by Frank Yerby
“But England depends upon us for nearly all her cotton.”
“She will never fight for us, mark ye. She would rejoice to see us destroy the nation in a frat’ricidal war—then she’d realize her own territorial ambitions in this land.”
“Then what must we do, Stephen?”
“Free the Negroes by gradual emancipation—and retain them upon the land under small wages and our patronage. We could limit their movements and control them as well as now, and remove at the same time the squeamish ethical questions that plague the North.”
“That would be hypocrisy,” Aurore said clearly.
“Admitted. Here in the South we’ve already raised it to a fine art. But ‘tis that or the North will destroy us.”
“Never,” Aurore said spiritedly. “We could whip them without half trying.”
“No, my dearest, we could not. Ye forget how much time I’ve spent in the North. They could put four men in the field for our one and twenty times the artillery and equipment. And they are no less brave than we. Naked courage no longer wins wars.”
He rose from his place.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I must ride out again to finish my tour. But one thing more. ‘Tis the nation I love, not any one part of it. I would not see it rent asunder. ‘Twill stretch, my dearest, from sea to sea, from Canada to Mexico; and already ‘tis the last, best hope of man. Never upon earth has the poor man, the commoner, had such freedom; never has there been so much respect for the essential dignity of mankind. The kings and captains revile it because as long as it exists their empires of exploitation, misery and degradation totter, and men everywhere have hope.”
Aurore lifted her face to be kissed. But at the last she could not refrain from teasing Stephen.
“Even the Negroes?” she asked.
Stephen looked at her, his pale eyes alight under the snowy brows. The strands of white in his red hair caught the light and gleamed like silver.
“Aye,” he said at last. “Even the blacks. We shall find men with minds like Inch’s among them, and in the end they will take their part in the nation.” Then he was gone, striding through the great hall and out upon the gallery.
Stephen’s face was frowning as he mounted his horse. It was one thing to begin a line of thought, but quite another to follow it to its logical conclusion. The Founding Fathers had had no such difficulties: there had been no coldly logical abolitionists to point out to Jefferson, for instance, that when he penned his immortal: “All men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—” he necessarily included the slaves who worked his broad Virginia acres. Of course the Negroes were better off as slaves than they would be if freed, but that again was quite a different thing from saying that they were happier than they would have been if they had been left upon their native shores. God knows, they hadn’t asked to be brought away from Africa. Then was it really necessary to justify this thing from the ethical standpoint? This was economics—not ethics; and his Philadelphia business friends made no apologies for their sharp trading practices. But the South had been forced into the awkward position of apology, explanation, and defense, and the bitterness of the quarrel was growing hourly. How would it all end? Stephen’s head ached at the thought.
Thinking thus, he rounded the curve that brought him in sight of the private burial ground of Harrow. Abruptly his hand tightened upon the reins, for there before him was a short, ugly horse, standing riderless in the road. Stephen reined in closer. There was no mistaking that long head and shaggy coat, nor those short, powerful legs: this was a prairie horse—a mustang, a breed never seen in Louisiana.
Stephen looked on both sides of the road. An instant later, his gaze came to rest upon the rider. He was a tall man with inky black hair, and just now he was standing very quietly before the tomb of Odalie. Stephen swung down from the palomino and approached him. When he was but a yard away the stranger turned. There was the passage of hard, slow years written in that face and the savage erosion of wind and sun, but Stephen recognized it at once.
“Phillippe,” he said, “Phillippe Cloutier! So ye’ve come back again.”
“Yes,” Phillippe said. “I’ve come back. But years too late, I see. If I had come before I might have saved her all the misery you brought her. I might even have saved her life.”
Stephen looked at him, his blue eyes very clear beneath the white brows.
“No rancor, Phillippe,” he said slowly. “The cause of our quarrel rests in peace, and what ye might have done is neither here nor there. Ye had your chance—as good if not a better one than I. She came to me of her own free will. Before she died all our difficulties had been solved or forgiven. I can’t submit to your judgment. ‘Tis none of your affair and never was. Still I want no quarrel with ye.”
