Queen (82 page)

    had to turn our hands to all sorts of things, back in the early days."

    She looked at her openmouthed grandson, pleased with the effect, for

    truthfully, she had never picked cotton in her life. But she had done many

    things, and would have picked cotton if the need had arisen.

"The days when I was young," she added, tartly.

What she couldn't tell them, because she didn't know, was that it was

backbreaking labor. Out there all day, in the baking sun, bent over those

miserable damn bushes, the prickers; tearing your hands. Lizzie had dressed

for the occasion in her oldest clothes and had a sunbonnet on, and at the

beginning she had quite enjoyed herself, but she was not prepared for the

searing pain that arced through her back every time she stood.

    Queen thoroughly approved of Lizzie's decision-they needed all the help

    they could get-but some of the field hands were not so sure. ,

    "Tain't fittin', the Missy pickin' cotton," Isaac grumbled. He had a strong

    sense of order.

    The day was sultry and overcast, with storm clouds billowing toward them.

    They labored on, a small band of convicts in a prison of white.

    QUEEN 499

    No matter how much she picked, it seemed to Lizzie that there was still as

    much as before. Finally, she couldn't stand it.

    " I can't! I can't do it anymore," she cried, and sat on the ground.

    William ran to his mother.

    "We got to, Miss Lizzie," Queen called to her. "We got to pick this field

    'fore it rains."

    "I'll help you, Mamma," William said, though his hands were bleeding and

    raw.

    Lizzie looked about at the endless cotton, and groaned. It wasn't fair; she

    wasn't bom to this, brought up to this. For the first time in her life, she

    blessed the existence of nigras.

    She looked at her eager son, and accepted his offer of help. She would

    complete the day because she had said she would, but that was enough, she

    would have done her bit, and she would never go near a cotton bush again.

    Leaning on William, she climbed to her feet, and bent her back to her hated

    task.

Within the hour, Mrs. Henderson arrived, in high dudgeon. She had been

enjoying a pleasant morning shouting at Jasmine, who cooked and cleaned for

her, but the girl had eventually lost her temper. She told Mrs. Henderson

that she should be out picking cotton, like the Missy, and then she'd know

what it was like to be a slave.

    Mrs. Henderson had hardly believed her ears, and had boxed Jasmine's for

    telling lies, but the girl stuck to her story. So Mrs. Henderson put on her

    best bonnet, and came to see what it was all about.

    "What is this? Mrs. Jackson, what are you doing?" she cried in outraged

    distress, every fiber of her bourgeois, white Southern upbringing and

    aspirations insulted to the core.

    "Queen needed help," Lizzie said lamely, glad of the interruption.

    Mrs. Henderson was appalled. "So Queen is in charge now? Queen can order

    the mistress of the house into the fields, like some common nigger?"

    "It was Mamma's idea," William defended Queen, while she, worried about her

    mother, lost her temper and shouted at Mrs. Henderson.

    "Someone got to do it," she yelled. "Ain't enough of us niggers left! "

500 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

    Mrs. Henderson turned to Queen, hating the uppity, bastard girl. Queen

    the adored, Queen the darling, Queen the treasure of the big house, whose

    very white-skinned existence flaunted her father's carnal baseness to the

    world, and was an affront to good Christian morality.

    "Don't you sass me! " She began calmly enough, but reason failed her. She

    exploded in fury, her pent-up animosity to Queen flooding to the surface.

    "Don't you ever sass me, or you will regret it to the end of your days."

    The sheer violence of it shocked Lizzie and William, although the slaves

    had heard worse, and had felt worse, for the lash of the whip was more

    painful than the lash of the tongue.

    Lizzie felt duty bound to excuse Queen, whom she didn't like, because it

    had been her idea.

    "I do need a break," she said, and Mrs. Henderson took charge. "You come

    with me, Mrs. Jackson, there's water over here." She led Lizzie to the

    water bag.

"Five minutes," Queen yelled, defiantly.

    Lizzie was already gulping water like a dying man in a desert. William

    came running to her for his share, and it was he who saw the cart first.

"Who's that?" he asked.

    Lizzie put down the water bag and stood panting at the fence. She

    squinted in the direction of William's pointing, to the main gate, and

    saw a cart, with some men in it, stopped there.

    Someone in the cart helped another man down, and that man now come

    trudging up the drive.

Mrs. Henderson saw the man, too.

"Please God, let it be-" she whispered.

    But Lizzie knew who it was, and was running for all she was worth. Mrs.

    Henderson realized who it was too, and walked away, quietly, to be by

    herself and pray for her husband's welfare.

    "We ain't done yet-" Queen called to Lizzie, but Cap'n Jack stopped her.

"It the Massa," he said quietly.

    It was Jass, home from the war. Lizzie, screaming at him, ran to him,

    pell-mell into his arms, and clung to him as if she would never let him

    go.

    QUEEN 501

Sally had spent the day with Easter, in the weaving house. Easter was very

ill, and when she had not come to the big house in the morning, Sally had

gone to her. Sally could only guess at the problem, and feared it might

be typhoid. It might as easily be diphtheria, caught from the children,

or exhaustion, or measles, or any of a dozen fevers. Queen, who had less

experience with illness, was worried, but relieved by Sally's presence,

and, reluctantly, had gone to her place as mistress of the cotton fields.

    It was serious, Sally knew, for she was used to death, and could guess

    it was hovering by. She had made Easter as comfortable as her condition

    would allow, and wiped the sweat from her with cold compresses. For a

    while, Easter slept, but uneasily, and when she woke, Sally knew the end

    was near. Easter's eyes were yellow, her skin dull, and she was having

    difficulty breathing.

