t!”
“You’re a little late in repentance, my dear. So I took second-bests —without benefit of clergy. This is not a
confession of a life of shame, darling. I’ve been, in my way, a highly moral woman. But I’ve learned to consider others, to try to please them.”
She looked at her daughter through level eyes. “You’ve never learned those lessons,” she said remotely. “I doubt you’ve ever con, sidered others, or ever tried to please anyone but yourself. I know you pretty well, Enid—even from afar off. You’re a querulous, dissatisfied, self-centered person. You think of yourself as owing nobody anything. You think others ought to spend their time taking care of you.” She laughed briefly. “I don’t think we’d be congenial, darling.”
Enid bit her lip. “No one has ever talked to me like that.”
“Probably not. You see, Enid, if there were fewer wives in the world and more mistresses, more women would take the trouble to learn to play fair. When wife and husband are at odds, the wife need only weep to bring the poor man to heel; but when a man’s mistress becomes an annoyance or a bore, he simply leaves her. There’s a great deal more to the relationship between man and woman than—the unmentionables, darling!”
Enid after a moment spoke in an appeasing tone. “I can see I used to be the way you say; but I’ve grown up, this last year, Mama.”
“Have you? I’m glad.” Nell’s eyes shadowed; her own thoughts filled them, and Enid saw a new beauty in her mother’s face. “I’ve changed too, this last year, Enid. I used to consider every action, test everything I proposed to do by its probable effect on my life. Till—very recently. But I’ve learned something this last year—” She smiled. “This last month, in fact. Something I never knew. Something wonderful.”
“You sound almost as if you’d fallen in love with someone.”
“Do I? I’m a little too old for that, don’t you think?”
Enid was puzzled by the quizzical note in the other’s voice. “I know you’re still mad at me for saying that about how old you are. But Mama, I’ve fallen in love myself. That’s why I thought——”
“With that good, stolid, substantial husband of yours, I hope.”
Enid shook her head, almost with violence. “No, Mama! I hate him! I’ve told Trav I—well, I don’t want to be married to him any more. I’ll hate him as long as I live. I don’t know anything about getting a divorce, and probably I can’t do that, but I’m not going to live with him any more. I’m going to leave him.” She rose quickly, came to her mother’s side. “Mama, that’s why I want to come here and live with you.”
“Nonsense, Enid!” Nell’s tone was sharp. “You’re an old married woman, with children. You can’t leave your husband.”
“Well, I’m going to. If you’ll help me.” Enid’s eyes filled; she forgot all discretion. “Oh Mama, I hate him so. I never knew how much I hated Trav till I met Faunt.”
Her mother was still seated, Enid standing in front of her. Nell had been looking up at her as she spoke. When Enid uttered Faunt’s name, Nell’s head dropped, not sharply but with an almost ponderous motion. She seemed to look down at her hands in her lap, and there was a long silence before she spoke.
“Faunt?” she repeated. “Isn’t he Trav’s brother?” She did not look up.
“Yes. Oh Mama, he’s so gentle and sweet and brave and fine. When he was wounded, he came to Great Oak; and he was terribly sick, and I took care of him, and when he was better we used to ride together, and walk down across the lawn toward the river, and—oh just talk for hours and hours.”
“I suppose you think he’s in love with you?” Mrs. Albion watched her folded hands.
“I’m sure he is. Oh, of course he doesn’t know it. He’d never let himself know it, not with me married to Trav. He’s wonderful, Mama.”
Nell, after a moment more, rose; she touched Enid’s arm. “Darling, I’m glad you told me. But you’re married; you must remember that. Only by being a good wife to Trav can you hope for self-respect and happiness.”
Enid said angrily: “Oh, for Heaven’s sake, don’t preach to me! I know too much about you! You’re a fine one to talk.”
“If Faunt even suspected how you feel, you would never see him again.” Nell’s tone was flat and lifeless.
“I don’t believe it. If I went to him—if I just told him—Mama, I know he’s in love with me. I simply know it!” Nell did not speak, and Enid urged: “Look, Mama, let me come live with you, and then maybe Faunt could come here. We could ask someone to bring him. I could see him sometimes. I’d promise not to make any scandal or anything. Unless we—well, we could go away somewhere, never let anyone——”
Nell, with a swift explosive motion, slapped her hard, one cheek and then the other. She boxed Enid’s ears, slapping her with both hands. Enid cried out and dodged away and backed into a chair and fell limply into it, her cheeks stinging red from the blows, angry, hurt, bewildered. Nell leaned over her as though to strike again; but then she caught herself, drew back, half smiled.
“There, darling! I had to bring you to your senses, that’s all. I haven’t boxed your ears since you were a baby, have I? But you were talking nonsense, you know!”
