Queen (71 page)

    at Queen. Everyone knew he was protecting his slave. He was only eleven,

    but he adored Queen and always took her side in any argument.

    "Well, you both look very splendid, all 'forked up,' " Jass said, anxious

    to be away. He nodded at Isaac, the coachman, spurred his horse, and led

    the way down the drive. Isaac flicked the horses, and the carriage

    followed.

    Queen saw her gran'pappy, Cap'n Jack, sitting on a log some distance away,

    whittling, and waved at him. He didn't do very much except whittle anymore;

    he was quite old, like Missy Sally, and Massa had told him to take things

    easy.

Cap'n Jack guessed it was Queen who was waving at him, although his eyesight

troubled him-anything a distance away was unclear-and he waved back. He

guessed she looked pretty, because she always looked pretty when she went

out with all the family, and he watched the carriage until it was a blur to

his sight. He sighed, and went back to his whittling, cursing his weak eyes.

He was getting old, he knew. It had been a bitter blow when Jass relieved

him of his duties, although it was kindly meant, and replaced him as valet

with a younger slave, Alphis. Cap'n Jack knew he had earned some rest, but

he didn't want to feel old because he didn't want to die.

    QUEEN 431

    It was his dream that he would see freedom, at least for some of the

    slaves, if only for Queen, before he died, but that happy day seemed as

    much a dream as ever. A lot of angry words were being said about the

    North, be knew, but Southemers had been saying angry words about the

    North for as long as he could remember, and nothing ever changed. A year

    ago, ol' white Massa John Brown had tried to free some slaves and had

    been hanged for it. The gentlemen of the South, and a lot of the Missys,

    had been frightened into a frenzy, but after the hanging it had all

    calmed down again, just like it had with Nat Turner. Now everyone was in

    a turmoil because of the presidential election, but Cap'n Jack didn't

    think it made much difference who won, and if it was Linkun, they'd

    probably hang him too.

    He bitterly regretted turning down his own freedom once, and wondered if

    it would have made a difference to Queen's status if he had responded

    differently. But Queen had not been born then, and the ol' Massa, James,

    had said nothing about freedom for Easter.

    He spent his days whittling now, or gabbing with some of the older

    slaves-the young men had little time for him-and avoiding Massa

    Henderson's eye, and dreaming of foolish, forgotten yesterdays that are

    an old man's memories.

Queen loved going out, going driving, going to town. It didn't happen very

often. They called on Miss Becky every week, but she was very old now, and

although she was always pleased to see them, she talked about things they

didn't understand, and she didn't seem to mind very much when they left.

William said she was funny in the head because of something that had

happened before Gran'pa Perkins died. Once every three months Massa Jass

would take them into town shopping, but he didn't like taking the children

because he said there were a lot of undesirable people there. Today was

a complete surprise. All the grown-ups had been very depressed and very

excited all at once for weeks now, because of the election and what the

Yankees were doing and saying, and a lot of very important, very angry

gentlemen had visited The Forks, and kept talking about war, which

frightened Queen. Massa didn't say anything about it all for a long time,

432 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

and then this morning he told them they were going on an outing.

    They were thrilled, because they loved these outings. William thought the

    excitement of the past few weeks was a lot of fuss and bother about

    nothing, anyway. He couldn't believe that anyone would go to war because of

    slaves and freedomit wasn't important enough-and while Queen wanted to be-

    lieve that there wouldn't be a war, she couldn't think of anything more

    important than being free.

    Except, perhaps, to clarify her relationship with her pappy and the Massa,

    who might be one and the same person. Everyone else seemed to think they

    were, and Queen had come to believe it too, but she didn't understand why

    she was still a slave and a nigra, and he her Massa, if she was white and

    he was her pappy.

    Polly was the first to say it, years ago, soon after she'd come to live in

    the big house. Polly was fat and middle-aged, and thought she was something

    much more important than a serving maid. She resented Queen and was always

    yelling at her for things she'd done wrong. One day, Queen was in the

    kitchen, where she ate her meals, and a cup had somehow slipped from her

    hand and broken on the hard stone floor. Polly shouted at her, and told her

    she didn't care if the Massa was her pappy, she'd spank Queen if she didn't

    learn to be more careful. Everyone had gone very quiet for a moment, and

    then Parson Dick told Polly off, and Julie, who was old and fat and always

    smelled of food, had pulled Queen onto her knee and rocked her and told her

    not to take any notice of a Miss Flibbertigibbet like Polly.

    Queen didn't understand what all the fuss was about, but every so often one

    of the slaves would make a comment about the Massa and her pappy, and Queen

    had grown up understanding that in some mysterious way they were one and

    the same person, and that was why Queen looked white. She asked her mammy

    about it when she was ten, but Mammy said the same as Julie, that she

    shouldn't pay no nevermind to such things, and that didn't help very much.

    Other things confused her. If the Massa was her pappy, she didn't

    understand why Miss Lizzie was always stem and cross with her, and she was

    never cross with William or Mary. She didn't understand why

    QUEEN 433

she had to eat her meals in the kitchen when the others ate in the big

dining room, and she didn't understand why she had to sleep on a hard

pallet at the foot of William's bed, while her brother slept in a big,

comfortable four-poster.

