House Divided (188 page)

Through that week, people flocked into Richmond: soldiers coming home, refugees returning, freed Negroes guzzling freedom. Crowds were forbidden to gather on the streets, or people to assemble; and any public gathering of more than two people was held to be an assembly. “So if I'm with a friend and we meet a mutual friend, we cannot pause to speak to him,” Brett explained, mocking his own helplessness. The Yankees openly accused President Davis and the leading figures in the Confederate government of complicity in the assassination. Mr. Davis and his cabinet were gone none knew where, and Cinda prayed for Mr. Davis to escape; since if he were caught the Yankees would surely hang him, and once the hanging began, no neck would be safe. For four years now they had been proud to call themselves rebels; but rebels, if rebellion failed, were hanged. It was true that General Ord, who had taken over from General Weitzel the command of the city, seemed to be a considerate and courteous gentleman; but probably he and all the Yankees were just waiting for President Davis to be captured before setting up a gallows at every street corner!

To be sure, they would presumably hang only the great men, the leaders; so Brett was safe. But he was changed, something gone out of him. He seemed to feel most deeply the fact that they were completely impoverished. Confederate money would buy nothing; gold or the Yankee greenbacks were the only acceptable currency. Once Cinda found him tearing up and burning the Confederate bonds into which he had converted their fortune. It had been easy enough to say at that time: “If everybody in the South is to lose everything, so will we.” But no one then really believed in the possibility of this complete disaster. She asked in an empty wonder:

“Brett Dewain, how rich were we?”

He did not look up, continuing to feed the flames. “Well, most of our wealth was in slaves, Cinda. Slaves and land. In money at interest, and securities, all the Currain funds together amounted to about three hundred thousand dollars.” He added with a sound vaguely mirthful: “And now Julian—I saw him this morning, sitting on a pile of rubbish —is cleaning bricks down on Main Street at five Yankee dollars a week, knocking the mortar off them with a trowel.” “Vesta sells pies to Yankee soldiers.”

He nodded. “Caesar brought me three dollars in Yankee scrip today; three dollars and two bits. He earned it helping clean up the fire wreckage.” He smiled mirthlessly. “As soon as my mare gets over her limp, I'll take the carriage and go into the hackney cab business and help support the family.” The last flame died, and he rose, brushing his hands. “Well, that's done. The slate is clean.” He frowned in a puzzled way. “Cinda, I feel as though I were dead.” She could offer him no comfort but her arms.

 

On the twenty-eighth, Rollin returned. It was dusk when he arrived; and clinging to him, heedless of his dusty garments, Vesta in laughing gladness pulled down his face to hers and kissed and kissed him and plucked at his ears and his nose and pulled his hair till he protested happily: “Hey, what are you trying to do to me, Honey?”

“Seeing if you're all here! Oh, darling, it's wonderful just to feel you!”

Brett and Tilda were not at home when Rollin arrived, but Vesta and Jenny and Cinda were hungry to hear all he could tell. He had ridden off from Appomattox on the ninth with General Rosser's command. They went to Lynchburg and decided to disband. “But some
of
us thought we could do something with General Johnston's army. So–––––”

Cinda interrupted breathlessly. “Rollin, did you see Burr?”

“Yes, he was with us. About two hundred of us started for Greensboro.” Rollin added honestly: “But some dropped out on the way; went home, I suppose. President Davis was in Greensboro. He and his family were living in a box car at the station. Nobody offered them hospitality.”

Vesta cried: “Oh how cruel! Letting them live like beggars!”

“I suppose people were afraid to take them in.” Rollin went on: “Then we heard General Johnston was going to surrender, so three or four of us started back here.” He laughed. “We got a scare near Danville; saw a picket of Union cavalry come over the top of the hill and ride toward us. We held our breath, expecting them to charge us. It turned out they didn't; but I'll never forget seeing them silhouetted against the sky ahead. They told us we could get our paroles in Danville, and we did.”

Cinda asked: “But, Rollin, didn't Burr come with you?”

“No, he went to Raleigh to find Barbara.”

She bit her lip. Barbara and her father and mother had gone off to Raleigh long ago, escaping all the misery of these last years, living in ease and comfort; and Cinda hated her. Burr was not Barbara's; he was hers! Yet now he had gone to Barbara, and the thought was bitter in her throat. She asked Rollin: “Isn't Sherman in Raleigh?”

