House Divided (27 page)

Burr was glad to escape, and Tilda said: “There, Dolly, it's too bad to tease him.” And to Vesta: “He's really serious, isn't he?”

“Barbara's said she'll marry him,” Vesta assented. “He told me this morning.” She added: “That is, she says she will if he's going to war, and of course he is, if Virginia does.”

“I'm sure Miss Pierce is very sweet,” Tilda suggested. “But won't Cinda wish Burr hadn't committed himself without consulting her?”

Vesta smiled. “Oh, Mama'd never interfere. Besides, she likes Barbara.”

“I think Barbara's an idiot, all the same,” Dolly declared. “I certainly don't intend to go and get married for a long, long time.”

 

Richmond was quiet all that Sunday. Next morning before Tilda was downstairs, Faunt came to seek her. She noticed, before he spoke, his sombre eyes.

“Why, Faunt,” she cried, “I didn't know you were in Richmond. When did you come?”

“A day or two ago.” She thought he seemed uncertain, as though he had lost count of time. “Tilda,” he said, “Enid and Trav are at the Spottswood, and—Enid needs you. Hetty died this morning.”

“Hetty? Oh how terrible! Whatever happened?”

“Her eye, the one Vigil injured, became inflamed. They brought her up to see Dr. Little. I happened to meet Trav. I've been with them ever since.”

“But why didn't they come straight here? They should at least have sent for me!” Tilda felt herself wronged. Always, by these others, she was excluded.

“I don't think any of us thought of anything but the baby,” Faunt explained. “But now—Hetty died just before day—Enid's grieving so terribly, and Trav can't comfort her. I thought if you could come to her, another woman—–”

“Of course I will! Poor dear, alone with no one but you men!”

So she was with Enid all that day, and even Trav was excluded from their company. Tilda found in those long hours an exciting satisfaction, for Enid in her grief loosed her tongue from every bond. She blamed Trav completely for the baby's death. “I'll never forgive him, never!” she cried over and over. “I hate him, hate him, hate him!”

“Now, now, dear,” Tilda dutifully urged. “You mustn't talk so. You're beside yourself.”

“I'm not!” Enid insisted. “I mean it, every word!”

“My dear, my dear!”

“It's true! It was Trav made me bring Vigil from Chimneys, and he always stood up for her. I daren't think why! I can't let myself
think why!” Tilda almost laughed. What an idiot Enid was to suggest such a thing of Trav! “I didn't ever want her in the house, but Trav was bound to have his way; and then when she jabbed poor Hetty's eye out, he stuck up for her against me! Oh I hate him, Tilda! Even if he is your brother! I could just simply kill him! If Faunt hadn't been here, I don't know what I'd have done!”

“Now Enid, you mustn't talk so! Trav doesn't mean any harm, darling!”

“Well, why can't he be like Faunt then?”

“You like Faunt, don't you?” Tilda's greedy interest quickened.

“Oh yes, yes I do! He's so gentle and kind! He's like you, Tilda; always so friendly! Cinda's hard and mean and cruel; but you and Faunt are so nice to me! I wish I'd never seen Trav! I certainly wish I'd never married him. I only flirted with him to spite Mama. She was after him herself and I thought it would be fun to take him away from her, but I wish I'd died first!”

Tilda would never forget these revelations. “Your mother's in Washington, isn't she?” Provoking Enid to say more.

“Yes, but she won't stay there if we have a war. We will, won't we, Tilda? I heard the guns and the bells. I hope Trav gets killed! But he won't fight! He'd rather stay at Great Oak and be a farmer. That's what he'll do!”

“Mr. Streean was acquainted with your mother when she lived here.” Enid's tongue was loose today; Tilda wished to keep it rattling. “He thought her so attractive.”

