House Divided

by Ben Ames Williams

  “Heavens, he’d never do that! I can’t imagine it. But—if I ever decide to—I’ll just be ’specially sweet to him some day, and he won’t be able to stand it, and he’ll just sweep me up in his arms and carry me away to a preacher and marry me.”

  “You know, some ways”—Enid was almost sorry for the girl, so young, so sure of her powers—“you’re just a baby, Dolly. Don’t try to make too much of a fool of Captain Pew.”

  Dolly’s eyes narrowed. “Thank you, ma’am, for the advice. I’ll give you some in return. Don’t you make too much of a fool of yourself over Darrell!”

  “Over Darrell?” Enid felt her cheeks hot. “Dolly, you’re an idiot!”

  Dolly laughed. “There, darling; let’s not quarrel. But I assure you, Darrell’s quite as dangerous as Captain Pew!”

  Enid could not forget that conversation, but she did not see Darrell till he called one Sunday evening after Lucy and Peter had gone early to bed. The door bell rang, and old April let him in; and even in the first moment Enid thought he had drunk more than he should. She said, for April to hear, that this was a mighty strange time to call.

  “I came to say good-by,” he told her. “I’m off for Chimneys in the morning.”

  “Why, you’re nice to come!” April was still in the hall, within hearing; and Enid said to her: “I’ll let Mister Streean out, April. You needn’t wait up.” She heard April move toward the rear of the house, and the old woman would go out to her own quarters in the yard. Except for Lucy and Peter, doubtless already asleep, she and Darrell would be alone in the house.

  “I’m going to help Uncle Tony with his agricultural pursuits,” said Darrell, and sat down. Enid heard the back door close. April was gone.

  “I declare,” she told him, “you never do stay any time at all in Richmond. You haven’t been near me since you came home!”

  He met her eyes. “I’m not proper company for a respectable young matron whose husband is away at the wars.”

  “Why, you old silly! We’re kin!” There was enough impropriety in being thus alone with him to make her heart beat faster.

  “Husband away at the wars,” he repeated, suddenly lugubrious. “Everybody’s away to the wars, everybody but me.” Then in a livelier tone: “Did you hear the latest? We’re going to whip the Yankees this summer. Taylor Whiting wanted to wager today that General Stuart will be in Philadelphia in two weeks. Guess General Lee’d trade Philadelphia for Vicksburg any old day.”

  She was amused by the faint thickness in his speech. “Darrell, why don’t you stay in Richmond?”

  “Don’t like the weather,” he declared. “These warm, hazy days make me sleepy. Red sun through the haze looks like blood. Even the moon is red-blurred—blood on the moon.”

  “It’s more like fall than summer, isn’t it?”

  He blinked at her appraisingly. “You’re not looking well, Aunt Enid.”

  “Nonsense! I’m perfectly well.”

  “You have a dusty, late summer look about you, instead of the bedewed freshness of spring.” He shook his head as though in reproach. “Why, Aunt Enid, you look older than your mother!”

  That word was like the awakening shock of cold water dashed into her face. She had not seen her mother for months, and she said so, almost angrily.

  “Really?” he commented. “She’s a handsome woman, Aunt Enid. She looks younger than when I first met her; and that was long ago, when I was still a boy.”

  “For Heaven’s sake stop calling me ‘Aunt Enid.’ I’m not so very much older than you, actually!”

  “You look old,” he said severely. “But to be sure, your mother’s drunk a fresh draft of the elixir of youth. Perhaps that’s what you need, Aunt Enid!”

  “Stop it!” Curiosity drove her. “Whatever are you talking about? About Mama!”

  “Why, your mama is in love!” Enid was silent in blank astonishment. “And it’s mighty becoming to her. To love works a miracle on a woman.” His voice was dreamy. “Remember how homely Vesta was till she fell in love with Tommy Cloyd? Remember so many plain young women suddenly become radiant? When I see someone who was never worth a glance before, and who suddenly delights the eye, I say to myself: ‘Aha, Miss’—or ‘Madame’ as the case may be—‘you’ve lost your heart.’ ”

  “I don’t believe it. I mean about Mama!”

