Queen (65 page)

    you think I have reason to be? I'm a pappy! "

    He jumped on his brother, laughing, and the two of them wrestled together

    on the floor of the study.

    Now Jass was alone, in his father's study. My study, he corrected himself.

    He felt on top of the world, and did something he had never done before.

He

    put his legs on the desk and stretched out, relaxing in the comfortable old

    chair and staring at his glass of brandy.

    He wanted for nothing. He was Massa. He was rich and strong and free and

    mated. He was about to make an excellent marriage, and he was a father, and

    would father a dozen sons, and his virility would be envied throughout the

    South.

    Sally came in a little later, and found him still stretched out, still

    staring at his brandy, dreaming of the future, a grin on his face.

Jass guessed where she had been.

    "Her life will not be easy," Sally said. "She looks as white as you or 1.

    "

    Jass assimilated this, but did not really understand his mother's concerns.

    There were pale nigras everywhere, high yellas,

    MERGING 391

mulattas, whatever you called them, and they lived their lives happily or

unhappily, according to their circumstances and personalities. He could see

no particular problems for his light daughter. She would have an especial

place in the slave hierarchy, and live a life of relative comfort, as her

mother did. Nor was he disappointed that Easter had given birth to a girl;

he was relieved. He thought that he could love a girl-child slave. He

doubted he would have the same affection for a nigger boy.

"Does she have a name?" he asked Sally.

"Cap'n Jack calls her Princess."

    Jass nodded, and mouthed the word "Princess" a few times. He knew his

    mother was angry, although he wasn't quite sure why, and was determined to

    provoke her.

    He held up his glass. "Aren't you going to congratulate me?"

    Sally glared at him, furious with him, He didn't seem to understand the

    problems he had created, for the child as much as for the family, didn't

    appreciate the gossip there would be about it, a cotton-white child running

    around the plantation with only one likely father. Was he so careless of

    his position? What was it about men? Why could they not control themselves?

    "Oh, you men!" she said angrily. "The havoc that you cause. "

She left the room.

    Nothing could shake Jass's boundless good humor; indeed, his mother's

    inexplicable wrath only added to it. She had been stem with him since his

    father died, all with the best intentions, Jass knew, to help him fit into

    his new position. But he also felt that she was trying to organize his

    life, and the idea that he had done something that annoyed her, but

    something that most Massas did, most men did, was pleasing to him.

    Energy filled him. He got up, went to the bookshelves, and took down the

    leather-bound book that was the Slave Register.

    He found a new, clean page, inked his quill pen, and filled in the date of

    the birth, and the mother's name. Under "Father-If Known" he just put a

    dash.

    The next column was the value of the slave. Jass thought about this.

    Properly, he should have written $50, if the child

392 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

was well and healthy, but he didn't want to make her too valuable, because

he didn't want anyone else to appreciate her value.

He wrote $5 instead.

    He had not filled in her name. He scratched with the quill, and mouthed

    "Princess" again a few times, but he didn't like it, hadn't liked it when

    he first heard it, and it got no better with repetition. If not

    "Princess," then what?

    He toyed with some other names, but none of them pleased him. Suddenly

    he had an idea. He laughed aloud, and wrote something down.

All the world was sleeping, apart from a newborn baby, tucked up snugly

in the wooden cradle that Cap'n Jack had carved for her.

    And Jass, who had crept softly into the weaving house, and was now

    staring down at his daughter. Already happy, now he thought his cup

    brimming over. In the dim light he could hardly see the color of her

    skin, and if there was a paleness about her, it was only natural to him.

    She was his daughter. He had made this thing, this tiny, fragile,

    exquisite thing. He had created it, given it life; it was the seed of his

    loins.

"Hello, Queen," he said softly.

    He picked her up out of the cradle and sat with her in his chair, rocking

    her gently. The child seemed content in 'her father's arms.

    They sat together for an hour or so, and then Queen decided she was

    hungry and started to whimper. Easter stirred immediately. The crying of

    the child caused the milk to move down in her breasts. She saw Jass

    nursing Queen, and for a moment wished that this was how it might always

    be, but knew it could not. She knew that Lizzie was visiting, and from

    the chattering slaves, she knew why.

    She moved on the bed, so that Jass would realize she was awake. He looked

    at her, tenderly.

"Was it bad?" he asked her.

Easter shook her head. "Popped out easy."

    "Liar," Jass grinned. "I could hear you all the way up at the big house."

It seemed cruel to tell her now, but she had to know, and

    MERGING 393

surely, at this moment, she must know that he loved her.

"While I was proposing to Lizzie."

