Queen (104 page)

    and inconclusive flirtations, but by the time she was twenty-five, Gippy

    understood that she had been left on the shelf, and ceased to be anxious

    about men, because she had Jesus. Mandy, who had a more rebellious

    spirit, was not so accepting of potential spinsterhood. As Gippy's

    interest in men declined, Mandy's became avid, and she sought out the

    company of any eligible bachelor with increasing desperation. As a child

    she adored her dolls, and as she grew up she transferred that affection

    to other people's children. It wasn't so much that she wanted to be

    married; it was that she wanted children of her own, to love, and to

    mother and protect, and she could not bear the prospect of being barren.

    She became something of a joke, and then an embarrassment, among the

    young men of the town, for she sought them out and threw herself at them,

    but when they asked for more than she was prepared to give outside of

    marriage, they rejected her, and she became hysterical.

    She met a young man, a shady salesman from Boston, who learned of her

    financial security, but not her reputation, and, to secure his own

    prospects, asked for her hand in marriage. Mandy overwhelmed him with her

    gratitude, and he began to have doubts about his neurotic fianc6e. Her

    parents had larger doubts about the union, for he was not religious, and

    inquiries in Boston told them that the salesman was not to be trusted

    with money, and was out for what he could get. Mandy would hear nothing

    against her love, and so her parents offered the

    QUEEN 631

salesman a sum of money to remove himself from the district. He left for

California the next day, to make his fortune in gold.

    It broke Mandy's heart. She took to her room, and when she came down a

    few days later, she had donned a chaste composure, and settled to a life

    of loneliness with her sister, Gippy, and devotion to charity. They

    became pillars of the local church and espoused all the liberal causes,

    especially abolition, although neither had ever met a black person. Their

    parents died and left them well provided, and they continued to live

    together, for they could not imagine a life apart from each other.

    Humorless, austere, and devout, they were their only friends. As they

    grew older, the northern winters became harder for them, and they talked

    of moving to a more temperate climate, but would not live in a slave

    state. During the war, they dedicated themselves to the cause of the

    Union. They attended recruitment meetings and handed out flags and

    patriotic pamphlets to those who enlisted, wrote countless letters to the

    newspapers protesting the latest Southern outrages, and made a few, very

    small donations to those missionaries who were helping runaway slaves.

    They heard lectures from those same missionaries about the appalling

    plight of the blacks, slave and free, their passionate faith in a form

    of God, and their curious style of worship.

    It gave them the cause that they needed. Their hearts were appalled,

    although their actions were limited to supplying their church with fresh

    flowers. At the end of the war, they would move South, and by example and

    patient instruction, by simply living as good Christians, they would

    bring the newly freed slaves to their unforgiving God. They sought a

    quiet city for their gentle lives, and settled on Huntsville, where they

    bought a splendid house at a bargain price with their good Yankee

    dollars. They found a quiet church that suited them, with a minister of

    ascetic authority, and looked forward to their new lives with some

    anticipation.

    Almost immediately, they realized that persuading blacks from their wild

    forms of worship was an impossible task, and as immediately, they became

    intolerant of most black people, whom they thought primitive,

    irresponsible, and immoral. And, in the case of their maids, lazy. They

    despaired of their

632 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

rambling house, and closed off most of the rooms. Miss Mandy struggled

with the garden, but the verdant, unpredictable Southern horticulture

defeated her, and no gardener would tolerate her imperious directions. The

only reason they didn't sell up and go back home was because the weather

suited them both beautifully, and they could not face the prospect of a

long, dark winter again.

    Then a young woman came to work for them who suited their purposes

    exactly. She was nigra but pale, and obviously her white blood had calmed

    her pagan genes. She was the product of a fall from grace by her father

    and her mother, and so was ripe to be saved. She was an excellent worker,

    who seldom complained. And she was young, and brought some sunshine into

    their crimped lives, just as the lovely Southern weather eased their

    rheumatic bones. That she gently resisted their attempts to bring her to

    their purifying, Protestant angst did not concern them. She was

    malleable, and they had nothing else to do. For the rest of their lives.

It was a healing time for Queen. Her new church gave her friends and

unbounded joy, the sisters gave her companionship and something to

complain about, and the community who had so lovingly adopted her gave her

a sense of place. That Christmas was the happiest she could remember. She

made presents, silly, sweet things, for all her friends, and gave Miss

Mandy and Miss Gippy little lavender bags that she had stitched and filled

herself. They, in turn, gave her prayer books and a new Bible. She spent

a cheery Christmas morning at her church, singing the joy of Christ reborn

as lustily as anyone present. She served an excellent dinner of ham,

gravy, and creamed potatoes to the sisters, and ate her own food alone in

the kitchen, where she took all her meals. A few days later, in that same

kitchen, she wished herself a very happy New Year, and had every reason

to believe it might be true.

    Thursday afternoons were her own. With the nudging of spring, she would

    stroll in the park, or shop with Joyce, and they would go to a little

    caf6 and have big slices of fich peach pie, covered in cream. It pleased

    Joyce to see Queen so happy, and she told her so.

Queen laughed. "I love being me," she said. "I tried being

    QUEEN 633

on the other side, and now I love being black."

"But you white as snow," Joyce laughed.

    Queen shook her head. "This black blood must be a powerful thing. One

    little drop of it, and you can't be white. It's all or nothing for them."