  “I assure you, it’s true.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, it’s a discreditable confession,” he admitted. “But I spied on her. It’s a long story.”

  “Go on, tell me!”

  He watched her, and now there was shrewd calculation in his eyes. “Well, it goes back to last February,” he explained. “I’ve been an admirer of your charming mother for a long time, and before departing for New Orleans I went to pay my most decorous respects. I was told that she was not at home, but I forced my way in and found her tête-à-tête with a gentleman. I may say that he resented my conduct, and quite justly, too; but I made my peace with them and left him in possession of the field.”

  “Oh that doesn’t mean a thing! Mama always had a lot of callers.”

  “But they didn’t stay till dawn,” he drawled, and there was suddenly a turbulence in her; and somewhere in the back of her mind a whisper sounded. “As this caller did,” said Darrell. “For I rode away, but I returned quietly afoot and watched to see him go.”

  “Who was it?” She found it hard to shape the words.

  He smiled. “I shouldn’t speak of matters so indelicate to a happy married woman pining for her husband away at the wars.”

  “Besides,” she argued, “that was months ago.”

  “Ah yes, so it was. But do you remember the night I brought you home, a few days since?”

  “Not particularly!” She tried to speak casually; but her cheeks burned, and he laughed, leaning suddenly forward.

  “Ah Enid, blushing? That’s confession!” He mimicked her tone: “ ‘Not particularly,’ says she; as if to stand with breathless parted lips under a young man’s kiss, to stand as still as a lovely image in the moonlight while he walks away, to stand with all her pulses beating the drums of longing for him to turn back to her—as if this happened to her every moonlit night of her life! As it should, to be sure, to one so beautiful.”

  “I stood to watch the moon!”

  “Because you wanted me to come back!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous! Go on. What happened that night?”

  “I wanted to turn back,” he said, gravely now. “But I dared not. When our lips touched, some magic touched us both, and I was afraid of it. For the girl I kissed was no girl but a wife. She was another’s, his property, his captive, his possession. She dared do nothing except as that other bade, dared not obey her heart but only that other’s commands.”

  He paused, and through her thoughts came tumbling images and phrases, people and scenes: Trav bruising her lips with his hard hands; little Mrs. Longstreet who could rule her husband, though he was master of his tens of thousands; that Mrs. Peters who loved General Van Dorn, and her husband who loved her enough to kill her lover; Faunt upon whom when he lay hurt and sick and helpless she lavished such tenderness; Faunt who now came secretly to Richmond but never to her; this charming boy whose deep tones made her tremble now; Trav whom she hated, because he no longer loved her; this audacious boy whose teasing, thrilling voice ran on; Trav who when he was angry so deeply stirred her blood; Trav who if he heard Darrell now would surely rage and strike and kill.

  “So I knew it was useless to turn back,” said Darrell sadly. “For the lovely woman I had kissed was a bond slave, not free to love. But my blood was hot and surging, and the moon was fine, and I remembered a charming woman——”

  He paused. She said in a strained voice: “Go on.”

  “I went to her, to your mother,” he said. “This time too, her door was closed to me; so again, as once before, I watched the house till dawn. The same gentleman came out and rode away. To make triply sure,
I called on your mother that evening. Her beauty was my answer. Yes, she is in love.”

  “Who was it?” Her voice was a flat challenge.

  He shook his head. “What does that matter? It is only the transforming miracle that matters; not the agent. She is in love, so she is beautiful. The recipe is as old as man and woman, Enid.”

  “Tell me who it was.”

  “Why should I?”

  “I want you to.”

  His head tipped to one side, and now there was a reckless challenge in his eyes. “How badly do you want to know?” She did not speak. “Suppose I tell you?”

  She leaned back in her chair, her hands along the arms, her eyes full on his. Bond slave? To Trav? Who thought all he had to do was just lay down the law! Who did not love her! Who would never love her more! Loneliness and longing and hot desire welled up in her; and Darrell, seeing her thoughts in her eyes, suddenly laughed and came to his feet and leaned down, his eyes plunged deep in hers.

