by Frank Yerby
“Ye’re in his bad graces, of course?”
“Not so much as before. Since I became serious enough to seek me a wife, his disapproval has lessened considerably.”
“Good. And the purpose of your visit?”
“I’m going back to work, Stephen. I’m going to become a planter. After all, La Place des Rivières will be mine one day . . .”
“Ye Gods!” Stephen roared. “This is serious. Ye mean to tell me that in one night ye become so smitten with Amelia Rogers that ye’re going to work?”
“I’m going to marry her, Stephen.”
Stephen put out his hand.
“Good,” he said, “I’ll give ye back that wager that ye’ve lost to me as a wedding present and add something useful to boot. But what about Aurore, Andre?”
Andre’s brows knit together and his eyes were troubled. “I loved her,” he said slowly. “Perhaps I love her still. I don’t know, Stephen. All I know is that if she returned my affections—even a little—I should be greatly troubled. But she doesn’t—so I guess my way is clear.”
“Aurore is a queer one,” Stephen said. “She has always treated me with the greatest of kindness.”
“You know, Stephen,” Andre snapped, “sometimes you’re positively an imbecile!”
“I don’t doubt it,” Stephen grinned. “But about what am I being imbecilic now?”
“Oh, nothing,” Andre growled.
“This big shindig of yours,” Mike asked. “ ‘Twere a big success, lad?”
“Yes,” Stephen said. “ ‘Twas quite a success, Mike.”
“With whiskey like that, how could ye help it? Yez told me ye’d do it, and from the furst I believed yez. A planter, and the biggest in the state, I hear.”
“Well—not quite—old Arceneaux has more land and the Cloutiers have as much. But I will be, Mike, and soon.”
“Arceneaux,” Mike rumbled. “Tis to his filly yez be plannin’ to git spliced, I’m told.”
“Ye’re told! By our Lady, Mike, ye’ve got an uncommonly large store of information about my affairs!”
“I take an interest,” Mike grinned. “Yez are like a son to me, lad. I must see this gel someday soon, so as to make me mind up whether or no I’ll give me consent. I want yez happy, Stevie.”
“Then put your foot down, Mike,” Andre said suddenly, and his tone was only half jesting. “Don’t let him do it!”
Stephen looked at him keenly.
“Why don’t you like Odalie, Andre?” he asked.
“I do like her, Stephen. No one could dislike so gorgeous a creature. ‘Tis only that sometimes I think she has no heart.”
“She has,” Stephen said. “But ‘tis frozen. I’ll thaw it out for her, never ye fear.”
“I hope so. But how did you learn so much about him, Mike?”
“His Nigras,” Mike chuckled. “They’ve all got tongues like bell clappers when yez kin unnerstan’ their talk. Most of ‘em don’t talk English so good.”
The three of them rode down the river road toward New Orleans and as they passed an occasional coach or landau or cabriolet, the occupants saluted them familiarly.
“You’ve arrived, Stephen,” Andre declared. “You’re now the best known planter in bayou country. How does it feel?”
“I don’t know,” Stephen said slowly. “I think it could become a burden—a very great burden.”
“You’re right. Your life is now no longer your own. What you do will be watched and commented upon and imitated. I’ll wager that within five years there will be a dozen copies of Harrow standing along the river. We Louisianians are used to luxury, but not to magnificence. Today they’ll make the rounds in New Orleans. They’ll go from house to house to talk about the ball. They’ll indulge in no end of bon mots at your expense, but the mother of every marriageable daughter for miles around is probably already planning a soirée to which you can be invited—even those who were not asked to Harrow.”
“They’ll waste their time,” Stephen declared.
“I don’t doubt it. Odalie will marry you now. Not even she can withstand the temptation of becoming the greatest lady in the state. Besides, you’re a handsome scoundrel. I only hope she makes you happy.”
“She will,” Stephen declared. “Don’t trouble yourself, Andre.” After miles of riding they came to the streets of the Faubourg St. Marie, the American section of New Orleans. They wound through them slowly on their tired horses until they came to a slave mart. The block was empty and deserted and the house behind it was closed.
“ ‘Tis late we are,” Mike grumbled.
