Queen

it, they all say I'm advocating abolition-Owwwwww-for pity's sake! " He

  flinched at the sting of the iodine.

  Easter ignored his yell, and carried on, as did Jass. --and I'm not

  saying we should abolish slavery, I'm saying we have to think beyond it-"

  Easter hated talk of slavery and abolition. Most of the time she was able

  to convince herself of the lie that she wasn't really a slave, and this

  mystical new word, abolition, had frightening connotations, such as the

  possibility of not living at The Forks, of living somewhere else, of

  being apart from Jass. "Them's five-dollar words," she complained, hoping

  to shut him up, knowing she was wasting her breath.

  "You've had learning; you know what they mean." He puffed contentedly on

  the empty pipe, but she flared a little.

  "You scare me when you talk like that! Freein' slaves. Where would I go?

  What would I do?"

  Jass looked at her. She seemed at that moment so vulnerable, so in need

  of protection, that all he wanted to do was take her in his anns and hold

  her safe from the world, for the rest of her life. She made the boy feel

  manly.

  "It's never going to happen; it's just silly talk," he said gently. "This

  is your home and always will be."

  Then he smiled. "Besides," he said, "whatever would I do without you?,"

  which is what she had wanted to hear from the moment he came in the door,

  but she would not let him off the hook too easily-

  "That's all very well and fine, Massa," she sniffed, "but I still don't

  get to go to no wedding."

  He looked at her in genuine surprise, for he had been at

  212 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

  school when the invitations arrived and thought the visit of Mrs. Perkins

  and Lizzie to be purely social. "What wedding?"

  Parson Dick needed no telling. News of it had reached the slaves days before

  the formal correspondence had reached the whites, but since it was to be a

  black wedding, between black folk, none of the slaves had felt any need to

  inform their masters, and although they heard rumors that some white folk

  were to be invited, none of them were sure if their Massa was on the list,

  although Parson Dick, who could speak three languages but couldn't read or

  write, was fairly convinced that theJacksons were when he had taken the

  envelope to his Master's study earlier that day.

  "We will be going to Nashville next month, Parson Dick, to a wedding-" was

  as far as James got.

  "Yes, sir, I know," said the butler, to save time. And perhaps to score a

  point. James looked at him in amazement. The accuracy and speed of the

  slave grapevine was a constant and remarkable amusement to him.

  Parson Dick was helpful. "Everybody talkin' about it, sub. Alfred is

  marrying Miss Gracie."

  James laughed. "How is it that whenever anything happens in this country,

  the slaves all know about it before we do?"

  "Jungle drums, perhaps, Massa," Parson Dick ventured, maintaining a poker

  face. James was never sure quite how to take Parson Dick, although Mrs.

  Perkins had no such hesitation. "That's exactly right," she cried. "Voodoo!

  Sheer voodoo! White folk and nigras guests at the same wedding!"

  Parson Dick looked at her. "Disgraceful, m'm, I agree," but Mrs. Perkins's

  skin was far too thick for such subtle sarcasm. "You see!" she crowed in

  triumph, reluctantly preparing to leave. "Even the nigras are agin it!"

  Slaves had brought the Perkins landau to the house. Soon it would be

  sundown, and so it was time to go, but Mrs. Perkins was not anxious to

  depart without at least some discourse between Lizzie and Jass. Playing for

  time, she was also looking for ways to shake the Jacksons from their

  complaisancy.

  "You don't suppose she'll actually allow nigras to dance with whites?" she

  gasped, but the wretched people wouldn't even take that idea seriously.

  They only laughed.

  "It's a wedding, my dear, not a revolution," Sally tried to

  MERGING 213

  placate her. Mrs. Perkins sniffed, taking a long time to put on her

  gloves. "You never know. Sarah's obviously a freethinker. "

  It was Lizzie who saw him first, face iodined, shirt damed, hovering at

  the side of the house, staring, she was sure, at her. She made a-hurried

  farewell to Sassy, and moved as quickly as feigned lack of interest would

  allow to be near him.

