The Foxes of Harrow

by Frank Yerby

“I am going into business with a Mister Warren, a sort of brokerage, sir.”

  “I see,” the old man said again. The black eyes regarded Stephen steadily. Then the wrinkles about their corners deepened and something very like a smile played about the corners of the thin old mouth. “You don’t mind advice, my son?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Then look to the land. This of business—stocks, bonds, mortgages, holdings, is but little better than the cards. Get your roots in the earth and grow with it. When you’ve done that—with your looks and manners—there’s not a house in Louisiana that will not welcome you. Now Monsieur Gambler, what say you to a little game? You play écarté, do you not?”

  “Yes,” Stephen said; “but make it pool écarté, so that Andre may be retrant.”

  Andre was conscious almost at once that Stephen was playing badly. M. Arceneaux won the deal, thus making Stephen the pone. Stephen’s clear “I play” rang out at the exact times when he should have proposed. And he accepted, when dealing, all M. Arceneaux’s proposals, no matter how disastrous the results. When the game was over, Stephen had lost a cool thousand to M. Arceneaux, who was beaming, and boasting of his skill.

  “We must play again soon,” he said to Stephen. “I must give you a chance to recoup your losses.”

  “Very well,” Stephen smiled. “Wednesday night, perhaps? M. Maspero will hold the little room for us.”

  “Wednesday night it is. It was a pleasure, Monsieur Fox.”

  “The pleasure was mine, sir,” Stephen said.

  The old man touched his cane to the brim of his hat and strode through the doorway.

  “Couldn’t you have been a little less obvious?” Andre said. “Even old Arceneaux will comprehend after a time. Ma foi, an imbecile could play better écarté! And Arceneaux is far from a fool.”

  “Next time I’ll win a bit, but always allowing him to remain about three hundred ahead. I think my father-in-law is an agreeable old fellow, don’t you?”

  “But you shouldn’t have admitted being a gambler. After all my careful groundwork too. What an ass you made of me! Old Arceneaux will never sanction a connection now.”

  “Softly, Andre. Who knows? I’m off to bed—alone,” he added, seeing Andre’s mischievous grin. “I have much to do tomorrow. I want ye to come with me. Ye can help me, and I need help badly. I’m seeing Mister Warren in Chartres Street at seven o’clock. Ye’ll meet us there?”

  “Seven o’clock—Mon Dieu!”

  “Nevertheless, I shall expect you. Au ‘voir, Andre.”

  “Au ‘voir. Seven o’clock, upon my word!” He wandered off, shaking his head.

  The sun slanted low through Chartres Street as Andre stumbled along at half past seven in the morning. The mist had come in from the river and the light was caught in it, making a feathery silver gold blaze which took the edges off everything. Under the galleries, where Stephen and Thomas Warren waited, the shadows were a cool blue except on the edges, where the sunlight had passed through the wrought-iron scrollwork; there it had traced lacy patterns of infinite grace.

  “Ye’re late,” Stephen said sternly. “I said seven o’clock, didn’t I?”

  “Late? Impossible! How can one be late before eleven? Before then time does not exist. My God, what a head I have! It is as big as a camel.”

  “If you’ll come in,” Thomas Warren said, “you’ll find coffee waiting. It might help.”

  “A thousand thanks!” Andre said. “You are Monsieur Warren, no doubt?”

  “Forgive me, Andre,” Stephen smiled; “but I am almost as forgetful about introductions as ye are. This is my friend and associate, Tom Warren, who is broker, factor, entrepreneur—in fact, all things to all men.”

  Andre took Warren’s big hand and looked up at him. Tom Warren was a huge man, all of two hundred pounds and more than six feet tall. His hair was very black and his eyebrows grew straight across his nose with no break in the middle, so that his small, rapidly shifting green-gray eyes were almost hidden by them. His voice had a certain resonance to it, a bluff hearty quality which, oddly, struck Andre as being carefully controlled.

  He’s practiced it many times before his mirror, that tone, the young Creole decided; strange . . .

  They went in a doorway shaded by an overhead gallery. Inside, the room was furnished as an office, complete with desk, chairs, pens, and paper.