But Stephen had dismounted and was knocking smartly on the closed door with his crop.
After a moment, a lean, tanned Kentuckian pushed it open.
“Good day, gentlemen,” he said. “What kin I do for you?”
“Ye have a black,” Stephen said, “bought yesterday from this man. Have ye sold him yet?”
“No,” the Kentuckian said gravely. “And I doubt that I can ever sell him. You’ve got a persuasive tongue in yer head, suh, to sell me such a Bumbo. Why didn’t you tell me he was crazy?”
“Yez didn’t ask me,” Mike grinned. “Anyways we’ve come to buy him back.”
“There’s a little matter of the expense of feeding and lodging him,” the slave trader began. “I’ll have to ask you . . .”
“Don’t worry,” Stephen said. “I’ll give ye fifty dollars above what ye paid for him. Come, let us see him.”
“Very well, suh,” the Kentuckian said, and went back into the house that served him as home and place of business and sometimes even as a slave pen. After a moment he was back, leading not one Negro but two. The first was a small, illformed, and very much undernourished black. He was trembling from head to foot, and great tears streaked his thin cheeks.
“Don’t let him ketch me,” he wept. “Don’t let him ketch pore Josh.”
“Don’t worry,” Stephen told him kindly. “Ye’re in good hands now.”
“Dey’ll send me back,” Josh wept. “Dey’ll send me back to Mas Tom. And he’ll kill me jes like he done pore Rad. Don’t let them do it, Mas Mike, please don’t let them!”
“He’s sick, poor devil,” Stephen said. “All right, we’ll take him. Here’s your money.” He counted out the crisp banknotes to the slave trader.
“Beggin’ yore pahdon, suh,” the Kentuckian said. “But since you seem to be in the market for unlikely Bumbos, I thought maybe . . .”
Stephen looked at the second slave closely.
“Hmmmm,” he said, “a girl. What think ye, Andre?”
Andre looked at the slave girl closely.
“Ma foi, but she’s beautiful!” he said.
Stephen looked at the girl again. She was tall, with a small rounded head on a long graceful neck. The hair was closely cropped, so that it fitted her head like a wooly skullcap. But her body was all grace, slim as a young willow, with small conical, up and outthrusting breasts.
Her skin was black velvet. Stephen glanced over the long ebony thighs, but half-concealed by the shiftlike garment she wore, to the slender curving hips and the waist as small as a child’s. Then he looked into the face with the small nose, thin almost as a Caucasian’s, and the slanted, half-closed sloe eyes, smoldering yellow-brown under the heavy lids.
“Ye’re right,” he said at last to Andre. “She is beautiful. I did not think it possible of a black, but this girl is as lovely a woman as ever I have seen. All right,” he said to the slave trader, “I’ll buy her. How much do ye want?”
“Wait a bit, suh,” the Kentuckian said. “I’ve sold Nigras heah in Nawleans fur nigh onto fifteen yeahs. I got a reputation fur square dealing. I don’t want you to buy a pig in a poke. This heah gal is bad.”
“Bad how?” Stephen demanded
“She’s a livin’ fiend. She try to kill anybody what come near her. She jus’ ain’t tamed yet. I got her off a Portugee straight out of Africa.”
“Give her to me, Stevie b
oy,” Mike said with a grin, “and I’ll have her tamed by morning.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Stephen said. “But I want no little yellow negrillons on the place. Beside, I was buying her for a wife for Achille. She has no physical defects?”
In answer, the tall Kentuckian seized her jaw and tried to force open her mouth. She reared back, her mouth clamped shut, little animal noises coming from the depths of her throat. Angered, the Kentuckian slapped her lightly across the face. Instantly her lips bared her gleaming teeth, filed to little dagger points, and her long neck was like a serpent, striking. There was a little flurry of motion; then the slave trader let out a yell. The girl’s head was bent over his hand, and the pointed teeth had gone through it to the bone.
The three men sprang forward. It took all three of them, including Mike’s gigantic strength, to force open her mouth and release the trader’s hand.
