House Divided

by Ben Ames Williams

  Faunt smiled. “What’s this actor’s name?”

  “Booth. J. W. Booth.”

  Faunt instantly remembered a ringing voice declaiming on a Richmond street, a man in a fur-collared coat somewhat too big for him, an actor from George Kunkel’s theatre; and he remembered the strong impact of that man’s eyes meeting his, the sense he had of something powerful and moving in the actor.

  “J. W. Booth?” he echoed. “John Wilkes Booth?”

  “Yes, that’s the man.”

  “I met him once, at the time of the John Brown raid. He was acting at the Marshall Theatre in Richmond. He was a friend of the South, even then.” And he said in quiet decision: “Yes, Major, I will go. I was much struck with that man.”

  5

  July-December, 1863

  WHEN Tony took Sapphira, he recognized that ’Phemy, Sap-Tony took Sapphira, he recognized that ’Phemy, Sapphira’s mother, had contrived for him to do so; and he was amused at her cleverness. These niggers were as cute as a ‘coon, shrewd and full of guile. Well, let them be; he could when he chose be rid of ’Phemy, and of Sapphira too. They were his property. He could sell them away, if they became a nuisance, as he had sold those others.

  Tony was at that time seldom sober. The discovery that that ruffianly blackguard in Washington was the son of his father’s bastard destroyed the new-won sense of responsibility which had come to be the precarious foundation of his life. If the father of whom he had always secretly been proud could let loose this nigger-loving, poor-white backwoodsman to destroy the South, why then damn the name of Currain! He would drag it in the mire!

  So to the bottle, to the easy black wenches, and finally to Sapphira. When he presented her to Trav as the mistress of Chimneys it was a gesture of defiance and derision, alike of Trav and of the name of Currain.

  It was a long time before he began to realize that Sapphira and ’Phemy between them were changing him. What they did was done in little ways. When he rose in the morning he found fresh linen laid ready by his bed; a neatly pressed coat, trousers brushed and sponged, boots brightly shined. He was amused at these attentions. Why should a man trouble about his appearance when there was nobody to see him but a lot of niggers? Nevertheless he dressed in the garments they laid out for him, and with an instinctive distaste for putting clean clothes on a dirty body, he began by degrees to pay closer attention to his person. Trav in his days here had installed at Chimneys an outside shower for bathing; and Tony came to use it, at first occasionally and then with regularity.

  Sapphira was always crisply immaculate. That first summer, if he had ridden in dust and sun and came home soiled and sweaty, it amused him to clip her and tumble her and paw at her fresh-laundered dress with his stained and grimy hands. But she never protested and never let him see any resentment she may have felt, and the game ceased to amuse him. He came in time to be as fastidious as she. The fact that when he drank heavily his hand shook, so that he spilled liquor on himself or at table, and spilled food on his garments or on the always spotless linen, led him to curtail his drinking. Because Sapphira always bore herself with a serene dignity, he learned to match his manner to hers, to play a decorous and gentle part.

  Tony never replaced James Fiddler, for he discovered that there was no need. ’Phemy and Sapphira, and under their direction old Maria in the kitchen, acquired a mysterious dominance over the Negroes; Peg-leg as their lieutenant saw to it that the work was done in the fields, at the saw mill down by the branch, in the blacksmith shop, everywhere. When Tony realized this, he approved his own good judgment in leaving matters in their hands. He was so pleased with himself and with them that he went to Raleigh and eventually to Richmond to buy laces and linens and cashmeres and whatever finery the stores that handled blockade goods could offer; and it amused him to let Dolly try fabrics and colors for him. Back at Chimneys he told Sapphira:

  “The prettiest girl in Richmond tried that on, and she couldn’t hold a candle to you.”

  Sapphira made no comment. She was of silent habit, and Tony liked this. Most women, even Nell, talked too much, gave a man no chance to be with his thoughts alone.

