House Divided (168 page)

“Nothing will,” Tilda urged, and she said hopefully: “Maybe Savannah will hold out. And the paper today says they've had a storm at Wilmington that drove the blockaders away, and we're sending some soldiers there. Things may get better, Cinda.”

“They can't get much worse.” Cinda tried to banish her own fears. “Heavens, what a way to talk on Christmas Eve! Let's make a rule no one's to mention the war all day tomorrow.”

 

When they reached home gladness greeted them, for Brett was there. He and Trav had ridden in together, and he was sure Rollin and possibly Burr would appear either tonight or tomorrow. So that evening was a happy one, and Cinda imposed upon them her rule of silence about the war, and they kept it fairly well. Vesta had heard on her shopping expedition the fabulous stories about the wedding of Mr. Hill's daughter. “He's just nobody,” she declared. “He keeps a little food store, and his prices are outrageous, but they say he was so proud of the wedding, bragged that he spent thirty thousand dollars on it.”

Anne said stoutly: “Well, I'm glad Miss Hill had a nice wedding. Weddings ought to be just as grand as you can possibly make them. Besides, it's not fair to criticize him, when everyone else is having parties all the time.”

“Starvation parties,” Vesta reminded her.

“Oh, you know perfectly well Richmond's ever so gay this winter.”

“It's bound to be,” Vesta argued. “The army is so near that the officers can ride into town any time they want to, and they're all hungry for fun, and who's to say they shan't have anything they want! There never were such flirtations, and so many people getting married; and there's a dancing party somewhere every night. Of course no one ever serves refreshments; but someone with a fiddle, and plenty of pretty girls to dance with, is the only refreshment the soldiers want.”

Brett said dryly: “It's about all they get. There was no meat ration at all, last Wednesday.” Tilda saw Cinda look at him reproachfully; and he laughed. “Sorry. I'm on forbidden ground!”

“Some of the ladies are scandalized by the cotillion,” Tilda told them. “They declare it's disgraceful to dance like that.”

“Well, if I wanted to try one I certainly wouldn't care what anyone said,” Vesta declared. “Nobody's ever the worse for being as happy as they can be.”

They went to bed to the sound of sharp explosions in the street and the shrill cries of boys celebrating in the immemorial fashion. Probably they were shooting off cartridges, Tilda reflected, for there were no fireworks to be had. From some house near-by she heard music and the occasional sound of singing, and bursts of laughter. Vesta was right: it was surely brave and wonderful to find happiness in song and in dancing when Grant's hordes lay in the beleaguering trenches not a dozen miles away, when at any hour Lee's thinned lines might break and let the enemy in upon the city. She felt a great love for these people of the South, for this land of which she was a part, where men and women could face ruin and death with a laugh and a gallant song.

Christmas morning was clear and frosty; and St. Paul's was decorated for the morning service, the fragrant greenery as bright as though there were no sadness anywhere. When they came back to the house Burr had not appeared; but Rollin was there with a treasure, a Christmas box sent from some Northern home, and which he himself had captured in a cavalry foray against the enemy the day before. It was filled with jellies, preserved blueberries, strawberry jam, sweet pickles and sour; and best of all, there was a jar of white sugar.

“Nobody's to open that!” Vesta declared. “We'll just put it on the table and look at it and let our mouths water!”

They laughed at her, but Rollin protested. “Not a bit of it! I'm going to eat my fill, even if I have to spread it on bread!”

“Bread?” Vesta tossed her head. “Where do you expect to get any bread? Flour is seven hundred dollars a barrel, I'll have you know!” She kissed him. “But there, darling, you shall have your sugar. You can just eat it with a spoon!”

The turkey was none too plump a bird. “But it was the very biggest I could find,” Vesta assured them. “The other one didn't compare with it!” They laughed with her at the picture of two forlorn birds hanging on the butcher's hook, and when a roast of beef appeared to supplement the turkey, Brett said she worked miracles; but Enid protested:

“If you think this is a feast, you should have been in Augusta. There's plenty of everything there. You wouldn't suppose they'd ever heard of the war.”

In spite of Enid's complaint, no one went hungry. When they returned to the drawing room, Caesar had deposited a tremendous old trunk in the middle of the floor, and everyone asked questions at once, till Cinda hushed them.

“This is my Christmas surprise,” she declared. “I found it way back in the attic, but the key's lost. It's heavy, so it isn't empty; but I haven't the faintest idea what's in it. Brett, break it open and we'll let everyone pick and choose.”

Brett and Rollin, using a poker from the hearth, cracked the lock; but before they raised the lid Vesta cried: “Wait a minute. Let's make a game out of it. Papa, swing the trunk around facing the wall, with the lid toward us so we can't see into it, and then we'll take turns, and whosever turn it is can be blindfolded and reach in and take the first thing he touches!”

They made that game last till dusk, till they were weak with laughter. Cinda decided that not chance but seniority should determine the order in which they approached the trunk; so Judge Tudor was the first. To their hilarious delight he gingerly lifted into view a chemise!

