House Divided (179 page)

“What do you suppose those explosions were?” She dropped the question at random, for anyone to pick up who chose.

Judge Tudor hazarded an answer. “I expect it was the ironclads in the river. I know they were to be set on fire. Probably the fire reached the magazines. And one of the blasts may have been the Armory. That's just down at the foot of Fifth Street.”

Cinda nodded absently. How difficult it was to sit here and make conversation, with the end of the world going on outside! With Vesta and Tilda she could have been silent, but Judge Tudor had to be kept in play.

“I suppose no one was really surprised when the news came.”

“The Government perhaps.” He spoke resentfully. “You'd have thought evacuation was entirely unforeseen. No preparations had been made, no plans drawn. I believe a few boxes of records had been sent away, but that was all. Everything had to be improvised helter-skelter, confusion thrice confounded. And of course after dark there was not even a pretense of keeping order. The mob took charge. The prisoners from the penitentiary got loose to lead them, and they broke into the stores, took everything they could carry away.”

Tilda came into the conversation, reciting her experiences; she and the old man talked on and on. Vesta stayed near the front windows, watching always for Rollin to appear. Cinda sat limply, her head resting against the back of her tall chair, her eyes turning sometimes to Vesta, or to Tilda and Judge Tudor, but always swinging back to the windows against which the red smoky glare seemed to press close. At first dawn they heard another explosion at some distance, off toward the upper ravine of Shockoe Creek. That was probably the arsenal, the Judge suggested.

Day paled the fire's brightness, but a vast column of black smoke rising into the sky and mushrooming there spread a continuing canopy
of darkness, spilling a rain of soot and sparks and burning embers, drifting on the light dawn wind. When the sun rose, Cinda saw it as a red disk through the curtain of smoke and flame that boiled upward from the conflagration only a few blocks away. Big Mill was still on the roof and she could sometimes hear him moving there; but if this southerly wind held, or freshened at all, the fire would inevitably come at full race toward them. They must be ready to escape if it were necessary, and standing at the window she began to think of waking the children, of giving them their breakfast, of preparing to hurry them away. Franklin Street was sprinkled with people, little knots of Negroes and of ragged whites scudding to and fro. People came up Fifth Street laden with loot. Now and then a horseman passed, or a wagon or a carriage, the vehicles always loaded. A rider came at a gallop up the steep ascent of Franklin Street, and as he passed her window Cinda recognized him.

“Here's Rollin, Vesta!” she called. Vesta raced to the door and they pressed after her. Rollin swung off his sweating horse to catch Vesta in the tight circle of his arm; and Cinda went out to where they stood in close embracing.

“Come in,” she urged. “Long enough for coffee and a piece.”

Rollin shook his head, never releasing his clasp on Vesta. “Can't,” he said, panting with haste and with the heat of the fire so near. “I just came to see if you're all right. Yankees right behind us. We're about the last ones through town.” He kissed Vesta, lifting her clear off the ground in that swift hard clipping. Then he leaped into the saddle; but Vesta still clung to his leg.

“Where will you go, Rollin?”

He laughed, with an upflung hand. “To the mountains!” It was like a battle cry. “You'll know where we are by hearing of the things we do!” He blew her a last kiss and spurred his horse away.

Instinctively Vesta followed him, running a few paces to the corner, pausing there; and Cinda came to her side. The smoke-shadowed dawn made all this familiar scene seem strange, unreal; yet it was the same. Down Franklin Street, with its graceful sycamores and elms, there was a confusion of shuttling figures and a din of hoarse shouts; and down Fifth Street, spurts of flame flashed through the smoke-fog toward the river. But here close by there was no smoke, and the trees
were as graceful, the houses as substantial and secure, as in the past. Mr. Bransford's house diagonally opposite, where Dr. Hoge had lived till he moved down beyond the church; Mr. Ender's home, and Mr. Palmer's with its curious bay windows; down across Main Street Mr. Hobson's mansion almost concealed by trees, with its twin chimneys rising from the middle of the almost flat roof in dim silhouette against the smoke: all these Cinda had seen a thousand times, yet she saw them now as something never seen before.

