House Divided (12 page)

“Oh, Cinda, I never go anywhere.” Mrs. Currain smiled at Enid. “Not even to see Enid and Travis married. I'm too old to go visiting.”

“Nonsense! You'll come visiting me if I have to carry you.” Cinda saw Enid's eyes full of eagerness. “And Travis, you and Enid must
come! Enid's too pretty to be tucked away down here. You too, Faunt. I expect we'll live there the year round. Clayton can run the Plains. He's like Travis, good with land, knows how to handle it. Brett Dewain never was a farmer. The only thing he can manage is money. I never know anything to do with money except spend it, but he always wants to put it to work somewhow, the way Travis works with land.”

“That's where the money comes from, Cinda, out of the land,” Brett reminded her; and he spoke to Trav in warm praise. “You did fine things with Chimneys.” Cinda saw Trav's deep pleasure. “I hope you can do as well with Great Oak.”

“While Tony ruins Chimneys?” Cinda drawled, but Brett said quietly:

“Give him a chance, Cinda, since he seems to like it there.”

Enid cried: “Well, he's welcome to it! I never was as glad of anything in my life as I was to leave that old hole!”

There was at this outburst a moment's silence, all of them uncomfortable for Trav's sake. Then Mrs. Currain said kindly: “Well, we're all very happy you're here at Great Oak, dear.”

The talk ran on, but Cinda thereafter watched Enid with a thoughtful attention; and when presently they all rose from the table, Mrs. Currain to go for her nap, the others scattering, Cinda drew Trav away, making him walk with her toward the river. He moved beside her in silence till she said, affectionately chiding:

“Never a word to say for yourself?”

He grinned. “I'm too busy to talk much, I reckon.”

She nodded. “Yes, and too busy to think of that lovely little wife of yours! The very idea of keeping her shut up at Chimneys all this time. Why, Travis, she's just a child! How old is she?”

He thought back. “She must be twenty-seven, twenty-eight this month.”

“She doesn't look it! And she's never had any good times! Bring her to Richmond this winter.”

“I'll be pretty busy here.”

“Oh, you don't have to work all the time!” She felt the unyielding resistance in him. “Forget your farming and be nice to Enid. You'd better! I warn you!” He looked at her in surprise and she insisted:
“Oh yes, you heard me! Just because you married her didn't automatically make her middle-aged, you know.” Pleadingly: “She's sort of pathetic, Travis; so anxious to be liked, and approved of, and praised.”

“Why, I'm sure Enid's happy here, Cinda.”

She nodded absently. Probably he was right; yet she had felt something, sensed something in Enid which disturbed her. She asked, guardedly, for this was doubtful ground: “Does she ever see her mother?”

“Mrs. Albion came to Chimneys last July, yes. She's gone to Washington to live.”

“Enid might like to go visit her. Washington's very gay.”

“I don't see how she can, Cinda. Mama needs someone here, and then there are the children.”

Cinda pressed him no further, but that night when she and Brett were alone she asked: “Brett Dewain, does Travis know about Tony and Enid's mother?” She answered her own question. “Probably not. He says Mrs. Albion visited them last summer. I don't suppose he'd have had her in the house if he knew. And of course Enid would never guess the truth. She's such a child. Travis says Mrs. Albion's in Washington now. Why did Tony break with her?”

“I suppose she was an expensive luxury.”

“I'd like to meet her again. I never met a
femme fatale
—at least not when I knew it!”

She fell drowsily silent, but Brett was willing tonight to talk. “Faunt says Darrell's gambling again. Came to him a month ago to borrow money.”

“I suppose Faunt gave it to him.”

“Oh, yes.”

She said soberly: “Poor Tilda! But you can't expect much from Darrell, with a spineless mouse for a mother and Mr. Streean for a father. And Darrell's too handsome for his own good, of course.”

“Dolly's a raving beauty, isn't she?”