  "Why, who's this mess of a boy?" she asked the world, thus drawing

  everyone's attention to their proximity. "It can't be young James?"

  Mrs. Perkins beamed in satisfaction; Sally concerned herself with tea

  things and Parson Dick; Sassy giggled and gave unnecessary orders to the

  slave nurse to tend little Jane.

  But James stared at his son and Lizzie as if the best idea in all the

  world had just occurred to him.

  Jass smiled shyly at her attention. "Miss Lizzie, you're looking lovely,"

  he said.

  Generally, girls of his own age confused Jass, but he liked Lizzie. She

  was so pretty. Somehow, she always made him feel like a callow boy, but

  that didn't matter because he had an exquisite revenge. Alone in his bed

  at night, when that vile thing happened to his body that demanded

  attention but could not be spoken of to anyone, or even considered in

  waking hours, he would fight against it and sometimes win. But sometimes

  the urge for the pleasure was so intense that he would lose the battle,

  and when he did, it was often Lizzie's face that he imagined, and her

  golden hair, and lovely body. He had no clear idea of what the unclad

  white female form looked like, but he assumed, and was assured by his

  schoolmates, that it was simply a paler version of the black, and so he

  had an intimate familiarity with what he imagined Lizzie's nakedness to

  be. It was his constant triumph over her perpetual skittishness with him.

  Having no idea of what was in his mind, Lizzie rejected the spoken

  compliment. "Tush," she drawled, "just thinking of these nigra nuptials

  makes me glow. Poor Mamma's in a terfible pother."

  Jass was puzzled; he couldn't imagine Lizzie missing out on a party. "You

  won't be going then?" he assumed.

  Really, he could be quite dense at times, Lizzie thought,

  214 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

  just a country boy at heart. "Of course we're going!" she explained.

  "Everybody's going. If only to see Miss Sarah make a fool of herself."

  Jass thought it would be a lot of fun. "I don't expect I am," he said

  ruefully. "I'm probably too young."

  Lizzie was slightly relieved, Now she'd be able to enjoy herself at the

  ball, without the bother of having to flirt with him. "Such a pity." She

  was deeply insincere. "I might have saved you a place on my dance card."

  She decided she'd done quite enough work on him for one visit. She had

  years to achieve the union after all, and she was anxious to be gone.

  They wouldn't be home till after sunset now, and Lizzie hated driving at

  night, even with the security of the a
ttendant slaves. It was so scary,

  night. She looked for a slave, and saw a gangly girl watching them.

  "Bring me my shawl," she demanded casually.

  Easter had followed Jass to the house on some errand but, on seeing

  Lizzie, had forgotten what that errand was. She couldn't believe Jass

  could like this girl, all pale and pouty, but was terrified that he

  might. For all her fantasies about Jass, she knew the reality was that

  he would eventually marry a white woman, a woman of his own kind, and

  Lizzie was the first indication that the once distant prospect was

  becoming a nearer reality, Hating Lizzie already, she picked up the shawl

  and, as she was about to put it on, let it fall to the ground.

  Lizzie slapped her. "Fool girl! That's best French chiffon!"

  It wasn't a hard slap, but for Easter it was worse than the sting of the

  switch, for it carried with it all of this woman's ascendancy over her

  and thus, eventually, Jass. It didn't help that she heard him saying,

  quite sharply, "Don't do that!"

  Tears, not of pain, sprang to Easter's eyes, but she was too well

  trained, or too proud, to run away. She picked up the shawl.

  "She's just a clumsy nigra," Lizzie insisted, flushing at the rebuke.

  "We don't treat our slaves like that," Jass said, and with such authority

  that Lizzie wondered if he might be more of a match than she had

  bargained for. She snatched the shawl from Easter and flounced away to

  the landau.

  "I declare, are you a nigra lover?" she said, loudly enough

  MERGING 215

  for them all to hear, wanting, in some way, to hurt him, and knowing, from

  the dinnertime conversations of her parents, that Jass had problems at

  school because of his supposed liberal attitudes to the slaves. "It's a

  wonder you ain't going to Nashville."

