Queen (66 page)

    and envying her. She pulled herself together, and looked about for

    something to say.

    The little girl was eating her food quite daintily. Surprising, for a

    nigra child; obviously she'd been brought up well. Not surprising, when

    you considered who her father was.

398 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

    .11 must say, the child has lovely manners," she said to Sally.

    Sally was intrigued. Becky seemed to be going flump. She looked old and

    tired, and some steel seemed to be missing from her spine. Even her

    vowels were less extended than usual. And it was the first time she had

    ever mentioned Queen.

    "She's a darling," she said, hugging Queen to her. Often, Sally had to

    stop herself from becoming too fond of Queen. It would be different, she

    was sure, when Jass and Lizzie had children.

    "She'll make a splendid companion for any daughters Lizzie might have,"

    Mrs. Perkins continued, speaking behind her fan. "It's such a sensible

    arrangement, tho' it's taken Lizzie awhile to get used to the idea."

    She looked at Lizzie and Jass, who were surrounded by well-wishers. She's

    almost human today, Sally thought, as if she were falling apart now that

    it's all over, coming back down to earth.

    Mrs. Perkins sighed. "I don't know what I'd do without our nigra girls.

    Mr. Perkins--

    She snapped her fan shut, pointed it at her meek, tubby husband, who was

    worrying about business matters with some associates, then opened the fan

    and spoke behind it again.

    --can be a regular demon, you know." She rolled her eyes a very great

    deal, to indicate that her husband was a positive Casanova. Sally tried

    to hide her smile.

    The enormous, three-tiered cake was cut, and everyone cheered, and Queen

    ate three pieces; then she walked hand in hand with Sally as they

    wandered through the crowd talking to people.

Lizzie had gone to the house to dress for going away, and Mr. Perkins

collared Jass for a few words of advice, as was befitting.

    "I must say the place is looking splendid, Jass," he said, a little

    pompously, Jass thought. "Your father would be proud."

    Jass was in a good humor, and indulged his new father-inlaw.

    "We're doing well, I think," said Jass politely. "Not as well as we were,

    but the price of cotton will pick up."

    MERGING 399

    Mr. Perkins shook his head doubtfully. He didn't trust anything to do with

    money.

    "Putting something away for a rainy day, I hope?" He mopped his brow with

    his handkerchief. It was a sultry day. There was a storm coming. "There are

    a few storm clouds out there. "

Jass knew he didn't mean the weather. He tried to be casual.

"Nothing serious, surely?"

    Everything was serious to Mr. Perkins. He'd lost quite a lot of money on

a

    foolish transaction a few weeks ago, and with the cost of the wedding and

    Lizzie's dowry, he thought his world was collapsing. Although he was still

    rich, he was not as rich as he had been.

    "The abolitionists are getting quite strident," he fretted. "And this new

    Republican party may take up their cause."

    "Well, that's the North." Jass shrugged it aside. "And in any case, the end

    of slavery wouldn't be the end of the world. "

    "It would be the end of the South." Mr. Perkins was shocked by the heresy.

"Not if we diversify," Jass said blithely.

    Mr. Perkins smiled. He loved winning arguments, and he remembered that Jass

    used to make a lot of speeches about diversification when he was a young

    man. Hadn't put one of those ideas into effect, of course.

"I don't see you doing that," he said slyly.

    In that instant, Jass could have killed him, because he too remembered his

    own ideas. And he had tried, but perhaps not hard enough. He often talked

    to Tom about planting something other than cotton, but neither of them

    could think what. Cotton was not as profitable as it had once been, but

    nothing was more profitable than cotton. And the price would surely rise.

    Luckily, Tom and Elizabeth joined them at that moment, with Hugh and Sam,

    who was an owlish and serious young man. Sam was going to Harvard next

    week, to study medicine, and had come to congratulate Jass ' and say

    good-bye. Jass knew Sam was going to college, but was surprised. Was he

    really old enough? Had so many years gone by?

    When the time came for Jass and Lizzie to leave, they climbed into the

    carriage, and all the guests gathered round to

400 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

say good-bye. They cheered and waved and threw confetti and sang songs as

the happy couple rode down the drive.

    Then a man Queen didn't know grabbed her and lifted her high in the air.

"My," he said. "Aren't you the prettiest little thing."

    He looked at some people he seemed to know, and called out to them, very

    loudly.

"Whose little girl are you?"

    Everyone around Queen suddenly seemed to be very angry, but Queen didn't

    think she'd done anything wrong. Miss Sally moved quickly to her and

    sounded cross.

    "You must be very tired, Queen; you need a nap," she said sharply. Her

    mammy came rushing up and grabbed her, and her gran'pappy.

    "I'll see to her, Miss Sally," she said, and carried Queen away. Queen

    could see that the man who had picked her up was talking to someone else,

    and then he shouted something out, and he sounded cross too.

    "How could I tell?" she heard him say. "She looks white as cotton. How was

    I supposed to know she's a nigra?"

    Her mammy started walking faster when she heard that, pushing her way

    through the crowd, and there was a crack of thunder. It frightened Queen,

    and she began to cry.

It rained for days. The river flooded, and the roads were impassable. Lizzie

and Jass had to spend the first few nights of their honeymoon at the hotel

in Florence rather than traveling to Charleston to get the ship to Europe.

    Usually, the slaves didn't mind heavy rain. It meant that no work could be

    done in the fields, and the lenient overseer, Mitchell, gave them the days

    off. This time it was different.

    Mitchell gathered them together inside the barn on the second day of the

    rain. A young white man was standing beside him.