“Yes—but I'm afraid she knows it.” Her thoughts drifted. “We're a queer, mixed sort of family, Brett Dewain; we Currains. Three of us are pretty nice, and the other two——”

“Nice?” As though in doubt. “Let me see now, which ones——”

“Oh, you be still! You know as well as I do. I'm nice, and so are Travis and Faunt; but Tilda's an idiot, and Tony's a scoundrel. I wonder why we're so different. Why do some ancestors leave their mark on us, and not others? Faunt used to fly into rages when he was a boy, and Mama always said he got his high temper from Grandpa Currain; and that's where Travis gets his industry and his love for land, and his—oh, unshakableness, if there is such a word. Heaven knows where I get all the things in me! From you, I guess. You're a fine man, Mr. Dewain.” She kissed his cheek; and after a moment, thoughtfully: “Brett, why do people like some people and not like others? Tilda's my own kid sister, and I try to be nice to her, but I never liked her. Nobody does.”

“I do.”

“Oh, you like everyone. That's why everyone likes you. But you know what I mean. Tilda's sort of pathetic. I've always said dreadful things to people, and she's always said nice things to them, and yet people never seem to mind what I say, but she—well, you'd think sometimes she had insulted them! You'd think it would be me they'd —avoid.”

“Oh, I don't know. I've managed to stand you for twenty-five years —though it seems like more!” “Beast! Just for that, I shan't speak another word to you tonight.”

 

Before dinner next day Mrs. Currain ordered up the big carriage and took Cinda and Tilda, Jenny and Enid upon a round of calls. When they returned and even before they alighted, they heard Redford Streean's angry voice from indoors.

“Mercy,” Cinda exclaimed, “Mr. Streean's making a speech!” The sounds came from the library, and they all turned that way. Cinda, the first to reach the door, saw Darrell. He must have come from Richmond, for he was still hot and dusty from the long ride. She heard his father cry:

“Well, if the damned abolitionists want a fight, they'll get it, mighty quick!”

Their faces were all so grave that she realized this was not mere ranting. “What is it?” she asked; and when they swung at her word
she went quickly toward her husband. “Brett Dewain, what's happened?”

Redford Streean shouted, in a voice hoarse with rage: “The abolitionists have invaded Virginia to raise the niggers against us.” But Brett, without replying in words, turned with a newspaper open in his hand and gave it to Cinda. She saw the headline:

Below there were three lines in smaller type:

And while their voices went on around her, Cinda read the story below.

There was a telegram from President Garnett of the Baltimore and Ohio reporting the outbreak, and the paper said soldiers from Jefferson County, soldiers from Richmond, marines and artillery from Washington and from Fortress Monroe were rushing to the scene. The main story was followed by short dispatches. From Frederick, Maryland: “Armed abolitionists have full possession of the United States Arsenal . . . one negro killed. . . .” From Baltimore: “The special train with Colonel Lee's command passed Monocacy Bridge at II½ o'clock. . . .” From Washington: “The Mayor of the city, fearing the servile insurrection may extend, has made suitable preparation to quell sit. . . .”

She put the newspaper down, going to her mother's side in an instinctive protectiveness. “Don't worry, Mama,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. Yet—a slave revolt? That was the nightmare that haunted one's dreams. The Negroes were so many, their masters so few.

But Mrs. Currain was undisturbed. “I'm too old to worry. Besides,
I've seen it happen before.” Her word caught them all. “You children, all of you except Faunt, are old enough to remember Nat Turner.”

“I do, yes,” Cinda agreed. “I was terrified, couldn't sleep for weeks.”

Enid asked sharply: “Who's Nat Turner? What did he do?”

“Why, he was a slave.” Mrs. Currain spoke as though she were explaining something to a child; as though she were telling things everyone knew. “In Southampton. He had taught himself to read, and they say he thought he was God, but I always thought it was from drinking apple brandy. I remember it was in August, the same month we had the spotted sun.”

“Spotted sun, Mama? Whatever was that?”

