House Divided (51 page)

On the last “gyarden” each prisoner in turn made a dash for freedom; and there were shouts and laughter and gay tussles. Trav, trying to dodge free, plunging bull-like between Tilda and Dolly, brought them both down atop him in a heap. Faunt, when his time came, slipped through a narrow opening as easily as an eel. Trav's Lucy—she was thirteen now, almost a young lady,—could never long be kept captive. When Dolly tried to elude Brett, he caught her and claimed a robust kiss for forfeit and got it; and Cinda made a mental note to call him to account for that! Dolly was badly enough spoiled already! Enid, prisoner after Dolly, made a feint to dart past Tony; but at the last moment she spun toward Faunt, and seemed to lose her balance and so fell into his arms and clung to him and cried: “Oh Heavens, you caught me! Well, then I must pay forfeit too!” She kissed Faunt with a rowdy gusto which made them all laugh; and Cinda felt Vesta's questioning eyes upon her, and lest Vesta read her thoughts she laughed with the others; but she saw Faunt's glance follow Enid as the game went on, and she had to assure herself with a certain violence that Faunt would never drift into a sordid involvement with Trav's wife! She knew her fears were absurd; yet Enid was a lushly provocative little thing, flushed and panting now in this ridiculous game, her eyes forever meeting Faunt's with that melting readiness for surrender which could turn the steadiest masculine heads. Even Brett was capering like a spring lamb, just because he had kissed Dolly! Men were all idiots when a pretty woman made eyes at them!

Next morning she lay late abed, listening to the little Negroes racing through the halls crying “Chris'mus gif'”at every door; till booted
feet came thumping toward her room and a voice she knew called: “Christmas gift, Mama,” and here was Julian. Burr a moment later joined them; and the bright day began and ran its course, and left them all weary with merrymaking and ready for early sleep.

After Christmas, Cinda had expected to return to Richmond with Vesta and Jenny and the children, with the men to keep them company on the road; but Faunt said he would stay at Great Oak for two or three weeks longer.

“General Wise has been appointed to command at Roanoke Island,” he explained. “The Blues will come down river and go through the Albemarle Canal by barge; and I'll meet them in Norfolk, go on with them from there.”

Cinda said at once that she too would stay on a little longer. Not even to Brett did she admit her reason: but she would not leave Faunt here with Enid alone.

December, 1861—January, 1862

 

W
HEN Trav came to Great Oak for Christmas, it was his first visit since August, and he had many bright anticipations. It would be fine to see Lucy and Peter and his mother and the others; and even Enid after this long separation might be glad to see him, as tenderly affectionate as when she chose she knew how to be. He took time in Richmond to load himself with presents for them all, including handkerchiefs and Barlow knives for the Negroes, and candies for the little Negro children who would come clamoring through the halls on Christmas morning. But the gift that pleased him most was for Enid. From the captain of a vessel which had evaded the still haphazard blockade, running into New Berne with a cargo of luxuries, Trav bought at an exorbitant price a delicate cameo exquisitely carved, rimmed with small diamonds and hung from a slender golden chain.

When he arrived everyone welcomed him with hand clasps and kisses; but when he went up to his room and would have taken Enid in his arms, she set her hands against his chest. “No, no, Trav! I hate being mussed when you're all dusty and horsy from the road. You know that!”

He laughed to hide his hurt and went to bathe and change, and she sat before the mirror, talking idly over her shoulder, trying some new arrangement of her hair. When he was dressed, the cameo in his pocket, hiding his eagerness behind a casual tone, he said: “Oh, by the way, Enid, I've a surprise for you.”

“Really?” She yawned a little, rising to go downstairs. “What?”

“Shut your eyes!”

“Oh, don't be childish, Trav.”

He was heavily jocular. “You can't have it till you do.” But she turned away toward the door, her wide skirts swinging indolently, so he surrendered. “Why—here, then!” He followed her, forced to hurry. “Here, Enid.” She turned, her hand on the door knob, and he met her eyes and saw the hard distaste in them; nevertheless he persisted, touching her shoulder. “Here!”

Thus he laid the cameo in her hands. The small stones sparkled in the candlelight, and he waited for her delighted gratitude.

She looked at the jewel for a moment, turned it over in her palm, turned it back again. “Pretty,” she said idly. “April will love it.” And she crossed to drop it in the littered china tray under her mirror.

Trav for a moment did not move. Was this all? He caught her shoulders, drew her toward him. “Enid! Dear! Oh—I wish—Enid——”

“Don't!” she said. “You hurt my arms!” She twitched away, crossing toward the door again; and her eye fell on the litter of his belongings, clothes hastily laid aside, the open valise half unpacked. Trav was normally as neat as a cat, but he had hurried. She made a sound of distaste. “What a mess! I suppose you must stay. The house is so full there's no room for you anywhere else. But I've grown used to having the bed to myself. I'll not sleep a wink.”

He tried clumsy tenderness. “I'll put you to sleep.”

