Page 89 of Queen

heart got the better of his common sense, and he, despite all appearances to

  the contrary, liked Queen, and had admired the logic behind her outburst, if

  not the way she had done it.

  Edgar Cherry's position had always been something of a paradox, even to

  himself. Raised in the South, he had owned slaves, and they had helped him

  make his fortune, but he had enjoyed a lib~ral education in the North, and

  despised the practice. He could not understand why any human being could

  believe others inferior simply because of their race, or the color of their

  skin. He was good to his slaves, and gave several their freedom, but

  believed that only wealth and influence could bring about change, and the

  slaves were the key to his fortune. Like Queen and so many others, he

  puzzled constantly

  A WIFE AND MOTHER, LOVED 739

  that it only took one tiny drop of black blood to set someone apart from

  their peers, and Queen's claim that she was actually as much Irish as

  black had amused him greatly. He had became a devout abolitionist, working

  to subvert the system from within, to bring his fellow Southerners to an

  understanding of the terrible injustice they were inflicting on the black

  race, but made little headway against the pervasive, ruling system. The

  war gave him the chance to put his ideals into action. He welcomed the

  Union troops, allowed his house to be used by their officers, and sent

  some of his slaves behind Rebel lines, to act as spies. He freed his

  slaves with the announcement of the Emancipation Act, and it pleased him

  that many chose to stay with their former Massa. It depressed him that the

  attitude of most whites had not been changed by the war, but while he

  applauded Queen, he could not tolerate her rudeness, for he believed that

  such behavior encouraged intolerance, not diminished it.

  Queen sat in her room, shaking with tangled emotions, and rocking Abner,

  who sensed his mother's distress, and cried. His distress only added to

  her own, for he would not be comforted, and Queen could find no way to

  alleviate her own distress. Her life was following its usual pattern, and

  she believed it was only a matter of days before she would be dismissed

  and on the road again. To heaven knows where.

  What distressed her most was that she did not want to go. Somewhere deep

  inside herself she understood that this job, this house, and this place

  represented the best chance for some small security in her life. The

  possibility of that chance being snatched away from her, largely by her

  own intemperate actions, caused her mind to cringe in fear for the

  future. But she did not understand that she could change that future, for

  she did not know how to change herself.

  She stared at the empty fireplace, and suddenly flames exploded in it,

  and burst into life, flames of the torches of relentless pursuers, and

  flames of a burning barn, and flames engulfing the body of the man she

  had loved, who was father to her son.

  86

  Dora had her say the following morning, when she took Queen into town to

  shop. As usual, Queen brought Abner with her, and her obsessive refusal to

  be parted from the boy began to annoy Dora. He would have been quite happy

  back at the mansion, in the care of one of the gardeners, but when she

  mentioned it, Queen became sullen again. Expertly driving the small gig,

  Dora flicked her whip at the horse to relieve the frustration she felt with

  this obstinate woman.

  "Gwine have to let go of the boy some day," she said, and saw Queen's face

  redden. "He cain't go through life thinkin' his mammy is his only home."

  "I'm all he's got. I'm the only one who loves him," Queen muttered.

  Dora saw her chance, and turned on Queen.

  "Now you may not know who you are, missy," she said, "black, white, yalla,

  or sky-blue pink, and it don't matter a hoot the color of yo' skin, because

  I know what you are. If'n you think you c'n keep that boy in a glass case

  the rest of his life, then you are a fool, girl. The biggest dang fool on

  this earth, that's what you are."

  Queen was equally angry. "Abner the only one who love me," she cried. "No

  one going to take that away from me."

  "It's high time you worked out who your friends are, missy," Dora snapped,

  her frustration with Queen flooding out. "Massa Cherry's a good man, who's

  been kind enough to give you a job and a home. Well, home is where you are

  loved, and there's folk here would love you, if'n you gave them a chance.

  So it's high time you let go the pain that's eatin' you. It's time you let

  someone love you."

  She brought the gig to a halt outside the butcher's shop and the boy came

  running out to hold the horse's head.

  740

  A WIFE AND MOTHER, LOVED 741

  "You wait here," Dora said to Queen. "Y'ain't good company today." She

  heaved her vast self out of the gig, and turned back to Queen for a

  parting shot.

  "Y'ain't good company too many days," she said, and went inside.

  Queen sat in the gig and pulled Abner closer to her. If everyone was

  going to be angry with her all the time, it might be better to leave the

  job now, of her own volition. But she didn't want to do that. If she had

  to go, she'd rather be sacked, for that would feed her resentment and her

  pain. But, oh, she wanted to be rid of the pain.

  She glanced at the boy holding the horse's head. He was very

  light-skinned, and could have passed for white, but Queen guessed that

  he was not. Two middle-aged women passing by didn't have such good

  eyesight.

  "I'll never get used to it," one said to the other. "White boys holding

  horses, and white girls working as mammies to pickaninnies. "

  It was said loudly enough for Queen and the boy to hear, and it was meant

  to hurt. But it had the opposite effect. The butcher's boy glanced at

  Queen and smiled, for he knew her blood was similar to his own. She

  smiled back at him, as if they both shared a great secret. Then both of

  them started to giggle, and to laugh.

