House Divided Read online

  “He might wake, come after you.”

  “Let him. I ain’t afeard of him—only for you!” Not till then did she have his kiss, so long desired. She murmured through many kisses: “Oh, Tony, Tony, seemed like you’d never come!” Her low voice sang.

  “They’ll hear us talking,” he warned her. Around them light began to come, for the moon was almost risen above the lofty mountain wall.

  “It’s too fur. Besides, Pa don’t hear nothing, ’less some critter comes around. He’ll sleep till first bird song.”

  They kissed and kissed till first hunger eased; they sat, he with his shoulders against the smooth bole of the sycamore, she drawing his arm around her, pressing his hand in both hers. “Tony, how’d you ever find us, ’way off here so fur?”

  “I asked along the way. Mr. Cavett brought your letter, and he told me where you’d be. I left my horse down the creek, hidden in the woods. I watched all day yesterday for a chance to speak to you; then all today, too, till you came into the corn. I didn’t want to go to the house.”

  “Pa talks big, but I ain’t afeard of him, much.”

  He spoke in amused reminder: “‘Afraid,’ Lucy; not ‘afeard.’”

  She lifted her lips to kiss his cheek. “I’m learning fast’s I can, Tony. Mis’ Dodsworth teaches me. It was her wrote the letter I sent by Mr. Cavett. She’s going to teach me to read and write and all, so you won’t be ashamed of me.” Then, on sudden inspiration: “Tony, she lives up the crick three miles and she knows about you! You can go there and stay long as you like. She’ll bed you and hide you and not tell Pa you’re there. That’s what you can do, Tony!”

  “I can’t stay long—two days, maybe three.”

  “Did you come to fetch me?”

  “I will, Lucy, as soon as I can make my father understand. He’s away now, so I could come without his knowing.”

  “Couldn’t you come before? It was hard doing, waiting and waiting.”

  “He wouldn’t let me. I told him about you, Lucy, but he said I was a young fool, and he wouldn’t even talk about it. He said I’d thank him some day.”

  “Pa was the same,” she confessed. “He heard about us some way, and he put it to me, and I told him it was so.”

  “Told him?”

  She felt his dismay. “Why, I wouldn’t lie about us, Tony! I’m not ashamed of loving you!”

  “I know. Neither am I. But—he wouldn’t understand.”

  “He don’t have to, long as you and me feel the way we do.” Lips seeking his.

  “Was he—angry?”

  She laughed a little. “He near skinned me alive. He wore out a willow switch on me, but he couldn’t make me cry! I knowed you’d come back to me!”

  “I couldn’t come till now, Lucy. Father took me to Yorktown. He wanted to see General Lafayette. You know, my grandfather was French, but my grandmother—she was Irish—wouldn’t marry him till he changed his name to Currain. She said that sounded Irish enough to suit her.”

  Lucy laughed fondly. “I bet she was pretty!”

  “Yes, she was. I never saw her, but Father has her portrait.” And he went on: “So Father took me to Yorktown with him, and we saw the English army march out and surrender, and then Father bought a place down there, near Williamsburg. The biggest house around.” There was a querulous contempt in his tones. “He thinks the little house in Richmond County isn’t good enough for him any more. He’d buy Stratford, or Nomini Hall, if he could. He gave the old place to my sister and her husband, so we live at Williamsburg now.”

  She kissed him sweetly. “What do we care? But oh, Tony, couldn’t you come from there before this?”

  He shook his head. “Father kept me by him, Lucy. He went to France for General Washington, to work with Mr. Jay, and took me for his secretary. We were there all last summer. He’s gone to France again now with Mr. Oswald; but I broke my leg when my horse refused a fence, so I didn’t have to go.”

  “Oh, poor leg! Is it all well again?”

  “Yes. So as soon as I could ride I came to find you.”

  “Here I am, Tony!” About them lay the brightness of the moon, and along the creek warm night air softly flowed. Their voices murmured almost wordlessly a while, till Lucy in his arms asked: “Tony, what’s your father really got against me?”

  “Oh, all he thinks about now is founding a great family; so I have to marry somebody important!”

  “Didn’t you tell him you just wanted to marry me?”

  “Yes, but he says I’m a child. Says we both are.”

  “I’m not, not any longer! Maybe I was, three years ago, but I’m a grown woman now. Tony, I learn real fast. Mis’ Dodsworth says. He won’t have to be ashamed of me.”

  “Your father’s as bad as mine, Lucy.”

  “Pa says your folks think I ain’t good enough for you. He says you’re just—fooling with me, says you won’t ever marry me. That’s why he sold out and moved away up here, to get me away from you.”

  “We have to talk them around.”

  “We don’t need either one of them, Tonyl We don’t need anyone only each other. We can get married and go off to Kentucky or somewhere.”

  “I wouldn’t be any good in new country.”

  She spoke teasingly. “Oh Tony, you’re always so afeard—afraid—of things. When I want anything the way I want to be married to you, I’m not afraid of anything.” Her word was a whisper, her breath fragrant against his cheek. When he spoke, his voice was shaken by his heart’s hard pound.

  “Your hair smells like cut hay in the sun, like new-plowed ground in the spring of the year.”

  “I love the smell of you, too, Tony Currain!”

  “Your eyes are so dark in the moonlight, as if they were black.”

  “They are, kind of.”

  “Deep, so I can’t see the bottom of them.”

  “Awful deep, Tony. And full right to the top of loving you.”

  “You smell like wine just before the first sip of it. I can feel your kisses run all through me.”

  “Your hand on my cheek’s so soft and smooth. It’s smoother than mine, Tony. Mine are pretty rough and hard.”

  “I hate having you work so.”

  “I’ll work both hands to the bone, taking care of you.”

  He was silent; and she felt the doubt, like reluctance, in his silence. “I can’t just—I have to talk Father into it, Lucy.”

  “Your father’s a long ways off! You can stand on your own hind legs! You have to, some day!”

  “Suppose I did. What would we do?”

  “We’d just go away and away and away.”

  “I haven’t anything, nothing but a few things in my saddlebags.”

  “We don’t need anything to start.”

  “My horse won’t even carry double.”

  “You ride and I’ll walk! Oh, Tony, if I was with you, I could walk a horse to death!”

  “Lucy Hanks, little girl, big heart!” Fondness for a moment filled him, fears forgotten.

  “Can’t we, Tony?”

  “Oh, Lucy, I’m used to easy living, servants, everything. I’d be no good to you in Kentucky.”

  “I’ll make easy living for you. I’ll be better than any twenty people taking care of you. Wouldn’t it be worth it, Tony?”

  “It would be if I were worth it.”

  “You are, you are, to me you are.” Words like a song. “And I’m the one to judge, it looks to me. Maybe not, though. You’d have to do without a lot, give up a lot; but I wouldn’t be giving up anything. I’d be getting everything. But I’d give you everything I’ve got, Tony Currain, all my life. And I’d keep learning how to give you more, how to be a fine wife for you.”

  “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, To
ny. 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 re
membered 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?”

  He colored, slowly angry. “Damn it, Lucy, you just carry on the way you do to spite your Pa!”