    He hoped for some indication of her feelings, but she gave none. Queen

    cried again, and Jass tickled her under the chin, to quiet her.

"She hungry," Easter said.

    Jass brought Queen to Easter, put the child in her mother's arms, and sat

    on the bed beside them.

"Her name is Queen," he told Easter.

    Easter made no comment, but opened her nightgown and put her breast to

    Queen's mouth. She watched the girl sucking contentedly for a moment, and

    then said to Jass: "You should have a wife. You need a son."

    She had never harbored foolish dreams of any elevation of her status. She

    knew that she would never be more to Jass than what she was, his slave

    mistress, while another, white woman ruled in the big house, and she had

    been slightly surprised at Jass's constancy to her. Still, she loved him,

    and wanted as much of him as she could have, and tonight had been special

    to her. She had not wanted to hear of his proposal to Lizzie tonight, and

    now she wanted to hurt him in some way. Or if not him, then Lizzie, by

    default. An extraordinary burst of anger and pride and possession swelled

    through her. She had something that Lizzie could never have. She glared at

    Jass.

"But I have the best of you," she said, fiercely.

    48

She was three years old, and small for her age, a tiny sparrow of a girl,

prettily dressed in white muslin, scattering rose petals before her Massa

and his bride, Miss Lizzie, as they walked away from the altar. She looked

enchanting, and many of the female guests gathered on the lawn at The Forks

of Cypress to watch the ceremony wished for a child as demure.

She was shy, and she seldom smiled, but when she did her

394 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

dark-brown eyes danced with happiness. She didn't smile very often because

she didn't have a great deal to smile about. Other slave children teased her

about her snow-white skin, and she never saw her pappy, who was away

somewhere, miles away, and she was told that he would never come back to

her. She loved her mammy very much, and her gran'pappy, who was called Cap'n

Jack by everyone else. She loved the house in which she lived, a little

shack tucked under some trees, away from the quarters where the other slaves

lived. Her mammy worked very hard, weaving cloth for all the slaves on the

plantation. Her gran'pappy didn't seem to work very much at all, but spent

a lot of time with her, teaching her things about the world, and some funny

lines on paper that he called the A B C. She liked it when her Massa came

to

visit Mammy, because he'd sit her on his knee and tell her funny stories,

and a few times he'd given her little presents, and she hugged him and told

him she loved him, and would have liked him to visit more often. She wished

she could lie in the bed with him, like Mammy did sometimes, and go to sleep

in his arms, because she always felt safe and happy when he cuddled her.

    She didn't speak to him when she saw him outside the weaving house because

    he was the Massa and didn't want to be bothered with a little slave girt

    like her, Mammy said, and told her he would have her whipped if she was a

    naughty girl, so she kept her distance from him because she didn't want to

    be beaten.

    She would have liked to live in the big house. Her mammy took her to the

    kitchen of it sometimes, and that one room was bigger than the entire shack

    she called home. She liked it best there when she saw Miss Sally, who was

    quite old, and who always gave her candies or little presents, and told her

    stories. She didn't like it when there were other white people staying

    there-visitors, Mammy called them-because then she wasn't allowed to go

    near the big house, not even if there were little boy and girl visitors.

    She wasn't allowed to play with them because they were white and she was

a

    nigra, but she thought she didn't looked like a nigra, she looked just like

    the white children.

    Her name was Queen, and she was very proud of it-she thought it made her

    special-but her gran'pappy always called

    MERGING 395

her Princess, which puzzled her. She'd never been to a party before, and

this one was very special, her mammy had told her, and she had a very

important job to do. She was scared when she saw how many people were

there, and they were all very grandly dressed, but her gran'pappy said her

dress was the prettiest. She'd rather have worn a dress like Miss

Lizzie's, which was all frills and flounces in purest white, and she had

a little crown on her head, and a long white train, made of the same

material, or nearly, as Queen's dress. She'd seen some of the slaves

sewing little glittery things on the train, and out here in the garden

those glittery things caught the sun and sparkled, and made Miss Lizzie

look just like a princess. She didn't like Miss Lizzie very much-she'd

only seen her a few times, and she always looked very stem-but today she

was smiling a lot, and Queen thought she must be happy.

    Queen was happy that day. As she walked along the red carpet, throwing

    out her rose petals, she heard lots of fine ladies say oooh and aaah, and

    laugh, and say how lovely she looked, and some of the men even clapped

    their hands, and no one had ever done that to her before.

    She got to the end of the carpet, and didn't know what to do. She saw

    Miss Sally standing there, dressed in black, looking very frightening;

    only she wasn't frightening at all, Queen knew that, and she ran to Miss

    Sally, and threw her arms about her, and asked her if she'd been a good

    girl.

