House Divided (55 page)

Enid, remembering how Faunt in his delirium had raged at Lincoln, expected an explosion; and Brett must have seen Faunt's color rise for he spoke quickly: “It's too late now to argue how this began, too late to think about it. Once you're in a war, it's too late to think about who got you into it.” But he suggested that the hazard at Great Oak might not be so immediate as Trav feared. “I'm not so sure the Yankees can force their way up the James,” he urged. “We have seven or eight guns on Mulberry Island, and the Day's Point battery on the south side of the river has seventeen. Then there are the guns on Jamestown Island. And don't forget the
Merrimac!
She's already taught them one lesson! I saw that business!”

“Saw it?” Faunt spoke in quickened attention. “I'd have given a lot to see that. Where were you?”

“General Randolph had sent me to Norfolk with dispatches,” Brett explained. “Everyone knew what was going to happen, and we all rode out to Sewell's Point to watch. The
Merrimac
—she's been rechristened the
Virginia,
but people stick to the old name—came out past Craney's Island; and all the Yankee transports and tugs slipped anchor and scurried to get away. She headed for Newport News to attack their warships, so we were too far away to see much; but we
could see the smoke and hear the guns, and those who had glasses could see and could tell us what was happening. She rammed the
Cumberland
and sank her, and then drove the
Congress
aground, and sank some transports tied to the wharves. The
Minnesota
went aground, too. When the
Merrimac
finally anchored for the night, right off the Point, we could see the
Congress
burning.” Faunt uttered an exclamation of satisfaction, and Brett said. “Yes, everyone felt that way, Faunt. We had a real celebration that night, and everyone was sure she'd go on next day and sink every ship in sight; but next day the Yankees had this craft they call the
Monitor.
She mostly stayed in shallow water where we couldn't get at her to ram her; and our guns didn't hurt her any more than hers hurt us.” He added: “But one thing's sure; the Yankees can't send ordinary gunboats or transports up the James River as long as we've got the
Merrimac
waiting for them.”

Trav said after a moment: “There was a celebration in Richmond, too, till you'd think we'd won the war. Of course, if we'd sunk the Yankee fleet, we could have steamed up the Potomac and bombarded Washington; but as it is—well, Brett, it seems to me we're just where we were before. And even if they can't force the James, the Yankees can land as large an army as they need to march up past here to Richmond.”

Faunt asked: “Can't we stop them?”

Trav hesitated. “I don't know, Faunt. We'll try. General Johnston has already drawn back below the Rappahannock, getting ready to move down here if he has to.”

“Ah! Then the Yankees are at Belle Vue.” Faunt's tone was expressionless; but Enid knew how heavy was this long-expected blow.

“Oh, Trav, how could you!” she cried furiously. “To hurt him so!”

They looked at her in surprise; but Trav said stubbornly: “Well, it's true. We've left no troops north of the Rappahannock. We started on the ninth, moving stores back from Centerville, destroying what we couldn't move. I hated seeing all the rations wasted.”

“You make me so mad! Can't you ever think of anything but things to eat?”

“Well, rations are my job.”

“You and your old job!” For Faunt's sake, Enid was too angry to
remember the others listening. “If you amounted to anything you'd help fight, instead of being just a teamster!”

A moment's silence fell upon her words; then Brett spoke, returning to the problem they must face. “Well, I take it we'll move the people to Chimneys and the Plains. Tony, you're the only one of us free to attend to that. Will you do it?” Tony nodded assent, and Brett said: “And we might as well make up our minds that sooner or later Mama will have to go to Richmond.”

Trav said: “The General will warn me in plenty of time.”

Brett asked: “How is he?”

“Why, he's changed since the children died. He used to be full of fun. He's different now. There's no more singing, no more poker games at headquarters; just drill, drill, drill. He's the only general who drills the whole division as a unit.”

Faunt said bitterly: “I suppose it was Mr. Benjamin's idea to give up Northern Virginia. Just as he betrayed Roanoke.”