“Oh, all the men like Mama. Trav was crazy about her, and Tony—–”

Enid caught herself, but Tilda understood. She knew well enough the truth about Mrs. Albion and Tony. Streean delighted in taunting her about her brothers, and Tony was an easy target. So Tilda knew the truth, and it had always amused her to think of Tony—so tall and lank—playing the amorous gallant to Mrs. Albion.

But till Enid now caught herself in mid-sentence Tilda had not been sure that Enid too knew the truth about her mother. That was worth remembering; it put a weapon in her hand which she might some day wish to use.

“I'm sure she's charming,” she said innocently. “I've always wanted
to meet her.” She spoke of Trav again, skillfully fanning Enid's wrath; so that when Trav presently returned, Enid at sight of him cried out as though in pain and turned her face away. Tilda led him into the other room.

“You must leave Enid alone, Trav,” she urged, watching the hurt in his eyes. “The poor little thing is beside herself. She blames you, I'm afraid; but of course, she doesn't know what she's saying. She'll be all right again in time; just let her be alone.”

He said he had made arrangements for their return to Great Oak. “Maybe you can come with us,” he suggested. “You'd be company for Enid, and it's going to be hard for Mama too.”

“Oh, I can't, Trav.” Then on sudden secret thought: “But Faunt could go. Where is he?”

“He's with the Governor and Governor Wise and President Tyler and some other gentlemen.” Trav added: “Lincoln has called on Virginia to furnish three regiments to help recapture Sumter.”

The sudden hardness in his tone caught her ear and puzzled her. “You mean Faunt's—helping them, or something?”

“He was with Governor Wise when Governor Letcher sent for Wise to help write the answer, and Wise asked Faunt's company.”

“You act mad about something.”

Trav's color rose; he said slowly: “Well—I suppose I am. As mad as I ever get. That blackguard in Washington asking us to fight against our sister states! If they want to secede, he has no right to stop them. If he thinks Virginia will help him—–”

“It's funny to see you so upset. You're always so calm.”

“Well, I've tried to be. I was for Virginia staying in the Union, but not now. There isn't a Union man left in Virginia now.”

“Just because President Lincoln wants us to take sides?”

“He might as well ask me to horsewhip Enid, or you, or Cinda!” He laughed angrily. “I don't suppose that white trash even realizes he's insulted us!”

She felt a delicious excitement. “What will we do?”

“Secede. Join the Confederacy.”

“Fight? I can't imagine you being a soldier.

He grinned faintly. “Neither can I. But there'll be lots to do besides fight. I can help.” He added, remembering: “But I'll have to
take Enid back to Great Oak first. Can you get her quieted down before we start?”

She promised to try, bidding him leave her alone with Enid for an hour. When he returned, Faunt came with him; and as they entered, Faunt was speaking, finishing something he had been saying as they came along the hall.

“—and even today at the very moment when the Governor was deciding we must fight the North, we were sitting in chairs made in the North, around a table made in the North, with our feet on a carpet made in the North. Governor Letcher wrote his answer to Lincoln with a Northern pen, in Northern ink, on Northern paper. The very paintings on the wall were done by Northern artists, and there was Northern coal in the grate and Northern fire irons on the hearth. Everything except our food comes from the North. What weapons we have were made in the North. Northern men run our railroads, work our telegraph, make our cannon. Trav, we start with empty hands.”

“I know,” Trav agreed. “But it's too late to think of that now. We've got to go ahead.” He asked Tilda: “Is Enid asleep?”

“Yes.” Tilda hid gleeful relish behind a sympathetic tone. “But Trav, she says she simply won't go back to Great Oak with you alone. I've talked and talked to her. I can't go, but she says she'll go if Faunt goes with you.”

Trav looked uncertainly at his brother. “What do you think, Faunt? Can you spare a day or two?” Faunt seemed to hesitate; and Trav said humbly: “I don't know much about handling women. She might have hysterics or something, but if you're along—–”

So Faunt assented. He suggested that since they would be all day on the road their departure might be delayed until morning, and Trav agreed to this. Tilda stayed that night with Enid, and Enid forgot her grief in the prospect of having Faunt near her.

