Queen (69 page)

    face was inches from his, trusting him, and he thought they were alone,

    but salvation arrived, in the form of Cap'n Jack.

    "The chile botherin' yo', Massa?" If Cap'n Jack had known what was in

    Jass's heart, he might have stolen away, and left his granddaughter to

    her father's love. But he did not know. How could he know?

    Jass stood up and told Cap'n Jack to take her to the kitchen and find her

    some candy. Something in his tone told Cap'n Jack what he could not have

    known before. Queen ran to her gran pappy s arms.

"She been trouble, Massa?" Cap'n Jack asked.

"No trouble at all," Jass replied.

He knew who was teaching her to read and did not mind. He would have

stopped it with any other slave, but his daughter was different. He went

to his study, and then to the weaving house, which was empty.

    Easter came back with provisions and found Jass hunting through the few

    drawers and cupboards. She was surprised. He seldom came to her in

    daylight anymore. He ignored her.

    "What you looking for?" she asked, dumping her vegetables on the table.

    "Nothing," he said, casually. Then he found Cap'n Jack's homemade

    alphabet cards, and showed them to her. In that moment, Easter was

    fearful, even of him.

    "What are these?" His voice was even, and Easter looked him in the eye.

    Her fear passed.

"Nuttin'," she said.

    Jass grunted, and put the cards back where he had found them. He took a

    couple of small books from his pocket and put them with the cards.

"What that?" Easter was puzzled.

    "Nuttin'," he said, with a poker face, and a grin twitching at the comers

    of his mouth. He moved into her arms and kissed her, and they made love

    in the warm afternoon.

When he had gone, Easter looked at the books he had left.

416 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

She could not read the books, but she understood the pictures. They were

children's books, of fairy stories.

Another book, recently published and not available at The Forks of

Cypress, was causing uproar throughout the country. Called Uncle Tom's

Cabin, its presentation of plantation life, and the way whites treated

niggers, was causing astonishing and renewed debate in the North about

slavery. Those Southemers who had read it had originally dismissed it as

a fiction, but the intensity of the Northern passions it had aroused

caused fury to replace apathy in the South. Lizzie was terrified of it,

not for itself, for she had never read it, but of the storm it had

created. The new Republican party had always espoused the cause of

abolition, but now one of its younger politicians, Abraham Lincoln, had

made a passionate speech in Peoria, denouncing slavery. He appeared to

have tremendous support in the North, and there was even talk that

eventually the issue would be decided by violence. Certainly all of

Lizzie's male friends claimed they were ready to make the ultimate

sacrifice to defend the slaveholding states and their life-style. Lizzie

found herself weeping at the slightest provocation these days.

    She was pregnant. She was appalled at the prospect of bringing a child

    into such an unstable world, and she did not understand that much of the

    emotional tightrope she was walking was because of her condition. She was

    sick every morning, which she hated, her ankles seemed to be swelling

    already, although she had months to go, she was getting headaches, and

    she was dreading the prospect of the pain of giving birth. She came into

    the dining room one evening, saw that the silverware had not been

    polished to her liking, and burst into tears again. Sally, who had

    followed her in, was calm and kindly, and sat her down, and Lizzle

    couldn't contain herself any longer, and told Sally the awful truth.

    Sally didn't laugh. She saw that Lizzie was genuinely scared of what was

    happening to her body and had not been educated to understand the natural

    processes. She calmed Lizzie, and told her things that Becky should have

    told her long ago, and by the time Jass, who had been delayed in

    Florence, came in, Lizzie had ceased crying but was not in the brightest

    mood.

"Why's everyone so glum?" He was in a splendid mood

    MERGING 417

himself The tension between the North and the South had caused the price

of cotton to go sky-high in London.

Knowing he didn't know, Sally tried to cover for Lizzie.

"We've been discussing politics," she said.

    "Something ladies shouldn't bother their pretty little heads about," Jass

    laughed, and rang the bell for soup. He was hungry. To his surprise, both

    women snapped at him.

"Don't be patronizing, Jass!" Sally barked.

    "Of course it bothers us!" Lizzie was all fire. "All this fuss with the

    Yankees, we could all be murdered in our beds-"

'Parson Dick and Polly came in with the soup.

    --like that dreadful business with Nat Turner killing white women and

    children-"

    Jass, surprised at what he had unleashed, tried to calm her. "That was

    years ago," he began, but Lizzie was unstoppable.

    "And everyone's saying there could even be a war, and then we'd all be

    killed and what am I going to do about my poor little baby?"

That stopped everyone, Parson Dick glanced at Polly.

Jass broke the silence. "What baby?"

    Now that it was out in the open, Lizzie wondered why she had been afraid

    to tell him, and felt an enormous sense of triumph. She became impossibly

    coy.

    "A little flower is growing under my heart," she simpered, and hoped she

    looked suitably maternal.

Jass was thrilled.

    "Oh, Lizzie, that's wonderful!" He hardly knew how to express his joy.

    "Of course, I'm hoping for a boy," Lizzie said, delighted by his obvious

    glee.

Jass chuckled happily. "A baby! Thank you, Lizzie."

    She smiled sweetly. "Well, you did have something to do with it, Jass,"

    she said, and felt grown-up, for the first time in her life.

    The soup was spent with plans of fixing up the nursery, and possible

    names for boys, and finding a good slave to be nanny, and when the main

    course was served, Jass decided they needed champagne. Parson Dick

    offered to fetch it, but Jass loved choosing the right bottle of wine for

    the right occasion.

