Page 52 of Queen

reticule, and rushed from the room.

  William was at the bottom of the stairs.

  "I thought you'd never be ready," he called, as Queen came clattering

  down the stairs, a pretty sixteen and vibrant with youth.

  "Sorry, Massa Bill," she cried. "I couldn't decide which bonnet to wear."

  William was never very cross with her, and was laughing. "You've only got

  two, and Papa's going wild!"

  Queen reached the bottom of the stairs and she and William were moving

  quickly outside when Parson Dick appeared in the hallway.

  "Massa William! Miss Queen!" He was always telling them off. A tubby,

  gray-haired grizzly bear, William called him. "Young ladies and gentlemen

  do not run."

  429

  430 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

  They only laughed, and continued running. Parson Dick was used to being

  ignored by them, and went to the kitchen. The family would be away for the

  afternoon, and Missy Sally was having a nap, so he could relax until Massa

  Henderson came to tea with his new bride.

  Jass saw them first.

  " There you are at last," he cried. It was a crisp winter day, and they'd

  been waiting twenty minutes. Lizzie, pregnant, rugged up and impatient, was

  in the landau with Mary, William's younger sister, and Poppy, a slave nurse

  who was tending the babies, Little Sally, who was five, and Eleanor, who

  was two.

  "Sorry, Papa," William said happily, to cover for Queen, as they climbed

  into the carriage. "I couldn't decide which cap to wear. "

  "But you only have one," said Lizzie, who was feeling the cold.

  "I know!" William laughed again, smiled sweetly at his mother, and grinned

  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.
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  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

  William thought was funny. They giggled about the name now, as the

  carriage pulled into the drive, until Lizzie told them off sharply, and

  told Queen to remember her place.

  Tragic circumstances had attended the Perkinses a few years ago. Convinced

  that his fortune was being frittered away by

  436 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

  his wife's extravagances, William Perkins had plunged, once again, into land

  speculation, this time with disastrous results. If he had consulted wiser,

  more cautious minds, catastrophe might have been avoided, but he was

  convinced he was a better businessman than any of his associates, and

  especially Tom Kirkman, who had been his original adviser. After all, Tom

  had not been doing all that well recently. The Jackson fortune was still

  considerable, but no one could deny that it had not thriven under Tom's

  stewardship. He had ignored all his father-in-law's precepts, divested them

  of much of their land and invested everything in cotton and the banks. Which

  was fine, thought William, when the price of cotton was high, but cotton was

  a commodity subject to market forces, and banks frequently failed.

  Willing prey to his fears and unscrupulous developers, William invested far

  too much money in new territories in the West, and bought thousands of

  acres in California, sight unseen. When this land proved to be unusable,

  unsellable desert, the Perkins fortune collapsed, and William with it. He

  panicked, and sold everything he had at giveaway prices. He also sold his

  wife's slaves. Becky was away in Atlanta attending some function, and,

  knowing he didn't have much time, he called the auctioneer in one morning,

  and by evening all the slaves but three were gone: the cook, the

  housekeeper, and the gardener.

  Becky was speechless with rage when she found out, and wept for her darling

  darkies, and for herself. How could she live? How could she visit anyone of

  quality now, bereft of attendants? How could she hold her head up in

  public? She took to her room with a sick headache, and swore she would

  never speak to her husband again. She never did. The money resulting from

  the sale of the slaves was a useless, tiny flame quickly extinguished in

  the ocean of William's disasters. Blinded by panic, he could see no

  alternative but bankruptcy, and died of a bleeding ulcer the day after

  Becky withdrew to her bedroom.

  All this affected Becky's mind. Increasingly unstable since Lizzie's

  marriage, she dwelt near the border of the insane, but the loss of money,

  slaves, position, and husband in such quick succession persuaded her to

  cross the dividing line and take

  QUEEN 437

  up residence in the comforting country of the deranged. Lizzie was

  distraught, but Jass had been good to Becky, and built her a house so that

  she might be in close proximity to her daughter, and had given Becky a

  couple of slaves to look after her. She spent her days in a sweetly

  remembered but illogically recalled past Above everything, she realized

  how very much she had always adored her husband, and her loveliest memo-

  ries were of William, who was waiting for her patiently, in another house

  he was building somewhere not far away, and of her former slaves, who were

  mysteriously visiting her husband, and would come for her one day,

  carriage ready, to take her to him. In her more lucid moments, she

  understood that William was dead, and she saw no reason for living, but

  Fate was cruel to her, and would not remove her from her vale of grief.

  She loved her daughter, but Lizzie had her own life as mistress of a