  “My living quarters are above,” Tom Warren said. “We can have our coffee there if you like. You’ll pardon me, sir,” this to Andre, “but my French is very bad. Mister Fox is endeavoring to improve it, but with scant success, I’m afraid.”

  “Then you’ll have to endure my English,” Andre said. “But that coffee, monsieur . . .”

  “Immediately. If you will follow me.” He went ahead of them up a stairway into rooms that were neatly, if plainly, furnished.

  “Delphine!” he called. “Is the coffee ready?”

  Without answering, a pretty mulatto girl came into the room, bearing a tray with cups, saucers, twin silver pitchers, One with coffee and the other with scalding milk, and a large brioche, or coffee cake. There were also small plates of calas, the small rice cakes which the Creoles enjoyed.

  Seeing the girl, Andre straightened in his chair, taking his hand away from his brows.

  “Black coffee, Delphine,” he said. “Ma foi, but you are a very pretty girl!”

  “Monsieur makes a pleasantry,” the girl murmured, turning to Stephen.

  “Café au lait,” Stephen said, “and a piece of coffee cake.”

  “And now, Mister Fox,” Warren said. “Perhaps you’ll explain the reason for so early a visit. When your man brought your message, I thought I had interpreted it wrongly. Seven o’clock in New Orleans—not that I mind . . .”

  Andre was watching Deiphine pour the café au lait. The dark and light streams arched out of the graceful necks of the pitchers at the same time, combining in the cups in just the right proportions. He liked the way her hands moved, pouring. And that house dress was of such thin stuff—delightful, utterly delightful, he decided.

  “Your attention, Andre,” Stephen said. “I didn’t ask ye here to decide upon the merits of a yellow filly. This is a thing of the utmost seriousness.”

  “A thousand pardons, my friend.”

  “That land along the river next to the Waguespack place, Tom. I want it.”

  “I’ve already purchased it for you, Mister Fox. Fifteen hundred acres at twenty dollars an acre. That’s a song, even for uncleared land.”

  “Ye paid cash?”

  “No. You could not spare that much cash, sir. I gave a note against the crop.”

  “I see. Now you must purchase blacks for me. Good ones, well-trained. None of these African brutes. I’m going to become a planter, Tom. And I want to make my first crop this fall.”

  “Hmmmm. The land has to be cleared, remember. And it’s not far from planting time now, is it? You’ll plant cotton, of course?”

  “No. Cane. Cotton exhausts the land. I want something left for my sons.”

  “Then you’ll need the Nigras at once. I think I can get them for you—and cheaply, too.”

  “How?” Andre put in. “Good blacks are scarce and dear.”

  “Your friend Herr Waguespack is going to put the bulk of his slaves up to auction in order to raise money to prevent a foreclosure on his place. I think we would do well to buy those Nigras. And I think we’ll be able to name our own price. By the way, you hold that note against Herr Waguespack, don’t you, Mister Fox?”

  Stephen looked at him, his blue eyes very clear.

  “Ye’re a fast man, Tom,” he said slowly. “I’ve only held that note since last night.”

  “It’s my business to know things fast,” Tom Warren said heavily, and for once the gray eyes held. “I’ll buy that note from you at any reasonable price.”

  “No,” Stephen said. “No.”

  “Then foreclose! That Waguespack is a swine, but he is a good planter. With
his already cultivated lands you could make that crop with ease.”

  “I gave him thirty days,” Stephen said.

  “In writing?”

  “My word.” Stephen’s voice was very low, but the tone was unmistakable. Warren’s face flushed a darker red.

  “I see. Then we’d better proceed with the other things. You’ll need machinery: crushers, vats, kettles, ploughs, scythes, wagons, mules . . .”

  “Get them. Give a note against the crop. But by all means get axes, spades and saws. We’ll need them first.” He stood up.

  “And our business?”

  “I’m staying in it. I never desert a friend, Tom. Ye know that.”

  “Good. Perhaps after a year I can buy you out. The plantation will be trouble enough, you’ll find.”

  “As ye will, Tom. But now let us be off. I want Andre to see how our business works.”

  They went down the stairs and out into the street. As they turned west on Dumaine, walking toward the river, Andre said: “This is good news, Stephen—tremendous news! I’ll see that it reaches the right ears.”