“I shall persuade him to stay at Great Oak a while,” she declared. “Till I can face life again.”

Tilda wished she could go with them, to watch Enid and Faunt together. What a fine tumult it would make if Enid brought these two brothers to be enemies! If Trav were once aroused, what would he do?

April, 1861

 

 

O
F THE Currain men, Tony was the first to put on a uniform; yet he would have said that for him to turn soldier was beyond all possibility. Since his neighbors were outspoken against secession, and because he relished the respect they had accorded him, he had taken their opinion as his own and stood for adherence to the Union. It had not occurred to him that war has an alchemy of its own; that the very men who most love peace may become, when the issue can no longer be evaded, first in war.

It was almost two years since he had come to Chimneys, and here Tony had been happier than ever before. He was the great man of the locality, accepted by his neighbors not only as a successful planter, but as one acquainted with public affairs, whose least word deserved attention. Like a drunkard become abstinent, he wished others to perceive the new virtue in him; and it was not any desire for the young man's companionship but some faint thought of impressing Darrell with his new-found importance which led him to invite the other to Chimneys.

Darrell readily accepted. “If I vanish for a while, it will give my creditors time to give up hope of collecting what I owe them.” At Chimneys he delighted in the novelties of rural life. When a caravan of covered wagons set out to carry farm produce to some distant market, he went along, enjoying the nights in camp beside the road, the clannish spirit which knit the country folk in close alliance against the townsmen, the leisurely homeward journey when the vehicles were laden with molasses, sugar, coffee, spirits. He watched with a lively interest the preparations to roll Tony's tobacco crop to market.
Through the great casks a wooden spike was driven from end to end to make an axle, and a split sapling served as shafts. A box nailed across these shafts carried bedding and provision for the journey; and a mule and an ox were hitched tandem to roll the squeaking and protesting casks laboriously along the muddy highways to the nearest plank road and so to their destination. Darrell went on 'possum hunts with the Negroes, who came home with their prey, caught alive after the tree in which they took refuge from the hounds had been felled, dangling like furry balls from a long split pole in which their tails were pinched to hold them fast. He followed the Negroes and their hounds as they ran rabbits till the little creatures took refuge in some hollow log from which, kicking and sometimes screaming with terror and pain, they were dragged out at the end of a forked stick twisted into their soft hides. He hunted the wild hogs, tall, thin, hairy, snake-headed, ferocious if they were brought to bay; he relished the hilarity of log rollings and looked forward to the pig stickings and the corn huskings in the fall.

This life was completely different from any he had known; but he might have tired of it except for two things. For one, when in the evenings they were alone, he and Tony regularly turned to cards. Tony was a poor gambler. Darrell liked to win, and he had learned long ago that to cheat a little now and then was not difficult. But he was tactful, steadily praising Tony's play, approving his sagacity, sympathizing with his ill fortune. “If the luck ever ran for you, I'd not have a chance. Some day it will.” Tony lost steadily; so Darrell found his stay here highly profitable.

And another circumstance spiced his life here. One day in Martinston Tony introduced him to Miss Mary Meynell, Judge Meynell's daughter. She was seventeen, an only child; and except for the rare occasions when she had gone journeying with her father or her mother, Martinston was the only world she knew. To her, Darrell was a figure from another world. She listened to his talk with her father and Tony; and she learned to know by heart his every intonation, the way he smiled, the fine lift of his head. His half-quizzical deference filled her with delicious, frightening dreams; his easy compliments made her cheeks bright with happiness. Tony, always ready to embrace a delusion, thought Darrell might marry her and settle
down at Chimneys and succeed in due time to the position he had himself achieved. When Darrell's devotion became so manifest that it could no longer go unremarked, he suggested this; and Darrell, though his eyes twinkled, did not deny it.

