by Frank Yerby
“You’ll have coffee, of course?” Inch said, pulling upon a bell-cord.
“I never . . .” Etienne began, but Stephen was chuckling deep in his throat.
“Of course,” he grinned. “ ‘Twill be a pleasure to sup with the Commissioner of Police of the city of New Orleans!”
Etienne paused. Father was right. Instinctively he had taken the correct line. Treat this black ape with amused toleration. He looked at Inch to calculate his reaction, but he was smiling blandly. No, Etienne decided, there was nothing of humility about his former servant. Inch seemed perfectly at ease, enjoying perhaps this reversal of fortunes.
“Come into my study, gentlemen,” he said politely.
They followed him, Stephen’s eyes gleaming with amusement, but Etienne walking very stiffly, with his head erect upon his shoulders. At the door the policeman lingered a moment until Inch dismissed him with a short wave of his hand.
“And now, ‘Tienne,” Inch began.
“You’ve forgotten your manners,” Etienne said harshly. “I taught you better, Inch!”
“There have been changes,” Inch murmured smoothly.
“None that I recognize!”
“Too bad,” Inch said. “But let’s not quarrel. Politics is no subject to discuss on an empty stomach. You’ll have supper with your father and me, won’t you?”
Etienne nodded grimly.
“Good,” Inch said, and Etienne knew that the Negro was refusing to address him at all in order to avoid giving him his title. He felt the short hairs on the back of his neck rising in fury, but he controlled himself and ate the excellent supper that a servant brought in answer to Inch’s ring.
“Brandy?” Inch said when they had finished, pushing forward the decanter.
Etienne poured a glass for Stephen and one for himself. He sipped it slowly, savoring the flavor with his tongue. Suddenly he put down the glass with a crash.
“Yes,” Inch said. “It’s from Harrow. I have many treasures from our former home.”
“Our!” Etienne choked. “Our! Damn it, Inch!”
“‘I am sorry,” Inch said softly. “I didn’t mean to offend you. These things are not mine now . . . nor yours. I hold them in trust for the future.”
The long black fingers went into a drawer and came out with a deck of cards.
“Vingt-et-un?” he suggested.
“And the stakes?” Stephen asked.
“None . . . except your good will. Your liberty I’ve given you already.”
“That you will never have,” Etienne growled. “I’m out to smash you, Inch . . . I’m warning you. This . . . this impossible situation . . . black men ruling white . . . has to go! It’s unnatural, Inch. Nature herself is against it. I’ll see it stopped if it costs me my immortal soul!”
“He is very like you were in your younger days, sir,” Inch smiled to Stephen; “all Irish. Cut for the deal?”
“No, you deal,” Stephen said.
The game went on silently, with furious concentration. The sun came in the windows with the morning haze. Etienne stood up.
“We’ll be going now, Inch,” he said.
“So early? Wait a bit . . . I want you to meet my son. He’ll be up within the hour.”
Etienne sank back in his chair. He looked across at his father. Stephen was smiling to himself, his pale eyes illuminated as by an inner light.
“Ye’ve done well, Inch,” he said gravely. “But I’m afraid it won’t last.”
“It must last,” Inch said. “It must.”
He stopped suddenly—for there were the sound of footsteps upon the stair.
“One word of caution, gentlemen,” he whispered. “The lad was with Colonel Shaw at Fort Wagner. Sometimes he is . . . well . . . odd . . . the terrific artillery fire, you understand.”
“Perfectly,” Stephen said, “I’ve seen many such cases. But with rest and quiet . . .”
The boy was hesitating outside the door.
“Come in, my son,” Inch called.
The door crashed open abruptly and instead of the child they had expected, a young man of perhaps twenty-five years stood in the doorway . . . a young man with white skin and red hair and freckles that dusted his high forehead. The little hairs that were on the backs of his hands were golden and his eyes were a hard, pale blue, the brows above them whitegold, almost invisible against his fair skin.
“Good morning, Father,” he said simply, like a small boy. “Good morning, gentlemen.”
Etienne stood there staring at the young man. It’s father all over again, he thought; so he must have looked when he first came to New Orleans.