“You bitch!” he cried. Then he lashed out with his foot, the kick catching her high on the thigh and sending her to the ground. She was up at once, nails and teeth bared, her eyes gleaming yellow like a leopard’s. But with a speed amazing in one of his bulk, Mike was upon her, pinioning her arms.
The slave dealer stood before them, trembling with fury, holding his hand from which the thick blood was seeping up through a small semicircle of deep, rounded punctures.
“I’ll kill her!” he said. “I’ll kill the black bitch!”
“No,” Stephen said clearly. “I’ll give ye three hundred for her as she stands. My man will call for them in the morning with a wagon. I want no whip marks on her, sir!”
“All right,” the Kentuckian growled. “At least you know what you’re gitting. Kin I have the big fellow help me git her back in?”
Stephen nodded to Mike and he pushed the girl through the door, kicking and squirming all the while.
“You’re mad,” Andre declared.
“I think not,” Stephen declared. “She can be tamed, but that’s not the way. Come, let’s go down to Maspero’s for dinner, then we can discuss our plans for the evening.”
Sitting at one of the little tables at Maspero’s, eating the steaming bouillabaisse the three of them talked little. Andre’s mind was busy and troubled. Would his father take kindly to his marriage to an American girl? Perhaps when he saw Amelia—but the old man was so confounded stubborn. And Colonel Rogers—some Americans were frankly prejudiced against the French. Still with Stephen’s help. . . .
“You’re calling upon Odalie tonight, Stephen?” he asked.
“No.”
“But I thought . . .”
“Think again, Andre. Shall I go running to her the minute she acquiesces just a little, as if I were overwhelmed by the honor? Ye know me better than that. Let her wait a bit—and wonder.”
“You’re right, of course. Never give the whip hand to a woman, particularly such a woman as Odalie. But tell me, Stephen, how did you come to meet Colonel Rogers?”
Stephen laughed.
“On the steamboats,” he chuckled. “I used to play poker with him. Let me tell you, Andre: never gamble with him. He is the best poker player in the entire Mississippi Valley. He used to beat me regularly—which is probably the reason he is so fond of me.”
“Then he is fond of you?”
“Who ain’t?” Mike growled. “Everybody likes Stevie.”
“I’m flattered,” Stephen mocked. “Yes, Andre, the colonel is quite fond of me. Told me once that he’d marry Amelia off to me if I ever made a gentleman out of myself.”
“Was that one of your incentives?”
“No. Amelia was never overly impressed with me. But where does all this lead?”
“To your coming with me to call upon the colonel this afternoon.”
“Gladly. When do ye wish to go?”
“Now—as soon as you’ve finished, I mean.”
“How hot ye’ve blown all of a sudden! Don’t ye want to think this over, Andre?”
“Ten years of thinking would do no good. I’ve got to have her, Stephen. You should understand that.”
“I do,” Stephen said gravely, rising from his seat. “Let us be off, then.”
They left the Vieux Carre and rode northward to the Faubourg Saint Marie. On Phillips Street, Stephen reined Prince Michael in before an American Gothic house with huge verandas and oddly assorted spires and gables projecting from the roof.
The three of them dismounted. Stephen strode upon the veranda and knocked boldly. The others followed him at some little distance. Then the door flew open.
“Stephen!” the great voice roared. “Come in! Come in, my boy! Who is this blasted Frenchman you introduced my daughter to? She can talk of nothing else—and you know I cannot abide foreigners!”
Stephen laughed.
“Permit me to present him,” he said. “This is Andre Le Blanc, a very blasted Frenchman at the moment.”
“Good day, sir,” Andre murmured politely.
“Hmmm,” the colonel said, “not a bad-looking lad in an oily sort of way. Where were you born, Mister Le Blanc?”
“In the United States of America, sir,” Andre said stoutly. “In the territory of Louisiana.”
“But you’re French?”
“You honor me, sir. Yes, I belong to the race whose courtesy is celebrated throughout the world.”
“I stand rebuked,” the colonel said smiling. “I didn’t mean to be discourteous, but I guess I was. And who is this?”
“Mike Farrel,” Stephen said. “My biggest and best friend.”
“Then, gentlemen,” the colonel said. “What shall it be? Rye, scotch, bourbon, port, sherry?”