  “No. When it is done, it will speak for itself. Until that time I pledge ye to silence. When Mademoiselle Arceneaux sees Harrow, even her blood will thaw. Old man Arceneaux called me a gambler—well, this is it, the biggest game of all for the highest of stakes.”

  They were approaching the river now, seeing it black with shipping moored to the heavy timbers embedded in the batture. There were blunt-bowed trading brigs from Europe, coasting craft from the New England states, heavy Indiamen, and smaller craft from the Antilles. A dozen or more steamboats puffed busily up to the quays, white smoke pluming from their high twin stacks. The waters close to the shore were covered with flatboats, lying side by side so close that they rubbed against one another, their heavy timbers groaning in the swell.

  “Which one is it, Tom?” Stephen asked.

  “That one yonder. See the jug of Nongela tied to the pole in the center? That means they’re open to business.” He turned away and walked rapidly in the direction he had indicated.

  Andre and Stephen looked along the row of flatboats until they saw the tall mastlike pole erected in the center of one, with the brown whiskey jug dangling from the top. As they watched, several men, richly if not tastefully dressed, began to converge toward the clumsy vessel.

  “Brokers,” Stephen said. “They go to bid for the contents and the boats. But we always outbid them—if it is worth our while.”

  “You bid for flatboats?”

  “Yes. Or rather Tom does. The captains sell the whole thing, boats and cargo. The scoundrels would sell the crew if they could. We break the boat itself up for lumber which we sell to the carpenters and contractors, and we market the cargo at public auctions, getting much more than we paid for it.”

  “But suppose the public doesn’t bid,” Andre put in.

  “They do—always. In the first place, ye must remember that we are ‘Mericain coquins as the old song puts it. We don’t buy everything. I have that old pirate, Mike Farrel, holing up in Natchez. He sends me word by the fastest packet what the boats passing there are bearing. So when they arrive, we are ready. Lately we have been buying all the wheat we could get our hands on.

  “Why wheat?”

  “One must have bread, mustn’t one? Right now, the warehouse is bulging to the seams. I dare say, my good Andre, that every ounce of wheat that the steamboats don’t bring in will soon be in our hands.”

  “And then?”

  “When the millers start in to make the new batch of flour they’ll buy from us, at our price.”

  “And the price of bread will go up,” Andre said half to himself. “And the hungry children will go hungrier in the houses of the poor. You know, Stephen, you have the makings of a scoundrel about you.”

  Stephen shrugged.

  “A man can’t grow wealthy on a squeamish stomach, Andre. ‘Tis regrettable, of course. But here comes Tom back again.”

  “I closed it,” Warren said, as he came close, “for three thousand. It will be worth eight or ten when it hits the market. Shall I proceed with the stuff for the plantation?”

  “Yes. When is the sale of Waguespack’s blacks to take place?”

  “One week from tomorrow. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll take my leave of you gentlemen. I have a few errands to run in relation to that sale. Good day, sirs.”

  He lifted his hat politely and was gone, striding down the levee.

  “A strange man, your Tom Warren,” Andre said. “Yet he seems very devoted to your service.”

  “Tom is as good as gold,” Stephen declared. “What say ye to a long ride?”

  “Good. Where shall we ride?”

  “To Harrow—my new place. ‘Tis all of fifteen miles. It sits on the river between D’Estrehan’s and Waguespack’s and it’s the most beautiful spot this side of Paradise. By the way, did I tell ye I’ve bought a horse?”

  “No. But then you never tell me anything. Where is this steed of yours?”

  “Being groomed at present. He is a palamino. I got him from Texas. He has a coat of buff satin and a mane and tail of silver. But we had better fortify ourselves for so long a ride. What say ye to breakfast at the Café des Réfugiés? I hear ‘tis quite a place.”

  “It is. You’ve never been there? Good. I have much to show you.”

  A short block from the river front on St. Phillip’s Street, they turned southward toward Dumaine. There, in sight of the market, they turned off into a doorway, shaded as nearly all the doorways were by the overhanging gallery. Nothing was different. From the street, the Café des Réfugiés was the same as any of a dozen others in New Orleans.

