House Divided

by Ben Ames Williams

  “But I’m not sure just what I’m to do,” she told Vesta, laughing at herself. “I promised one man he should have some soup tomorrow, the sort of soup his mother used to make. Sour soup, he calls it. You boil buttermilk and corn meal and the yellows of eggs and put dumplings in it, and seasoning. Doesn’t that sound horrible? But I promised to try.”

  She was to find in those first days that the most baffling of her problems involved finding foods the men would eat. Her sour soup was a failure. The buttermilk resolved itself into a thin whey full of hard curds. “It don’t taste nat’ral and it don’t look nat’ral,” the man who had asked for it admitted. “But I’ll eat it if my stummick holds out.”

  At home she made even Jenny laugh at the tales she told. “They’re all poor people,” she explained, “and they’ve never had enough to eat in their lives, but they’re suspicious of anything new, don’t want to eat anything they’re not used to. I made cook put some parsley in the chicken broth today, and half the men wouldn’t touch it with those weeds floating around in it! One of them said he didn’t like soup anyway. He said: ‘I never was much of a hand for drinks, ma’am.’ ” She added: “I don’t suppose half the men ate as much as they should, today, but I’ll make them before I’m through, if I have to rub it down their throats like forcemeat balls.”

  She put herself under a saving discipline, coming home every day at the same hour. Jenny and Vesta were ready to start for the Plains; but Barbara wished to see Burr before she left. Vesta still thought Burr might refuse to let Barbara go, but Cinda was sure Barbara would have her way. She hoped to witness this trial of strength between them, but when Burr came home an hour after dark Friday, Barbara was in her room. Cinda and Vesta greeted him in the hall and after their kisses he asked where Barbara was. Their answer sent him at full leap up the stairs, and Vesta said in a droll tone:

  “Well there, Mama! We won’t see the fireworks after all!”

  If there were fireworks behind Barbara’s closed door, no outsider witnessed them. She and Burr presently came down arm in arm, and Cinda thought Burr was a little white and strained. Barbara said at once: “Mama Cinda, I really don’t think I ought to go to Raleigh. Poor Burr will miss me so.”

  But Burr valiantly protested: “Not a bit of it, darlin’. It will be a lot easier for me knowing you’re safe and comfortable. I won’t have to worry about you.”

  So they had a lively little argument, Barbara demurring, Burr insisting that she go; till at last he surrendered. “Well, if you’re really sure that’s what you want me to do. But I’m only going because you make me, Burr, really I am.”

  “I know, Honey; but it’s the sensible thing to do.”

  She kissed him fondly. “I’m going to miss you just awfully. Please darling, mayn’t I stay here where I’ll be near you?”

  But Burr smiled and said with a bold authority: “Silence in the ranks. Obey your commanding officer, young woman, or I’ll have you bucked!”

  Vesta looked at Cinda with a knowing amusement in her eye. “What does that mean, Burr? Bucked?”

  “Hands tied together around your ankles and a stick through your knees.”

  Barbara shivered. “That sounds terrible. All right, darling, I’ll do it. But it’s just because you say I must.”

  They had some talk of plans. Burr thought he could get leave to escort Barbara to Raleigh. His command was about to move to Atlee’s Station; but there was no immediate prospect of early action, and he could be spared. They would start south on Monday. Sunday, Brett came home, and he took advantage of the opportunity to send by Burr’s hand a letter to Mr. Pierce, asking whether he would be willing to sell or rent the Clay Street house to Trav.

  “I’d meant to write him before now,” he confessed to Trav, not yet strong enough to come downstairs. “But it slipped my mind. Burr can bring his answer.” Trav was not sure the purchase would be wise, but Brett advised it. “Confederate finances are already shaky. Prices are rising, and that means the value of money is falling. To keep money is to see it slip through your fingers like sand; but real property can’t get away. The house is a good one, the land will always be there. Yes, you should buy.”