  “Come, come,” he urged, still smiling. “Cat got your tongue? Speak up! What if I do?”

  She said huskily: “Tell me and see.”

  25

  April-June, 1863

  CINDA during this winter and spring had achieved peace of mind and heart. “I think it began in Washington,” she told Brett, when in April he had two days at home. “The day I saw President Lincoln. I don’t know just why. And having Julian at home, and Vesta. And I no longer worry about Burr. He seems to be invulnerable.”

  Brett pretended hurt. “How about me? Don’t you worry about me?”

  “Oh I can’t imagine anything happening to you. You’re so much a part of me.”

  “Soldiers are like that,” he reflected. “No man ever really expects death for himself. Except once in a while—and then it happens. Lieutenant Jim Utz in our company told me the night before the fighting at Fredericksburg that he would be killed next day, and he was.”

  “Were you in danger that day?”

  “No.” He smiled. “Except the danger of collapsing from exhaustion on the march to get there. We were on the move all night, and I’d swear the mud was waist-deep every foot of the way. The horses bogged down, and half the time we pulled the guns by hand.” He laughed. “It was all a lot of trouble for nothing, too. Our little naval howitzers aren’t worth much against the Yankee guns. We haven’t the range. I don’t believe we’ve killed a Yankee yet; but we make as much smoke and as much noise as any one. And you ought to hear us holler!”

  She said wonderingly: “How do you stand the hard life, Brett Dewain? You always liked to be comfortable, but you make a joke now of things that sound terrible to me.”

  “I suppose that’s the answer,” he admitted. “We do joke about it. Some of the jokes are pretty rough. Last winter, one bitter cold night, some joker passed the word that the sentries must blow through the touchholes of our pieces to be sure they were clear. Of course when a man put his mouth to the cold iron, his lips stuck to it, and they all had sore, swollen, bleeding mouths; but every sentry passed the word along till they were all fooled. That amused the whole company, even the ones who got hurt.”

  “It doesn’t sound funny to me.”

  He chuckled. “Well, when your teeth are chattering with cold, any excuse to laugh will help you stop.”

  He made her laugh with him. His days at home were as heartening as the coming of spring after a bitter winter. She would not see him again for months; but after Chancellorsville he wrote that he was safe and well, and so was Burr. “The poor damned Yankees got hurt hard,” he said. “I don’t mind battles, but I hate battlefields the day after. Shells had set the woods on fire, and a lot of wounded Yankees were burned where they lay. Rain finally put the fire out, but in a way the rain was worse than the fire, for then the wounded froze. We’ve found some who crawled to the little brooks to get a drink and the rain raised the brooks and the men hadn’t strength to get away, so they drowned. Maybe there’s glory on a battlefield while the guns are going, but there’s none next day. I’ll never see a buzzard again without shuddering, or eat a bite of hog meat without nausea. Oh, I suppose I will. When you’re hungry enough you’ll eat anything. And anyway, it’s probably almost as bad to be eaten alive by lice and fleas as to be eaten dead by hogs and buzzards. God forgive me for writing thus to you, my dear.”

  “Write as you please, write what helps you,” she replied. Trav was just then in Richmond with General Longstreet; he would take her letter to Brett. “If writing so helps you, do. It does not hurt me. Words sink into me like pebbles into a dark pool, leaving only a moment’s ripple. I’m almost happy, Brett Dewain; though it’s in a strange still way. I never knew how much strength there was in human beings till now, seeing the wounded. I think working with them helps me more than it helps them.”

  General Longstreet called next day to pay his respects; and she saw the trouble in him and found the root of it. “Louisa always took her babies hard,” he admitted. “But this is the worst time she’s had.”

  Cinda smiled in friendly understanding. “And you husbands always blame yourselves, of course. When is it to be, Cousin Jeems?”

  “October.”

  “Then she’ll be feeling better from now on; and you know she’ll really be better without you, too. When our husbands are with us, we wives always want a lot of sympathy. When Brett’s here, if things look black I just kick my heels and scream so he’ll have to comfort me; but with him away I have to behave myself.”