    Sally went to the door to call for help, and saw a little slave girl

    playing not far away.

    "You girl," she called, and remembered the child's name. "Tilly! You run

    fetch Queen, you hear? Her Mammy's sick. You run as fast as you can."

    Tilly was wide-eyed with fear. She knew the old lady with the white hair

    was the old Missy, but had never been spoken to by her before. But she

    was a well-mannered girl and did as she was told.

"Run!" Sally cried.

And Tilly ran.

Queen stood in the cotton field, Cap'n Jack beside her, and watched the

distant figure of Jass put his arm around his wife and son, and walk with

them to the big house.

    He was home at last, and everything was going to be all right. He'd solve

    all their problems: She wouldn't have to work in the fields anymore and

    could spend her time nursing her sick mother, and Easter would get

    better, because Jass was home.

    She looked at the field. All the slaves had stopped work to watch the

    return of the Massa.

"Still got to be picked," she called to them. They bent to

502 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

their task, and a few of them started the work song again, for it was a

sad homecoming, with the Massa's two little daughters buried.

    Queen worked hard and with a will. In an hour she could take a break and

    go see to her mother. Perhaps she wouldn't have to come back to the

    fields this afternoon; she'd ask Jass when he talked to her. He'd speak

    to her soon, she was sure, but it was only right and proper he should

    talk to his wife first.

    She was surprised to hear someone calling her name. She looked up and saw

    that sweet child, Tilly, running to her. Perhaps the Massa had sent for

    her.

"Queen," Tilly called. "Come quick! Yo' mammy's sick!"

    There was nothing in Queen's mind now but her mammy. She had seen her

    that morning and knew she was not well, but Easter's true crisis had not

    developed until later, when Missy Sally had come to look after her so

    that Queen could work. If Missy Sally was saying she was sick, and no one

    else could have sent the message, then it was serious.

    She dropped her bag and ran, with lung-bursting energy, through the

    field. Flecks of cotton danced in the air, sparkling in the sunlight,

    like pure white gold, as she ran.

Cap'n Jack ran too. But to the big house, to tell Jass.

Grief flowed on grief for Jass, until he thought he must drown in an ocean

of sorrow. Despite his bitterness at the brevity of his military career,

he had come home with such high, bright hopes, to be loved and to be in

a world he understood.

    As he got down from the cart, he stared at his property with a mounting

    sense of unease. He'd been away only six months, but there was an

    atmosphere of disrepair and neglect about the place. He saw the distant

    figures picking cotton, but only half the number there should have been,

    and there were still acres to be picked before the rain came.

    Then Lizzie, dressed as a field hand, ran screaming into his arms, and

    clutched him, and wept, and blurted out the news of the death of his

    daughters. He hardly knew how to respond, for it was too shocking and

    unexpected and the enormity of what had happened was too great for him

    to assimilate.

He took his wife and son to the big house, sat with them

    QUEEN 503

in the kitchen, and said very little while he heard the stories of their

deprivation in his absence. He wished they'd stop, because he wanted to

be alone, but could not be yet, because he was husband and father.

    Then Cap'n Jack burst in, and told him that Easter was dying.

    Without saying a word, Jass got up from the table, left the room, left

    the house, and walked, faster and faster, to the one place in the world

    that was constant to him, and was not constant anymore.

    He heard Lizzie call after him. "This is your family!" She sounded angry,

    but he didn't care.

    He shivered with fear as he walked. He could see it now, nestling in the

    trees as it always had, the cottage of his dreams, and he began to run,

    as he ran to it once, so many years ago, on the night his father died.

    She had been there then, waiting for him, as she always waited for him,

    and she had to be there now, because she was always there.

    But just as he started to run, he heard an awful scream from inside the

    house, and he stopped running, for he understood what the dreadful sound

    meant, and his blood ran cold.

    He came into the weaving house and saw what he had known he would see.

    Easter was lying on the bed, her eyes closed in death.

    Queen -was beside her, sobbing, and clinging to her mother, as if to drag

    her back from her new dominion, and Sally was comforting Queen.

    He hadn't spoken, had hardly made a sound when he came in, but somehow

    Queen knew he was there. She ran to him, threw herself at his feet and

    clutched at his legs, begging him to bring her mammy back, to make

    everything all right again.

    He saw what she did and heard what she said, but without seeing and

    without hewing. The only thing he could see was the awful image of

    Easter, and then his mind exploded, and refused to accept what his eyes

    saw. He turned his head away, so that he wouldn't have to look at her.

    Sally came to Queen and pulled her from her father, the Massa.

    "Come, girl, come," she said. "Save your grief till later. We must 'get

    a winding sheet."

504 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

    Just once, Jass looked at Queen, and that once was almost enough, for she

    saw the unbearable grief in his eyes, and a pain, and a loneliness, more

    intense than her own. She allowed Sally to pull her away, and left her

    father alone with her mother.

He didn't look at her, and he didn't go to her, because there was no point.

She was not there.

    He sat in his old rocking chair, and stared at nothing. Waiting. If he did

    what he had always done, sat and waited for her, then she would come back

    from the well, and sit at her loom, and they'd be together again, nothing

    could keep them apart, and everything would be as it had always been.

    He sat for hours, seeing her dance in his mind, a living and beautiful

    thing, who had taken possession of his heart at some time before he could

    remember, and had nursed and cherished him through all his life.