“You’ll have none,” Phillippe said. “What’s done is done. Forgive me my harshness. Seventeen years in Texas are no aid to good manners.” Awkwardly he put out his hand. Stephen took it firmly.
“Why did ye come back?” he asked. “I’ve heard ye mentioned to succeed Houston. Ye made quite a place for yourself there.”
“Rosemont. Clothilde died a month ago, and Henriette is married and moved to Baton Rouge. My only choice was to sell it, and I couldn’t bring myself to do that. Besides there is my daughter to think of.”
“Ye have a daughter? That I didn’t know. Ye could not have been too troubled about Odalie to have taken upon yourself a wife.”
“I took no wife,” Philippe said harshly. “Ceclie is a natural child. Her mother was a squatter’s daughter—part Navaho and part Irish—two very savage races,” he added with a wicked grin.
Stephen threw back his head and laughed aloud.
“Then ye have trouble upon your hands,” he said. “I don’t envy ye, Phillippe.”
“She is difficult,” Phillippe admitted. “That was another reason for returning to civilized territory. Though I can’t say that Louisiana is overly civilized—what with your riots and other difficulties.”
“Ye mean that Lopez affair? That was something. It brought us to the brink of war with Spain. But that’s a long story. Still if ye have the time . . .”
“I’ll ride with you,” Phillippe said. “I need to be brought up to date upon the affairs of New Orleans. Texas is like another world.”
He mounted the short prairie horse and the two of them rode away toward the bayou road.
“The point was,” Stephen told him, “that there were many who wanted Cuba free of Spain for commercial reasons and also for possible annexation as new slave territory. But there were still more who were simply spoiling for a fight. So when Lopez came they flocked to him. Ye knew Wheat and Crittenden, didn’t ye?”
Philippe nodded.
“Wheat was captured and released, but Crittenden was executed. The secretary to the Spanish Consul brought back the letters from the condemned man to New Orleans, but refused to surrender them. Then some damned fool wrote an editorial in La Union, the Spanish newspaper, describing in detail how Crittenden went to his death, and upholding the Spanish Government. So our good New Orleans citizenry wrecked the offices of La Union, and topped it off by doing a neat job upon the Spanish Consulate, burning the Spanish flag and attempting to lynch the Consul. They’d have done that too, but Pepe Lulla saved us from actual war by parading through the streets with a sword in each hand at the Consul’s side, thus getting him safely out of town. He later killed four men in duels over the insult to his country’s flag. That cooled your New Orleanians’ ardor considerably.”
“Comic opera, New Orleans style,” Phillippe said. “The old place never changes, does it?”
“No, but it grows. Ye’ve seen the St. Louis Hotel?”
“Yes—and the Saint Charles. I must admit that the food is excellent at both.”
“And the wines. We’ve had a time of it since ye left, Phillippe. We’ve moved our business section
from Chartres to Canal, we’ve grown to the fourth city in size in the country, we’ve been visited again by Old Hickory, and by your Sam Houston, and we’ve fought a war . . .”
“I heard that you bore yourself very well in that. Too bad we never met while you were in Texas.”
“Aye. Perhaps then I should have understood the land better. But Texas is a wonderful place.”
“ ‘Tis half a world. But go on, what else has happened here?”
“Nothing else of any importance. Ye knew about our panic?”
“Do I? All the loans we were trying to float went haywire.”
“Well, apart from the fact that the whole city nearly burned to the ground in ‘44, and was almost washed away in the Sauve Crevasse flood of ‘49 . . .”
“But are we becoming civilized? New Orleans boasts of its culture, yet I don’t see any signs of its overtaking Paris.”