Brett answered him. “I'm not sure of that, Faunt. I hear that Colonel Randolph will be Secretary of War in Mr. Benjamin's place, but Mr. Benjamin will be Secretary of State.”

“Secretary of State!” Faunt's color rose. “I'd help pull the rope to hang him!”

“I never liked Mr. Benjamin,” Brett agreed. “He's too calm to suit me, smiles too much.” He laughed. “Cinda hates him. But George Randolph—well, there's no one any better, for my taste; and General Lee is back from South Carolina. He's been fortifying Charleston; but now he'll be a sort of military assistant to President Davis. With Colonel Randolph and him in charge, things should go better.”

 

Brett left that night, but Trav stayed to help Tony start the people on the long journey to Chimneys and the Plains. Not all would go. Uncle Josh, April, old Thomas the Coachman and young Tom his son, Cilly and the other house servants, and Viry who was the queen of the kitchen; all these aristocrats of the plantation and their underlings would for the present remain. Big Mill would stay; and so would those old people who preferred to live out their lives in their small cabins here. But most of the hands, including those who had come from Belle Vue, were in the long caravan which presently set out to travel afoot to
Richmond, where they would be herded into cars to continue their journey. They went for the most part with light hearts, men and women and children in picnic humor as they began this great adventure.

When they were gone, Trav and Tony departing with them, Enid had Faunt to herself again. He was presently able to mount and ride a little, and a little more each day. Enid rode with him, beautiful and bright; but—soon now he would go back to duty, and these blissful hours would end. How empty her life then would be; how empty and how intolerable!

Once, but for his demeanor which warned her to silence, she would have spoken her heart. The day had been hot and still, and they delayed till the sun set before they rode abroad. They took the Barrett's Ferry road toward the Chickahominy and turned off by a fishing trail through the swamp to come out on a low bluff above the grass marsh and the curlew ground. A flock of white herons rose in squawking alarm, their wings drifting snowflakes in the twilight; and Enid heard the silver whistle of circling yellowlegs and the “cre-e-ek” of a snipe. It was already dark enough so that a great star shone pale in the western sky, and she asked what it was. “Jupiter,” he said. “It's been the evening star for three or four nights now.”

They sat their horses, silent in the thickening dusk, and Enid's pulses pounded faster, and her thoughts found words. “Oh, Faunt, please don't ever go away from here.”

She hardly knew she had spoken till his dark eye turned to her in long regard. After a moment he said simply: “It's hard to leave a spot like this.”

“To leave me, Faunt?” Her voice was a whispered prayer.

“To leave Great Oak and Mama and those fine children of yours.” Then in casual affection: “Yes, and you too, of course, Enid. You've been mighty good to me.”

“I loved taking care of you; you so hurt and ill.”

“You ladies are like angels tending our sick, wounded men.”

“I couldn't do it for anyone but you.”

He looked at her, in his eyes something monitory which she could not fail to heed. “I'll always be grateful to you and Mama. You couldn't have been kinder to me if I'd been Trav.”

His reminder was enough to silence her; but that night, tossing on
her sleepless bed, pounding at her pillows with her small clenched hands, in a sweat of longing, she hated him as much as she loved him. For he would ride away, perhaps never to return; ride away and leave her desolate. What then? What then for her?

Why, a lifetime married to Trav.

Before she slept she knew that if this were all that remained for her in life, she would rather die. She set her teeth. Yes, die!

And soon, soon to tell Trav so.

March–pril, 1862

 

L
ATE in March, Julian and Tommy Cloyd came to Richmond together. Vesta, clinging to Tommy in the rapture of welcome, saw over his shoulder a delighted pride in Julian's eyes. She turned, her arm linked in Tommy's. “Julian,” she demanded, “what are you so excited about?”

“I? What makes you think I'm excited?”

“I can tell! Now don't be provoking! What is it, Julian?”

“Well, don't look at me!” he protested. “You could see, yourself, if you weren't blind!”