“I suppose so. He was almost there before we left Greensboro. But they say that as soon as General Lee surrendered, Sherman stopped his men from doing any more damage; so Burr will be all right.”

 

Since it was almost supper time, Vesta led him away upstairs to rid himself of travel stains; but at supper and afterward, all of them together, there was more long talk; and before they went up to bed, Jenny asked a question.

“Rollin, how did you get home? Are the cars running?”

“I rode,” he said. “I came slowly, to let Prince get some strength back.”

Jenny repeated her unanswered question. “Are the cars running, Rollin? Or the stages?”

“Some, I think,” he said. “But of course the tracks are torn up wherever the Yankees got at them. Why?”

“I was—wondering,” Jenny said, and said no more that night; but next day she spoke to Cinda alone. “Mama, as soon as I can, I'm going back to the Plains. Do you think Papa might want to go? He needs something to do.”

Cinda started to protest, for of course Jenny could not go back to the
Plains. Yet Brett might go. If he were busy, he would presently be happy too.

“But what can he do there, Jenny?” she asked.

“Make a crop.”

“With no negroes?”

“I expect most of them are still there, unless Sherman's men burned the house. And even if they did, Banquo wouldn't run away, nor old James, nor—well, lots of them; and I know Mr. Peters would keep them all at work if he could.” She added, with a shy pride: “We made some cotton last summer, and Mr. Peters had the people gin it with the old treadle gins, and pressed it in our own screw and baled it and hid it in the deep woods away from the house. If the Yankees didn't find it, Papa could sell it now.”

“I suppose he might go,” Cinda reflected. “But of course you couldn't.”

Jenny answered quickly: “Yes, I could. You and Aunt Tilda stay here and keep the children, and Papa and I will go.”

Cinda shivered in sudden fear. “Oh no! I'll never let Brett Dewain out of my sight again!”

“You will if it's the best thing to do.”

“He'll soon be all right here,” Cinda argued, trying to persuade herself. “He goes to see his business friends, and they talk about reopening the banks and starting to run the railroads.” But she knew Jenny was right. It would do Brett good to go back to the Plains; and she found herself longing for the old fine years of quiet peace and deep contenting there.

 

On the Sunday after Rollin's return the vanguard of Grant's victorious army marched through Richmond, crossing the pontoon bridge at Seventeenth Street and passing in review before General Meade and General Halleck at City Hall. Rollin and Julian went to see that spectacle, but Brett stayed indoors.

“They say there were fifty thousand of them,” Rollin reported when he came home. “It was a sight.”

Brett said thoughtfully: “Lee hadn't that many men in his whole army, not after the first of January; and this was less than half of
Grant's army. But we kept them busy for a while, all the same.” Cinda heard something new in his tone, an awakening pride; and when next day a reward of one hundred thousand dollars was offered for the capture of President Davis, and twenty-five thousand dollars for each of a considerable list of Confederate leaders, Brett said jocosely: “Now there's a real business opportunity, Cinda! I think I'll go win that reward and restore our fallen fortunes.”

She laughed with him, happy that now at last he began to be able to jest; and the day after, when he decided to stroll as far as Capitol Square, she kept him company.

She and Brett walked down Franklin Street and entered the Square at the gate by the Bell Tower. She kept her eyes straight ahead, pretending not to see the blue uniforms everywhere; but there were men in gray too, and to each she gave an eager smile. Negroes by ones and twos and dozens sat in the sun or swarmed across the sidewalks; the shrill laughter of the wenches and the hoarse mirth of the men filled the air. But the Square was alien ground, with Yankee sentries at the Governor's mansion, and around the Capitol and across in front of the City Hall; so Cinda suggested they walk out Twelfth Street and call on Anne and the baby. Brett agreed, and she told him about seeing President Lincoln pass this way.

“And thousands of negroes following him. June was here. I saw her kneel in front of him; and after he passed, she kissed the ground he stepped on.” Brett did not speak, and she said: “Brett Dewain, I never believed before that day that our people wanted to be free.”