  So Trav assented and Brett drafted a letter to Mr. Pierce; and next morning they departed, Vesta and Jenny and Burr and Barbara, Big Mame and the nurses and the children. Trav and Cinda agreed not to mention the prospective purchase to Enid till it was decided; but before the week was out Burr returned, and he said Mr. Pierce would sell the house. Cinda, at home when Burr arrived, took him to Trav’s room to report this. Enid was at Dolly’s, and when they heard her voice in the hall downstairs Cinda said: “Come, Burr, we’ll let Uncle Travis have her all to himself when he tells her the news.”

  But Trav made them stay, and Cinda saw with affectionate amusement his misgivings; and she said reassuringly: “Don’t worry, Travis. She’ll be delighted.” She called to Enid to come and join them. “Travis has something to tell you, Honey.”

  Cinda was right. When she heard, Enid was so happy that she danced around the room, and she said Trav must hurry and get well so they could move quick, and when Cinda smiled at her exuberance she cried: “But Cousin Cinda, don’t you realize it will be a home of my own! Chimneys was way off from everywhere, and Great Oak was Mama’s, but this will be my own, my own, my own!” Not even Trav’s reminder that there were details still to be attended to could dampen her delight.

  Next morning Burr rode away, and Cinda’s days were full, and at night she was so weary she went at once to sleep. Sunday she hoped Brett would come, but he did not; so out of her loneliness she wrote Vesta a long letter, telling all the talk of the day. “Everybody here is furious at General Pope. He’s the Yankee general in northern Virginia, and he says everyone who wants to stay in their homes there must take the oath of allegiance to the Union or else be sent into our lines and they’ll be shot if they try to go home again. Everyone seems to think that’s outrageous, though for the life of me I can’t see why!” Cinda liked to take the unpopular side of any question. “If people mean to behave themselves, why shouldn’t they promise to? And if they don’t, why shouldn’t General Pope arrest them? But there, I sound like Trav! Enid says when General Butler down in New Orleans issued his order that ladies who insulted his men would be treated like women of the streets, Trav said no lady would insult even a Yankee, and that Butler was just warning women who weren’t ladies to act as if they were! Of course I don’t believe Trav ever said it. Enid’s an awful little liar. But I told her I agreed with him. I didn’t really, but I knew she was trying to make me criticize Trav and I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. And in a way I do agree with Trav too. I certainly haven’t any sympathy with women who insult even Yankees! But for Heaven’s sake don’t tell any of your friends I talk like this or they’d never speak to me again! I don’t really mean it; yet in a way I do, too. Is it possible that I’m beginning to see two sides to some questions? I must be getting old! Don’t ever lose your prejudices, darling. They’re what keep us young!”

  Late in July Redford Streean brought Mrs. Currain home from Chimneys. Cinda had not expected her till cooler weather, but Streean explained: “I dropped in on Tony, and she decided to come on with me so no one would have to go and fetch her later on.”

  Cinda was half sorry. It would not be easy for her mother to maintain in Richmond that protective pretense that there was nothing wrong with the world. When Mrs. Currain found Trav abed, she said briskly: “Well, Sonny Lad, it’s high time I did come home! I fear ye’ve been eating something you shouldn’t.”

  That soft burr in her tones had become more marked. Enid started to tell her the truth; but Cinda spoke quickly: “You just take charge of him, Mama. He needs you to make him behave!”

  She tried to lead Mrs. Currain to speak of Chimneys, and of Tony; but although the older woman talked with no apparent reservations, yet there was a hint of reticence, a suggestion of things unsaid. Chimneys was beautiful, there was plenty of every
thing, the house was well kept and well managed.

  “Managed by Tony?” Cinda asked.

  “Why, I’m sure I don’t know. You surely don’t think I’d inquire into the workings of another person’s household?”

  Cinda almost smiled. It was impossible to imagine her mother allowing any detail of Tony’s establishment to escape her notice; but she did not press the point. How was Tony, she asked; and her mother said Tony was well, very well indeed, always so happy, always in good humor. Clearly, Mrs. Currain’s seeming frankness was pretense. Just as at Great Oak and at Richmond the old woman had shut her eyes to what went on around her, so at Chimneys there was something which she had been determined not to see.