“It might happen,” he asserted. “It might turn out so. But I've little to offer any girl, Uncle Tony. Judge Meynell would never consent.”

“You've a great deal to offer,” Tony assured him. “After all, Darrell, you're a Currain on your mother's side.” Darrell smiled, and Tony added hurriedly, “I mean no aspersion on your father, but naturally we Currains have a certain pride of family; and aside from the question of family, I shan't stay at Chimneys always. It can one day be yours.”

“It's rather outside the world,” Darrell dryly commented.

“There's talk of a railroad to link Danville and Greensboro. That will shorten the trip to Richmond.”

“Well, to be sure—” Darrell chuckled lightly. “Chimneys would not be unattractive if Miss Mary shared it.”

Tony was pleased with this possibility. He even discussed it with Miss Mary's father, and found Judge Meynell as pleased as he. “Darrell seems a fine young man,” the Judge agreed. “Of course, in these troubled times, no one can see very far into the future; yet it is in just such uncertain hours that young hearts turn to other young hearts most hungrily.”

“Has Darrell said anything to you?”

“Not yet, though I have begun to expect it. Of course Miss Mary herself will make the decision; but I shall put no obstacle in the way.”

 

North Carolina in February voted against calling a convention to consider the state's relationship with the Union; and to Tony this seemed to determine the state's future course. But on a Sunday in March when Darrell after dinner had ridden away to town, and Tony was lying down, Pegleg Joseph came knocking at his door. “Some gemmen tuh see you, suh.”

“Eh?” Tony had been half asleep. “What's that?” Joseph repeated his message. “Who is it, man?”

“Dey's Judge Meynell, and Mistuh Lowman, and Mistuh Blandy and some othehs. Mistuh Darrell done come back wid 'em, suh.”

Tony, in puzzled surprise, descended to find the group waiting on the veranda. Besides Judge Meynell and the postmaster from Martinston, Tom Shadd and Lonn Tyler and Ed Blandy were in the group. “Well, gentlemen?” Tony said inquiringly.

Judge Meynell cleared his throat. “Mr. Currain,” he began, and then hesitated and looked at Ed Blandy and asked: “Will you read him Major Hill's letter, Mr. Blandy?”

Ed fumbled in his pocket. “Maybe you'd better read it, Judge.”

Judge Meynell nodded and took the letter and unfolded it. “I think you know Major Hill, Mr. Currain,” he suggested. “He's head of the North Carolina Military Institute at Charlotte.”

“I haven't that honor,” Tony admitted. “But I know my brother thinks highly of him.”

“He and Mr. Blandy are old friends,” Judge Meynell explained. “This letter came from him yesterday.” He cleared his throat and began:

The Judge looked at Tony. “Major Hill and Mr. Blandy and your brother had a common interest in mathematics, I believe,” he said, and read on:

The Judge slowly refolded the letter, cleared his throat again. His gravity awoke a flutter of panic in Tony. He drew out his knife, cut a bit of tobacco, put it in his mouth. Judge Meynell, as though for permission to proceed, looked to the silent listeners before he continued.

“Sir,” he said, “Major Hill's judgment may be trusted. It seems likely that within the month we will be at war.”

Tony saw Darrell at one side, leaning against the railing, watching with a sardonic amusement; but these others wore solemn countenances. Judge Meynell was a fat little man with that excessive dignity which small men so often assume; Chelmsford Lowman's Adam's apple worked in his lean neck as he swallowed nervously; Ed Blandy and Tom Shadd stood shoulder to shoulder. They were steady men, as like as brothers. In that moment's silence that fell on the Judge's words the others stirred and then were still; but Lonn Tyler drawled an affirmation.

“We've made our brags. Looks like we'll have to back 'em.”

Tony felt that he must speak. “But, gentlemen, we North Carolinians have stood for a peaceful settlement.”

