House Divided (48 page)

No matter. She would be more thoughtful in the future. This was no time for regrets, with Burr again at home. Watching him now as they all fell into talk together, she saw that he spoke more slowly, in a way that seemed abrupt without being so; his eyes had more depth but not so much light in them; there was a difference around his mouth. She saw too that he no longer talked freely about his personal experiences. He said: “We did this,” and “We did that,” but it was always in general terms, in plural terms. It was never “I did-thus,” “I did so.”

When he and Brett became absorbed in conversation, Cinda asked Barbara a guarded question. “How is he, Barbara?”

“Oh, he's fine. He's just fine.” Barbara added: “Sometimes he has bad dreams, but he's fine.”

Cinda wondered about those dreams. Were they dreams of battle, dreams of danger and of death? Burr had in him no taint of the coward. She was sure of that. But perhaps they were dreams of death dealt out to others. Had Burr, this child of hers, had he killed a man, many men? Was it of such things he dreamed? She hoped he might be here long enough to forget ugly dreams.

Burr and Barbara stayed for supper, and afterward while the others listened Burr and his father talked together. They spoke of business. “The Government is letting Northerners take their property out of the Confederacy,” Brett told his son. “I see no justification for that. General Butler down at Fortress Monroe makes no bones about seizing slaves as contraband; but Northern goods in the South are just as truly contraband of war as our slaves.” He said he was considering sending their securities North, and Burr asked:

“Would they be safe there?”

“Yes, my friends in New York and Washington would keep them for me.”

“Do you still correspond with them?”

“Yes, there's a regular mail service to the North. The letter carriers have special passports, charge a dollar or two a letter. They make a couple of trips every month, clear a thousand dollars or so on a trip. War's a profitable business for those who choose to make it so. But I'll be satisfied to keep what we have.”

The talk turned at last to Burr's service. Brett remarked that the Confederacy should have more cavalry, but Burr said this was not necessarily true.

“Of course everybody wants to be in the cavalry,” he admitted. “Southerners like to ride as well as they like to fight. But the farmers hate to see us come along, because we live off the country, dip into their corn cribs and all that. I've seen farmers right here in Virginia shake their fists after us and curse us for thieves. We make a lot of enemies that way.” He smiled teasingly at Barbara. “But of course the
ladies can't do enough for us. They pet us and praise us. No wonder we're a conceited lot!”

“What do you think of General Stuart?” Brett asked, a curious eye upon his son.

“Oh, he's wonderful; but he knows our faults.” Burr smiled. “He says all we need is to be reduced to the ranks, that we all think we're cavaliers, lords of the manor! But he's as bad as we are, likes to do spectacular things. I think he'd rather astonish the Yankees than lick them. And he's always in a hurry. At Lewinsville, General Longstreet planned to send some infantry to work with us; but General Stuart couldn't wait. Of course we beat them; but if the infantry had been there, we'd have smashed them.”

“Did Longstreet blame him?”

“No, you don't reprimand officers who win victories. General Longstreet recommended him for promotion. But General Stuart needs some levelheaded man—” He looked at Cinda. “Like Uncle Trav, Mama. If he had someone like Uncle Trav to hold him down, he'd be even better than he is.”

“It's hard to draw the line,” Brett commented. “I suppose
élan
is the soldier's great virtue.”

“Yes, sir,” Burr assented. “But sometimes it can be just foolishness. Dull duty is tedious; but someone has to do the drudgery.” He grinned. “That will never be the cavalry, though. We're the show-offs of the army.”

Brett said sympathetically: “It must be hard for Mrs. Stuart, having her husband and her brother fighting on our side and her father commanding Union cavalry. Hard for General Stuart too, of course.”

“Is war easy for anyone?” Cinda asked quietly. “Even for those whose families aren't divided?” After a moment Brett came to kiss her, but they gave her no other answer.

 

Burr and Brett returned to duty and the sunny autumn days slipped by. There was never a finer fall; but the weather in Western Virginia, the papers said, had been wretched. Tilda called one day and reported that General Lee was back in Richmond, the Western campaign abandoned.

“He just didn't accomplish a thing,” she said almost triumphantly.
“After all the talk about what wonders he was going to perform! Except that Redford says he's grown a beard!”

“Even Burr has done that,” Cinda commented. “I suppose it's a nuisance in the field, trying to shave every day.”

“Maybe General Lee wanted to prove he wasn't an old woman!” Tilda spoke in malicious amusement. “They call him Granny Lee now, you know. Redford says he's lost Western Virginia for us, lost it for good. They're going to make a new state out of it and call it West Virginia and join the North and fight against us.”

“Speaking of fighting, how's Darrell?”

Tilda laughed, quite undisturbed. “Oh, he's just fine! He was home two weeks ago. He bought a lot of things, and Redford says we'll keep them till the prices go up and sell them and make a fortune.”

“Will the Government let you?”

“Why, Redford's in the Government! Besides, everyone is doing the same thing!”

“I suppose Dolly's having the time of her life?”

“Oh, she's in a seventh heaven with all her beaux! There are always three or four of them at the house, glaring at each other. She says they're terrible! Just because she's nice to them they think she's in love with them! She made Darrell be her escort to the fancy-dress party at Mrs. Brownlaw's. She had so many beaux she couldn't decide between them, so she chose Darrell! She was lovely, too. She went as a lady of the French court, borrowing feathers and spangles from everywhere. She borrowed Vesta's pearls, you know. Vesta darling, why didn't you go?”