Enid, in a wave of self-pity, wailed: “Oh Mama—I thought you’d understand me!”
“I understand that you’re an idiot.”
“I thought you’d help me. I thought you could tell me what to do. I want to——”
“Enid, listen!” Nell hesitated, seemed to choose her words. “If you’ve botched your life, try to mend it; but don’t expect me to take your part! I like Trav! He’s miles too good for you! And as for coming to live with me—” She laughed, throwing back her head, mysteriously amused to the point of hysteria. “Living with me! Talking to me about your beloved Faunt! Why, my dear child—” She leaned suddenly nearer, no longer laughing, her eyes burning, her lips tight, deep furious furrows between her brows. “Enid, if you ever come to my door again I’ll take a blacksnake whip and slash your soft shoulders to the bone!”
She stayed leaning over her daughter, hovering like a hawk about to swoop; and Enid was shaken with such terror as she had never known. When her mother, silent-footed as a cat, turned and went into the hall, Enid slipped out of her chair to peep after her. She saw Nell go to her own room, disappear; and fearful for life itself, Enid glided down the stairs, softly opened the outer door, closed it ever so gently behind her. The carriage at the gate was safety. She reached it so swiftly that the coachman dozing on the high seat did not wake till her weight tipped the carriage.
He looked around with some muttered word of apology and Enid said desperately: “Hurry! Go on! I stayed too long. I should have been home hours ago.” And as he lifted the reins, “Hurry! Hurry! Do!”
Enid came home in a sweat of fear so overwhelming that she did not stop to wonder what had roused her mother to that rage so violent it was almost obscene. Never greatly curious about the emotions of others, she was not now. Beyond a lasting certainty that she would never dare go to her mother again, she did not attempt to understand, surrendering to self-pity, because she had been abandoned by the one who should have been her surest friend.
But she soon began to forget, and the fact that she seldom saw Trav made forgetting easy. She enjoyed Dolly, found Captain Pew a fascinating man, wishing Faunt would come more often to Cinda’s, accepted the routine of life under this comfortable roof. Not till that evening when General Longstreet and Trav stayed for supper did anything disturb her easy acceptance of the contenting present.
Her first concern was faint. In the drawing room she became conscious of a puzzling difference in Trav. There had always been a solid strength in him against which she could make no impression; but that strength had been inert and passive. This which she felt in him was new. It was aggressive; it thrust out at her, in the stroke of his eye when his glance met hers, in the deeper tones his voice held. Her first uneasy awareness led her to torment him, as one experimentally teases a sleeping animal. When Longstreet praised him, she laughed mockingly, sure that since by the presence of others she was protected she could do this safely. She had
no fear till Trav said he would stay the night.
Then in sudden panic she came to him and whispered: “You can’t, Trav. There’s no room. You can’t sleep with me!” But when he told her, loudly enough so that they all heard, that he would stay, she fled headlong up the stairs to her room and shut the door. She sought to lock it, but there was no key; she sought somehow to barricade it against his entrance. She tried to roll the armoire from its place by the wall; but her utmost strength was not enough to move the heavy piece. She was still panting and straining when without knocking Trav opened die door and came in and closed the door behind him.
She retreated to the farthest corner of the room. She tried to speak, but her lips were dry. Trav, without looking at her, laid aside his coat; he pulled off his boots and began calmly to remove his clothes. She recaptured some grain of courage.
“Trav—you can’t!” He did not answer; and she insisted. “Trav!” When he was still silent she edged sideways past the foot of the bed toward the door. Her instinct was for flight, and she had almost reached the door when with a quick movement he stepped into her path. Then at last he spoke.
“Undress, Enid.”
“I told you, Trav!” She was stammering. “I t-told you at Great Oak!” Her voice rose in the beginnings of hysteria; yet there was a secret intoxication in seeing him thus stern, commanding.
He said heavily: “I’ll have no more of that sort of talk. I was too tired, that night, to care one way or another. But not now! Whether you like it or not, you’re going to do as I say.”
She tried to laugh, to deride him. “You think so?”
“Hush! Do you want everyone to hear?”
“I——”
“I don’t want to hurt you, Enid; but if you disturb the house, I will.”
“Trav, I told you——”
He set his hands on her upper arms in a grip so hard she stifled a cry of pain; yet pain and terror mingled with another emotion, a deep stir of ecstasy. He held her so firmly that it was as though he lifted her off the floor. Dry sobs shook her, but she was too frightened to weep. With his face close to her, stern and white, he said hoarsely: “You told me what you meant to do, but I am not going to let you do it.”
House Divided Page 69