Bernard Cornwell by Copperhead

Author:Copperhead [Copperhead]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9780060934620
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
Published: 1994-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

WHAT IS THIS?” BELVEDERE DELANEY HELD A BANK note between his finger and thumb as though the crumpled thing held a contagion. “‘Parish of Point Coupee,’” he read aloud from the note’s inscription, “‘two dollars.’ My dear Sally, I do hope that isn’t what you charge for your services?”

“Real funny, ain’t you,” Sally said, then took the note from the lawyer’s hand and added it to one of the piles on the cherrywood table. “Gambling winnings,” she explained.

“But what am I to do with it?” Delaney inquired fastidiously, taking up the offending bank note again. “Am I to travel to Louisiana and demand that the Parish Clerk of Point Coupee pay me two dollars?”

“You know well enough that they’ll discount it at the Exchange Bank,” Sally said briskly, taking back the note and adding it to the week’s takings. “That’s four hundred and ninety-two dollars and sixty-three cents from downstairs.” “Downstairs” meant the tables where poker and euchre were played, and where the house took a straight percentage of the winnings. The policy was that any kind of money agreeable to the players could be used at the tables, but upstairs the only acceptable currencies were the newfangled northern dollar bills, gold and silver coinage, and Virginia Treasury Notes.

“And how much of the four hundred and ninety-two dollars is in useful money?” Delaney asked.

“Half,” Sally admitted. The rest was in fancy bills issued by a variety of southern banks, merchants, and municipal governments who had harnessed their printing presses to replace the dearth of northern money.

“The Bank of Chattanooga,” Delaney said derisively, riffling through the bank notes. “And what in the name of Jehovah is this?”

He dangled a scrap of faded paper. “A twenty-five-cent note from the Inferior Court of Butts County, Jackson, Georgia? My God, Sally, we’re rich! A whole quarter!” He tossed the note onto the table.

“Why don’t we just print up some notes for ourselves?”

“Why don’t we?” Sally asked. “It’d be a damn sight easier than the work I do upstairs.”

“We could invent whole parishes! Whole counties! We could devise our own banks!” Delaney was quite taken with the idea. Anything that sabotaged the Confederacy appealed to Belvedere Delaney, and destroying the currency would certainly hasten the demise of the rebellion. Not that the South’s currency needed much debase-ment; prices were rising every day and the whole financial system was based upon loose promises that depended for their fulfillment on final Confederate victory. Even the government’s official bank notes admitted as much, promising to pay the bearer the face value of the note but only six months after peace had been declared between the warring sides. “We could put a printing press in the coach house,” Delaney suggested. “Who’s to know?”

“The printer?” Sally suggested sourly. “You’d need too many people, Delaney, and sure as eggs they’d end up blackmailing you.

Besides, I’ve got a better idea for the coach house.”

“Tell me.”

“Black it out, carpet it, put in a table and a dozen chairs, and I’ll guarantee you a bigger profit than you can ever make out of my bedroom.

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