Queen (67 page)

    Easter was furious with him. "You stop that, Cap'n Jack, yo' hear?" Why

    couldn't he understand it would never be, and that Easter didn't want it

to

    be? Queen was hers; she made Easter's world whole and complete. She didn't

    want to lose her, and didn't want to expose her to the less than tender

    mercies of Lizzie. "She a slave chile, and she allus will be! Jus' like

    I'll allus be a slave, and yo'll allus be a slave!"

    Cap'n Jack ignored her anger. "We gonna be free one day, yo' hear the talk,

    the day is comin'," he whispered, as much to Queen as to Easter.

404 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

    The edge of Easter's fury had gone. At least they'd changed the subject.

    "We won't be here to see it," she said.

    Cap'n Jack didn't argue, for there was no point. But in his heart he

    believed the day was coming. Every time he heard white folk talking these

    days, it was about the Yankees, and the North, and abolition. He remembered

    his own years in the North, and what he had seen and learned there, the

    good and the bad. He believed that when freedom came, the blacks had to be

    ready for it. There was no use in having freedom if they didn't have

    learning, if they couldn't better themselves. He dreamed of that better day

    for Queen.

    Easter was still speaking. "She be better off learnin' weavin', or sewin',

    or summat useful."

She glared at the rain dripping in.

"Or fixin' roofs."

    Cap'n Jack had been promising to fix the roof since last winter. "I'll git

    roun' to it one day," he said.

    Easter laughed. "Chile die of newmonya 'fore that day happen."

    She busied herself at the loom. Cap'n Jack rocked Queen on his knee. She

    was tired, and was drifting to steep. He hummed a gentle lullaby to her,

    softly, so that Easter would not hear.

    "The day will come, chile," he sang. "The day will come. "

The rain was relentless, and Easter took matters into her own hands. Since

Jass was not there, she knew the person who would help was Sally, but knew

she had to be careful. She was called to the laundry one day, to help iron

sheets that had not dried properly in the rain, and Sally was there, sorting

through the linen with Pattie and Jessica. Sally never acknowledged Easter's

presence in the big house.

    Easter began to mumble to herself as she ironed. Slaves often mumbled to

    themselves, and a good mistress listened to the mumbling, for much could

be

    discovered from it.

    " I suppose we could turn these sheets sides to the middle," Sally said to

    Pattie, intent on household affairs. "It seems a waste to throw them out."

    She left gaps in her comments so that Easter's mumbling might take form and

    meaning.

    MERGING 405

    "But we seem to have enough pillowcases to get us through the winter. "

    "Rotten, no-account, leaky house me an' the chile lives in," Sally

    deciphered Easter.

    "I'm certainly not taking another trip to Charleston until spring," Sally

    said in counterpoint.

"Roof's useless, e'vry drop a rain comes in."

    "But we do need some towels." Sally was listening intently now.

    "Po' Fil Queen could catch her death of cole." So that was it, and of

    course, something had to be done, for Queen's sake. Easter could stop

    mumbling now, but Sally had to let her know the message had been

    received. She turned on Pattie and Jessica.

    "I've never known a household to get through towels the way we do," she

    said, as if it was the slave maids' fault. "This is good sturdy cotton,

    too. You'd think it would last a little longer. "

    Pattie and Jessica, who was young and learning the skills of a

    chambermaid, started mumbling that it was nothing to do with them, Massa

    George was to blame.

Sally spoke to Mitchell, and Mitchell gave the job to Henderson. With a

cautious warning.

    Henderson was intrigued. He'd heard of Easter, the Massa's whore, and her

    bastard child, had seen them from a distance, but until now had no reason

    to go to the weaving house. What he knew of them surprised him. If the

    Massa wanted some nigra on the side, that was all right by Henderson,

    although he'd never had a taste for black flesh himself-it revolted him,

    and he hated to see the high-yella brats they fathered. But this bitch

    seemed permanent to the Massa; they had an ongoing connection, and he

    could not understand that, especially when the new mistress was such a

    gorgeous creature. Henderson would have gladly given his right arm for

    a woman like Lizzie.

    He took a couple of men to the weaving house, threatened a whipping

    unless they did a good job, and went inside.

    How could the Massa bear it, how could any white man? This grubby little

    shack, and this drably clothed slut. He could smell her from the doorway,

    at least in his mind, and it dis-

    406 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

gusted him. Not that she was ugly; she was quite a piece of woman, and if

that's the way your fancy went you could do worse. If that's the way your

fancy went. He stared at the child playing on the floor, and his gorge

rose. She'd fool anyone. Could be white, sitting there, staring at him

with those big, round, scared eyes. But she wasn't white. She was a nigra.

The chaos she'll cause when she's grown, he thought. Some unsuspecting

white boy'll do her, and get a bastard, and they'll take over the world

one day, and we'll all end up like them. Lazy, shiftless, and

good-for-nothing. He thought of his own mother, who'd worked so hard all

her life and had nothing, and it infuriated him that this pickaninny and

her mammy could have pretty much what they wanted, all because the mulatta

was good in bed.

    The child was scared of him, he could see. And fear, in others of him,

    had a powerful effect on this young man who had never had dominion over

    anyone except a few no-account darkies.

    "It'll be fixed by nightfall," he said to Easter, looking at Queen. "Hope

    it'll be to your satisfaction, Miss High and Mighty. "

    Easter was unsure of Henderson. "Thank you, Massa," she said.