    She looked down and fiddled with her pie, remembering the bad times, the

    white times. Joyce took her hand.

    "Seems to me there's only one thing you need to make yo' life complete,"

    she said, her meaning perfectly clear, for she said this to Queen every

    time they met. Part of Queen agreed with her. She wanted very much to

    have a man in her life, but the awful memory of Digby still lingered, and

    she was too suspicious of men to feel comfortable with them if they

    showed any romantic interest in her. Her caution was easing with time,

    and she was trying to convince herself that Digby was exceptional, but

    she was not ready to test the theory.

    Men who made her laugh, and who represented no serious threat to her

    heart or her body, were different, like the smart young man loping toward

    them, his eyes glinting with delight at Queen.

"Charles real sweet on you," Joyce hinted.

"He isn't for me," Queen said.

"Yo' need a man in yo' life," Joyce insisted.

    Charles joined them, dapper, dandy, and colorfully clad. He doffed his

    hat.

    "Miss Queen, Miss Joyce," he greeted them, but hardly looking at Joyce.

    He was real sweet on Queen. "What a very sublime pleasure."

    Joyce got to her feet. "Sit here and talk to Queen," she told Charles.

    "I see a friend over there."

    Queen laughed out loud at the unsubtlety of it, and Charles slid into

    Joyce's seat.

    "Yo're looking radiant, Miss Queen," he beamed, on his very best

    behavior. "An' what a fine big dish o' pie. But then you just a little

    ol' itty-bitty thing, and yo' need feedin' up."

    Queen laughed again, and hid her face in her hands. If nothing else,

    Charles was funny.

Charles knew people laughed at him, and used that to his advantage. Tall,

thin and scrawny, and a bom survivor, he had

634 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

an unthreatening impudence and a cheeky personality and a silver tongue.

He made the most of every opportunity, and created opportunity where none

existed. No one was exactly sure how he made his living, because he made

his living at so many things, but he was obviously doing well for himself.

A house nigger before the war, freedom saw him flower. In the ill-supplied

South, Charles could usually supply anything anyone wanted, given enough

notice and if the price was right. His customers ranged from a Union

general who was collecting fine antiques from impoverished mansions, to

a Confederate colonel who liked to drink imported brandy at domestic

prices, and scores of simple people, black and white, who knew that

Charles could provide a few simple luxuries and more necessities, at

unmatched prices. If an ex-slave needed a cheap plow for his few

sharecropping acres, Charles could find it. If a Federal soldier wanted

souvenirs of the war, Charles would talk a veteran Rebel into parting with

his promotion orders signed by Robert E. Lee. If a Southern woman wished

to sell, discreetly, a piece of jewelry to pay her bills, Charles was her

man. The only thing Charles would not do was trade in human flesh. Asked

by drunken youths if he could find them female companionship for a few

hours, Charles would smile, shake his head, and extricate himself from

their company. The concept of a human being selling her body to another,

however willingly, reminded him too strongly of slavery,

    He dressed to the height of his concept of fashion, in smart suits of

    eccentric colors, and to the surprise of many who knew him only slightly,

    Charles was deeply religious, and attended the same church as Queen. He

    was smitten by her from the first moment he saw her, and lived in the

    vain belief that one day she would come to her senses and realize what

    he was offering her. In the meantime, he courted her with irrepressible

    enthusiasm.

    Joyce's encouragement of his hopes, and the fact that Queen was never

    actually rude to him, sustained his hope, and he was constantly thinking

    up new ways to convince her of his ardor.

Queen sat in the church the next Sunday, listening intently to the

Preacher's sermon, and she became aware that something

    QUEEN 635

was being passed from hand to hand among the congregation. It was a note,

and it eventually came to her, with her name on the outside of it. Joyce

beamed at her, and Queen opened the note. It said: "May I call on you?"

The fact that it was unsigned didn't confuse her; she knew exactly who it

was from. She looked up, and saw Charles, a few rows away, grinning at

her. She threw her eyes to heaven and then glared at him, but that didn't

stop him from grinning.

    She heard a knock on the front door the next afternoon, and was sure it

    was Charles. As she moved down the hall, she could see the dark shape of

    a man through the stained glass, and made up her mind that she was going

    to end this business once and for all.

    She opened the door angrily. "Charles!" she barked. "I told you-"

    She knew it wasn't Charles the moment she saw him, even though he had his

    back to her and was staring at the garden. He turned and looked at her

    with brown velvet eyes.

    Queen caught her breath. He was probably the most handsome man she had

    ever seen.

    "I'm sorry," she said, feeling foolish. "I thought you was someone else.

    "

    "I's looking for work," he said, taking off his hat. "An' yo' garden's

    a terrible mess."

    She didn't know what to say, and thought she must have stood silent for

    several minutes, although it was only a second or two. She could hear the

    clock ticking in the hall, and the sound of her own heartbeat.

She found her voice at last.

"Wait outside," she said. "I'll fetch the Missy."

    He nodded slowly, but didn't take his eyes off her. She closed the door

    and leaned against the wall for a moment, then recollected herself, and

    went upstairs to call Miss Mandy, who was having a nap.

    When she looked out of the window at the top of the stairs, the man was

    already at work in the garden. He had found a scythe, and was cutting the

    overgrown grass.

    She forgot her errand, and stood watching him, until Miss Mandy came out