Perhaps, if the fire swept this way, never to be seen again ...

 

Rollin was gone; and suddenly a great throng of Negroes, drunk with liquor or with the first savor of freedom, came surging up Fifth Street from Main. Cinda drew Vesta indoors. “There, Honey. Now we'll think about breakfast.” She closed the door, shut out the tumult in the street. “Then we'll see what comes next.”

“Why, the Yankees come next.” Vesta spoke serenely. “Rollin said they were right behind him. After breakfast I shall go to the commanding officer and ask for a guard for the house.”

Cinda wondered at resilient youth. All their world, it seemed to her, was gone; but already Vesta began to think of salvaging what remained, already she began to build anew. Yet to be sure, this was as it should be, as it must be. Youth must build the future, build a new world upon the ruins of the old. She and her generation had destroyed that fine world that now was gone. By what faults and errors? By what deeds done or neglected? No one could surely answer. Most men did, in a given hour, that which seemed to them their honorable best to do. Yet, if the result of their deeds were now to be taken as the test, how unutterably wrong they had been! Youth might be wiser. Age was apt to chide youth for its follies, but surely there could be no more fatal folly than this of which mature men—yes, and women—had in these years been guilty. It was time for age to give youth full rein; time to give into youth's clean and valorous and eager hands the building of the years that were to come.

They breakfasted all together except Anne. June took a waiter up to her. The smoke made day so dark that they lighted candles. More explosions, some distant and some close at hand, woke cries and shouts in the street outside. Judge Tudor went out, but presently returned
to say there were Yankee soldiers in Capitol Square, Negro cavalry.

“I went to ask for a guard for the house,” he told them. “But they say one of you will have to go. The Provost Marshal is Colonel Manning, and his office is at City Hall; but he will not receive any petitions for guards except from ladies.” Vesta was already on her feet as he added: “I think they mean to be courteous and helpful. They've put their own soldiers to try to stop the fire; and there are orders against disorder or pillage or insult. The sentries would not admit me, but there are already many ladies there.”

Cinda went with Vesta on that errand, unwilling to stay longer hidden away indoors like a blindfolded criminal awaiting the deadly volley. They started down Franklin Street, where in the yards the flowers bloomed as brightly as ever, and they saw a guard of soldiers in blue in the yard of General Lee's house; but beyond, toward the Square, the street was littered with smouldering, half-burned papers; and other blue-clad men rummaged curiously in the rubbish, picking up fragments still legible, reading them aloud with shouts of laughter.

So these were the Yankee conquerors! Cinda shut her eyes tight, pressing back the tears. Looking down Seventh Street, she saw that toward the river the flames were not yet checked, and even at this distance heat touched her cheeks. The fire had reached up the hill to cross Franklin Street between General Lee's home and the Square, and the United Presbyterian Church seemed to have been burned. They turned up Seventh Street, Cinda blindly following Vesta's guidance, and came along Grace and up Ninth and along the head of the Square.

A throng filled the street and clustered in the shade of the tall trees that marked the front of the City Hall. Cinda had always thought this graceful building with its tall Doric columns and its wide steps the most beautiful in Richmond; but today there were blue uniforms on the steps and on the portico, the mounts of Yankee officers fast to the hitch rail under the trees. Yet though her eyes were blurred, she saw familiar faces in the throng, ladies here on errands like their own. Vesta spoke to a sentry; and Cinda saw with some faint stir of hope that the answers, though brief, were readily and courteously given.

Following the man's instructions, they made themselves part of a stream of petitioners, moving up the broad steps of the south portico and along a wide corridor with offices on either hand till they came into the circular central hall. Sometimes Cinda's eyes met those of ladies who were her friends; but their eyes like hers were blank with grief, and they exchanged not even a nod. When they faced a dozen uniformed Yankees seated at a long table, her ears were ringing so that she heard nothing that passed; and she stood in a trembling paralysis till Vesta touched her arm.

“It's all right, Mama. The Lieutenant is going home with us, to place our guard.”