  “Louisa doesn’t complain,” he said loyally. “I wish she would. It’s her being so brave and cheerful when she feels so ill that makes it hard for me.”

  “She’ll be fine. You wait and see!”

  After he and Trav were gone, the May days dragged away. General Jackson’s death left heavy sadness in every heart, and Brett wrote: “They say any man can be replaced, but I doubt if he can be.” But Jackson was dead, and they must go on without him. They faced the steady struggle to find food. The Government tried to fix prices at a level below the current market, but the only result was that speculators refused to sell. Far away on the Mississippi, Vicksburg still held out; and up along the Rappahannock in early June Lee’s army, proud in its strength, began to move. To Maryland? To Pennsylvania? Last year to invade Maryland had meant disaster; but last year the army was already exhausted by a hard summer of fighting. Now the soldiers had had a winter’s rest; they had tasted victory at Chancellorsville. To such an army anything was possible, and hopes and prayers commingled. Judge Tudor called one day and confessed his own confusion.

  “I try to preserve an even mind,” he admitted, smiling at his own weakness. “But hope is always gnawing at common sense. Just now, if I let myself, I’d be expecting Lee to capture Washington, destroy the government buildings, destroy the city as completely as old Carthage, root out the Yankees denning there, send them scurrying, show foreign nations the helplessness of the North. I’d be assuring everyone that Grant’s army is about to be destroyed, that Vicksburg is safe. I almost believe these things, because I hope them; yet I know that at the first reverse the whole house of hopes will collapse and I’ll be twittering and wringing my hands like a despairing old woman.”

  “We all go through the same cycle,” Cinda agreed. “After First Manassas we were sure the war was won, and we were sure again after Second Manassas, when our army marched into Maryland, and now we’re sure again after Chancellorsville.”

  “The philosophers have never decided,” he suggested, “whether the pessimist or the optimist is more completely wrong; but mighty few of us can keep from being either the one or the other.”

  Julian and Anne were married on the ninth of June, at St. Paul’s Church, with only the family and closest friends attending. Cinda had hoped Brett at least could be there, but he wrote from Spottsylvania Court House that the Howitzers were marching toward Culpeper. Trav was with Longstreet and could not leave, nor could Burr come, though he wrote hopefully that this summer might end the war. “If the c
avalry can capture enough horses from the enemy to replace our worn-out mounts. We’ve done it before, and I guess we can again.”

  Cinda missed her menfolks, but their absence could not mar her happiness for Julian and for Anne. Anne on her wedding day was even lovelier than Dolly; Julian, tall and fair, wore a shining splendor.

  They would live, at least for the present, with Judge Tudor. He proposed to lodge for a while at the Spottswood and leave them in possession. Everyone went with them from the church to the house and stayed for a merry hour. Walking back to Fifth Street with Vesta afterward, Cinda said contentedly: “Anne’s so lovely. And Julian—I didn’t even notice his crutch. I was surprised at myself, but it’s true.”

  “Of course it’s true,” Vesta said quietly. “What do legs matter? He’s alive.”

  It was unusual for Vesta to refer even thus indirectly to her own loss. This day of Anne’s happiness must have been a racking time for her; yet any word of tenderness might loose a flood of torturing tears. “Yes, of course,” Cinda agreed, carefully casual.

  Vesta smiled, understanding the other’s thought. “It’s all right, Mama. It didn’t bother me, really. I was so glad for them.” And she added: “Being married’s wonderful. I’m going to marry again some day, Mama. I know Tommy’d want little Tommy to have a papa and some brothers and sisters.”

  “Of course.” Cinda, to hide her profound gratefulness, smiled and asked lightly: “Anyone in mind?”

  Vesta laughed, tossed her head. “Oh I’m beginning to sit up and take notice!” But Cinda knew the jesting was only meant to comfort her. It would be a long time before Vesta’s heart was healed.

  “Enid looked unusually pretty today,” she remarked.

  “She certainly did. And she looked happy. Maybe that’s why she was so pretty. She usually has a sort of complaining look.”