“Please don't bring your camp vulgarities home to me. Come. Supper must be ready.”

So they went down to the others; and Trav as they came to the foot of the stairs saw her pause and put on beauty like a garment. Her eyes cleared of sullen shadows, her sudden smile was radiant. During the hours that followed, in the gay charades, the merry games, he watched her in wonder and in longing, her arms so slender and so fair, her shoulders warmly gleaming; her bright hair became prettily disordered, her cheeks were hot. How beautiful she was when she was happy, teasing Brett, evading Tony's grasp, laughing up at Faunt. Not even Dolly could compare with her. When they all at last went upstairs and he closed their door and they were alone she swung to him with welcoming arms. “Oh, Trav, wasn't it fun? Wasn't it fun?” Her lips pressed his with an eager hunger, and his pulse leaped in triumphant
answer. He had forgotten how bewitching she could be; he took unquestioningly this enchanting hour.

Thus the Christmas at home with her and with his children was a blissful time. Enid, for some reason he did not question, gave him a lavish affection; it was bitter hard the day after Christmas to say good-by, but her kisses went with them, and his memories.

They were all day on the road to Richmond. Trav went next morning to the Arlington to call upon General Longstreet and discuss their return to Centerville. He found the General, his great bulk sprawled on the floor, engaged in a hilarious tussle with little Jimmy. Mary Ann, just a year old, watched and squealed with delight at their mock battle. Jimmy's outcries of pretended pain sometimes alarmed her, so that her eyes widened and she waited warily; but when she saw them laugh together again, she crowed and gurgled and crawled around them on slapping palms and thumping knees. Garland and Gussie, pretending to be too mature for such infantile sport yet obviously wishing their dignity permitted them to take a hand, sat by as grinning spectators.

When Trav came in, Mrs. Longstreet greeted him; and the General called: “Hello there, Captain! A rescue here! I'm outnumbered!” He rolled on his back, swinging Jimmy up in the air, shaking him till he bubbled and squealed with delight. The baby with a gleeful scream got a hand grip on his beard and pulled hard, and he shouted: “Ha! A flank attack!” He tucked Jimmy in the curl of one arm, drew the little girl into the other. “Envelop the enemy! That's tactics, Captain!”

Their laughing struggles redoubled, and Gussie could no longer stay out of it. He threw himself across the General's legs, and immediately found himself encircled by those legs and held fast. They were a rolling, squirming tangle on the floor; and Mrs. Longstreet, through her laughter, protested.

“Do stop it, Jeems! If they play too hard they'll all be crying in a minute.”

Mary Ann escaped her captor and at a galloping crawl raced for safety at her mother's feet. The General, Jimmy under one arm and Gus riding him as though he were a horse, galloped after her on hands and knees, and caught her and rolled her over, and buried his beard
in her small belly with great growls and buttings till she was in a hysteria of delight, and Mrs. Longstreet cried:

“There now, Jeems, you've made her wet herself!” She swept the baby away, delivered her to black arms for attendance. “And it's time Jimmy had his supper! That's enough play. Stop it, both of you! Stop it, Jimmy! Gussie, stop!” But as Longstreet came to his feet Gussie clung to the skirts of the General's coat till a button went flying; and Mrs. Longstreet cried: “There, Gussie, I declare you've pulled a button off!”

“Well, I don't care!” Gussie retorted. “I don't like that old gray coat. I liked his blue coat better anyway!”

General Longstreet roared in mock wrath: “Aha! A Union man in the family!” He swept Gussie up in his arms, swung him into the air, held him high. “Well, this is what we do to little Yankees!” And he shook the youngster to and fro till Gussie was weak with laughter, then set him down with a clap on the shoulder. “There, Yank, be off with you!”

Mrs. Longstreet shepherded them away; and Longstreet met Trav's eye. “Gussie's always said that,” he confessed. “Since I gave up the blue for the gray. It still gives me a twinge.”

Trav nodded, and Mrs. Longstreet came back to demand the General's coat so that the button could be replaced, and Trav saw her eye meet her husband's in tender reassurance. “He didn't mean it, Jeems! He's just a baby.” Impulsively she kissed him and departed. “Better comb your beard, my dear!”

Trav smiled at the big man's disordered hair and whiskers, the sweat upon his brow. “They gave you a battle, General.”

“Surprising how youngsters will wear a man down,” the other agreed, still panting. “Men our age can stand up to quiet endurances better than boys; but for a dash, a quick effort, I'll take the young man every time.”

“My children are a quiet pair,” Trav reflected. “I don't think Peter and I have ever had a rough-and-tumble.”

“Try it, Captain,” Longstreet advised. “He'll welcome it. It brings you into his world. You know, we're so much bigger than children that they're awed by our size—just as you and I would be awed among
a race of giants. But when you get down on the floor with them, they meet you on even terms.”

“Lucy and I are pretty good friends,” Trav said. “She's old enough so we seem to find lots of things to talk about.”