  Before that week ended, Cinda was relieved for a while from her labors at the hospital. So many of the wounded had died or had reached convalescence that the patients in her ward could be absorbed by other wards. “But there will be more battles,” Dr. McCaw warned her. “We shall want you then.”

  Cinda promised to serve when that time came, but she was glad to be free to spend long hours with her mother. Mrs. Currain’s refusal to speak more frankly about Tony sharpened her curiosity; and it was in the hope Streean might let fall an explanation that she invited him and Tilda to Sunday dinner. But her carefully casual inquiries elicited nothing new. He said Chimneys was prospering, that Tony was in fine fettle; but this was no more than Mrs. Currain had already said.

  Of himself and his projects, however, Streean talked readily enough. He had hoped Brett would be here today. “I want to advise him to grow all the cotton he can at the Plains,” he told Cinda; and when she said in surprise that she thought there was already a great store of cotton in the South, he agreed that this was true. “But there will be a market for it presently,” he promised. “This war will not be over in one year, or in five; and to finance the war, we must use our cotton and tobacco to establish credit.” Cinda had heard Brett say the same thing months ago. “The North needs our cotton,” Streean reminded her. “And we need many things from the North.”

  “But surely we won’t. sell cotton to the North and fight her at the same time?”

  “Business men continue to be men of business, even in wartime,” he assured her. “On this last trip of mine I made contact with some New Orleans cotton brokers and some bankers. If we can send them the cotton, they will guarantee to dispose of it at a fat profit to all concerned. Tell Brett so.”

  “Will the North let us sell them cotton? Even if we wanted to?”

  Streean chuckled. “Of course. There are business men in the North as well as in the South. When this trade is once organized we can get everything we need; clothing, food, medicines, lead, steel.”

  “You mean to say the North will sell us lead to make into bullets to kill their own men?”

  “If we give them a profit, yes.”

  If there was a profit to be made in any such way as Streean proposed, he would take care to get his share of it. “What do you hear from Darrell?”

  “He’s in North Carolina,” Streean told her. “Trying to buy cloth for uniforms. North Carolina makes more than her troops need, but she won’t sell any of it. I saw him in Statesville. He thought of going to Chimneys for a visit with Tony.”

  Tony had said there were deserters in the country around Martinston. Darrell, so careful to stay out of the army, would find kindred spirits among them. “Tony says some of his neighbors are deserters,” she remarked.

  “Oh there are just as many skulkers right here in Richmond as in North Carolina,” Streean assured her. “The streets here are full of them: young men who have dodged conscription, or hired substitutes. No one goes into the army unless he’s made to.” Cinda was about to speak, but he added: “Except, of course, gentlemen!”

  She thought there was derision in his tone; yet it was hard to take exception to a tone of voice. “I suppose Darrell might be conscripted,” she suggested.

  “Not as long as he stays where he is! A Virginia man can’t be conscripted in North Carolina, you know. And of course Darrell has a detail to the Quartermaster’s Department, anyway.”

  “I should think he’d want to—do his part.”

  Tilda protested: “Well, I don’t! I certainly don’t want the poor boy getting killed. All these women so anxious for their men to go and be heroes ought to see what we see in the hospitals, oughtn’t they, Cinda?”

  Cinda was so angry that she did not trust herself to speak. After dinner Streean went to talk with Trav, and Tilda and Dolly disappeared with Enid. Cinda took Mrs. Currain to have her nap, and she herself relaxed in the big chair in her mother’s cool, darkened room, trying to keep bitterness out of her thoughts, reminding herself that Streean had always been a scoundrel, and Tilda a fool. When she heard the stir of their departure she descended to bid them a polite good-by; then sat for a while with Trav. He was on the high road to recovery, propped with pillows. His color was good, and she remarked this.

  “That’s because I’m mad,” he admitted. “Streean always upsets me.”

