House Divided (138 page)

“Don't ever go again, Faunt. Promise me!”

Her concern for him was wine in his veins, but he made no promise. “I certainly don't expect to,” he assured her. “But I can look out for myself, you know.”

She came to kiss him, shaking his head fondly between her hands. “Oh I know, I know. I expect you're just as fierce as fierce can be; but I can't imagine it. I can't imagine you really being in a fight, a battle, shooting at anyone. You seem so gentle here with me.”

He smiled up at her, wondering what she would think if she knew some of his deeds. How little even the wisest women really knew of man!

 

It was a full two months before Faunt left her. He might have gone before he did; but her persuasions and his own happiness held him for
a while. Through her and through the Richmond papers Rufus brought, he began to see more clearly than before the weakness of the Confederacy. Because Bragg had failed to seize the ripe fruits of victory at Chickamauga, there was a cry for his removal so persistent that President Davis himself went to Tennessee; but there, he left Bragg still in command. Faunt and Nell agreed that the arrogant stubbornness which was so much a part of Davis could do disastrous harm. When the new wealth in the Cotton States seized political control of the South, the dominance of intellect and character was ended. “Even Virginia surrendered to mob rule in the convention of 1850,” Faunt reminded her, “when they gave up homestead suffrage and let everybody vote. Before that, no one could vote in Richmond unless he owned land—lots in the city worth at least a hundred and fifty dollars. I don't suppose there were more than five or six hundred voters. There must be ten times that many now; and any loud-mouthed politician can tell them they're the backbone of the state and they'll elect him. Fifteen years ago it was the men who paid taxes who decided how tax money should be spent. Now the mob decides. They don't have to furnish the money, so they're all for spending it. So we're doomed to submit to the tyranny of the majority; and God knows the majority is just poor white trash, not fit to rule!”

There were rumors that President Davis and members of his cabinet—Mr. Memminger, the Secretary of the Treasury, was named as one of them—were selling their property and converting the money into gold and sterling exchange and sending it to England for security. To Faunt's question whether that was possible, Nell said passports could be bought, and permits to take tobacco out of the country and to sell cotton to the enemy.

“Anything you want in Richmond can be bought today,” she assured him. “These speculators even bribe the railroads to work for them, while food for the army spoils because there are no cars to carry it.”

“I can't believe it's as bad as you say,” he protested; and to prove her point she found a month-old paper and read him a paragraph from a letter President Davis had written to an organization in Mississippi.

“But if he's right,” Faunt protested, “why doesn't he do something about it?”

She shook her head. “What can he do, Faunt? Rich people won't let him tax land and slaves, even if he wanted to. They say the Constitution forbids it. The Congress passed a law last April to tax bankers and auctioneers and liquor dealers and store keepers and apothecaries and all sorts of people, lawyers and doctors and surgeons; but what little they pay doesn't amount to anything. Congress put a tax on incomes, but it doesn't have to be paid till January; and honest people haven't any incomes worth taxing, and dishonest people will say they haven't. There's a ten-percent tax on profits people made last year, but the speculators won't pay it. But Mr. Davis has to have money to pay for the war, so he has to borrow it or just print it. Up to this month, the Government has collected less than five million dollars in taxes; but they've spent six hundred millions, printed money! So money's worth less and less, so naturally people would rather have things than money, and prices go up and up.”

“You make it sound as though everything in the Confederacy were rotten but the army.” And he added in sudden challenge: “You sound as though you were glad of it, too!”

Her eyes met his honestly. “I've no reason to love the South, Faunt; none except that I was born here.” She smiled a little. “It's my own fault, of course; but I'm outside the pale. I expect even you are sometimes ashamed of loving me.” He did not speak. What she said was true, and he would not lie to her. “I have no illusions, you see. Perhaps that's why I treasure so deeply what you feel you can give me.”

He rose with a swift movement, came to her. “Nell, will you marry me?”

She caught his hand, pressed it to her cheek. “Don't be silly! Of course not, my dear.” Then, in tender teasing: “But don't let me see so plainly the relief you feel when I refuse.”

He could not deny this. “Damn the whole damned world!” he said.

She laughed softly. “It's all right, darling. We couldn't possibly have anything richer or finer than we have.”

He moved restlessly around the room. “Even the army—” he said,
his thoughts reverting. “Even the army's rotten in spots. Men are deserting all the time. But that's because they're starving, or their families are. The men are all right.” He came back to sit near her. “But we're not as good as we were, Nell. We used to be able to charge three or four times our numbers of Yankees and scatter them. They'd run away, fall off their horses like a lot of clowns, surrender by dozens. But now they fight back, and they've learned to ride, and their horses are better than ours. Ours are half-starved. We can't keep them properly shod, and we work them too hard, wear them out. Half the men in every cavalry regiment are in Company Q most of the time.”