Vesta saw Tommy red and grinning, and she cried in a fine exasperation: “Oh, you're a pair, you two! What is it?”

“Look at his collar!” Julian told her. “Look at his sleeve!”

So she did, and so at last she saw the two short lateral bars on either side of his collar, the braid in a Hungarian knot on his sleeve; and in a rush of happiness she rose on tiptoes to kiss him, and Julian proudly explained: “Lieutenant Potter died of scarlet fever just before we fell back to the line of Rappahannock, so Tommy's company had to elect a new lieutenant, and they elected Tommy!”

Vesta kissed Tommy again, in a proud delight. “But of course you should have been a captain or something long ago,” she declared. She was thinking happily: “Surely he will know he's a good soldier now!” After supper, after Julian had gone to Anne Tudor, she and Tommy went for a walk and an hour or two alone. This was a warm spring night and the whispering song of the river drew them down to the path above the canal and along past the woody lower slopes of Gamble's Hill. For a while their talk was nothing; but Vesta felt her
heart beat harder, and she planned what she wished to say, till at last a moment's silence gave her courage.

“Tommy,” she said, careful to keep her tones steady, “you know, I haven't seen you since General Longstreet's babies died. Three of them died in a week, and they've only one left. And Tommy, when they died, I knew I couldn't wait any longer for us to be married. Please!”

He was puzzled. “That was mighty sad for him, all right; but I don't see what it has to do with us, Vesta.”

Her cheeks burned, but her head was high. “I know it's no way for a lady to talk,” she confessed. “But—they were so sweet, and they're dead, and I want children of my own, quick, to fill their places.” His embarrassed silence gave her courage. “There, I know I'm awful to talk so, but—I've felt married to you for a long time, now.”

“I sort of feel married to you,” he admitted.

“Well, married people can talk about having babies! Oh I know probably lots of them don't; but Mama says people would be happier, specially married people, if they didn't pretend not to know things. Mama's pretty wise and wonderful, Tommy.”

“I guess she is, all right.”

“Darling, you're shocked! But Tommy, you and I aren't going to be just dumb, silly idiots, wearing blindfolds all our lives. You might as well realize right now that I love you just as much as you love me. All ways, Tommy. All ways and always.”

He said slowly: “I don't know much about—being married, Vesta. But I know I want to be married to you some day, and be together all our lives.”

“Well there!” Triumph made her heart pound. “That's settled! Tommy, let's get married tomorrow!”

“Golly, Vesta, I can't! I have to take the morning train. It leaves about daylight.”

“Well, you can come back!”

“Not right away. I oughtn't to have come this time. I have a lot to learn, to be a good officer.”

“Tommy Cloyd, you've been in the army almost a year! If you haven't learned how to be a good soldier yet, you never will.”

“I guess maybe I never will,” he admitted. “I've tried, Vesta. I
mean, I've memorized Hardee's
Tactics
from start to finish. I can recite it by the hour, all the commands and everything. But I don't—well, I don't feel as if I knew how to—order men around!”

“Oh, Tommy, all that hasn't anything to do with you and me.”

“Not with both of us, I know,” he assented. “But it has a lot to do with me. I thought if I learned everything in Hardee I'd get so I did things just automatically, even in the fighting. But—well, we've been in two or three skirmishes, and I've had chances to shoot men. I could have—killed them, too. I'm a pretty good shot. But I kept remembering their wives and their sweethearts.” He said unhappily: “I can't help feeling so; but I know that's not the way to win battles and war.”

“I don't care who wins the battles! I like you the way you are. I love you the way you are!”

“I thought for a while maybe the other men in the company felt the same way; thought maybe they were just pretending to be so—blood thirsty. But I guess they're not. They'd have shown it by now, if they were.”

“You haven't been in any big fights yet.”

“Well, we're going to be, pretty soon. We heard on the train that McClellan's landing an army at Fortress Monroe.” He said quickly: “It isn't that I'm afraid, Vesta.”