“Ye ask too much,” Stephen laughed. “We established a National Art Gallery, and applauded a new singer—Lind, her name is—Jenny Lind. Quite a nice voice. That old rogue, P. T. Barnum, brought her here, but aside from that, and perhaps the new custom of masking in street carnivals just before Lent that some young blades started in ‘37, we’re about the same as before. Last month we were honored by having Pierre Soule, ye know the family—appointed minister to Spain by President Pierce—and that brings ye up to date.”
“But what about the people? What’s happened to them?”
“I have a grown son who returns this week from his Grand Tour. I wanted him educated in England, but his mother insisted upon France. So after her death, I respected her wishes. I have a daughter, too, who is now almost twelve years of age.”
“Mine is sixteen,” Phillippe said.
“So? Ye wasted no time in Texas. The Le Blancs have five children of whom two are girls. The Prudhommes continue to repopulate the state, but the Pontablas are dying out.”
“And the Cloutiers,” Phillippe said sadly. “I am the last to bear the name, Stephen.”
“This daughter of yours will carry on the blood at least—and names are not really important.”
“No, I guess not—still there was a pride in the name Cloutier in the old days.”
They rode on in silence over the vast fields of Harrow.
“I shall need your aid, Stephen,” Phillippe said. “ ‘Tis a long time since I’ve been in cane lands. I fear the equipment of Rosemont is sadly out of date.”
“I shall be glad to help in any way. But come back up to the house. Aurore will be glad to see you.”
Phillippe’s black brows rose.
“Aurore? What is she doing at Harrow?”
“My wife has every right to be at Harrow, don’t ye think?”
“Don’t tell me you married Aurore!”
“Of course—why not?”
“No reason—only you seem to have a fatal fascination for the Arceneaux family. Strange I hadn’t heard this; but then I arrived in New Orleans only yesterday.”
“Ye have no objections, I hope,” Stephen said mockingly, “to this second marriage of mine?”
“Would be rather too late if I did,” Philippe declared. “But I must ask to be excused from your invitation for the present. Truthfully, I simply haven’t the time. Make my apologies to Madame Fox, won’t you? I shall expect you both at Rosemont as soon as the place is put to rights. For that matter I want you to come out before then—I need the benefit of the advice of Louisiana’s most successful planter.”
Stephen took his hand and Phillippe rode away. Stephen looked after him with a little puzzled frown hovering about his eyes Texas had done something to Philippe Cloutier. For all his Old World courtliness of speech and manner there was about him now a directness that was completely American, and a suggestion of well-controlled force. Stephen shrugged and turned the horse’s head in the direction of the fields. After all, Philippe’s oddities were really no concern of his.
A few days later, the steamer Le Cygne, inward bound from France, was towed over the Mississippi bar, and dropped anchor in the harbor at New Orleans. Already there were five ships lying at anchor when Le Cygne slipped into line, lying so close together that the four young men upon her upper deck could easily read their names.
“The Northampton,” Paul Dumaine read gaily, “the Sin, the Canthoden Castle, the Augusta, and the Saxon. What outlandish names you give your vessels, ‘Tienne! Do I say them right?”
Etienne Fox smiled at his friend.
“Your accent is execrable, Paul,” he said, “as usual. You should stick to French. Most of New Orleans can still understand it.”
“New Orleans!” Paul said. “Father never grew tired of talking about it. I’ve often wondered why he ever came back to France. There was only one other topic that was more frequently upon his tongue.”
“And what was that, Paul?” Etienne asked.
“Your mother. He would run quite out of adjectives attempting to describe her. He kept two dozen paintings of her that he’d done from memory after his return. I always thought them the acme of loveliness, but Father used to weep—quite literally, ‘Tienne—at their inadequacy.”
“There’s one that he did from life,” Etienne said. “It hangs at Harrow. You’ll see it tonight.”
“I know. Father told me about it. He calls it the crowning masterpiece of his career. Until I can equal it, Father says I am no painter.”
“Then you’re no painter. You’ll never be able to touch that one—never!”