    "You can't go into the fields today," Mitchell told them. "So we'll use the

    time to fix things up around here."

He turned to the young man standing beside him.

    "An' this here's Mr. Henderson," he told the slaves. "He's gonna be helpin'

    me from now on. You mind him, y'hear? Same as you mind me."

    MERGING 401

    The slaves eyed Henderson warily. They were all used to Mitchell, had the

    measure of him, but they knew he was getting old, and they weren't sure

    about this new assistant overseer. They didn't like change because usually

    it wasn't for the better. They stood in the leaky barn until someone told

    them what to do.

Henderson was anxious to please.

    "The barns need work," he said to Mitchell, who looked at the leaking roof

    and nodded. His arthritis was bothering him badly, and he was content to

    leave the day to Henderson, who wouldn't be able to do too much damage.

"If'n you like," he said. "Hit ain't the weather for it."

    He limped away. "Damn rain," he said, to no one in particular. "Plays merry

    hell with the harvest."

    Henderson waited till Mitchell was out of the bam; then he turned to the

    slaves.

    "I want a work gang up on the roof to fix the leaks, a dozen men," he

    ordered sharply.

    The slaves waited. No one wanted to be up on the roof in this weather.

    They hesitated a fraction too long, for suddenly Henderson barked a

    military command at them.

"Jump to it! I ain't afraid of using the lash!

    The slaves groaned inwardly, but shuffled about, trying to look busy.

    Clearly there were going to be changes, and none of them for the better.

    Mitchell had lingered outside and had heard Henderson use his authority.

He

    wasn't too worried about it. All young men were overeager in a new job, and

    the slaves could stand a little shaking up.

    The arthritis in his leg was troubling him badly, and he limped away to

    somewhere warrn and dry. He hoped that Henderson would work out, because

    then he could retire. Not for a year or two, of course. But soon.

    Henderson knew he was on trial, and knew that if he made a good impression,

    one of the plum jobs in the district was his for the taking.

    Youngest of five sons of a dirt-poor tobacco sharecropper, Henderson had

    been raised to the land and was a good and muscular worker, determined to

    better himself in life. He had

402 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

no expectations from his father, a drunkard with whom the boy had been

constantly at war, and he had upped and left six months ago, with a couple

of dollars his mother, old before her time and ailing from a life of

unrelenting hardship, had given him. Living by his wits and his strength,

which he offered for hire wherever he could find work, he had been searching

for a position with potential. He had heard of The Forks of Cypress and its

aging overseer, and that there was no white assistant to succeed to the job.

He did his homework well. He found out all he could about Mitchell,

discovered the man was considered lenient in his treatment of blacks, spent

hours thinking up proper responses to possible questions, and, in speech at

least, tempered his own ruthless, lifelong dislike and distrust of niggers.

His timing and responses were perfect. He presented his most reasonable face

to Mitchell, who liked the boy and decided to give him a chance.

The roof of the weaving house was leaking, too, seeping in through the

cracks, dripping into buckets set out by Easter. She'd complained about it

several times to Mitchell, but nothing ever got done. Mitchell forgot a lot

of things these days.

    She sat at the loom trying to weave, but a persistent drip was making the

    new cloth damp. It aggravated her, and she was not in a good mood.

    Cap'n Jack was sitting on the floor with Queen, holding up some brightly

    painted cards that he'd made for her.

    It was a game that Queen loved. Cap'n Jack held up a C, and Queen knew

    that, it was for Cat, and D was for Dog. But she always had trouble with

    the next one-it was a big word.

"Effalump," she tried.

"No, chile, that's 'el-e-phant.' " Cap'n Jack laughed.

    "Filling her head with useless nonsense," Easter grumbled, ignored by both

    of them.

    "What's an elly phan?" Queen asked her gran'pappy. Although she already

    knew, she loved the story.

    "A elephant is a great big animal, with a long nose that's called a trunk,"

    Cap'n Jack told her. "He live in Africa, where yo' mammy and yo' gran'mammy

    and me, and all yo' family come from."

    "I ain't from Africa, I's from Alabama," Easter grumbled her counterpoint.

    MERGING 403

    Cap'n Jack ignored her. "Africa is a beautiful country, long, long ways

    from here, where everybody free and happy," he told the child.

    "Is that where my pappy is?" Queen longed to meet her pappy.

    Cap'n Jack didn't look at Easter. Queen's paternity was a bone of

    contention between them. Cap'n Jack thought Queen should know who her real

    father was, but Easter, ever more practical, forbade it. It would seriously

    offend the Jackson family and would be of no advantage to Queen. for even

    though everyone knew it was true, it could not be admitted. She had seen

    the other slave children taunting Queen about the color of her skin, and

to

    claim the Massa as her father would make her the object of even greater

    derision. Children of the plantation were simply that, and she wished her

    father would forget his silly, and even dangerous, ideas about some

    eventual equality of whites and blacks.

    Aware of Easter's feelings and, in his more realistic moments, forced to

    agree with them, Cap'n Jack still harbored unrealistic dreams for Queen,

    much as he had once done for his daughter. He longed to see Queen taken

    into the big house, as some Massas did with their half-caste offspring,

    even though the paternity was never admitted. These chosen few children had

    a better life, Cap'n Jack thought, than those who were relegated to a life

    with the field hands, and Capn Jack prayed it would happen to Queen one

    day. He hugged her to him.

    "No, chile, yo' pappy's a very important man," he whispered in her ear.

    "An' if'n yo' learn good an' work hard, one day yo'll live in a fine house

    with yo' pappy, an' wear pretty dresses, an' be happy, like a Princess."