“Company Q? What's that?”

“Men whose horses are sick, or worn out, not fit to fight.” He turned to her and said in flat tones: “Nell, we're going to be beaten in the end.”

Her eyes searched his. “Will it hurt you so? I don't want you hurt, my dear.”

“Oh, I won't be here!” She cried out in soft tender protest, and he said affectionately: “It's all right, Nell. I've had all the happiness a man's life can hold, since I knew you.” Her heart, at his words, was cold with fear.

 

It was late August when he came to Richmond. Early in October, the news of Lee's move around Meade's flank made Faunt resentful of his own inaction here. But Lee's maneuver ended in futility, for Meade drew his army back so skillfully that his losses were slight, and he had not even to abandon any considerable stores. After a week of fruitless marching, General Hill fought and lost a costly skirmish at Bristoe Station, and Lee fell back to the defensive lines along the Rappahannock.

Thereafter Faunt was increasingly anxious to return to the field. Nell tried to dissuade him, arguing that Mosby and his handful of men could do no real hurt to the Yankees; but Faunt disagreed. “Fifty of us, free to hit his lines of supply where we choose, can tie down thousands of his men to guard duty. If he could get rid of us it would be worth an army corps to Meade.”

She said with narrowed eyes: “I wish the Yankees would gobble up Mosby and all his men! Then you'd stay here with me!”

He smiled affectionately. “Don't talk nonsense, Nell!”

“I mean it!” she insisted; then, seeing his sombre eyes: “At least I think I do.”

He chuckled, forgiving her. “Well, the Yankees won't get Major Mosby,” he assured her. “But just to be sure—I'd better go back and take care of him.”

Before October ended,. he rode away. Nell gave him her farewell kiss, and her smile, and shed no tears. “Come when you need me, Faunt. Whenever you come, I will be here.”

He left in the hour before dawn, and he took the journey easily, angry to find how soft he was become. He went at first toward Charlottesville and thence up the eastern flank of the mountains to Sperryville, hardening his horse and himself, relishing the crisp fall days. At Sperryville he heard that Mosby was recovered from his wound and that there was a rendezvous appointed at the crossing of Thumb Run, northwest of Warrenton. When Faunt reached the spot, he was fit and ready for any work in hand.

Mosby greeted him warmly, with many questions. “I thought we'd lost you for good and all, when you didn't come back from Annandale.” Faunt confessed that he had been ill, and Mosby nodded in understanding sympathy. “You'll need to take better care of yourself,” he said. “Try to sleep a little more often indoors.” And then as though on sudden inspiration he said: “See here!”

Faunt waited, but Mosby was silent so long that he asked at last: “See what?”

“I was thinking. Speaking of taking care of yourself reminded me. You know we're short of medicines in the hospitals.”

“I've heard so.”

“Quinine's worth any price, a hundred dollars an ounce, perhaps more. Opium's just as scarce. Even blue mass costs twenty dollars an ounce.”

Faunt smiled. “Without the one to counteract the other, the doctors must be hard put.”

“Our laboratories try to make it,” Major Mosby told him. “But the mercury seeps out of it. But the point is—we need all that sort of thing.” Faunt waited curiously, and Mosby said: “You know the underground route to Washington.”

“I've been there, yes.”

“I've had word that one of our friends in the North has acquired a lot of quinine and opium and wants to give it to us. He seems to have heard of me, says some day he'd like to ride with us; and he offers this gift of medicines as an introduction, if we'll send and get it. I could hire someone to smuggle it through, but that would cost three or four times what it's worth; and I don't want to trust the ordinary blockade-runners anyway. Will you go?”

Faunt remembered Nell's pleading. “I don't object to—ordinary danger,” he commented. “But this might be difficult.” He asked: “Could your generous gentleman meet me, say, at Surrattsville? That's a few miles this side of Washington.”

“He can't,” Major Mosby explained. “He's an actor, playing at Ford's New Theatre there this week and next. He says he'd bring it himself if he could, but that he's too much in the public eye. I think actually he hopes I will come myself. It may be a trap, but I don't believe so. A Baltimore friend of mine brought me his letter, says he can be trusted.” He chuckled. “Being an actor, he likes theatrical gestures, of course; so he's arranged a rigmarole. My messenger is to go to the stage door of the theatre and ask for peanuts, and say his own name is Shell.”

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.”

July-December, 1863

 

 

W
HEN 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”'