“That's true, and it is to our eternal honor,” Judge Meynell assented. “But if Lincoln aims to choose his own time and make war upon the South, we must be prepared to act.” He paused, and after a moment went on. “Mr. Blandy brought that letter to me. Yesterday and the day before we found almost a hundred men who will join us. This morning in Martinston we had a meeting.” He cleared his throat impressively. “At that meeting, sir, relying on your loyalty and your valor, the company by unanimous vote elected you captain. We are come to receive, Captain Currain, your first orders to your men.”

Tony set his teeth on that comforting morsel of tobacco, shaken by something that was half terror, half pride. He was no man of violence; he knew that well! More than once in his life he had heard from other men remarks meant to affront, and had taken refuge in a pretense that he did not hear. The knowledge of his own timorousness was in him now; the certainty that in any warlike crisis he would flinch and fail.

Yet—they were waiting for his assent. These men who knew him only at his best, these men respected him. They had chosen him now for leadership. Almost their belief in him made him believe in himself;
almost, yet not quite. In another moment he would have found some word of negation; but he saw Darrell, watching him, smile and turn aside. Many men in Tony's lifetime had thus turned their backs on him in silent scorn. If he refused, so now would these men here.

By the Almighty, he would not refuse! After all, he was a Currain! He tried to speak, and choked and tried again, mumbling uncertainly, then finding words and gaining confidence from them.

“I beg you will pardon my hesitation. This great honor. This surprise. I am an old man, gentlemen. You could find a better leader. You yourself, Judge Meynell. You, Mr. Lowman. You, Mr. Blandy. I am the oldest of you all, my health uncertain.” For any evasion it was Tony's long habit to offer ill health as an excuse; the word was automatic now. Yet he desired no excuse, not with Darrell listening. He spoke hurriedly, suddenly afraid they would take advantage of his reluctance. “Yet, gentlemen, if we must fight, why, then every brave man will do his utmost. Such as I am, I accept!”

He had a moment, even then, of terror. He wished he could recall the irrevocable word; but his assent brought them pressing around him, clasping his hand, thanking him as warmly as though already he had led them to glorious victory. So his fears faded. Why, this was like something out of his sweet dreams; this unsought eminence, this trust, this freely proffered loyalty! He stepped easily into the part he must hereafter play.

They stayed for some talk, of weapons, of uniforms, of all the steps which by way of preparation must now be taken. When they were gone and he and Darrell were alone Tony was still supported by pride; but Darrell, as the others rode down the hill and disappeared, said mockingly:

“Well, Captain Currain, you've had a taste of military glory. Do you find it heady wine?”

“I'll do the best I can.” Tony spoke in honest humility.

“I'm sure you will.”

Darrell's drawl was all derision; but Tony desperately wanted reassurance. “You know me better than the others, Darrell. Probably Faunt or Trav or Brett would doubt my fitness for this work.”

“Oh surely not, Uncle Tony.” The words were overly unctuous, but Tony took them at face value.

“Thank you, Darrell. If you think I can do my duty . . . After all, I can face a bullet as easily as any man.” He tried to laugh. “I won't say I can shoot as straight; but there will be good marksmen behind me.”

“Then you'd best not get too far out front.”

Tony tried to smile at the poor jest. “You'll join us, I hope. We'll need young men like you!”

Darrell shook his head. “Not I.”

“Oh come now, every brave man—” Tony was suddenly deeply anxious to bind Darrell to his side. There was a cold audacity in the other which he secretly envied and admired. Darrell before he was eighteen had called out his man and downed him with a bullet in the shoulder; his encounters were almost as numerous as those of Jennings Wise—though not so harmless. He was a deadly marksman with pistol or rifle, a fine horseman. As a soldier he would be a host in himself. “Every brave man will be needed,” Tony repeated. “I'm an old fellow, Darrell.” There was clumsy affection in his tone. “I'll do the best I can; but I'll need men like you beside me.”

Darrell smiled: “Sorry, Uncle. I'll never make a soldier. I'm no hero.”