“I suppose we never let ourselves believe it. We couldn't very well believe it and keep our self-respect, so we pretended it wasn't true.” He met her eyes. “But June has stayed with you,” he reminded her.

“She says there's a difference between having to take care of me, and wanting to.”

When they reached the house they found only Anne at home. “Julian's working,” she said proudly. “And Papa's taken the carriage and driven out to the country to buy vegetables.”

“Vegetables!” Cinda echoed. “Whatever for?”

“Why, to eat, of course. But he buys all he can, and what we don't need he sells to the market men!” She laughed at .her own words. “I really think he enjoys it! He makes fun of himself for turning huckster;
but he loves to get out in the country, and he's so proud to be earning some money.”

Brett nodded. “I know how he feels.”

“As soon as things settle down, he's going to open an office again,” Anne told them. “And Julian's going to read law with him. Papa says Julian will be a fine lawyer.” She went to bring the baby for them to admire. “Molly's left,” she explained. “So I take care of him now, and I love it.”

Molly, granddaughter of old Sal who presided over the Judge's kitchen, had been the baby's nurse. “Where's Molly gone?”

“She decided she was free.” Anne smiled. “Aunty Sal told her never to show her face around here again!”

“Sal hasn't left?”

“Heavens, no! Papa told her she'd better, because we can't pay her anything; but she told him to hush his mouth!” Brett laughed aloud, the first full-throated laughter Cinda had heard since he came home; and Anne said with twinkling eyes: “She told Papa she'd helped bring him into the world and she intended to be here to bury him!”

The baby, just a few days more than a year old, bounced on Cinda's knee; and Brett said: “Here, give that young one to me!” Cinda watched him in a rising happiness.

When they started home, they walked along Clay Street to Ninth, and then along Marshall to Seventh, and so to Broad before turning into Fifth; and Cinda saw everywhere garbage and refuse in the gutters and the alleys and the streets. “I declare, Brett Dewain,” she cried, “we need a good housecleaning. I wouldn't have believed so much filth could accumulate in a month. Where does it come from?”

“Richmond's full of negroes,” he reminded her. “The Yankees are feeding twenty thousand of them, men and women and children.” And he said: “That will be worse before it's better, too. The negroes don't know what to do with freedom. They don't know anything at all.” His tone was grave, but it was no longer dull and hopeless. “We've kept them ignorant and dependent. Whatever they are now is what we've made them. If they don't know how to use their freedom, it's our fault. And we'll pay for it. They'll always be here. Somehow we have to live with them.”

“The Yankees might at least make them clean up the streets!”

“The negroes shouldn't be in Richmond. They ought to be working the farms.”

She hesitated, seized the moment. “Jenny thinks someone ought to go back to the Plains. She thinks if our people there are kept busy, they'll stay on the place.”

He did not speak till they had crossed Broad Street and turned toward Fifth. “Yes, I've been thinking something of the kind,” he agreed. She waited, but he said no more.

 

At home Vesta declared their walk had done them good. “You both look like new people. Mama, your cheeks are as pink as a girl's.”

Cinda smiled. “That's temper! It made me mad to see the nastiness in the streets everywhere!”

Vesta laughed. “Did you go by the Old Market? You can hardly get near it for the piles of fish heads and entrails and all sorts of garbage, and the swarms of flies. I hold my handkerchief over my nose.”

“Something ought to be done about it!”

“Oh, everybody's too busy cleaning up after the fire, pulling down the old walls and cleaning bricks and laying foundations for new buildings. I like to walk along Main Street. You see so many gentlemen you know, scraping bricks like Julian, or mixing mortar, or learning how to be carpenters.” Vesta smiled. “Why, Mama, it's as sociable as an evening promenade out to Gamble's Hill used to be. You ought to come with me some time.”

But Cinda shook her head, and it was long before she again ventured out. Tilda and Vesta went somewhere almost every day. Tilda was busy. The Yankee commissary issued rations to indigent white women as well as to Negroes; but they must present certificates from a doctor or a minister, attesting that they were at once too poor to buy food, and too ill to work. Tilda and the ladies she directed spent their days marshalling these necessary proofs of need; and Vesta too seemed to have many matters to which she must attend. But Cinda stayed indoors. Thus at least she need not see all the tragedy which in Richmond now was a commonplace.