House Divided (3 page)

“Lucy, oughtn't you to go back, in case he wakes?”

“You're always fretting so.”

“I'll meet you here tomorrow night, every night, as long as I can stay.”

“I don't want to let you go. There might not be any tomorrow night, ever, Tony. I don't want to ever let you go.”

“I'm trying to do right for both of us.”

“Don't ever go, Tony Currain! Oh, don't ever go!”

He pondered, almost persuaded. “I could go back and bring a led horse for you, and a gun, and some money; things we'd need. Oh, Lucy Hanks, I'm as crazy-headed as you are to talk so, to think so.”

“Say my name some more.”

“Lucy Hanks.”

“Say Lucy Currain! Lucy Currain's nicer, Tony! Mistress Tony Currain.”

His breath caught. “When you keep saying my name, it's like music singing inside of me.”

“Tony Currain, Tony Currain, Tony Currain, Tony Currain. I'll sing it to you always.”

“I'll start home tomorrow, Lucy, to fetch another horse and things.”

“Not tomorrow. Don't go away tomorrow. Stay one more night.”

“The sooner I start, the sooner I'll come back.”

There was that singing in her voice again. “To carry me away, to marry me away. Tony Currain, Tony Currain, Tony Currain!”

“To marry you away.” A singing in him, too. “We're crazy, Lucy!”

“Happy crazy, Tony Currain. So we'll always be.”

In the wood a bird murmured in its sleep and tried a note or two of song; another answered. Lucy quickened her homeward hasting, swift on silent feet. The night was almost sped; bright moonlight paled with a hint of coming day. So late, so late! The long, rich hours had gone like seconds! Hurry, Lucy; hurry! First bird song was Pa's waking time.

The cabin door was always shut fast against night dews and vapors; when she came there it was closed, but she must open it and go in, for soon Pa would be about. She pushed the door no wider than she must in order to slip through, but Pa growled a challenge.

“Who's that?”

“Me, Pa.”

“Where you been?”

“Outside a minute.”

He grunted sleepily; then as his thoughts cleared he came to his feet, thrust wide the door, drew her out into the paling moonlight, stared at her in hard suspicion. “Huh! Your hair all braided smooth! And your store dress on! Where you been?” His voice roused Ma in the cabin.

“Outside, I said. What's wrong with that?”

“Damn your lying trollop's tongue! What hedge-hopper have you took up with now?”

“Take your hands off me!”

“I'll lay my hand on you so you'll know it!”

Ma came strongly to Lucy's rescue. “Now, Pa, leave the girl be! Can't she go out of your sight for once?”

“You hush up, Nannie Hanks! I'll handle this slut!”

“Leave her be, I say!”

The woman ruled him. His hand released its grip, but his eyes cast all around. Light was coming fast. Past him, following his glance, Lucy saw her footprints dark upon the dew-hung grass. Suppose he traced them, caught up with Tony before her lover could be gone. She spoke to hold him here.

“I just went to the crick to wash myself.”

“Wash yourself? Middle of the night?”

“I was hot enough to smother. I couldn't sleep.”

“Foolishness! Yo're always washing yourself.”

Ma cried: “What if she does! It don't do anybody any hurt to keep as clean as they can.”

“What you doing in your store dress?”

“I washed out my other one, left it spread on the bushes to dry.” This was true, in case he went to look.

He grunted, grudgingly convinced. “This one'd be dirty again time you got the corn pulled. Go along and fetch the other. Nannie, git breakfast startled. Long day ahead; but not long enough for all we've got to do.”

Lucy breathed deep with relief. Pa was deceived; so Tony was away, safe away. Tony Currain, Tony Currain, Tony Currain! How
many days to Williamsburg? How many days to return again, to carry her away, to marry her away!

No matter how many! While she waited, her heart would sing its song.

Ma was first to guess the truth; Ma, and then Bess and the other girls, and then one by one the boys. All of them knew before Pa did; but he had to know some time. On a winter night he warmed frost-burned hands at the log fire; and Lucy, helping Ma get supper ready, passed between him and the flames and so was silhouetted there. The cabin rocked with his angry shout.

“You, Lucy! What makes your belly so big?” The brief silence was tight with terror. Then he lunged, dragged the girl to him. “By Godamighty, I'll take the hide off'n you!”

Ma fought between them. “Joe Hanks, you leave her be!”

“I'll skin her alive!”

Lucy faced him, as hot with rage as he. “You tetch me and you'll never sleep and wake up again! You ever tetch me again long as you live and I'll take an axe to you!”

