Probable Claws

7

November 7, 1786

Tuesday

Yancy Grant inhaled the odors of delicious food. Much as he loathed the long three-day journey from Albemarle County to Richmond, ninety miles east, once he arrived at Georgina’s, a marvelous tavern with a few rooms available for special guests, a wave of contentment would wash over him. The beautiful girls, some served food, some did not, were also available. Occasionally Yancy would hire the services of one, but since his kneecap was shattered in a recent duel, pleasures became more difficult and his temper could fray with the constant pain.

Seated across from him, Sam Udall, a financier who could supply certain functions of a bank as well as more discreet monetary exchanges, also inhaled. “Lifts the spirits.” He held up his glass of expensive French wine to his companion.

Yancy replied in kind, although he needed to be careful since too much alcohol made him impulsive and violent. That was the reason his kneecap was shattered. He foolishly accepted the challenge to a duel from a man, Jeffrey Holloway, he considered his social inferior and therefore not a good shot. Middling men rarely achieved the refinements of horsemanship, shooting, or musical accompaniment, if so gifted, that a man of parts took for granted. Yancy considered himself a man of parts. He was. He risked his fortune to back the rebels as did Ewing Garth. Had the former colonists lost that war, they would have been hanged. But like so many men who raised regiments, paid for food, temporary housing, and firearms, the state of Virginia had barely begun to repay those large outlays of cash. Other states were even worse off, although that was hard for the Virginians to believe. When you need money and aren’t getting it, it doesn’t matter if someone in North Carolina, a state whose only marketable products were pitch, tar, and turpentine, is worse off.

The two men pleasantly chatted. Yancy would be owing Sam a tidy sum of loaned cash come April.

Georgina, the proprietress, glided over to them. “Yancy Grant, you live too far away. How wonderful to see you and looking so well. As for you, Sam, how could I thrive here without your wisdom?”

“Ah, Georgina, you flatter me.” Sam nodded slightly.

Sam and Georgina did talk business. Both impressed the other as each responded to public events without a leaning toward the philosophy of Mr. Jefferson or Mr. Adams. The difference between a strong centralized government and a looser one was not of too much concern. Profits motivated them. The concern was the unpaid debt, credit difficulties, the signs of financial insecurity in France, plus an abiding fear of England.

Europe craved products from the new United States. Except for England, other countries wanted to deepen relationships with the former colonies, free of the economically restrictive hand of England. Merchants in England wanted favorable terms with the new country. Parliament teetered one way then the next, although the anger against Lord North, prime minister and architect of the war, diverted some attention from commerce.

Georgina left them to chatter in peace. A new girl, Sarah, delivered their food.

Yancy cut open his chicken pie, a plume of steam rising upward. “You know, Sam, much as I enjoy those sauces and fripperies the French can concoct, I do so love chicken pie. My mother used to make it.”

“Solid food for the cold.” Sam savored a lamb chop standing straight up, stuffed with a thin glaze of mint jelly. Eudes, the cook and a free man of color, dazzled the clients with his specialties. An ordinary cook would have basted the lamb chop, then put a glob of green mint jelly by its side. Not Eudes. He stuffed the thick chop, stood it upright on a fine china plate, a small helping of tiny potatoes next to it, sprinkled with parsley and sitting in a light butter sauce.

Both men enjoyed the food, the wine.

Occasionally Deborah would serve in the afternoon but usually she did not. So great was her beauty she was reserved for the nights only and then to sing next to the fellow playing the pianoforte. But if a powerful client, new, arrived in the afternoon, usually brought by a regular customer, Deborah would appear. She made men crazy. She made Georgina money. She made herself money, too.

The beauty walked by the two men, smiled, kept walking toward Georgina’s office.

“Aphrodite.” Sam grinned.

“A Venus to be sure, but I always think of the goddess as a Greek, when the Greeks were blonds, you know?”

Sam, an educated man, laughed. “When the Romans conquered Athens they took all the beautiful ones back to Rome to teach their children perfect Greek.”

Yancy, educated at William and Mary, had some basis in Latin, in Greek. One was not considered educated without the ability to understand Latin. Greek was desirable but Latin was essential. “Odd, is it not? That if you are upper class you don’t speak the native tongue, that’s vulgar.” He used the Latin word for common people, which transformed in English to mean still common but with a stray whiff of dirty, stupid, not worthy of consideration.

