time in his life, he had a sense of personal history.
His mind raced on, entranced by what he had learned, and fascinated by
how much more there could be to learn. He had heard the debates about
slavery and believed in his heart that it must end one day. What
concerned him was what happened then. He shared Jass's fear that his
people of the South might be reduced from slavery to live in
circumstances similar to so many in the North, and he knew now that the
only possible way to avoid this lay in education. He had to be ready, his
people had to be ready, for the glory days of freedom that must surely
come.
Unknown to anyone else, Cap'n Jack became the most avid student at the
college. He squatted at the back of every class, his books on his knee,
partly covered by a little rug, listening intently to every word that was
said. He soaked up knowledge.
360 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
There was much he didn't understand, Greek was beyond him, but he picked
up a few words of Latin and French. This actual book learning was of
little importance to him; what mattered was the discussion that the books
provoked, and he understood that simple reading, in itself, was not
enough. It was where the knowledge took your mind that was paramount.
Because he had no formal basis of learning, it was not, in any sense, a
rounded education, but he became a jackdaw of knowledge, piecing together
scraps of information until they formed, in his mind at least, a
representative whole.
During the breaks, Jass and Cap'n Jack would travel together, to New York
once, which frightened both of them a little with its pure, hectic energy,
and to Connecticut, where the dazzling colors of fall made both of them
gasp in wonder. They went to Delaware and stayed with George's family,
where Cap'n Jack was allowed to sleep in the main house, albeit in a
little attic room with one of the family's white staff, and was treated
as an equal servant. It disturbed Jass, for the Pritchards were a caring
family, committed abolitionists, who employed blacks and whites on an
equal basis. They did not force their beliefs on Jass, except by example,
and the excellent example they set made him feel guilty, for this was the
world that Cap'n Jack had envisioned, in the days of Jass's youth, and
then Jass had believed it was eventually possible. Since the death of his
father, he had come to believe that this utopian ideal was not possible,
not in the South at least, perhaps because he thought it might be
destructive to what he was supposed to maintain.
To Cap'n Jack it was another revelation. This was the way things should
be and could be, the way he had envisioned them without any evidence that
they actually existed somewhere, except in that vague, dreaming Up South
of freedom that the slaves imagined the North to be. Freedom itself was
not enough, he knew that already: Without some basis for advancement,
which was contained in that simple word educashun, freedom was only a
beginning. But, oh, what a glorious start. Now Cap'n lack fiercely
regretted his rashness in refusing his papers of manumission when James
had offered them. He understood he had been motivated by his need for
revenge on James, but the vengeance had been foul to him, and what he had
lost was precious beyond his dreams.
MERGING 361
He thought that he might ask Jass for his freedom. No one knew what had
happened between the two of them on that fateful day in James's study,
except perhaps Sally, but he had refused the offer, and he was sure Sally
knew that too. And part of him was wary of raising the matter, because
without Easter life was meaningless to him. He could easily tell Jass
that the ol' Massa had promised him his freedom, which wm true, and Sally
would confirm it, but even if Jass accepted it, he would never free
Easter-she meant too much to him, and he would be scared of losing her.
And he knew Jass had changed, He knew that the responsibilities of his
new role had subverted Jass from the Massa Cap'n Jack had tried to train
him to be. It was never spoken between them-they seldom spoke of
important things anymore-but it was evident in Jass's manner and actions.
And in his relationship with George.
Journeying back from Delaware, in George's company, Cap'n Jack allowed a
little of his new knowledge to show, by quoting Shakespeare to them.
George was intrigued, but Jass, to Cap'n Jack's surprise, was angry.
"For God's sake, where did you team this?"
"In class, with you, Massa," Cap'n Jack replied.
"Don't ever let anyone know. Forget what you have learned," Jass
demanded.
"Where's the harm in it?" George asked, as surprised as Cap'n Jack at
Jass's reaction.
"There are those in Alabama who would lynch him for it," Jass replied,
and inwardly cursed Cap'n Jack for not keeping whatever it was he knew
to himself.
They rode in silence for a while, and then George looked at Jass.
"How can you bear to live with such a system?" he said. And Jass
exploded.
"Because it is our system," Jass cried. "You know nothing about us; you
have never come to us to see how we manage things. You hear some ghastly
stories about wrongs that are done by some to a few slaves, and you
indict us all. It isn't like that; it isn't what you think it to be."
He struggled to control his temper, because he liked George.
362 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
"Put your own states in order, find jobs for your own blacks, feed your
own niggers first, before you tell us what to do. "
George was proud of his family and the way they lived. "Some of us have,
I think," he said, gently.
It marked the beginning of the end of their friendship. They stayed
roommates to the end, and were polite to each other, often more than
that, but they avoided serious discussion of the division both knew
existed between them.
Both graduated well, and said fond good-byes, and knew they would not see
each other again.