When Brett drew another like it, and Trav too, Cinda protested:

“No fair! The men are getting them all, and Heaven knows I need one!”

But she was reconciled when she picked up a petticoat. Tilda's hand fell upon a lace collar, and Enid to her open disappointment got an absurd and useless little basket woven of reeds with a faded ribbon on the handle.

Rollin's prize was a stocking. He argued that he was entitled to its mate, and Vesta told him not to be ridiculous. “What do you want a stocking for anyway?” she demanded. “You can just give that to me.”

“I need it,” he insisted. “A nice long stocking's ever so much better than a sock to keep my knees warm these cold days, riding in the rain.” And when she in her turn drew its mate, he snatched it away from her; and they tussled for it happily, till he kissed her and she lay content and breathless in his arms.

The old trunk for a while seemed bottomless. The treasures they unearthed made them laugh, and sometimes made their eyes sting even while they laughed. “I must have packed all these things in it before we went to Europe six years ago,” Cinda decided. “Heavens, how long ago that seems! Just look at that!” Vesta had lifted out a white muslin dress flounced with yards of Valenciennes. “You had that when you were fourteen, darling!”

“I can sell it tomorrow,” Vesta declared. “It will bring as much as I paid for our turkey. Yes, maybe more!”

Brett laughed. “You needn't be quite so thrifty, Vesta.” He looked at Cinda. “The Wilmington bank dividend is thirty-eight thousand dollars this year.” Tilda remembered Redford had some shares in that bank, so he was richer than ever.

“Oh, you can buy some Confederate bonds with that, Papa,” Vesta retorted. “There are enough treasures right here to take care of us. From now on I'm going to claim everything in the trunk that can be sold; yes, and impress the things we've already found.”

“Do you really think this trash is worth anything?”

Vesta smiled. “Papa darling, I can see you haven't paid any bills lately. Just an ordinary calico that used to cost twelve and a half cents a yard is thirty dollars a yard now—if you can get it. Fifty dollars for chintz, a thousand dollars for a good merino, two thousand dollars
for a cloak.” She dived into the trunk with exploring hands. “Why, Papa, there's a fortune here! Look!” She produced an evening gown, and then another and a third. They were out of fashion now, but worth a fortune for their materials alone. One was of green silk with gold embroidery, one was of silver brocade, one of bayadere silk trimmed with lace; and she found boxes of artificial flowers and of accessories appropriate to the stately gowns. Of two velvet cloaks, one was beyond use; but the other was trimmed with fur that had escaped the moths. A great store of sky-blue yarn was priceless, and a bolt of Brussels lace. “Why, I can buy enough with all this to keep the pantry stocked for months!” Vesta promised.

Beneath these treasures, many odd objects were valueless except for the memories they evoked; half a dozen pairs of worn slippers, a few books, an assortment of toys most of which were broken. “You children played with them when you were babies,” Cinda told Vesta and Julian. There were lace bonnets made for small heads, and three pairs of dilapidated baby shoes. “Those were Clayton's,” Cinda said, and pressed her hands to her eyes.

But Vesta would not let any sadness mar this evening, and she swept them all into merriment again. Tilda laughed with them, but this was her bitter hour. How different her life had been from Cinda's. Brett was here by Cinda's side, but Redford must be by this time on the seas, bound for Nassau and oblivion. Julian was here, and Vesta; and Burr was near, and his name was often on their lips. But Dolly was lost and gone, and Darrell was gone. Tilda did not even know whether Darrell was alive, and almost she hoped he was not. They were Streeans, all of them; Redford and Darrell and Dolly. To Darrell and Dolly she had given life, but it would have been better for the world if they had never been born.

 

The trunk at last was empty. Brett would stay till tomorrow night, but Rollin must ride back to camp. Trav took Enid and the children home; Julian and Anne departed with Judge Tudor. Vesta and Tilda, to let Brett and Cinda be alone together, went upstairs; and so the day was done. It had been happy and tender and fine; but Tilda, lying long awake, knew that tomorrow she must face reality again.

In the morning while she was dressing she heard the bell, heard
Caesar go to answer and then come to Cinda's room, heard a moment later Cinda's delighted summons. “Vesta, Tilda, here's a letter from Jenny!”

That letter had come by the hand of young Tommy Izard, just back from a furlough in Camden and in such a hurry to rejoin his command that he could not wait for thanks. To hear it, they gathered by Cinda's bed, Vesta lovely in her lacy wrapper, Brett sitting beside Cinda while she read the letter aloud.

Brett said in surprise: “That doesn't sound like Jenny. She's never so exuberant.”

Cinda nodded. “Either she's trying to reassure us or the child's in love.”

Vesta cried: “Oh, I hope it's that, Mama! She's so wonderful.”

Cinda smiled and read on. “‘Everybody's expecting to hear any day that Sherman's been cut off and whipped.'” She paused, looked at Brett. “She's trying to reassure us,” she said, and he agreed, and she began to read again.

For a moment after Cinda finished, no one spoke. Then she said, half to herself: “Yes, she's lonely and frightened.” She looked at Brett. “I suppose the trains to Wilmington don't run now.”