  Sally knew the slight was intended to hurt, and sprang to her son's

  defense. "Of course he'll be there." She turned to her astonished son.

  "Your father and I were just discussing it. It's time you were introduced

  into society and met some young ladies."

  She might as well have said "other" young ladies, Lizzie felt, for it was

  clear to her, in that moment, that the biggest obstacle to her future

  with Jass would be Sally. But Jass was beaming at her.

  "We could have that dance," he said in transparent delight.

  To Lizzie, the visit had been a disaster. She knew that she had a

  potential enemy in Sally, she knew she'd been told off for her natural

  treatment of a slave, and she saw a lifetime ahead of being trapped in

  marriage to a young man who was so wretchedly, perpetually nice. Didn't

  he have any idea of how society functioned? Were boys not taught these

  things at school? Did she have to do all the work? She longed to think

  of a witty retort that would astound them all with its sophistication,

  but none came to her.

  "Unfortunately, I remember, my card is full!" she said as she huffed into

  the carriage, and even that embarrassed her because they'd all know it

  was a lie, since they had no idea yet of what other young men had even

  been invited, let alone who would ask Lizzie to dance. She wanted the

  carriage to go, now, but her mother took forever to climb in, and

  wouldn't stop saying good-bye, and to Lizzie it was all the most mor-

  tifying experience of her life.

  Finally they were on the move, but she refused to turn and wave, as

  etiquette demanded, even though she knew it would mean a lecture from her

  mother as soon as they were off the property. Had she looked back, she

  would have been disappointed again, because her intended was not waving

  with the rest of his family. He'd gone racing off to tell Easter the good

  news that he was going to the wedding.

  216 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

  News that Easter took almost as badly as Lizzie. "That's nice" was her

  only response, and it burst jass's bubble of excitement more effectively

  than any of Lizzie's barbs. "Just because that silly girl slapped you,"

  he responded, thinking it would help. "I told her off."

  "And couldn't take your eyes off her!"

  Easter wouldn't relent, and Jass didn't know what to do; he was too

  young, too inexperienced in the ways of sparring women. "Don't sass me!"

  he snapped, and walked away. But he couldn't let it go at that. Easter

  was his best friend, and he'd wanted her to share his fun. He turned

  back. "Damn you, Easter," he yelled, "you're no fun!" and continued

  walking away.

  Immediately, Easter regretted her anger.

  "I'm sorry, Massa Jass, I-- she called, but not loudly enough for hirn

  to hear, and as immediately, she regretted her regret.

  "Oh, damn you, too," she cried, and this time he did hear. And smiled,

  as he walked away.

  27

  Jass cut himself shaving, adding another tiny gash to the sev

  eral caused by Wesley's fists. He staunched the blood with a

  cotton cloth, stared at himself in the mirror, and wondered if

  he would ever master the cutthroat razor. Cap'n Jack had

  taught him the use of it, had made it look easy, and whenever

  Jass watched his father shave, he seemed to flourish the per

  ilous instrument with a careless, harmless grace that Jass en

  vied. He didn't shave often-he didn't need to-but he

  enjoyed it; it made him feel grown-up. The first time he had

  ever done it, scraping away at the fuzzy down on his upper

  lip, it had given him a surging sense of masculinity that had

  thrilled him. Easter had shaved him once, for fun, under Cap'n

  Jack's tutelage, but a similar feeling had occurred then, pro-

  MERGING 217

  voking embarrassment and confusion in him, making Jass wonder if he was

  quite nonnal, if this thing happened to the other boys so often, and

  adding a new and disturbing, if unknown, dimension to his relationship

  with the slave girl.

  He hoped the tiny nick would distract from the other wounds to his face,

  but staring in the mirror, he knew it was a forlorn wish. Those cuts and

  Easter's iodine stains ensured that his family would know that he had

  been fighting, if they didn't already, and his sister would giggle, his

  mother would make a disapproving speech, and his father would beam ami-

  ably at his son, and encourage Sassy's ragging.