Cinda had to make an effort before she could clearly see the young man here at Vesta's side. She tried to speak to him but could not; yet she heard Vesta's voice, and his. They went along Broad Street, and he said something about avoiding danger from shells still bursting in the Armory. Negro soldiers in blue uniforms marched past them, and Cinda shivered; and then they were at their own door, and the young officer disappeared, and she and Vesta came into the hall together, and her senses began to clear.

“The guards will stay in the basement,” Vesta explained. “The Lieutenant says we won't be disturbed. He says there'll be only white troops in the city tonight.”

“Are we prisoners?”

“We can go anywhere we choose until nine o'clock, but after that we must be indoors.”

 

To lose even this much liberty made Cinda treasure what was left; and after dinner she and Tilda walked along Grace Street toward Capitol Square till they could see the Stars and Stripes flying on the staff. The lower end of the Square was surrounded by burned and still smouldering buildings; and the Square itself was full of homeless people and heaps of salvaged furniture. They turned toward Broad Street and saw a troop of Negro cavalry. The men were singing as they rode, the rich voices blending in a jubilant harmony:

John Brown? Cinda remembered that day at Great Oak so long
ago, when they heard the first news of the mad murderer's butcheries at Harper's Ferry. After that day, when loose-lipped orators in many a Northern pulpit canonized the maniac, men like Brett and Trav and Faunt first began to comprehend the storm of passion which the abolitionists had raised against the South. John Brown, the lunatic who dragged helpless men out of their beds and without even an accusation hacked them to death with sabres; John Brown more than any one man had let loose the forces which since then had slain how many thousands! General Lee and young Jeb Stuart captured John Brown, and judge and jury hanged him till he was dead, dead, dead; yet these Negroes sang the truth! His body for long years now had lain mouldering in the grave, but his blood-stained soul went marching on.

How long? How much longer? Clayton was dead, and Tommy, and Faunt; and Julian was maimed, and Burr's hands were things like claws. Brett was still whole and sound, yet how long would he go untouched? How long would he escape the blood bath with which John Brown's soul had sprinkled all her world?

The Negro soldiers sang, and the Negro mobs in the streets were singing. Well, let them sing, since they were free. She would never begrudge them their songs. It was not to keep them bound that Brett had fought. How few in the South had fought to keep their slaves! General Lee had freed his before the war. General Jackson had never owned but one, and he bought that one at the boy's own pleading. General Longstreet had inherited half a dozen, but he gave them away. For that matter, not one in ten of the men who fought these four years for the Southern land they loved had ever owned a slave or hoped to own one.

Why then had they fought so long and hard and wearily? She shook her head. What did it matter now?

In her abstraction, she and Tilda had become separated, and she came to her own door alone; but she heard behind her the cheering and the shouts, and the hard hoof beats of the horses and the singing of the Negro soldiers as they rode on toward Camp Lee.

The children were wide-eyed when they greeted her, and she mustered smiles to answer their many questions, and asked where Jenny was. Their mother was on the roof, they said, helping Big Mill put out the sparks that still landed there. Jenny presently came down,
sooty but cheerful, to say the wind had changed and now swept the smoke the other way. “And the fire's burning out, I'm sure,” she said.

They had early supper, and Vesta went out with Judge Tudor for the brief time permitted before nine o'clock; but sleeplessness and fatigue drove Cinda to her bed. Yet she did not sleep. From the direction of the Capitol she heard a band playing, heard the strains of
Annie Laurie
and then of the
Star Spangled Banner.
Vesta came to kiss her goodnight. “And everything is quieting down, Mama,” she said reassuringly. “The Yankees stopped the fire from spreading. All the banks and newspaper offices and stores and hotels in that part of town are gone; but we'll soon build it up again.” The young were so confident and sure.

 

Cinda fell asleep to the light touch of Vesta's caressing hand upon her hair. She woke early and surprisingly refreshed, and was dressed before June brought her breakfast. Judge Tudor wished to go to his own home to see that all was in order there, and Anne asked that some of her things be brought; so Julian and Judge Tudor and Cinda went to do that errand together. Before they started, they heard cannon firing at regular intervals somewhere toward Rockett's, and they hesitated, wondering what that meant; but when the guns fell silent they set out.