“No one ever knew, Enid. When the sun rose that day it was all pale green, and then it turned blue, and long before dinner time it was white as silver; just a tremendous silver disc, with a hideous dark spot in the middle of it. The people were all sure it was a sign something awful was going to happen, and when Nat Turner started cutting up, they knew that was it.”

“What did he do?”

“Why, he and five or six others got drunk one night and broke into the house and killed Turner's master and all his family with axes and then went around the neighborhood killing all the white folks they could find. They killed over fifty that night, mostly women and children; but as soon as one white man—old Mr. Blount, and he was chair-bound with the gout—stood up to them, that was the end of it. The soldiers soon caught them all, shot them or hanged them or cut off their heads and stuck them up on poles.” She laughed in her brisk little fashion. “It was really quite exciting for a while. Everyone expected the same sort of thing would start up everywhere, so we all made perfect fools of ourselves. Boys organized militia companies, people left their farms and moved into town where they'd be safe. All over the South people acted like a lot of chickens when a hawk flies over. In North Carolina mobs kept grabbing poor negroes and whipping them till they admitted they were plotting to kill their masters and then killing them. As far away as Louisiana, silly women shivered in their beds, and the men were just as bad. The legislatures everywhere kept passing laws that slaves mustn't do this and they
mustn't do that. Nat Turner could read, so they made laws that no one should teach negroes to read. It went on for years, this silly panic.”

Faunt said thoughtfully: “I've wondered sometimes how many of the things we do come out of our secret fear of the negroes.” He added: “I remember we used to make up games about it, when we were children. We'd make one of the negro boys play captive, and we'd make-believe torture him till he confessed, and then we'd shoot him. Not actually, of course; just a game.” He looked at Trav. “You remember? Big Mill was our favorite victim. I think he used to have as much fun out of it as we did. Of course he could have handled the lot of us if he had wanted to.”

“I'd outgrown games by that time,” Trav reminded the other. He was ten years older than Faunt. “Mill's the best hand on the place now. I'm going to make him driver.”

“But that fear's always in the back of our minds,” Faunt suggested. “Remember three years ago, after the last presidential campaign, lots of people believed the Republicans had organized a slave revolt that was going to start right after Christmas. That scare went all over the South. I've heard that at least forty negroes were hanged in Tennessee. Actually, of course, the slaves didn't make the slightest trouble anywhere. Except in our minds.”

Enid cried: “But maybe they just put it off till now. Maybe this is the start of it!”

Mrs. Currain said calmly: “We'll talk ourselves into hysterics. Let's eat our dinner and forget about it”

“Forget about it? Heavens, I'll not sleep a wink tonight.”

“Nonsense! There's nothing to be so upset about.”

At dinner and afterward Mrs. Currain refused to permit any further discussion of the news Darrell had brought; but when she went for her afternoon nap, she wanted Cinda with her. “I wouldn't admit it to the others,” she confessed when they were alone. “But it does make the cold shivers run up and down my spine, Cinda. You can say what you like, the people can kill us all in our beds any time they want to.”

Cinda stayed with her till at early dusk they descended to join the others. Cinda found herself watching with new attention the servants who brought the loaded supper trays and set them out on the little tables, trying to read the thoughts behind those cheerful, dark faces.
She well remembered the Nat Turner days, and the fear that for months thereafter was never quite forgotten. Now came this fresh reminder. Would she ever again feel at peace and secure with these black people always at her elbow, serving her, preparing every mouthful she ate, spying on each move she made? They were always laughing and singing and they seemed content and serene; but who could know the thoughts behind the sable masks they wore? Could a slave ever forget he was a slave, ever cease to hate his master? Not even animals submitted tamely to the dominance of man; in the gentlest horse or dog lurked always a seed of revolt. Were Negroes less spirited than horses, than mules? In sudden surrender to her secret fear she spoke to the black butler. “Uncle Josh, draw the curtains at the windows.” Who knew what malevolent eyes watched them from the covert of the outer dark? To be hidden from those possible watchers was somehow to be safe.