“How do you like young Cyrus?” Inch asked. “Cyrus, this is Monsieur Stephen Fox and Monsieur Etienne, his son.”
“Fox?” Cyrus echoed blankly. “Fox?”
Etienne was studying the young man.
“Cyrus, hell,” he declared; “that’s . . .”
“Softly, ‘Tienne,” Stephen warned.
Inch smiled broadly.
“You’re mistaken, ‘Tienne, in what you think,” he said. “It was perhaps the virus of Harrow in my veins that gave him that shape and color. Or perhaps some prenatal influence upon his mother . . . still he is very like a Fox, is he not? I’m extremely proud of him. Few black men have such sons.”
“Fox?” young Cyrus whispered. “Fox?”
“So you were ten years old when you got him,” Etienne declared. “That boy’s at least twenty-five and you’re my age. Inch, you’re an insolent bastard. Why I don’t strangle you . . .”
“It would be most unwise. White men are hanged in the South now for killing blacks. Besides, you haven’t met his mother yet. . . .”
“Nor do I care to!”
“Oh, come, ‘Tienne, you could indulge an old man his vanity.” He walked to the doorway and called:
“My dear!”
“Coming, Cyrus!”
Stephen stiffened. The voice floated down the stairway like the lower notes of a soft, golden gong. Stephen’s face was bleak.
First the boy . . . so like, so like . . . and now this! Etienne’s naturally dark face darkened (The light was bluish along the edge of that blade . . . when she dropped it, it stood and quivered in the planking. “Because you are Stephen Fox all over again, in walk, and look, and small arrogant gesture,” she had said. . . .)
“Fox?” Young Cyrus puzzled. “Fox?”
Then the footsteps were coming down the stairs quickly.
She was almost the same despite her forty-three years. She had grown heavier, perhaps a trifle matronly; but the tawny skin was the same and the hair with golden fires flickering in the highlights and the lips which were alternately petals of rose and wine flames to sear away the senses. She looked from one to the other of them, and all the golden flakes in her sea-green eyes swam into a circle about her widening pupils.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” she murmured. “ ‘Tis good to see you again
“Fox!” Young Cyrus said triumphantly. “Now I’ve got it! Madame Ceclie Fox the great beauty that Colonel Shane of the Medical Corps was always raving about. She used to come to the hospital when I was there . . . everybody was in love with her, she was so beautiful. Do you come from Harrow, gentlemen?”
Grimly Etienne nodded.
“Then you know her? Oh, but she was beautiful! She was Doctor Shane’s mistress. . . .”
“Cyrus!” Inch roared.
“Let him go on,” Etienne murmured. “You wasted your time at that law school, Inch. You should have studied at the Comedié Française. This is beautifully staged.” He turned to the young man who was standing there with a look of blank amazement on his face.
“Please tell me more about Madame Fox, lad, I’m most interested.”
The dazed look left the eyes.
“I used to worship her from afar off,” he said. “But she wouldn’t let anybody near her except Colonel Shane and maybe that artist feller—Dumaine, his name was—that used to draw battle pic
tures for the newspapers.”
“Not Paul Dumaine?”
“Yes, yes—that’s it! He and Colonel Shane quarreled over her . . . and some say there was a duel, but I don’t know about that . . . Do you like butterflies, sir?”
“Butterflies?”
“Yes. I have a wonderful collection of them, if you’d like to see it.”
“No!” Etienne roared. “Come, Father. We’re going—now!” Inch made a gesture, touching his forehead with his finger. “Don’t regard the boy’s words too seriously, ‘Tienne,” he whispered. “Gunshock victims have strange fantasies at times. I don’t know that he ever really saw Madame Fox. . . .”
“Inch,” Etienne said very quietly. “Don’t come too close to me. Killing you would be a pleasure.”
Stephen Fox got to his feet slowly. When he spoke, his voice was very deep.
“I don’t know whether or not this is your way of taking vengeance for your years of bondage, Inch,” he said. “If it is, ye’re being unwise. ‘Tis a delicate course ye must steer. For when the headship passes back into the hands of the race for whom God intended it, ‘twill go hard with ye if ye’ve made enemies. Ye can’t win, ye know that.”