The eager youth who had gone to college came back as a man, and the
despondent slave who had gone to the North came back as a literate,
educated teacher.
Coming home was wonderful. Nothing much seemed to have changed, though a
great deal had. Florence was bigger now, although Jass smiled and thought
of it as a village compared to the great cities he had seen. The hotel had
been destroyed in a fire, and a new and grander one was replacing it. A
few folk remembered and waved a greeting as they trotted through the main
street. They galloped the final miles home, along a path they had ridden
so often, and just as always, Jass brought his horse to a halt when they
were in sight of the mansion.
He stared at it for a few moments. The racecourse had fallen into
disrepair, since it was no longer used. Jass had no strong interest in
racing or breeding, and Tom had realized good money
by the sale of the
pedigree stock. Murdoch had gone with Glencoe to Colonel Elliot, and
Monkey Jack with them. Otherwise everything was as it always had been,
the fields white with cotton, the gangs working. The house stood on the
hill, the twenty-one graceful columns sparkling white in the afternoon
sun. For all Jass appreciated his years away, for all he had grown and
matured, he felt like a boy again, looking at home as he always did on
his way back from school, knowing he was safe again, knowing he would be
loved.
Cap'n Jack was beside him. Things had not been easy between them for the
past year. Knowing of Jass's displeasure, Cap'n Jack had become ever more
secretive about his learning, and guarded his tongue in conversations
with Jass, in case he should offend.
MERGING 363
Jass had tried to apologize to Cap'n Jack, but only for his anger, not
for what he had said. He knew the slave had continued to learn, and
disapproved of it strongly, for the danger it represented to the man who
had brought him up, and also to himself, as that slave's Massa. Above
all, Jass did not want change.
But now it was different; now they were at the end of their long journey.
He turned and smiled at Cap'n Jack.
"Race you," he said. Cap'n Jack was ready.
Both men spurred their horses and galloped home.
44
Sally was pleased with him. His years away had given him the authority she
had hoped for, the time to mature, and there was a bonus too. Jass's
liberal ideas about slavery had been of considerable concern to her. Sally
took the simple view. She had always seen slavery as a necessary
institution, and while she cared quite deeply for many of her blacks, it
was as illiterate, incapable children who needed the firm guidance that
the whites could provide. As with a child, or a pet dog, she could not
bear the idea of sending them out, free, into a white man's world, for she
believed that few of them had the skills to survive in that world, and she
had heard the horror stories from the Northern states, magnified and
gaudily colored in the Southern retelling, of poverty and destitution.
"Freedom" seemed ridiculous to her, if it brought with it such
deprivation. She had no patience with whites who treated their blacks
badly, for she believed, as a devout Christian, that it was the
responsibility of the strong to protect the weak. She believed, as
devoutly, that since blacks could not be sent back to Africa, the
institutions of the South, benevolently discharged, were their best
alternative. Abolitionist literature was proscribed in the South, but
Sally was an educated woman, and she was able to glean, from discussion
and discourse with
364 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
travelers, and the few Southern sympathizers to the cause whom she met,
and with Cap'n Jack, her dear friend, what the arguments for emancipation
were, and thought them sentimental.
She talked a great deal with Cap'n Jack, about the North, about
abolition, and wondered if she was simply rationalizing, finding
justifications for an abhorrent condition, but had found some simple
beliefs in her heart. The basic creed of abolition was that all human
beings had the right to be free, but were blacks human beings? She did
not regard them as animals, but she did not believe they had souls. They
were, in her mind, special creatures who, like Lucifer, had fallen from
God's grace and were without the sense of personal discipline that might
restore them to His favor. Left to their own devices, they were idle and
shiftless, children of the jungle, indulging animal passions and
instincts. Without a firm guiding hand, they could easily destroy the
order, the industry, the civilization, that Providence had destined good
Christian whites to bring to an unruly world.
The economic arguments against slavery seemed to her to be the most
ridiculous. Abolitionists, Cap'n Jack told her, believed that the South
wanted to maintain slavery because it provided an endless supply of cheap
labor.
Sally was astonished. Cheap? Slavery was not cheap, at least not at The
Forks of Cypress. Parson Dick was easily worth a thousand dollars, if not
more, and a good field hand might be five hundred. Then there was the
cost of feeding and housing them, of providing medical care, of tending
the young and nursing the old. She did some rough calculations in her
head and decided that to run the plantation with paid labor might be more
economical than with slaves, certainly as far as the household staff was
concerned. But then all those slaves would be free, and would bring chaos
where there had been order, and the whites would have abandoned their
covenant with God.
She thought she might like to visit the North one day to see for herself.
