Authors: Alex Haley
quently hired out to others, and their Massa paid for their services, so
Parson Dick made the short journey to the Coffee plantation on the other
side of Florence with his warrant of travel in his pocket, and quickly
took charge of the household. As he was serving port one evening, a guest
commented on the excellence of his manners. Massa Coffee laughed, and
said he hoped so, the damned nigger was costing enough. Then Parson Dick
found out that Jass was receiving forty dollars for his hire, with not
one cent of it going to the slave.
QUEEN 467
Expert at simple arithmetic, Parson Dick multiplied forty dollars a week
by fifty-two, and realized that if the money had come to him he would be
earning over two thousand dollars a year. Parson Dick was stunned. He
knew he had value as a slave-on the block he would have fetched a
splendid sum, perhaps as much as three thousand-but that was a once only
figure, and this new sum represented a regular income. Like every slave,
he longed to be free, longed to be paid for his labor, but because the
dream of freedom was so elusive, he had never bothered to work out what
he might earn when that glorious day came.
Two thousand dollars a year! It was a phenomenal sum, and it infuriated
him that Jass was receiving that money and not he. Later that night he
sat in the kitchen with Ruby, the Coffee housekeeper, with whom he had
struck, up an immediate friendship, and poured out his grievances to her.
Ruby was completely sympathetic, completely understanding, completely
supportive, and even more bitter about her circumstances than Parson
Dick. She had been owned for many years by a Massa in Georgia, had nursed
him through his ailing final days, and on his deathbed, he had promised
her freedom. Once the old man had gone, his surviving relatives saw no
need or reason to honor the pledge, and had sold Ruby to her present
owners.
Fueled by Parson Dick's indignation, she worked out what her weekly value
might be, and the pair realized that, jointly, they would bring in over
three thousand a year. If they were free. The figures shocked them.
They also realized that they wanted to be together, to be a pair, to be
married, but they had no way of achieving it or, if they did marry, of
living under a common roof, for they had separate Massas and lived on
different plantations. It was remotely possible that if they told their
Massas of their love, then the Coffees might trade their butler for
Parson Dick, or the Jacksons swap their housekeeper, Pattie, for Ruby,
but it was unlikely. It was too complicated. Slaves chose their partners
from other slaves on their own plantation, not from the world at large.
And neither Parson Dick nor Ruby wanted to be wed in slavery. The life
they envisioned together in the Coffee kitchen was as a working pair,
living in freedom, earn-
468 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
ing their joint income. Much as they adored each other's company for the
short week they were together, the driving force for both of them was
their innate fury at their status. Desperate overachievers, they lived in
the ill-founded hope that excellence at their jobs would earn them their
freedom. They preferred to maintain that fury, and that hope, by being
forced to live apart when they were so blatantly intended for each other.
If they were free, they promised each other, it would be different. And
they would be free, one day.
They sustained a curious relationship by sending occasional messages to
each other by way of other slaves. When the seed merchant made his rounds
of the plantations, his boy would bring messages of affection from Ruby
to Parson Dick, and the draper's assistant would return the sweet
nothings when he joumeyed, by a rambling route, from The Forks to the
Coffees.
The excitement surrounding the election of Lincoln had persuaded Parson
Dick that freedom for the slaves might become a reality, and so the lack
of any action by the Yankees against the state of South Carolina was an
especially bitter blow for him.
"Never going to happen," he told Cap'n Jack, slurring his words through
a small pond of brandy. "We ain't never going to be free. "
Cap'n Jack agreed with him, and they both got even drunker, and swore
eternal friendship. Then both were sick, and passed out, and had foul
heads the next morning.
In the big house, New Year's Eve was an even happier celebration than
Chfistmas. Jass and Lizzie gave a party for friends and family, and even
though Lizzie was still distressed by her mother's death, she had come to
terms with it, and was, again, a splendid hostess. William, George, and
Alexander came with their wives and new families, and Elizabeth and Tom,
with their hordes of children. Sam Kirkman, their eldest son, was with
them, and Elizabeth his wife, and Elizabeth his baby daughter. Sam had
graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard, and was now practicing medicine.
Jass joked that if there was a war, Sawbones Sam would be in his element,
but everyone laughed, because nobody believed anymore that there was going
to be a war.
QUEEN 469
Queen was allowed to watch the dancing from the hallway, but when the
clock struck midnight she was alone.
They sang "Auld Lang Sync," and then Jass raised his glass in a toast.
"To the South," he cried, and most of them raised their glasses.
"To the Union," Sam Kirkman said softly in the silence while they drank.
No one cheered, no one drank with him, and it soured the party atmosphere
for a while. But Lizzie was too good a hostess to let a little thing like
politics, and an argument between close relations, ruin everyone else's
fun. She organized music and dancing and distracted the children with
silly games.
Sam's quiet affirmation of loyalty to his country depressed Jass. He
watched the games with Lizzie for a while, and kissed away the few tears
she shed because Becky was not with them to celebrate. Becky had always
loved parties, as did Jass, but now he was a different man, and Sam had
killed his appetite for celebration. He wandered away from the group, and
tried to avoid his nephew.