    Mostly, she didn't understand why she was a slave. Mammy told her it was

    because she was a nigra and all nigras were slaves, but Queen knew she

    didn't look like a nigra-she was at least as white as Miss Lizzie or Miss

    Mary-and she didn't like a lot of the nigras very much. Parson Dick and

    Julie were nice, and Poppy and Pattie, and even Polly these days, and she

    liked the coachmen, who were always kind to her. She didn't like the

    field hands, who were really black, and they said funny things about her,

    or they ignored her, and so Queen returned the insults, and never went

    to the slave quarters unless she was sent on an errand, or to see her

    gran'pappy, Cap'n Jack.

    She developed a rationale for her position, which, once she came to an

    understanding of the mysteries of the body, she passionately believed.

    She was a secret child, born of a great love between her pappy and her

    mammy, who was really a queen of somewhere, in hiding from people who

    were trying to harm her. Her pappy looked after her, but couldn't admit

    she was really his daughter because she was the eldest, and then she'd

    be more important than all his other children, even William. She believed

    in her heart that one day everything would be all right, and that her

    Massa would finally embrace her as his true daughter and find her a

    prince to marry, and she'd live happily ever after at The Forks with her

    pappy and her marnmy, and Miss Lizzie would be sent to live with the

    field slaves.

    Queen hated Lizzie. Miss Lizzie. Ma'am. It didn't matter what Queen did.

    Miss Lizzie would find fault with her, and scold her, or, sometimes, take

    the switch to her, although she only did that when the Massa was away.

    At first, Queen had wanted to run away, back to the weaving house, back

    to her real mammy, and would cry herself to sleep every night in the

    little attic room she lived in when she first moved to the big house.

    Slowly it got better, or easier to bear. After William was bom, Lizzie

    had been sick for a long time, and Julie had taken charge of Queen, which

    was much nicer. When Lizzie

434 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

got well, things got worse, and then she got sick again when she had another

little baby, Jane, and things got better. Jane died when she was very young,

and Miss Lizzie had staved in her room for weeks, but when she came out she

was cro~ser with Queen than ever. Things got better again after Mary was

bom, and for quite a long time afterward, because Miss Lizzie had been

really ill.

    When William was about five he moved into his own bedroom, the same one

    Massa used to sleep in when he was little, and it became Queen's room as

    well, for she had to look after him. The two grew up together as brother

    and sister who were not brother and sister, but young Massa and slave. They

    became good friends, but sometimes William laughed at Queen, and reminded

    her that she was a slave, and sometimes he said unkind things, especially

    about nigras, which hurt Queen, even when she agreed with him. Next year

    Queen was to move out of William's room, because he was growing up, and

    look after Mary. Mary was nice, but always poorly, and Miss Lizzie's

    favorite. Queen knew she would miss William.

    She saw her mammy sometimes, walking around the plantation, but she wasn't

    allowed to speak to her then. In the early days, when she first moved to

    the big house, Queen thought her mammy walked by on purpose, just to see

    her, and she ran to her once, and hugged her and cried, but Miss Lizzie had

    been really angry and Mammy hadn't walked by as often. Once a week, on

    Saturday afternoons, she was sent to visit her mammy for a few hours, and

    Queen loved those visits. They'd sit and talk for hours, and Easter wanted

    to know everything that was happening at the big house, and how Queen was

    being treated. Queen used to tell her of the times when Miss Lizzie was

    nasty to her, and begged Mammy to tell the Massa when he came to visit, so

    that he would stop Miss Lizzie, but Marnmy said she had to put up with it

    because of the other advantages she was getting. Still, it did seem to

    Queen that Miss Lizzie had been a little bit less cross after that, and she

    was sure someone had said something to somebody, and that someone was her

    mammy and that somebody was her pappy, the Massa.

    Queen adored Jass. He was always kind to her, and gave her little presents

    at Christmas and on her birthday. She loved

    QUEEN 435

him so much she called him her pappy once, but Miss Lizzie had been really

angry then and had insisted that Parson Dick cane her on her bare bottom.

Parson Dick didn't want to do it, Queen knew that, but he was a slave like

Queen, and had to do what he was told. He caned her hard and told her

never to say it again, and Queen was a good girl and did what she was

told, and never called her Massa her pappy again.

    She attended the dancing classes and music lessons that the tutors who

    came to The Forks gave William and, later, Mary. She learned to sew and

    to set and wait at table, and Julie taught her to cook. She wasn't

    allowed to take real school lessons, because she wasn't allowed to learn

    to read and write, but that didn't matter because Cap'n Jack taught her

    those things, although he made her swear on a Bible she would never tell

    anyone, but she knew Massa knew because he gave her a book for her

    birthday once. She became supremely skilled at selfprotection, she seldom

    said the wrong thing to anyone anymore, she bit her tongue when Miss

    Lizzie was sharp with her, she ignored the other slaves when they made

    fun of her, and she learned to put on one face for Lizzie and another for

    Missy Sally, who always treated her nicely. She didn't inquire too much

    about the outside world because the world she lived in was complicated

    enough, and because she had no ambition to live anywhere else but at The

    Forks of Cypress with her true pappy and her real mammy.

    She loved going out though, if only to escape for a while from her

    sometimes suffocating circumstances, and town was a real adventure. But

    first they had to visit Miss Becky.

    The Sinks was a pretty house, in a glade about three miles from The

    Forks. The Massa had built it about five years ago, when Massa Perkins

    died. Miss Becky had made a lot of fuss about it, and was furious when

    Massa told her the name of the house, because she said it was very

    unromantic. She preferred to call it "Chez Pocahontas," which Queen and