Certainly, the effect on Jass had been salutary. He no longer talked
about the possibility of an eventual move away from slavery but seemed
instead to have espoused the status quo. Which was all to the good in
Sally's mind. For
MERGING 365
better or worse, they had cast their lot with the South and it had been
good to them; they were Southerners, and to question slavery, or any
aspect of their glorious civilization, was tantamount to treason from an
economic point of view, and heresy from a religious one.
She no longer worried herself unduly about Jass's undiminished fondness
for Easter. If he needed an outlet for his passions, for he was a young
man in his prime, she was relieved that he had settled on the reliable
Easter and had not become a rake, or libertine, indulging himself with
any slave woman who was at hand. The relationship was settled and
discreet, and while there had been some mild, amused gossip about it
"behind the fans" before Jass went away, for it indicated his loss of
virginity, now it was no longer of any scandalous value and was seldom
if ever referred to, even by the inquisitive chatterbox Becky Perkins.
Indeed, it was Sally herself who had raised the matter with Mrs. Perkins
one afternoon when they sat on the veranda taking tea, for she wondered
how much Lizzie knew.
"Lizzie is an innocent gel," Mrs. Perkins replied, fanning herself
vigorously and unnecessarily, for her black boy was waving a larger fan
over her head, and in any case it was fall, and there was a chill in the
air.
"An innocent gel who understands little of the baser desires that men are
prey to," Mrs. Perkins continued, her vowels Anglicized these days in
imitation of a visiting English duchess she had met. "And it is better
for all concerned that she remain innocent, don't you think?"
Sally thought so and said so. Mrs. Perkins nodded agreement. "We women
understand."
She paused for a moment, then raised her fan and spoke behind it.
"And so much better," s
he whispered, "for their eventual union."
There it was, in a nutshell. Now, above everything, Sally's ambition for
Jass was to see him married and with children. She would prefer his bride
were someone other than Lizzie, but Lizzie seemed to be the only
contender. Jass was charming to the many other young ladies who came to
call on him in increasing numbers, but he seemed to have no interest in
them
366 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN
as potential partners. If Sally had not known about Easter, she might have
worried that Jass had no libido at all or, horror of horrors, that he
might end up like young Antony Beaumont, who had disgraced his family when
caught by his father in an abomination with a black field hand. Mr.
Beaumont had taken a whip to his son and left a pistol in the young man's
room, in order for him to do the decent thing, but Antony had behaved like
a cad and had run away with the field hand to that Sodom of the south, New
Orleans. The breathless gossip about this had made Sally even more
grateful for Easter.
So there was only Lizzie, but even in her case, Jass showed no real
desire to extend their relationship beyond the rather complex friendship
they enjoyed.
"There's plenty of time," Jass had said, when Sally raised the matter at
dinner one evening. "I've only been back a few months. "
Neither Sally nor Mrs. Perkins thought there was plenty of time-it had
already dragged on quite long enough-and so Sally found herself in the
unlikely position of being in alliance with Lizzie's mother to bring
about a union that Sally did not entirely relish.
"Time is getting on," Mrs. Perkins said, and she was not referring to the
day. "Lizzie has many suitors. If Jass is not careful, some other young
man will snap her up."
It wasn't true. Sally knew that. Lizzie had very few gentleman callers
and spent as much time as she could with Jass.
"Snap her up!" Mrs. Perkins said again, snapping her fingers and causing
several of her attendant slaves to rush to her, to see what she needed.
Lizzie was riding with Jass, but had she been with her mother she would
have agreed, for she was pining for Jass to snap her up. The young man
whom she was quite fond of had gone away to college and had come back four
years later as the husband of her dreams. Partly this was ' because there
was no one else, but mostly it was because he was now a very handsome and
mature young man who was still gentle and caring but with an edge to him
that Lizzie adored. He never forced his opinions on her, or on anyone, but
had a sure authority about him, so that if he disagreed with something,
or thought
MERGING 367
it wrong or improper, she knew immediately what he felt, and wild horses
would not drag him from that opinion. Lizzie loved this, for it gave her
the freedom to do whatever she wanted, and if she stepped over the line,
which she seldom did for she was careful with him, he would firmly, if
gently, put her in her place. The only thing he could not be drawn on was
the possibility of their marriage.
"There's plenty of time for that," he said, whenever she raised the
subject, which, when he first came back from college, was quite often.
She had pushed him quite hard at first.
"Why, Jass," she said. ' "I had thought your intentions toward me to be
honorable."
"Oh, they are," he told her. "Entirely honorable."
"Well, surely, you do not expect me to wait for you forever?" Lizzie
primped herself a little. "I have so many suitors, and I do not intend
to be left on the shelf."
She certainly did not intend to be left on the shelf, but that was where
she was heading, she thought. Most of the other young men she might have
wed were married now, and the few who weren't showed little interest in
her except as a jolly friend (for Lizzie, secure in the hope that Jass
would eventually ask for her hand, could be very jolly at parties, when