    He turned to her, and knew that she wasn't scared of him, and wanted to

    make her fear him, for it was sweet to him.

    "And in future, if you've got any complaints, you bring em to me, " he

    told her. " Don't go running to the big house. "

    Easter said nothing. That angered Henderson even more. He walked close

    to her, so that she might sense his power.

    "I know your game," he said, "You may be the Massa's fancy woman, but

    you're still a slave. And I'm in charge of slaves."

    "Massa Mitchell the overseer," Easter said calmly. But she was scared,

    just a little bit; Henderson knew that. He could smell fear. He didn't

    have to push too hard.

    "He wouldn't know what time of day it is." Henderson was not afraid to

    be honest with her. "Couple of years, he'll retire, and his job's for me.

    Then things'll be different round here."

He didn't want to push too hard, not yet, and might not

    MERGING 407

have under different circumstances. She could go running to the Massa and

pour poison in his ear, and if she had enough power, she could even get

him sacked. But the Massa was away for at least a year, and by the time

he came back, Henderson was determined his position would be unassailable.

    "And I've got a long memory." He turned his attention to the sniveling

    child. "So you keep a civil tongue in your head, and that brat of yours.

    Or you'll be sorry."

    Queen started to cry. It pleased Henderson, who looked at Easter again,

    and then left.

    He thought that Easter would be no trouble to him because he could always

    scare the child, and the child wouldn't tell. He felt satisfied with his

    morning's work, and yelled some abuse at the niggers on the roof.

Easter ran to Queen, picked her up, and hugged her hard. She sat on the

bed with her daughter and hummed a little lullaby.

    The world was changing too fast for her. Lizzie, even though absent, was

    mistress now, and no one could guess what changes she might introduce on

    her return to The Forks, or how she might affect her new husband's

    attitudes and behavior.

    And Henderson was right. Mitchell must retire soon, and clearly the

    slaves could expect a different order when he was gone.

If only Jass were here. Jass would make everything all right.

    49

The honeymoon had begun disastrously. Jass and Lizzie had

planned to spend the first night at the Florence Hotel and then

make a leisurely journey to Charleston, but the rain made the

roads impassable, and they were forced to stay at Florence for

four days. It seemed so silly. They should have gone home,

but even the road to The Forks had turned into a quagmire,

    408 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

and anyway, Lizzie showed no particular desire to spend the early days of

her marriage under her mother-in-law's eye.

    The first evening had been pleasant enough. They had dined in a private

    room, and the staff had done their best to give the dinner some sense of

    romantic occasion. Lizzie had retired early, to prepare herself for her

    wedding night, and Jass had stayed talking with the proprietor, who was a

    close acquaintance, and had drunk several glasses of port.

    Jass felt at peace with most of the world as he climbed the stairs and made

    his way to their room, but a little part of his brain was worried about

    what must happen next with Lizzie. The port had not dulled his concerns.

    She was in bed when he came in, wearing a pretty nightdress, with the

    blankets pulled up, demurely, under her chin. Jass had chatted about the

    weather; then he sat beside her and kissed her gently, and he knew that

    Lizzie was scared. What was of more concern to him was that he felt no

    sense of anticipation or arousal. She was not unattractive to him, but it

    was in a general way, as a pretty friend, lacking that sense of desire and

    passion he felt when he was close to Easter. After a while he excused

    himself, went into their sitting room, and changed into his nightclothes.

    When he came back to the bedroom, Lizzie had turned down the lamps, and

    because of the rain there was no moon. Jass felt his way to the bed, lay

    down beside Lizzie, and she curled into the crook of his arm and chattered

    nervously about their coming year in Europe. Jass understood that she was

    trying to delay the inevitable, but it had to happen and he was tired, and

    the port was making him drowsy.

    He kissed her again, and forced his tongue into her mouth. Lizzie did not

    protest, but she did not relax. He fondled her breasts and lay astride, and

    she submitted to him, as she had been told to do, and as she knew she must,

    but she didn't appear to be enjoying herself in any way.

    Jass was lost. His only experience of a woman was with Easter, who yielded

    to him readily, willingly, and with a sense of abandon. He wondered what

on

    earth he could do to calm the fears of his shivering bride, and what he

    might do to excite himself, for her fear was unmanning him.

Lizzie was in a turmoil. She wanted Jass, desperately. She

    MERGING 409

wanted to prove to him that she would be a good wife, but the prospect of

the thing that had to happen was terrifying to her. She had no sense of

titillation, for there was an edge of impending violence to his kisses,

and the one honest thing her mother had told her about her first time was

that it would hurt. When he thrust his tongue into her mouth, Lizzie

almost screamed in horror, for she realized that she had no possible route

of escape, and when he lay astride her and she felt, for the first time,

that hard thing pressing on her abdomen, she almost fainted in fear of it.

Now something odd had happened. The hard monster wasn't hard anymore; it

was soft again, and all sense of urgency had deserted Jass. She couldn't

believe it was over-it couldn't be this short, this easy, and there had

been no pain-but some crisis had passed and Lizzie relaxed and started to

enjoy herself.

    She loved lying in his arms as he gently caressed her shoulders, and she

    allowed her own hands to explore his chest, and his biceps, and his neck,

    and she even let her fingers trace their way to his lips, and he kissed

    them gently. If it was always going to be like this, then Lizzie wasn't

    scared anymore; in fact she quite liked it, and found herself liking it

    more and more as the minutes ticked by, and nothing was going to hurt her

    now. She felt sensations she had never experienced, of warmth and