“Well, it is. Fortunately, we are not so afflicted. The Russians speak French.” He paused. “But then everyone speaks French to an extent. It truly is the language of diplomacy.”

“What then, Sir, is the language of finance?”

“Ah, English. Without a doubt. The French have had rich episodes in their history, but for business it’s hard to beat a practical, intelligent Englishman. Which we once were,” Sam slyly said.

“I have my doubts about us,” Yancy glumly replied, then, not wanting to be dour, added, “If we can resolve these current monetary difficulties, I think we will be fine.”

“Difficulties?” Sam’s eyebrows raised. “Our government has no monetary policy.”

“Hamilton is trying.”

“One man. And one man who seems to divide others. Some like him. Others loathe him. We need men of acumen to step up and support him as his ideas are the correct ones. Men like Gouverneur Morris.” He named a wealthy man from New York.

“If we could just get together the men of means from Boston, from Charleston, Philadelphia, even New York, which is growing.” Yancy, hotheaded though he might be, was a solid businessman.

Sam leaned forward. “Yes, and do you know what I really think? We’d better clean up these war debts both internally as well as foreign. We must have a unified Army and Navy. Militias won’t do.”

“But we won the war.” Yancy was surprised.

“My good Sir, our resources are beyond a European’s imagining. But once they truly understand, they will be back.”

This hit Yancy. “Oh, I hope not.”

“Think of it, Yancy. The great rivers we have depositing all that rich soil as they flow to the sea. The impossibly long seacoast and now the Ohio territory is opening, and that is vast, vast. More riches. In Europe a day or two in a coach and you are in another country. Here you can travel for weeks in a coach and you are still in the United States. And who are our neighbors?”

“Spain to the south and England to the north. Both could attack us through their colony.” Yancy’s mind was spinning now. “And Canada is large, difficult climate but still more resources than any other foreign country.”

“They could but England must ferry their Army across the Atlantic and then live off the land. That will be quite difficult because we will fight them as the Indians fight. They have no inkling of that, nothing. Look how they fought our glorious war for independence.”

“They nearly won.” Yancy felt that time acutely.

“Until we pulled together. And we have Washington.” Sam spoke the name with reverence.

“Sam, you always give me much to think about.”

“We live in a tumultuous time.” He paused, finishing the last of the magical lamb chop. “By the way, I was surprised that you paid a thousand dollars against your loan.”

“Hemp. My hemp crop proved lucrative.” Yancy knew he was interested in that.

“Ah. Have you been down to the river yet? New warehouses for hemp, for tobacco, much in demand. I heard Ewing Garth is betting on apples and installed an orchard. New. Not really yielding much yet. Too young. He is uncommonly shrewd.”

“He spreads the risk. Tobacco land in North Carolina as well as south of the James. Some hemp and so much hay. He has large tracts of established fields. He does not reveal his holdings, but it is rumored in Virginia that he owns eighty-eight thousand acres.”

“An impressive man.” Sam’s eyes followed Deborah as she carried a package back through the tavern.

“Very. His elder daughter is also impressive. She inherited her father’s brain.” He paused. “Beautiful girl. Her younger sister, Rachel, is also beautiful but it’s a softer beauty. She is much like her own mother, excels at gardening, setting a good table, putting people at ease, and I’ve heard she’s been helping her husband set up St. Luke’s Church. Funny, isn’t it, how we can be so different from our brothers and sisters while retaining qualities in common?”

“Yes.” Sam considered his sister, much like him in her focus on the practical, on getting ahead. “It’s the older sister I wish to talk about. She breeds good horses, does she not?”

“Yes. She has the eye and she memorizes bloodlines.”

“And will she race this spring, do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“Talk to her. Convince her there’s money to be made.” Sam paused. “A great deal of money. I can arrange a betting network.” He held up his hand. “But no one will know that you and I are behind it. A percent will flow to us regardless of who wins. See to it, Yancy.”

“There will be money for the winner?”

“Of course. Think of England, the races there. Those who bet on the winning horses will reap a handsome sum. The betting agents, their tickets stuck on their bet boards, should make some money. But we will make the most. We take a percent from each agent, we sell tickets to the race, too. We run the race in pairs per horse and we charge an entry fee. In other words, we can’t lose if the right horses are running.”

“Where?” Yancy simply asked.

“The Levels by the James.” Sam smiled.

That would be the only level thing about this proposed contest.