  It was better for him not to excite himself. A book lay on his knees. “What were you reading?” she asked.

  “Hardee’s Infantry Tactics.” He colored in amused embarrassment. “It was Tommy Cloyd’s, has his name in it. I saw it on Vesta’s table here beside the bed, looked into it, discovered how many things I don’t know.”

  “I believe you’re really turning into a soldier.”

  “Well, I seem to get into trouble whenever there’s trouble anywhere around; so I ought to know something about what I’m doing.”

  “It will be a long time before you’ll be able to—ride and fight again.”

  “Dr. Little says two months.” Trav’s jaw set stubbornly. “But I don’t think it will be that long.” Yet for the present he was satisfied to rest, to let his strength return.

  Early in August a letter came from Vesta.

  Dearest Mama—I meant to write you ages ago, but we’ve been busy as two bees. Jenny found everything at sixes and sevens, and I put off going to Mrs. Cloyd till Jenny didn’t need me, but I’ve been there since Sunday and I’m just back. She’s wonderful, Mama; as wonderful as you, though of course in a different way. I told her about Bruton churchyard and how lovely it is in that corner where they buried Tommy; and some day she and I are going there together.

  There’s so much to tell you I don’t know where to begin. I wish you were all here with us. The things we have to eat would make your mouth water. I hadn’t realized how much we were doing without in Richmond till I came here and sat down day after day to tables just loaded with all sorts of pork roasts and sausage and bacon and things, and wonderful hams, and beef and mutton and chickens and turkeys and guinea hens, and all the eggs and milk and things we can eat. I really feel guilty, when you all are just half-starving by comparison.

  But I must start at the beginning. There was trouble the minute we got here, because Samson—you don’t remember him, I guess; but he’d been brought into the house since Jenny went to Richmond. Jenny says he bullied old Banquo into it, to get out of field work. Well, the day we got here he had stolen Banquo’s keys, and got into the sideboard and he’d drunk bottles and bottles of wine and he was chasing all the house servants around with a carving knife, and when we drove up to the door they were screaming and running everywhere. I was terrified, but Jenny just walked up to him and told him to give her the knife and he did and she locked him up in the smoke house to sober off. I wanted her to have him taken to the calaboose, but she said he’d be all right, and he’s been like a mouse ever since.

  But poor Mr. Freeman is too old to run things here, Jenny says. The people can’t take care of themselves. There was plenty of corn, but they’ve wasted so much that Mr. Freeman says they’ll run out before the new crop is ripe. So Jenny thinks she’ll stay and manage here. She says for Papa not to worry. She says she can run the place just fine, and Mrs. Cloyd is going to help her.

  This was startling, and Cinda forgot
the letter for a moment. To think of Jenny and the children so far away, alone on the great plantation with Negroes for her only protection, alarmed her. No one could know how soon the people would rise against their masters, like this Samson of whom Vesta had written. Yet Jenny had known how to handle him; and Cinda had a high respect for Jenny. All the same, she must not stay at the Plains alone. Brett would insist that she rejoin them here. Having thus shifted the burden from her shoulders to Brett’s she read on.

  Everybody here acts as if the war were none of their business. Or at least, they seem to want to do their fighting as far away from it as possible. People keep saying the Yankees are bound to capture Richmond. Lots of men have come back here from there saying it’s no use, but if they’d stayed there and helped fight I guess we’d have gobbled up McClellan’s whole army. Everybody’s bragging about the sword factory in Columbia, and about Professor Le Conte’s powder factory. To hear them talk you’d think it was their powder and swords that won the battles. They say the Yankees are just fighting to make money, and then they start bragging about how much money they’re all making. Mrs. Cloyd says everyone makes money out of cotton except the people who grow it. Some ladies in Columbia have started a Wayside Hospital to take care of the wounded soldiers when they have to wait to change trains there. You wouldn’t believe how many young men are at home here talking about getting commissions or places in the government departments or something. Mrs. Cloyd’s perfectly disgusted with them.