  His body, though firm and taut, had the definition of a man's but the

  weight of a boy's, and he flexed his biceps, wondering if he would ever

  have the bulging muscles of Wesley and his older classmates. No longer

  a boy, not yet a man, he longed to be older, or younger again, or

  something, for he couldn't stand this netherworld he was living in. He

  still wasn't treated as a full-grown man, and the ways of adult men were

  confusing to him.

  He wondered if he would ever understand girls, and wished they were all

  more like his mother, who was at least predictable. Lizzie's butterfly

  mind, leaping from one thought to appare
ntly unconnected others, confused

  him, but it seemed to be a factor in all young women. His sisters did it

  too. He would be having a sensible conversation with them, and suddenly

  they would say something that seemed utterly logical to them, but which

  confounded Jass, as happened in his Latin class when he was going along

  swimmingly, and a new verb conjugation, or the unexpected use of a case,

  caused him to flounder.

  He wondered why he thought about girls nearly all the time, why the very

  smell of them drove him mad, and why the closeness of Easter, tending his

  cuts, provoked such overwhelming urges.

  Sometimes, he thought, the only woman he really understood was his

  mother.

  The gong sounded downstairs. He was late for dinner. Just as always. He

  splashed water on his face to try to repair some of the damage, then

  hurried to put on his shirt and jacket.

  The dining room looked grand, for Sally took especial pride

  218 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

  in it, trying to re-create here the dining room in Ireland that James so

  fondly remembered. The oil lamps, with their exquisite, hand-painted glass

  shades, seemed to make the burgundy velvet drapes glow and gave a rich sheen

  to the carved mahogany furniture. The diffusing lamplight softened the

  sometimes stem features of the family portraits hanging on the walls, for

  the painters liked to make their wealthy subjects look authoritative. The

  table linen was crisply starched, the silverware gleamed, and the smells

  wafting from the pantry were mouth-watering. There was always some formality

  about the evening meal at The Forks, and the family was expected to dress

  for dinner, whether or not they had visitors, which they often did.

  Tonight it was only the family. They stared at Jass as he hurried to his

  chair on his father's left. James glanced at the grandfather clock. "Cut

  yourself shaving?" he wondered. Sassy giggled. Sally glared at her and Jass

  blushed, but before he could reply, his father coughed and bowed his head.

  They all followed suit, and James said grace. Sally rang a small bell, and

  Parson Dick marched in with the tureen, and Polly, with the plates.

  There was a tiny silence while the soup, lentil with ham hocks, was served,

  no one knowing which way the conversation would jump.

  Sally broke it, determined to let lass know she was vexed.

  "I don't know why you always have to be fighting!" she admonished. Jass

  mumbled something about not starting it, and James came to his aid.

  "Schoolboys' Debating Club?" He smiled at his son. Jass felt a sudden rush

  of temper.

  "if only they would debate," he flared. "But the minute you start talking

  sense, they seem to think you're attacking the honor of the South! It's

  stupid to be so entirely reliant on one industry, one workforce. What if

  cotton suddenly went out of fashion, or something-"

  Everyone laughed. Cotton was, is, and always would be. Cotton would never

  go out of fashion. It couldn't; there was nothing to replace it. You

  couldn't wear wool in the summer heat, and what would you do for bed linen?

  "No one would have any clothes," Sassy said, which riled

  MERGING 219

  Jass a little more. All girls ever seemed to think about was clothes.

  "All right," he countered. "What if there was some bug or weevil that got

  into the cotton and destroyed it, something we couldn't control? We'd be

  bankrupt."

  He had them there, he was sure of it, but hadn't reckoned on his father.

  "Oh, I think we'd manage." James's voice was calm. "There are other

  crops, sugar and tobacco, after all."

  "They aren't as profitable as cotton, and need as many slaves," Jass

  argued, but his father was benign.

  "We do own rather a lot of land, and that never goes out of style." He

  turned to his son. "But that's why you keep getting into trouble, boy."

  Jass hated to be called a boy, but loved it when his father spoke to him

  seriously, man to man. "To question cotton is to question the economic