“I know you're not, idiot!”

“I'm not afraid of being killed, I mean.”

She turned with a quick movement to hold him fiercely close, and sharp anguish twisted her heart. “Tommy, Tommy, Tommy!”

“But I'm afraid of killing someone,” he admitted. Though she was in his arms, she felt that he was still far away from her, his thoughts his own. “I've seen a man killed,” he said. “A cavalry picket, scouting, ran into us one day. There were only five of them, and they came out of the woods right in front of us. We had fallen out to rest. They saw us and galloped away, but some of our men shot at them, and one of the Yankees fell out of his saddle. We buried him. He was no older than Julian, Vesta—not old enough to shave. His face wasn't touched. He had black hair. He was such a nice-looking boy!”

“Darling, darling!”

“I'd hate having to think I'd killed him.” He repeated in a sudden passion: “I'd hate it, Vesta!”

Feeling his loneliness, feeling the trouble in him, full of tenderness she urged: “Tommy, when can we be married?”

“I don't know.”

“I want us to be married.”

“So do I want us to!”

She became cheerfully matter-of-fact. “Well, then, I'm not going to wait any longer. Papa knows Mr. Randolph, the new Secretary of War. I'll make Papa see him and arrange a furlough for you. Mama and I will have everything ready beforehand. You just leave it all to me, Tommy. You don't have to think about anything at all. When you get your furlough, you come right here!” She laughed warmly. “I'll be all dressed and ready, darling. I'll give you time to wash your face and hands, and then off we'll go!” Looking up at him. “Now don't start gulping and stammering. It's high time I made up your mind for you!”

He half surrendered. “Well—but Vesta, I'll want my mother here.”

“I'll have Mama write to her tomorrow, invite her to come and stay with us. Then she'll be ready whenever you are; and I'll be ready, Tommy. Oh, my darling, I'll be so ready!” She caught his hand. “Come on, Tommy! Let's hurry home and tell Mama right now!”

 

Vesta from that day was in a bright fever of haste, but there were still delays; for the army was on the move, and Tommy was needed with his men. Day by day, troops on their way to meet McClellan's army marched through Richmond; and day and night the very air muttered with the tramp of feet, the roll of drums, the brassy music of the bands. Vesta and Cinda went down to Main Street to watch some of Longstreet's men march past, and one band played
The Girl I Left Behind Me,
and hundreds of pretty girls acknowledged that compliment with tender laughter and with much waving of small parasols and lacy handkerchiefs. The day was perfection, every garden bright with spring flowers as though in gala dress for the occasion. Longstreet himself rode by, cantering to overtake the head of his column. When Vesta and Cinda turned up the hill toward home, the cavalry were passing along Franklin Street, General Stuart's great red beard glowing in the sun; and they saw Burr among the troopers behind him.
Day by day the pageantry continued: men afoot, prancing horses, rumbling cannon on their iron-wheeled carriages. Sometimes word was sent ahead that a regiment was hungry; and then pantries were stripped, meals ready to be eaten were snatched off the tables, baskets were filled and borne out to await the brief halt of the men. On one such occasion Vesta had a glimpse of Tommy, and a moment's word with him; and Julian stopped for a kiss from them all before he hurried on. Uncle Trav stayed overnight, disturbed by the news of Shiloh—that was Longstreet's friend, 'Lys Grant, again—but Vesta had never heard of the place! What was Shiloh to her? The fears in all those about her she refused to heed.

Yet there was a whisper of panic in Richmond in these days. The fall of Roanoke Island had shaken that certainty of Southern invincibility which had been born on the field of Manassas. Grant at Fort Henry and at Donelson and then at Shiloh had proved that even Southern armies could be beaten. Now McClellan had another great army at Fortress Monroe, and to meet him all Virginia north of Richmond had been stripped of troops. Those who professed to be well informed were spreading rumors of coming disaster, and many who could do so slipped away. Barbara's father and mother had heard that the government archives were being packed for shipment to Columbia, and they departed to Raleigh to stay there till the danger passed, Barbara, her baby not two months away, refused to go so far from Burr, and Cinda welcomed her to the big house on Fifth Street.