“Bourbon,” Stephen said. “And we’ll drink to fair Kentucky.”
“Good,” the colonel boomed. “Josias!”
Sipping the drink, the colonel looked at Andre from under his thick, bushy eyebrows.
“You’re a man of substance, aren’t you, Mister Le Blanc?” he asked abruptly.
“My father’s plantation is one of the largest in the state,” Andre said stiffly.
“And I am right in assuming that the purpose of this visit is to gain my permission to pay court to my daughter?”
“Yes,” Andre said, “it is.”
“You’re a friend of Stephen’s,” the old man said, half to himself. “That means a lot to me. You know, Stephen was the first honest gambler I ever met on the river. I thought it was a fluke when I beat him, because river sharks always deal from the bottom and ring in cold decks and palm a brace of spare aces. But not Stephen—he played me square and lost. He never could beat me, but he could beat damn near everybody else.”
He turned abruptly to Stephen.
“Well, lad,” he growled. “What do you say? Shall we let him call upon ‘Melia? I rather fancied you as a son-in-law.”
“Suppose we let Amelia decide,” Stephen said smoothly. “After all ‘tis she who will have to be troubled with a husband.”
“Right,” the colonel said, then: “Oh ‘Melia!”
Then Amelia was coming down the stairs and Andre was standing up, frozen, all of life caught up in his eyes.
“Andre!” she whispered, and Stephen thought he had never heard so much gladness in one voice. “Father—Andre—I—I see you’ve met,” she finished lamely.
“It seems to be out of our hands,” Stephen whispered loudly to the colonel. “What say ye to a hand of Twenty-one? In the drawing room, of course, so we won’t be drowned in sighs.”
“All right,” the colonel growled. “Melia . . .”
“Yes, father?”
“Shall I let this young man call upon you? Think carefully now!”
“Father—please let him!”
“All right. Mister Le Blanc, tell your father that I’ll call upon him next Friday afternoon. Come, Stephen, and you Mister Farrel. You said poker, didn’t you, lad?”
“I did not!” Stephen laughed. “Never in my right mind would I play poker with ye.” He bowed mockingly toward Andre and Amelia
. “Bless ye, my children,” he murmured, then followed the colonel and Mike through the doorway.
“Ye know, Mike,” Stephen said, as the three of them were riding back toward Harrow, “I think I’d better keep your Josh. He seems badly in need of care. I’ll give ye another black in his stead and turn him over to Caleen for treatment.”
“Awright,” Mike grinned, winking his one eye at Andre. “Yez will give me my pick?”
“Of course.”
“Then I’ll take that gel!”
“No,” Stephen laughed, “at that I draw the line. She would be only a burden to ye in your wanderings. I’ll give ye a manservant, and ye may have your choice, saving only Achille and Georges.”
“Keep yer Nigras,” Mike said. “They’re more trouble than they’re worth. Just save a bed and a place at yer board for old Mike like we agreed.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Stephen said.
Andre half rose in his saddle and pulled his horse up short.
“I turn here,” he said.
“And where are ye going?” Stephen demanded.
“Out to our place,” Andre said, “for the second of my three ordeals.”
“Three? Two, I understand. Colonel Rogers—that’s done with. And now, your father. But the third?”
“On Sunday I call upon Aurore,” Andre smiled wanly. “I swore eternal celibacy because she would not marry me. Now I must recant.”
Stephen laughed aloud.
“ ‘Tis hasty ye were, I’m thinking,” he chuckled. “But wait for me on Sunday, and I’ll go with ye. The interval will be long enough by then.”
“Agreed,” Andre said. “Au ‘voir, gentlemen.”
“A foine lad,” Mike declared as they rode away. “I even fergit he’s a Frenchy.”
Back at Harrow, Stephen found the great house in perfect order. And already there were a half dozen visiting cards upon the table in the hall. There was a note asking him to dine at Rosemont with the Cloutiers; his presence was requested at three soirees.
Some of these he must accept, Stephen decided regretfully. It would not do to drop completely out of the fashionable world until after he had brought Odalie back to Harrow. Even then, perhaps, he would have to entertain and be entertained occasionally. Odalie was hardly one to hide her light under a bushel.