  Winter passed contentingly, and as spring ripened into summer the very look of the place testified to the good management of Sapphira and her mother. Everywhere within sight of the house trash had disappeared, the fences were in repair, paint had been used where it was needed, well-tended flower beds flourished. Tony had no need to use any supervision. Things were done before he realized they should be done. He admitted to himself one day that the place was better run than he could possibly have run it. These two women were smart. Maybe that bearded ape in Washington was right in standing up for the niggers!

  But he could never forget that any white man who knew his way of life would damn him; and ’Phemy and Sapphira understood this as well as he. That was why, whenever travellers stopped for a night’s hospitality, Sapphira kept herself invisible. Once Tony assured her that she was mistress of the house, and that she should dine with them just as she dined with him when he was here alone.

  But Sapphira would not do so. “That would insult any white gentleman,” she reminded him. “I don’t want to see any guest in your house insulted.”

  “Why, damn it, girl,” he cried, “you’re as white as any of them! And twice as smart! They ought to feel honored to make your acquaintance.”

  But she knew this was not true, and so did he. The attitude of the men of his old company, when he occasionally rode into Martinston, was a reminder. He knew their code. If he chose to dally with a Negro wench, that was his affair; but when he set Sapphira at his dinner table he affronted them all. In the past, these neighbors of his had sometimes ridden up to Chimneys to see him. They had always preferred not to come into the big house; but they had been till now ready enough to stay and talk on the veranda steps, or in that ground-floor room which Trav had used as an office. Now, however, none ever came; and if Tony appeared in Martinston, though they were carefully polite, they raised an invisible wall against him.

  He damned them all for a lot of white trash; and he resented their attitude the more because he knew that behind them lay the united and inflexible opinion of the South. In time, his anger at them enlarged itself to embrace all who thought as they did. Lincoln was right: Southerners were a lot of stubborn fools; they deserved what they were getting!

  Yet he felt his ostracism, and as one result he began to offer friendship to the deserters in the mountain country. Jeremy Blackstone had deserted after Sharpsburg, and Alex Spain and Joe Merritt and Nat Emerson. All except Alex Spain had families, and they lived at home except when word that the conscript officers were near sent them to hiding in the mountains till the danger passed. But Spain united with fifteen or twenty others in an armed band of bushwhackers who, though they never molested their old neighbors hereabouts, ranged into Southwest Virginia and into Tennessee and southward as far as Asheville. Alex and his fellows occasionally stopped at Chimneys, and they accepted food and drink if it were offered.

  After Gettysburg, others of Tony’s old company came back to Martinston. Not all were deserters. When Bob Grimm, who had lost one arm at Williamsburg and the other at Gettysburg came home from the hospital, Tony took him a side of bacon and a bag of corn. Bob accepted the gift because he must. His farm was poor, his family in distress, he himself helpless to do any real work; but he thanked Tony in a way which made it clear that only necessity compelled his acceptance. To Wick Temple, who had deserted, Tony sent a cow just coming fresh; but Wick returned the cow with an ill-written but politely phrased assurance that he could get along. Need Hayfurt, another homecomer whose nickname had been earned by a lifetime of suppliance, walked up to the big house one day to say he needed this and needed that. Tony gave him as much corn meal and sow belly as he could carry, but he despised Need as much as he resented Wick Temple’s refusal of his beneficence.

  Tony’s increasing hatred of his neighbors and of the whole South of whose opinion they
were representative colored all his thoughts. In the Richmond and the Raleigh papers he read greedily every criticism of President Davis. Mr. Holden’s Raleigh Standard was his favorite paper. The Raleigh State Journal supported the administration, so Tony stopped reading it. Mr. Holden was right! This was a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight. The rich man could stay at home while the poor man was dragged away to die, and his wife and children were left to starve. Taxes never touched the rich man; but the poor farmer had to pay the tax-in-kind. He had to see the things he had raised by his own hard sweating toil taken away from him, while the rich men on their plantations were left untouched. The brave men were those who stayed at home and took care of their families. President Davis wished to set himself up as a dictator. If he could, he would make slaves of them all, reduce the poor white farmer to the level of the blacks.