418 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

The two men went to the cellar together, where Parson Dick offered his

congratulations, and Jass had an idea.

    They all drank the new baby's health in sparkling wine, and Jass told them

    of his plan.

    "We could bring Queen here to live," he said. "As a companion for him. Or

    her. They'd grow up as friends and she'd scare away the black bogeyman."

    He was surprised at the silence that greeted him. Sally could guess

    Lizzie's feelings.

    "Do you think it's quite wise, Jass?" she said. Jass was a little Put out.

"I think it's an excellent idea, Mother," he retorted.

He did not hear Lizzie's still, small voice saying, "No."

    50

Queen woke up because she heard voices. They were not loud, but they sounded

cross. It surprised her, because she knew it was her mammy and the Massa,

and they didn't get angry with each other usually. They were in the only

other room, where her gran'pappy used to sleep before she was bom, and she

lay in her cot near the loom and tried to work out what was wrong. She hoped

the Massa wasn't angry with her mammy, because she didn't want her mammy to

be whipped, like Isaac had been the other day by the new white man who had

come to work here. As she listened, she began to realize they were talking

about her, and she got very scared because she didn't want to be whipped,

either. She tried to think of things she'd done wrong, but she didn't think

she'd done anything bad recently, and then she realized that her mammy

sounded sad as well as cross. She heard Mammy say, "No," quite loudly, but

she could not make out what the Massa was saying, so she sneaked out of bed

and walked on tippy-toe to their door to listen.

"It's for the best," she heard the Massa say. There was a

    MERGING 419

little silence, and she knew her mammy was crying, not real tears but

crying inside, where it really hurts.

"She all I got," Mammy said, very softly.

When the Massa spoke again, he sounded kind again.

    "She'll still be yours," he said, and Queen thought he must have kissed

    Mammy. "But she'll live in the big house, that's the only difference, and

    be companion to my little boy."

    Queen was puzzled. She liked the idea of living in the big house; they

    had a lot of parties there, and it wasn't very far away. But she didn't

    know who the Massa's boy was; he didn't have a little boy as far as Queen

    knew. Perhaps that was why he was always so nice to her.

    Mammy said something else, which Queen couldn't hear properly, about Miss

    Lizzie, and then the Massa sounded angry again.

    "Lizzie won't harm a hair of her head," Massa said. "I'll see to that."

    They must mean her, and Mammy must think Miss Lizzie was going to do

    something nasty to Queen. Queen crept back to her bed. The idea of living

    in the big house was fun, but not if Miss Lizzie was going to be nasty

    to her, and even though the weaving house wasn't very far away, it was

    far enough. But the Massa would save her, he'd said so.

    She snuggled into bed and lay dreaming of parties at the big house, and

    pretty dresses. Perhaps she might even get to sleep in one of those big

    beds with a post at each comer and some material over the top like a

    tent. Mammy had shown her one when they went visiting the big house once,

    and Queen loved those beds. You could crawl inside, into the nice soft

    sheets they had there, much softer than the blanket Queen slept under,

    and you could close the curtains at the sides of the bed, and no one in

    the world could find you. Then she thought of living away from Mammy, and

    she got scared again. She wondered if Miss Lizzie would let her see Mammy

    when she wanted to, and Gran'pappy and Tiara, who was very old and very

    kind, and all the people she loved. She didn't like Miss Lizzie, who

    always seemed cross, and she had seen Miss Lizzie hit one of the slave

    girls once when the Massa was away. Queen didn't want Miss Lizzie to hit

    her, and if the Massa was away, and Miss Sally was old and resting, like

    she sometimes did, what would she do? She wished she could

420 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

close some curtains around her own little bed now, because she didn't want

anyone in all the world to find her.

Jass was angry. He couldn't understand why everybody was so against his

splendid idea. Lizzie had been pouting ever since dinner, and then Sally

had spoken to him quietly when Lizzie had gone upstairs to bed with a

headache. Sally was in a quandary. She loved the idea of Queen living with

them, but she understood Lizzie's feelings, for to bring Easter's daughter

into the house was a considerable slap in the face. Sally tried to present

Lizzie's point of view, but the more she argued, the more stubborn Jass

became. It wasn't as if the child was to be brought up as one of their

own-she would still be a slave-but it would be good for her, good for the

new baby, good for all of them to have that dear little creature running

round. He didn't tell Sally of his real affection for Queen, nor of his

true reason for wanting her in the big house-to protect her from the other

slaves. Perhaps he didn't understand those reasons himself. He did

understand that he wanted some influence over Queen's education, for even

as he rejected his paternity on any official basis, he loved her and

wanted her to have the best life he could give her. He and Sally had some-

thing of a row, but, as he said, he was the Massa, and his wishes

prevailed.

    He came to see Easter, to give her the good news, and she was still as

    against it as Sally and Lizzie. She seemed to feel that she would lose

    Queen somehow, and he got angry with heir. She'd still see the girl every

    day, and he had thought she would be proud to have her daughter brought

    up in such comfort and luxury, with such advantages. Part of Easter

    agreed with him. She knew the child would now be exposed to a life that

    Easter could never give her, and she wanted that for her daughter,

    although she had no idea what eventual use it might be to her. Mostly,

    she knew she would miss Queen, no matter how often she saw her. She would

    no longer affect the girl's upbringing, no longer have her to cherish on

    the cold nights when Jass was not with her, no longer be responsible for

    the flesh of her flesh. She also dreaded Lizzie's reaction, and what