“I don't want any beau but Tommy.”

“Nonsense! You ought to have a good time while you can. You know perfectly well a married woman in Richmond might as well be a nun!”

She talked endlessly of Dolly's triumphs, and that night before going to sleep, Cinda, needing some outlet, wrote a long letter to Brett, telling him what Tilda had said about General Lee.

She tore the letter into little bits and sprinkled them on the fire, and as she did so, Vesta came in and saw her and asked curiously: “What ever are you doing, Mama?”

“Tearing up a letter I just wrote to your father. Now don't call me an idiot! I was just blowing off steam, never meant to send it anyway.”

Vesta laughed and kissed her. “There, darling, I do that all the time—write long letters to Tommy and then burn them.”

“Why?”

Vesta colored happily. “Because they're such letters as no modest maiden would write even to her husband! Tommy would be embarrassed to tears if he read them. But they're ever such fun to write!”

“Tommy's not much of a correspondent, is he?”

“He's working hard. He's terribly conscientious about being a soldier, you know.”

“He's a nice boy,” Cinda pinched the girl's cheek fondly. “Even if he is a fool!”

“He's not a fool!”

“Any man who could marry you and won't is a fool.”

Vesta's eyes clouded, but then she smiled. “I'm not so sure. Maybe he's wise, because you know waiting makes me love him more every day. The way I feel about him just keeps growing like a—like a baby inside me!”

“Vesta Dewain! What a thing to say!”

“Oh, don't pretend to be shocked! I'm quite grown up, you know!” Vesta added teasingly: “Quite old enough to hear all about Uncle Tony and Mrs. Albion, for instance!” Then, seeing Cinda's quick distress: “I'm sorry. But I asked you about her the day she called on you. Remember? You wouldn't tell me, so I had to find out for myself.”

“Who did tell you?”

“Aunt Tilda.”

“That woman!” Cinda's voice was stern with anger. “I didn't suppose even Tilda- would babble nastiness to you!”

“I needn't have asked her if you'd told me. Why didn't you?”

Cinda hesitated. “Why—for Aunt Enid's sake, Vesta. For her sake, that's one of the things none of us must ever seem to know.”

Vesta said in a low tone: “There are lots of things like that, aren't there? Things that women must pretend not to know.” Cinda looked at her sharply, and Vesta said gently: “I'm sorry, Mama. But—will you tell me things? Please? Because I'd rather hear them from you. I hate finding them out from other people.”

“Who else has been telling you things?”

“Why—Dolly, for one. Ugly things, about men. I said I didn't believe her, and she said why did I suppose black girls like Sally, that servant in their house, have mulatto babies?”

Cinda pressed her hands to her eyes. “We Southern women!” She made a weary gesture. “Our men keep telling us how beautiful and unstained we are, and we tell ourselves our daughters are too pure and innocent to know things. It's just because we're too stupid and
lazy to talk to them in simple, honest ways. We don't even talk honestly to our sons, so they learn for themselves, from vicious companions, or from the black girls. And our daughters learn for themselves—from people like Dolly!”

She spoke so furiously that Vesta was half-frightened. “Are you mad at me?”

“Heavens no, darling! But—oh, at our stupidity, at our way of thinking life's a fairy tale. And I'm mad at bragging and strutting and war and sickness and death—and at myself for being a shiftless coward so long!”

“You've never been a coward!”

“I have been where you're concerned, my darling! But not now! Never any more!”

 

The new bond between her and Vesta seemed to Cinda in the days that followed to give her strength to meet whatever was to come. She knew from Tony that Julian's regiment, the First North Carolina, would soon be mustered out; and she had pretended to herself that perhaps he would not enlist again. Clayton was gone, and Burr and Brett might go, but surely she might hope to keep Julian safe and secure. But as she and Vesta drew together she knew this hope was weakness; and when Julian came with his regiment to Richmond she asked steadily enough: “Have you decided what you're going to do?”

“Just about,” he told her. “I want to serve under General Hill. He's a great man, Mama. Of course, lots of the men don't like him. He's pretty sarcastic sometimes. But—well, I started out with him and I'd like to go on with him. Most of the cadets feel the same way.”

“Have you said anything to him about it?”

“No, he was promoted, you know. He's at Manassas now, but I've talked to Papa. I might go into the Fifth North Carolina, be with Tommy and Rollin.”

She bit her lip. Julian was no longer a child; he was a young man, a soldier, and she would not have him otherwise. “Whatever you decide, we'll be proud of you!”

“Gosh, but you and Papa are wonderful.”

She smiled. “So are our children.”

“I miss Clayton terribly,” he said, after a moment. “Even if I didn't see much of him lately, I always liked to think about him.”

“Jenny says he's more with her now than he ever was,” Cinda assented. “He—spends a good deal of the time with me, too, Julian.” She smiled faintly. “But with me he's always just as he was when he was little. It's as if he'd never grown up. Sometimes I get him mixed up with little Clayton, can't tell which from which!” He came to kiss her in silent comforting.

But he went out presently, and she knew he had gone to see Anne, and expected he would be late returning. She went to bed, but she heard him come in, earlier than she had expected, and called to him. “How was Anne, sonny?”