He saw Queen sitting alone on the stairs watching the fun. Since it was
such a special occasion, he took a glass of champagne to her, and sat on
the stairs with her for a while, chatting about the evening, and wished
her Happy New Year.
Queen had never tasted champagne before, nor any alcohol, and even though
it was only a small glass, just two or three sips, she loved the sweet,
sparkling drink, and the bubbly effect it had on her. It made her want
to dance, and her body swayed in time to the party music. Jass saw what
was happening and smiled. He stood and offered her his hand, asked her
if she would like to dance.
Queen could not believe her cars. This must be what Jane called being
drunk, for it was unreal to her and wonderful. She sat staring at her
adored father until he smiled again, and repeated his request. Believing
him now, Queen accepted his offered hand. Jass led her to the center of
the hallway, and to the distant music they could hear from the ballroom,
he danced with her. They were alone, the two of them, in the vast, empty
hall, the portraits of their ancestors staring down at them.
It was the happiest night of Queen's life.
55
The Southern celebrations continued well into the New Year. Not even the
seizing of United States arsenals provoked a reaction from Washington.
There was a small hiccup in early January when someone burst into the
tavern in Florence, where Jass was drinking with friends, to tell them
that President Buchanan was sending a warship to reinforce the federal
garrison at Fort Sumter, a small island in the middle of Charleston
Harbor. They all raced from the tavern to the telegraph office, where the
news was confirmed. There was general astonishment that it was the
passive, lame-duck Buchanan who had taken this aggressive action, and a
general, sobering realization that there were many federal army forts
throughout the South. If there was to be war, the North had a natural
advantage. A few men immediately enlisted in militia units, for there was
no Southern army yet, while the others champed at the bit for news, and
insisted that Alabama should show her solidarity with the sister state.
Jass, wanting to be close to the source of news, the telegraph office,
slept at the hotel for the next few nights, to the distress of both
Lizzie and Sally, who felt he should be at home with them. For the
following week, the South held its breath. Six days day later, they heard
that the ship carrying the reinforcements, the Star of the West, had
turned about under fire from Charleston shore batteries, and jubilation
returned. The independence of South Carolina had been challenged, the
rebellious state had won, and on the same day Mississippi withdrew from
the Union.
"The Yankees," Alec Henderson told Letitia, "are all piss and wind." Mrs.
Henderson clucked at the language, but forgave her husband because these
were stirring times, and she agreed with him. Still, she determined to
try to curb his potty mouth when order was restored to the land.
470
QUEEN 471
Momentous news now reached them with dizzying speed. Almost every day,
it seemed, another state seceded. Florida, and then, to considerable
rejoicing in the streets of Florence, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and
Texas were the next to leave.
When the telegraph officer rushed out to tell the assembled multitude
that Kansas had been admitted into the Union as a slave-free state, he
was jeered and pelted with mud and small rocks. He got a cut over his
eye, but took it in good part. It was only sport, the boys were in high
spirits, and who needed Kansas?
Delegates from the seceding states were to meet in Montgomery, Alabama,
to form a new provisional government. Jass had no official role, but was
set upon a political career and had many friends of influence, so he
decided to attend, if only as a spectator. Lizzie and Sally were inclined
to argue with him, but Jass lost his temper. They were all perfectly safe
at The Forks, he assured his women; no harm could come to them. The North
was not going to do anything to hinder the rebellion; they were having
a peace convention in Washington, for heaven's sake. And even if some
retaliation did eventuate, at some later time, Florence was a very long
way from the center of any possible action.
"What if the baby comes?" Lizzie asked him, crying softly, but even the
prospect of a new child, another son perhaps, did not deter Jass.
"You've had babies before, and it isn't quite due yet," he whispered to
Lizzie. "I'll only be gone for a couple of weeks. "
Thus Jass went to Montgomery, and was present at the creation of a new
country. The name chosen for that new country was the Confederate States
of America, and Jass was profoundly moved. This was how it should be, he
thought; this was how it should have been all along, for the very name
itself represented what he believed America to be. A confederation, a
group of sovereign states banded together in a common cause, not a
federation, which implied surrender of power to a central authority. When
Jefferson Davis was presented to them as president, the bands played what
was to become their
472 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
anthem, and Jass sang "Dixie" as loudly and lustily as anyone there.
He rode back to The Forks with a full heart. Now that the deed was done,
it was as if a festering boil had been lanced. He was filled with a sense
of peace and purpose. He attended his family with care and affection, and
went about his business with an unaccustomed vigor, for now the new
country had to be made to prosper.
It didn't matter that the new country had no treasury, Jass, like many
others, invested heavily in Confederate bonds, believing them to be
gilt-edged. They had cotton and powerful allies, for Great Britain had
to protect the supply of that cotton to its mills in Manchester. Even if
the North was initially belligerent to the South, it was unlikely to take
on John Bull, and must eventually accept the fact of the new Confederacy.
The two nations of America would live in harmony and prosperity, and the
Jackson fortune would become greater than ever before.
But what was a country without a king? Sally was less sanguine about their