“Yes,” Inch said, a little sadly. “I know it. This came too soon. We weren’t ready. White men will rule the South again . . . perhaps for always.” He paused, his eyes resting blankly upon Desiree as though she were not there, then he spoke again, more than half to himself.
“The beast of prey runs alone, gentlemen. Man is a herd animal . . . like cattle.”
“Ye mean?” Stephen said softly.
“That the spotted Brahmin claims no lordship over the red Jersey. They all browse peacefully in the meadow . . . together.”
“Never!” Etienne said.
“Never is a long time,” Inch said quietly. “You’ll find a carriage outside waiting to take you to Harrow. And if there is ever anything that I can do . . .”
“Thank ye,” Stephen said. “Goodday to ye . . . and Madame.” Then the two of them were gone, out into the bright sunlight of the new morning.
Riding out to Harrow, Etienne was silent. The carriage swayed up the Bayou Road and the river was golden in the sunlight.
“ ‘Tienne,” Stephen began.
“Yes, Father?”
“I think the lad lied. Inch has a dangerously subtle mind.”
Etienne looked at his father, his black beard bristling.
“No, Father,” he said quietly. “The boy didn’t lie.”
“Ye have no proof.”
“No. Only a feeling . . . something about the tone of Ceclie’s letters after she had discovered I was alive.”
Stephen turned his pale eyes upon his son’s face.
“Ye’ll do her no violence,” he said. “Send her away if ye must, but ye are not to lay hands upon her. Promise me that, ‘Tienne.”
Etienne looked past his father out over the face of the river. Nothing moved over its surface, no proud packet running downstream with the current, its whistle shaking the banks.
“I shan’t touch her, Father,” he said.
The silence between them was thick and heavy. It had a texture to it, surcharged with tides and currents of thought.
Now I must begin again, Stephen thought, and I am old. It must be left to the young men—’Tienne and the rest. And I fear that they will look forever backward to what was. Ye can’t turn the world back again, ye must go forward. If they try to shape the world again in the image of the past, they’ll waste generations and mountains of blood and treasure in something that cannot succeed because of its very nature. If there is any one thing upon the face of the earth that is unconquerable ‘tis human freedom. And if they try to take it away again from the blacks they will end by losing it themselves.
He looked out over the cypress grove, and the oak alley which had now come into sight. Beyond them, through the trailing streamers of Spanish moss, the house gleamed whitely—all except the blackened ruin of the North Wing.
“We must rebuild it,” he said.
“No, Father,” Etienne said. “We must never rebuild it. Leave it as it is so that never in any generation will any man of our blood forget. We’ll build a new house—out on the old Waguespack place—but let Harrow stand as a reminder of what we suffered and what we will never—forget or forgive!”
They got down from the carriage and started up the alley of oaks. Half way to the house, Stephen stopped and mopped his forehead with his handkerchief.
“For a little while,” he said, “we lived like gods. I’m not sure that it was good for us.”
Etienne shrugged.
“Come, Father,” he said, “the women will be waiting.”
Before they reached the stair, Julie came flying down to them and behind her Aurore, her white hair gleaming in the sunlight. Ceclie came more slowly, the children clustered fearfully about her skirts.
“Oh, Papa,” Julie wept. “ ‘Tienne! I’m so glad . . . so glad!”
Stephen kissed them and, after him, Etienne embraced the two women; then he strode up the stairway to where Ceclie stood. But he did not kiss her or the children. He stood very quietly looking at her, and his eyes were bleak and fierce.
“So,” she whispered, “you’ve been told . . . you know . . .”
“Yes,” he said.
“ ‘Tienne, ‘Tienne,” she whispered, “I thought you were dead I didn’t know . . .”
“No explanations, Ceclie!”
He turned and rejoined the others. In the salon, the talk was loose and disjointed. So many years were lost and never could the threads be rewoven or the pieces put back together again. While they talked, at a nod from Etienne, Ceclie got up and went up the stairs.
A few minutes later, Etienne stood up.