“Who done it?” He still gripped her arm, till Ma pushed him clear, and Lucy defied him.

“None of your business.”

“Was it that Currain young one? He come sneaking up here after you?”

“I ain't a-going to tell you a thing.”

“I'll beat it out of you.”

“It'll be the last time you ever hit a lick at me or anyone!”

With Ma on her side, Lucy withstood his first rage; but he began thereafter to be much away from the farm, leaving the work for the boys to do. Through that winter he was gone sometimes for days on end, till spring drew near and it would soon be plowing time and planting time. Ma nagged at him to be at the tasks that needed doing, but one day he cried:

“Hush up! I ain't a-going to plant a crop for someone else to gether!”

Ma stared at him, pale in sudden fear. “Joe Hanks, what's got into you?”

“We're selling out, soon's I can find someone to buy. We're moving on.”

“Oh, Joe!”

“I aim to take that hedge-cat gal of ours fur enough off so her Tom can't find her!”

“We're doing real good here!” But Ma pleaded vainly. When at last she knew herself beaten, she fought for delay. “Well, anyway, I ain't a-going a step till her baby comes; not till she's fit to travel.”

“We're going the day I sell the farm! Make up your mind to it.”

But he could find no buyer, and in March he put parched corn and sowbelly in a poke, thrust knife and hatchet in his sash, took down his gun. Ma challenged him. “Now Pa, where you a-going?”

“Back to Farnham Parish.” There, above the Rappahannock, had been their earlier home. “I'll find someone there that wants a good farm cheap.” He brushed aside her pleadings, strode away.

When he returned, Lucy's baby was three weeks old. She had named it Nancy, for her mother. Pa said grimly: “All right. Now we'll move on.”

“Did you sell the place?”

He shook his head in stubborn shame. “I'll let Peter Putnam have it for the mortgage money.” When Ma wept protests he jerked his head toward Lucy, sheltering the new baby in her arm's protecting circle. “Blame her, not me! We're moving on.”

“Where to, Joe?”

“We'll know when we git thar! Don't ask so many questions. We'll be on our way.”

Before they set out upon the weary journey, Lucy slipped away to Mrs. Dodsworth, had her write a letter to Tony to be sent to him by the first traveller. When they were settled on Rolling Fork in the Kentucky country, Lucy herself, remembering as much as she could of what Mrs. Dodsworth had taught her, wrote Tony where she was; and after that letter was sent, she waited bravely, singing to her baby, for Tony to come and marry her away.

During the three years of that empty waiting, more than one troop
of migrating Virginians passed through Rolling Fork; and Lucy asked many questions of many men before John Maynard, come direct from Williamsburg, had any answer for her. He said Tony was married, to a girl named Sally Williber, with a big wedding and a great throng there.

Tony married? The anguish of that word brought at first its own anodyne. Before pain came, she remembered what Tony had said. So probably Sally Williber was someone important, and Tony's father had had his way.

But oh, Tony, why did you let him? Till this day Lucy had waited loyally, tending their baby, teaching herself to read and to write and to speak as Tony would wish her to, making herself worthy of him against his coming. But now he would never, never come! Through blinding tears she wrote him another letter, as much in anger as in woe, this time to curse his name, to tell him he was forever forgotten: and she found one to take that letter to him in faraway Williamsburg.

Thereafter, for help in the forgetting she had vowed, she turned to any man; and sharp-tongued neighbors spoke of her in reprobating whispers, and Ma wept for her. But Lucy laughed defiance alike at whispers and at tears.

“Pa says I'm a trollop! Well, I ain't a-going to make a liar out of Pa! He'd ought to know!”

Ma wept, and Lucy's sisters tossed angry heads, but Lucy took her chosen road; and the day came when Pa told Ma: “Nannie, there's a stink of sin and shame in this house. Get rid of it or you'll see the last of me!”

So Lucy must go. Her brother Bill and his wife offered a home for her, and for little Nancy too. Lucy warned them. “Don't look for me to change!”

Bill said steadily: “Suit yourself. But long as you want it, there's a place for you.”

The way Lucy had with men was wanton and wild, but Henry Sparrow would not have her so. He was a dull, slow man, but he was a brave one, and he loved and chided her. “You're acting foolish, Lucy. You hadn't ought to do the way you do.”

“How'd you want me to do, Henry?” Her tone held a light derision.

“Why, do decent, same as other folks.”

“But Henry, I'm different from other folks!” There was more malice than pain in her words. “Ask Pa. He'll tell you so himself. He's told me often enough! And Henry—long as there's men that like their wenching, there has to be a wench for them. Don't there?”