The other two men stood a little apart from Etienne and Paul and took no part in the conversation. The face of one of them, a man older by perhaps ten years than any of the others, was somber. He was dressed quietly, but richly, and he wore his clothing well. His frock coat of glistening black broadcloth was pulled back and away from the creamy white doublebreasted waistcoat across which a massive gold watch chain gleamed. Absently he stroked the deep revers of the waistcoat that was cut straight across above his loose-fitting pearl-grey trousers. The huge sloppy bow tie which he wore, as did all of the others, bad exactly the correct Parisian effect of studied carelessness so admired by the gentlemen of the ‘fifties. But, for all his elegance, his face was troubled beneath the black stovepipe hat.
“What ails ye, Aupre?” Paul Dumaine said with a laugh. “You seem sorry to come back to your New Orleans. You haven’t said a word all morning.”
Aupre pushed back his hat so that his chestnut curls caught the light.
“I love New Orleans,” he said huskily. “But I cannot live here. Someday I shall tell you why—both of you.” His glance rested upon Etienne.
Etienne’s hand went to the tiny S-shaped scar low upon his left cheek.
“Perhaps Aupre has memories,” he said. “Perhaps he has a past such as the one he accuses my father of.”
“Forgive me for that, ‘Tienne. But your father was such unparalleled material for a play . . .”
“If Monsieur Fox did half the things that your character in Le Planteur de Louisianie was mixed up in,” Paul said, “he must have been a most interesting blackguard. And, knowing ‘Tienne I’m inclined to believe he could have.”
“Oh, father did all that and more,” Etienne grinned. “ ‘Twas having it all paraded before the audiences of the Comédie Française that I objected to.”
“And your objection was overruled by Aupre’s pointed arguments,” Paul chuckled.
Again Etienne touched the scar.
“I was always a miserable swordsman,” he said. “While Aupre, here, was the best since old Robert himself. ‘Twas a kindness that he didn’t kill me.”
Aupre smiled slowly.
“I was tempted to. But I must confess to a sneaking sort of admiration for the Foxes. Let’s forget all this, shall we, ‘Tienne?”
“ ‘Tis forgotten and forgiven. You’ll dine with us at Harrow tonight?”
“That, no,” Aupre said abruptly. “I don’t expect to see either of you during my stay. I shall be damnably busy—settling mot
her’s estate and all—and I must leave again for France within a fortnight.”
“So soon?”
“I cannot abide Louisiana,” Aupre said harshly. “It gives me the horrors!”
“Who is she, Aupre?” Paul demanded mischievously. “You’ll give me her address? Surely she must be quite a woman to sour you upon an entire state!”
“There is no woman,” Aupre said. “I swear it!”
Etienne turned to the fourth man who was facing away from the others, staring out to sea. He was a Negro, with a face of polished ebony, but there was little difference in either his dress or his bearing from that of the three whites.
“Inch!” Etienne barked.
“Yes, maître,” Inch said softly.
“Is our baggage ready?”
“Yes, maître.”
“Then go down directly and bring it up! Here comes the boat now to take us off. Move faster, you scoundrel!”
Inch walked away, his pace but little accelerated by his master’s commands.
“Why do you always speak so harshly to him?” Paul asked. “I find your Inch a capital fellow.”
“France ruined him,” Etienne growled. “He stole away of nights and studied at the Ecole de la Jurisprudence de Paris. Law—no less—the black ape!”
“But if he had an aptitude for it . . .”
“You Frenchmen! Of course you don’t see! Wait until you’ve been in Louisiana for a while, then you’ll understand. I grant you that Inch is a capital fellow, and a damned intelligent one; but he must be kept in his place. Have you never heard what happened in Santo Domingo and Haiti?”
“Yes—horrible things, those insurrections, still . . .”
“A black like Inch can become a firebrand. I wish I’d never taken him to France. The French have no sense of the fitness of things. Why they actually looked upon him with admiration. And some of your women—I had to go so far as to forbid him their society.”
Paul shrugged.
“We’re a rational people,” he said. “Such a minor irrelevance as a little pigmentation . . .”