    "You were a very good girl," Sally told her. "Everyone loved you."

    Queen laughed. It had been easy really. She waved to her mammy, who was

    standing with Gran'pappy and some of the other slaves a long way away,

    watching. She wished her mammy had a nice dress, but she always wore that

    simple gray linen, and a shawl, and a scarf around her head. She was very

    beautiful, but you couldn't always tell, because of that ugly dress.

    Queen had to wear ugly clothes most of the time, but she loved pretty

    dresses, like the one she was wearing now.

    Miss Sally took her hand and asked her if she was hungry, because it was

    time to eat. Queen nodded, because she was very hungry. She'd been really

    excited that morning, and had been sick and cried a lot, until her mammy

    told her she wouldn't be able to go to the wedding if she didn't stop.

    So

396 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

she stopped. and went to the wedding, and now she was hungry.

    Miss Sally took her to the long tables set out in the garden, where all the

    food was. There was another woman with them, Miss Lizzie's mammy, who wore

    a lot of fussy clothes and jewels, and always had a couple of young men

    slaves near her. Her mammy told her this was Miss Becky, and although Queen

    had seen her lots of times-she came here often with her daughter-she'd

    never spoken to her. She was a little bit scared of her. Not really truly

    scared, just a little bit, and sometimes she thought Miss Becky was funny.

    When she saw the long tables covered with food she nearly cried again

    because she'd never seen so much food in all her life, and it all looked

    wonderful, and she couldn't decide what she wanted. But Miss Sally fixed

a

    special plate, just for her, and they all went to sit on garden chairs

    under the shade trees. Parties, Queen decided, were things she wanted a

    whole lot more of.

Mrs. Perkins thought it was a wonderful party too. More than anything, she

was relieved that it had finally happened. Lizzie had held her to her

promise, and it had been a long engagement. The trips to London and Paris

had been fun, although Becky hadn't enjoyed Charleston very much, a

hoity-toity place, she thought, and no one was very impressed with her

fabulous new gowns and her entourage of slaves. "The greeneyed god," she

said to Lizzie, but Lizzie had only smiled, and sometimes Becky couldn't

resist the feeling that her daughter was laughing at her.

    She hadn't enjoyed their visits to their relations in Virginia and North

    Carolina at all. They'd made such a lot of fuss and bother about her

    retinue, which was so pretty-how did they expect two traveling women to

    manage without six nigras? Obviously none of them understood the importance

    of Lizzie's impending union, though she had told them about it incessantly,

    and she decided that most of her relatives were hicks at heart. Their

    touring had taken two years, and Becky was glad to come home to Alabama and

    plan the wedding in earnest. It took them a year to work out all the

    details, partly because Lizzie was still a little funny about that weaving

    gel

    MERGING 397

Jass was so fond of, but that seemed to be calming down.

    She'd taken charge of every detail of the wedding ceremony and subsequent

    breakfast herself, and had a devil of a job persuading Mr. Perkins to

    open up the moneybags to pay for everything she'd ordered. Really, he

    could be such a tightwad at times, and she never understood why, because

    they were loaded. She'd expected at least a little moral support from

    him, but no one, not even William, seemed to appreciate how hard she'd

    worked to bring this whole thing together. She'd been physically ill the

    whole of last week and had to drag herself from her sickbed for fittings

    for the green grosgrain frock she was having made, and even the wretched

    dressmaker had argued with her, and told her off for putting on weight,

    and it all got so much she burst into tears, standing there in her bodice

    and camiknickers, which was very embarrassing.

    At last, it was all over. Her work, her life's work perhaps, was done.

    Lizzie was formally, officially wed, and was mistress of one of the

    richer estates in the South. Not quite as rich as it once was, Becky

    surmised, when old James was alive, but still rich enough. Jass seemed

    to have very little head for business matters, and left most things to

    Tom Kirkman, who was dear and hardworking but rather dull, with no great

    flair about him. And William had been a pig about Lizzie's dowry.

    Finally, it had all come together with scarcely a hitch, and when she saw

    Lizzie walking down the aisle toward Jass, and the minister joined them

    in indissoluble union, she felt as if a ton weight had been taken from

    her shoulders, and wept copiously. From sheer relief.

    She sat on a chair near Sally and that dear little girl, and tucked into

    a plate of fried chicken. She was very tired. Her shoulders sagged, she

    had a splitting headache, and she promised herself a week in bed to

    recuperate. Sally had been a dear friend throughout it all. and Becky

    felt she could be herself in her company. Not too much of herself, of

    course, because so many people were there, and obviously watching them,