  Inside, however, was another world. The men were smaller and darker than even the brunet Louisiana Creoles. The air was alive with a richer, racier French. Laughter was readier, tempers more explosive.

  “They’ve lost everything,” Andre observed, “but their verve. I’ll wager that more duels are arranged here than any other place in town. And what a way they have with women! Never let a Saint Dominican kiss your sweetheart—not if you want to keep her. And wine! Have you ever had le petit Gouave?”

  “No,” Stephen said. “What is it?”

  “The good God and the Saint Dominicans alone know; but it is delicious.” He turned to the waiter who was bowing over their table.

  “Two petit Gouaves,” he ordered. “And two Saint Dominican breakfasts.”

  While they were sipping the long, cool drink of the Islands, Andre had a Negro sent to his house to order his horse saddled. Then they sat back and awaited their breakfast in the Saint Dominican style.

  When it arrived, Stephen stared at it in amazement. There were oranges and bananas arranged in a pyramid, a clear, jewel-like liqueur, drip coffee as thick and black as molasses, and steaming piles of tamales, tortillas, sausages, and blood pudding.

  “Does one eat it,” he demanded, “or carry it away on a pack mule?”

  “One tastes a little of each dish. Refuse anything, and you’re no gourmand; eat it all, and you’re both sick and a glutton. Go on, try it. It is really quite good.”

  Stephen tried the food gingerly, then after a taste or two, proceeded to eat with gusto.

  “I shall come again,” he declared, “often.”

  Andre was looking around the café.

  “Poor devils,” he murmured. “Have you ever thought, Stephen, how readily the same thing could happen here? We’re outnumbered by our blacks almost as much as they were. A few firebrands, eloquent of tongue, a few bold blacks, and the whole mass of African brutes could sweep over us like a tide. My God! What a thought!”

  Stephen laughed.

  “Calm yourself, my old one,” he said. “From all I’ve heard, your Caribbean black is a different breed of dog from ours. They are very cold and long of head, capable of thought. I’ve even heard them called intelligent. What American black can entertain a thought for half an hour without falling asleep?”

&n
bsp; “You may be right,” Andre said doubtfully, “but we get many of our Nigras from the islands . . .”

  Stephen rose.

  “Let us postpone your slave insurrection to some later date,” be said. “I still want to try Prince Michael over a distance. Are ye with me on the ride?”

  Andre got up and paid the check. Then they went outside and hailed a cabriolet which took them to Stephen’s rooms, where Andre had ordered his horse brought.

  “And this,” Stephen said, as they climbed down from the two-wheeled vehicle, “is Prince Michael.”

  Andre looked the palamino over critically, before turning to Stephen with a smile.

  “Now I know you’re a liar,” he said. “You’ve sworn by all the saints in heaven that you dislike show. You despise florid speech and eloquent gesticulation, yet you buy the showiest horse that ever these eyes have seen! Truly, Stephen, he is something out of the fairy stories. A steed, you might call him, or a charger, but never a horse.”

  “Perhaps the time has come for show,” Stephen said. “Besides, he is a good horse, sound in wind and limb. Ye find him to your liking?”

  “He is beautiful, Stephen. Such a coloring has never been seen in Louisiana. White—yes; but a pale golden buff with silver mane and tail, no, never to my knowledge.”

  Prince Michael whinnied a bit and stretched out his long, graceful neck toward Stephen.

  “See? Already he knows me. Up with ye, lad, it grows late.” They were off, trotting briskly along the river front headed northward away from New Orleans. It was late in the winter, almost the spring of 1826, and the air was beginning to grow warm. As they left the city they saw the first Negroes in the fields already busy with planting.

  “They’re too early,” Andre complained. “One good hard frost and the whole crop would rot in the ground.”

  Stephen smiled.

  “I shall value your advice, my fine son of a planter! Or should I say ‘absentee son of a planter’?”

  “You’re right,” Andre laughed. “But henceforth I shall take more of an interest.”

  They rode on in silence. On both sides of the river the land was springing into life. They remarked a full dozen houses in various stages of construction. Everywhere Negroes shivered unhappily in the still cold fields. Yet so great was the expanse of land that miles separated every house that they saw from the next, and thousands of acres of virgin river land lay in almost unbelievable fertility, as yet untouched by ax or plough.