“There's nothing like a daughter,” the other agreed. “But as they grow up they turn to their mother. It's sons who need a father most.” He added reminiscently: “My father died when I was twelve. Uncle Gus brought me up, did a lot for me. He even moved to Alabama in order to get me a West Point appointment.” The big man chuckled. “I was never a student, though; second from the bottom. But I did well enough outside the class room.”

As he spoke, Mrs. Longstreet reappeared; and she commented smilingly: “His successes were chiefly among the ladies, Captain. The other cadets voted him the handsomest man in West Point——”

“And that was before I grew a beard, too,” Longstreet pointed out. “You know, when they nicknamed General Stuart ‘Beauty' it was because he wasn't one! He was short on chin. He grew a beard on the theory that any change would be an improvement!” He added in pretended complacency with a teasing glance at Mrs. Longstreet: “I grew mine in order not to break too many hearts.”

“He's still the most conceited man I know,” she told Trav. “Here, put on your coat, Jeems.”

“But my dear,” Longstreet reminded her as he obeyed, “having won you, I have a right to be.”

“Won me?” she laughed. “It was the other way around!” And to Trav: “Why, Captain, when he went off to the Mexican wars he was desperately in love with my hated rival; but before he came home I managed to marry her off to someone else—and caught him on the rebound!” Trav felt, behind their jesting, the strong love between these two. They talked to him, but actually they talked through him to each other. Their pretended accusations were actually tendernesses, as surely as though in secret night they whispered happy ardors; and Trav recognized this, and loved them both—and envied them. Between him and Enid there were never such scenes as this, never these affectionate railleries.

Longstreet carried on the play, answering her boast. “It's true you disposed of the rival you knew about, my dear; but I had another
string to my bow!” He spoke to Trav. “The very charming daughter of the Mexican gentleman with whom I stayed to recuperate from the wound I took there.” He said in exaggerated remorse: “I'm afraid I played fast and loose with her. She was devoted to me, and I made a thousand promises to return and marry her.”

Mrs. Longstreet smiled. “You've discovered before this what a braggart he is, I'm sure, Captain.”

“To tell the truth is not bragging, ma‘am,” Longstreet assured her. “She loved me, and if you had disappointed me I might be a hidalgo in Mexico today. But of course I had disposed of your most ardent suitors, so that when I came home to ask your hand you had no one else to whom to turn.” He laughed. “Remember 'Lys Grant, Louisa?”

“The lieutenant with the big epaulettes? Of course.”

Longstreet told Trav: “Lieutenant Grant came to me and asked me to give him a chance at Louisa. He said I could have any girl for the asking—that was true, to be sure—so wouldn't I please leave Louisa for him! But I didn't trust that young fellow! He never knows when he's licked! So I took him out to the Dent place and turned him over to Cousin Julia and she married him.” He added, to Mrs. Longstreet: “By the way, Louisa, he has a command now, out west. I hope I don't have to fight him. You can knock 'Lys over, but he won't stay down.”

“Cousin Julia's had a hard life with him,” she declared. “He drinks terribly.”

Longstreet winked at Trav. “When a man drinks too much you'll usually find he has an extravagant wife.”

“Why, Jeems, do you think I'm extravagant?”

“You mean to suggest I'm a drinking man?” His tone pretended astonishment, and they laughed together, and he said in open tenderness: “My dear, whatever you spend is less than I'd like to give you.” He laughed: “But speaking of intemperance, Captain, a toddy?”

“Now none of that, Jeems,” Mrs. Longstreet protested. “First thing I know you'll both be singing.”

“But, Louisa, this is purely medicinal! A touch of sore throat coming on. Eh, Captain?” He winked largely, and Trav was about to assent when Mrs. Longstreet said briskly:

“If you've a sort throat, I'll soon fix that. Some of your mother's salve, well rubbed in!” She rose, determined in her movements; and
Longstreet protested in sudden dismay that his throat was not sore, but she made him lie down on the couch and open his coat and shirt to bare his chest, standing over him with a small round tin box. “There, hold your old beard out of the way,” she directed, and scooped up one small finger full of salve and began to rub it into his chest; and he squirmed and said it was too cold, and she told him it was always too hot or too cold to suit him and threatened that unless he lay still he should have a mouthful of it. Trav, sitting across the room, watched in a high amusement; she was so small, the man she mauled so huge. While she rubbed, she talked over her shoulder to Trav.

“This is a famous salve, for colds, or sprains, or burns, or small cuts. The General's mother invented it. She was a Maryland girl and a wonderful woman. She brought up nine children all alone after her husband died, saw them all married and raising families. Most of them were daughters, to be sure; but she always said she'd never have raised them if it hadn't been for this salve. The General's sister 'Liza makes it for the whole family now.” She added: “I think she's improved the flavor, don't you, General?” And when he was about to speak she thrust her finger into his mouth so that he sat up with a great sputter and swept her down beside him.