  Thus said Mr. Holden, day by day; and Tony read and agreed with him. Sometimes he considered going to Raleigh to meet the editor and tell him so; but he was so comfortable in his smoothly ordered home and so calmly happy with Sapphira that he never reached the point of doing this. Instead, though it was by proxy, Mr. Holden came to him. Late in July, Tony heard that there was to be a “peace meeting” in Martinston; and he rode to town to attend. He went into the assemblage with a high head, long since accustomed to ignore the fact that even these humble men drew a little away from him as though he were tainted.

  A man Tony had never seen before spoke to the meeting. He said it was high time to put an end to the war, to seek any peace that was not disgraceful and degrading. “The Federals are ready to be friendly with all good conservative men,” he cried. “Let us unite together to show them our good will. Now that Federal victory and the restoration of the Union is sure, we who are friends of the Union should make ourselves known, stand and be counted for the right.” He gave them a phrase: “Let’s stand for the Constitution as it is, the Union as it was!”

  Tony, watching the listening audience, thought the speaker won them. He waited afterward to introduce himself to this stranger.

  “I’m Anthony Currain,” he said. “I was late in arriving, did not hear your name.”

  “Dean, sir. Horace Dean,” the other told him, mopping his brow.

  “How did you happen to come here?”

  “It was the suggestion of Mr. Holden of the Standard.”

  “I follow Mr. Holden’s editorials with full approval,” Tony assured him; and he said: “My home is a few miles away. May I offer you some hospitality?”

  The other hesitated, and Tony felt himself weighed and appraised; but then Mr. Dean spoke a word of acceptance and they rode out of town together. Over their juleps on the cool veranda and at supper and afterward they talked for hours; and Mr. Dean’s tongue as he sipped his brandy loosened more and more.

  “I see you’re a man of proper feeling, a man to be trusted,” he declared at last. “You should unite with us to work for peace.”

  “Who is ‘us’?” Tony asked. “I’m remote here from affairs, know little of what goes on.”

  “Why, sir, we are a group, and there are thousands of us, who believe that the war should be ended by an honorable peace, and the Union be restored. You know Mr. Holden, at least by his works. He is one of us, and Henderson Adams, and others equally respectable. We number our thousands, in North Carolina and to the north and to the south, all bound together by a common desire to end this bloody, hopeless war. All through the South, for two years now, honest men have united secretly or openly to help restore the Union. The Peace Society in the Cotton States is a year old and stronger all the time. Our organization, growing every day, is the Order of the Heroes of America. Mr. Holden is its inspiration. Everywhere, men who agree with him are flocking to his standard.”

  Tony said warily: “I’ve been surprised the Government didn’t take steps against Mr. Holden. Some of his editorials are pretty strong.”

  “The Government in Richmond cannot hurt him here,” Mr. Dean declared. “North Carolina is still sovereign within her own borders, Mr. Currain. However,” he admitted, “though the constitutional right of free speech protects Mr. Holden, we do use certain precautions for mutual recognition.” He smiled flatteringly. “With you, sir, I know I can speak freely. You may, meeting a stranger, remark a bit of red string tied in his button hole. That will suggest to you that he is to be trusted; but in order to make sure, say to him: ‘These are gloomy times.’”

  Tony was enough the small boy to feel a lively interest in such mysteries. “‘These are gloomy times,’ ” he repeated.

  “Exactly. He will reply: ‘Yes, but we are looking for better.’ You ask: ‘What are you looking for?’ He says: ‘A red and white cord.’ You: ‘Why a cord?’ He: ‘Because it is safe for us and our families.’” He rose and crossed to Tony with extended hand, stumbling a little on the way. “You then exchange the secret grip—thus.” Their hands clasped. “You say ‘Three’ and he will answer ‘Dogs.’” Mr. Dean hiccoughed faintly; he freed his hand. “So, sir, I greet you and welcome you to our great Order.”

  Tony was not ready to commit himself. “Is that all there is to it?”