“You’ll excuse me,” he murmured. “There’s something I must say to Ceclie.” He left the salon and went into the study. From his holster he took the heavy Colt Navy six and spun the barrel. No, he decided. It wouldn’t do. It was far too heavy. He opened his father’s drawer and took out the little double-barrelled derringer that is still called among the Foxes the “Waguespack pistol”—erroneously, of course, since it was a standard dueling pistol that Stephen used against Hugo; but legend is no respecter of fact. Carefully he cleaned and oiled the richly ornamented weapon. Then he loaded it, breaking it across the breech, slipping the shells in both barrels. Putting it into his pocket, he went up the stairs.
Ceclie was waiting for him, her eyes very wide and dark.
Without saying anything, he took out the pistol, balancing it loosely in the palm of his hand. Ceclie’s pupils dilated like the eyes of a cat in a darkened room, the pupils so wide and black that the brown of the irises was a thin golden ring around them. She inclined her head briefly toward the derringer.
“For me?” she said.
“Yes,” Etienne said. The word moved over his lips drily, escaping into sound on a husk of a breath.
She looked at him, a smile of pure amusement lighting her eyes, so that they flamed suddenly, feline and joyous. Then she put one white arm upon the mantle and let her small body relax. The motion was effortless, fluid. Her eyes caught and held his as she came erect slowly, her young breasts outthrusting, conical and high.
She never would suckle the children, Etienne thought bitterly. Her body has no further use beyond this—beyond provocation and madness. Such a little thing to end it, one small muscle tightening, and that red mouth will burn no more against mine or any man’s, whispering lies. A pennyweight of powder and a ball not even full thirty calibre.
“Well,” she said, “what are you waiting for?”
It will make a hole, he thought, a small, but dreadful hole, black-ringed against her white flesh, halfway between those strawberry rosettes, proud now, and puckering. And her life will pump through. He looked down suddenly at her hands. Slim. Cool and sweet-moving in the darkness against his hard-muscled flanks. Fierce-tender and feline. Dagger-nailed, ecstatic. Moving n
o more, sweet-whispering through his hair, never again the sweet, hot, fierce, desire-taloned ferocity. . . . A gasp caught in his throat and became a burn.
She took a step forward, and her hand came out and closed over the barrels of the derringer. Then gently she pulled it away from him, ever so slowly, his cold, nerveless fingers slipping down over the rich silver-mounted butt. She stood there, holding the pistol, then, suddenly, she began to laugh. She laughed all over in great windy gusts of sound, metal-hard and ringing.
“So, ‘Tienne,” she said, “you don’t like playing the cuckold? Why? The role fits you so well. You were designed by nature to wear horns.”
“Ceclie!”
“You coward! Your honor must be avenged—and with ceremony, too! I must die for doing exactly what I wanted to, when I wanted to, and with whom. No, ‘Tienne. I’m afraid I must decline the honor of dying. You just aren’t worth it. Once I had gone so far that I hated you. Now I don’t. I don’t even pity you.”
She walked around him, still holding the pistol. In the doorway, she turned.
“I’m leaving you, ‘Tienne,” she said. “I’m going back to Texas.” She looked at the richly ornamented weapon, then, abruptly, she broke it open, and stared at the chambers. Her eyes widened enormously, dark in her white face.
“Two bullets,” she whispered, “one for me, and one for—”
“Yes,” he said, “yes!”
She looked at the pistol again, then she tossed it lightly upon the bed. She started back toward Etienne, walking slowly, her brown eyes burning like great dark coals, never leaving his face. Then she was close to him, and he could feel the warmth of her, hear the rustle of her breathing.
“I’m flattered,” she said, and there was no laughter in her voice. “But don’t you see—it’s no good? This thing between us is a kind of poison. It’s a sickness in the blood. All I do is torment you, and make you wretched and love you and hate you at the same time . . . Oh, ‘Tienne, let me go! Keep me now and I’ll leave you tomorrow or betray you. . . . There’s nothing. . . .”
But Etienne’s big hands came down upon her shoulders and the fingers dug in until the flesh purpled beneath them. Then he held her against him hard and found her mouth.