“But I hope I can behave myself while she's here,” she confessed to Vesta. “That little Miss Somebody is as meek as melted butter, but she always seems to get her own way somehow. Maybe it's because she knows exactly what she wants.”

Vesta laughed at her. “You were so ostentatiously glad to have her, I thought you overdid it.”

“I noticed you weren't over cordial.”

“I used to like her lots,” Vesta reflected. “I still do, I think. But there's something about her sort of—well, I don't know what. As though she were on guard, afraid of us, afraid Burr'll go on loving us or something. But I'll be as nice to her as I know how.”

“Girls change, sometimes, when their first baby is coming,” Cinda agreed. “But Barbara always—bothered me! I wonder why it is we
like some people the minute we see them. Those Cary girls, for instance.”

Vesta smiled. “Oh everybody likes them.” Constance Cary and her cousins, Hetty and Jenny, had come to Richmond before Christmas, living at first at Mrs. Clifton's on Fourteenth Street; and their residence there made the dreary old lodging house a magnet for every gallant officer in town, till they moved to Mrs. Clarke's at Fourth and Franklin, only a few doors away. The three girls and Vesta were already friends, drawn together by a shared activity. The Ladies' Defense Association had been organized on the ninth of April, with Mrs. Clopton as president, to raise funds and material with which to build another ironclad like the
Merrimac,
which everyone now tried to remember to call the
Virginia;
and girls of Vesta's age were active workers on the committees appointed to solicit subscriptions. The project, as an outlet for feminine patriotism, was instantly popular; and the contributions poured in—money, jewelry, plate, treasured old pieces of furniture and sets of rare china. Old iron was needed, too, and the grillwork of many a portico, and many a fence, and every pot and kettle that could be spared, were collected by pretty volunteers. The machinery in some of the tobacco factories which now lay idle was broken up and carted away to the Tredegar Iron Works to be converted into usable metal. Before Vesta's wedding day, the new ironclad was well begun.

In spite of Cinda's feeling about Barbara, Burr's wife fitted easily into the Fifth Street household. Mrs. Cloyd came north from Camden, and Vesta drew close to Tommy's mother, leading her to talk of Tommy's father, dead long ago, and of Tommy's babyhood, and of Mrs. Cloyd's activities since her husband's death while she played a man's part in the management of the plantation.

“It's eighteen years since I've gone this long without climbing on a horse,” Mrs. Cloyd said. “I'm having so much fun eating breakfast in bed I don't even mind losing Tommy. Specially to you, my dear.”

Vesta loved her; her heart was big enough in these days to embrace the world.

 

They had to wait till Tommy could get leave, so they were not married until the last Saturday in April. Mrs. Currain refused to leave
Great Oak, and Enid insisted on staying there to keep her company. Streean was away, professedly on business, and so was Darrell. The Howitzers had gone from Suffolk to North Carolina, so Brett came only for the last two days before the wedding; and he and Tony, and when they arrived Friday afternoon Trav and Faunt, were apt to draw aside in grave discussion. But the younger men—Burr and Julian, Rollin who would be Tommy's groomsman, and of course Tommy—were merry enough so that Vesta need not heed those serious older faces.

She and Tommy would go to the McAltee place in Goochland for a few fine days together. When after the ceremony Vesta went to dress for her departure, Cinda sent every other from the room so that they could be briefly alone; and when Vesta was ready Cinda kissed her, and she said huskily:

“There, darling; be happy. You and Tommy are the finest people I know.” And in a different tone: “Honey, I'm sorry to be down-to-earth, but I want you to know our plans. Travis says General Johnston will probably give up the Yorktown line and fall back to the Chickahominy; so we must bring Mama to Richmond right away. Tilda and I are going down Monday with Tonv and Travis to get her, and to save what things we can.”