  “From ignorant men we require an oath,” Mr. Dean admitted. “But that is unnecessary between gentlemen.”

  “But outside of talking, what do you do?”

  “Encourage desertion, protect deserters, contribute in every way to Federal success.”

  “I’d prefer not to feel a rope around my neck!”

  “Sir,” said Mr. Dean, “as long as Judge Preston sits at Salisbury, the writ of habeas corpus will still operate in North Carolina for your protection. Yes, and if necessary, every North Carolina regiment will be recalled within the borders of the state to uphold our sovereign laws.”

  “Well, even if that’s so, North Carolina can’t stand alone!”

  “She does not stand alone!” Mr. Dean assured him. “If you go into Virginia you will see the red string everywhere; and you will find judges who respect and uphold the Constitution. Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina—you will see the red string in thousands of button holes. Mr. Davis would like to make himself a dictator; but the sovereign states of the Confederacy say to him with one voice—‘Nay! Thus far but no farther! For we are sovereign stilll”’

  Tony thought Mr. Dean sometimes seemed to forget he was not on the platform. He made no promises, but a day or two later he rode into Martinston, and again and again, tied into the buttonholes of men there, he marked a bit of red string. He himself wore no such sign. If he wished to do so, Sapphira would say a tag end of string was an unsuitable adornment; but it was heartening to think he could be one with all these men, bound by a common purpose and a common loyalty.

  And to unite with them was the part of wisdom, too. When the North won, a heavy vengeance would descend on those who had been her enemies, on Richmond and Charleston and the seaboard cities that had resisted her. This was in his mind when Brett wrote proposing that all the Currain funds be put into Confederate bonds. Tony replied that the others could do as they chose, that if Trav would deed him Chimneys in return for a deed to Great Oak, he would make no other claim on the estate. Trav’s assent pleased him. Here at Chimneys he would be safe, protected against the Yankees by the loyalty to the Union which his membership in Mr. Holden’s order attested; and when the Piedmont Railroad was completed from Greensboro to Danville, the markets in Lynchburg and in Petersburg and Richmond would be more easily reached, and Chimneys would be an increasingly valuable property!

  Toward the end of September, passing the Blandy farm, Tony saw Ed in the door yard and pulled up his horse; and Ed came hesitantly to the gate to exchange a word or two. Behind him, Mrs. Blandy and one of the children appeared for a moment in the doorway, then disappeared again; and Tony felt a faint stir of anger at this mute evidence of her reprobation. The women were worse than the men.

  “Well, Mr. Blandy,” he said, “I’m glad to see you. Home to stay?”

  “No, sir, I�
�m on furlough.”

  “Some of your neighbors make their furloughs long ones.”

  “A lot of that’s Mr. Holden’s doings, Captain Currain.” Ed’s tone was hard, but Tony heard with pleasure that title of which he had once been so proud.

  “It’s not all Mr. Holden,” he remarked. “A soldier’s pay for a month won’t buy a good meal for his family, the way prices are. And he doesn’t get his pay half the time.”

  “I reckon sometimes the Gov’ment has a hard time to find the money.” There was a stubborn set to Ed’s jaw. “No, I’m going back to duty. Mis’ Blandy’s made a good crop, and with the young ones to help she’ll get along.”

  “All the same, I expect she’ll be glad when this is over, so you can come home to take the hard work off her hands.” Tony rode on, anger in him. Ed’s words were like a rebuke. Damn the man! Damn that wife of his, too! A woman no better than a field hand, working the summer long, sweating like a nigger! What right had she to set herself above Sapphira? Why, Sapphira in beauty and intelligence was a match for any lady in the South, to say nothing of a poor farm drudge!

  One day not long after this encounter with Ed, when Tony and Peg-leg returned from their morning survey of the place, Tony found a fat little man with something sleek about him sitting on the veranda drinking one of ’Phemy’s juleps and smoking a cigar. “Thomas Cosby, Mr. Currain,” the stranger explained. “Commissary agent. Mr. Dean in Raleigh told me to make myself known to you.”