  Dora, waiting for the butcher to select his choicest cuts, glanced out

  of the shop window and saw the happy Queen.

  "Lord a' mercy," Dora said to no one. "She almost pretty when she laugh."

  She told Alec about that laughter when he called in for his usual Saturday

  visit. He was tired. Keeping house without Little Bit was only marginally

  more difficult than keeping house with Little Bit, but he needed someone,

  and couldn't find anyone to take her place.

  "You need a wife," Dora said. "Yo' chillun needs a mammy."

  She'd said it before, a thousand times, and would go on saying it until

  he did something about it.

  "The silly thing is," she added, as if the idea had only just occurred

  to her, "I know a Fil boy that needs a pappy. An' a woman that needs a

  man."

  742 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

  Alec started at her. She couldn't mean Queen, that meantempered, moody,

>   no-account critter who wouldn't give him the time of day. But he knew she

  did, and for all Queen's faults, the idea was not completely alien to him.

  "I ain't in the market, I tol' you," he said, apparently dismissing the

  subject, but actually wondering what Queen looked like when she smiled.

  He didn't convince Dora. - Uh-huh," she groaned. "You tol' me a thousand

  times, an' I still don't believe you."

  Alec lost his temper. "She don't even give me the time of day!

  "P'raps you ain't asked her right." Dora was very smug. She'd only thought

  of the possibility of a union between Alec and Queen as a bolt from the

  blue, but having had the idea it made absolute sense to her. "Lovey-dovey

  stuff ain't gwine get to her. She needs someone as mean-tempered as she

  is."

  She looked at her friend with enormous affection. She thought of him as a

  gentle grizzly bear.

  "An' Lord knows, you can be the meanest-tempered man in this county."

  Alec snorted in derision, and then smiled, because he knew he could be

  irascible. Even if he dismissed the idea of Queen as a potential wife, she

  might make an excellent housekeeper, especially if a small part of the love

  she directed so completely at Abner could be at least partly shared with a

  few other children. His children. He had no idea how this could be

  achieved.

  Abner solved the problem for him. It was a warrn day, and Queen had put him

  in the garden, on the rug. She thought him safe, for even if he could toddle

  to the garden gate, he couldn't unlatch it, so she went back in the house to

  finish some chores. She did not intend to be gone for very long, but she was

  gone for long enough.

  Alec walked through the garden on his way home, and Abner saw the nice man

  that he liked, and toddled after him. Alec opened the gate and told Abner

  to go home to his mammy, but Abner wouldn't be told. He took Alec's hand

  and walked with him through the gate. Alec looked at the house, in two

  minds what to do. He knew that Abner's absence would make Queen even

  angrier than usual, but there would

  A WIFE AND MOTHER, LOVED 743

  be nothing unusual in temper. He believed that the boy needed to get away

  from his mother's apron strings, and Abner seemed to be of the same

  opinion. And if Abner was absent for a while, and then was found, it might

  persuade Queen that other people could be trusted to look after him. On

  balance, and with a lot of rationalization, he decided that no harm could

  come from it, and perhaps a little good. He would send Minnie to tell

  Queen, or Dora, where the boy was. Still, he left the decision to Abner.

  He began walking slowly down the track, and Abner stayed with him,

  chattering to himself in a language that only he could understand.

  But a mile is a long way for a toddling boy, especially when there are

  so many interesting things to see, and a nice man to talk to. He

  inspected every tree and looked at every flower, and after a little while

  he got tired, so Alec picked him up and carried him the rest of the way

  home.

  Queen came out of the house and saw that Abner wasn't on his rug.

  Immediately, her heart beat a little faster, and she went searching for

  him through the garden, calling out his name. When she couldn't find him,

  she went back to the house and burst into the kitchen, calling for Abner.

  Dora had not seen the boy, and was concerned on his, and Queen's, behalf.

  "Cain't be too far away," she said, and went out with Queen into the

  garden to continue the search. Queen ran through the property crying out

  his name, and begging him not to play games with his mammy. When she saw

  that the back gate was unlatched, her heart almost stopped, for the path

  beyond the gate led to the river. She saw the gardener coming up the

  path, and called out to him, but he scratched his head; he hadn't seen

  the boy. Queen was sure that something untoward had happened to Abner.

  If he'd wandered down to the river, he might have fallen in, and he was

  only little, he couldn't swim.

  "Oh, sweet Lord, no," she begged, and ran down the path to the river.

  There was no sign of Abner anywhere. She saw George helping passengers

  onto the ferry, and called out to him and them.

  "My little boy's lost!" she cried. "Has anybody seen him? "

  744 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

  George and the passengers shook their heads, and fell into a discussion

  about what might have happened to the child, and everyone looked at the

  river. Queen was becoming frantic; she ran up and down the shore calling

  his name, and passengers tried to help her and calm her. They promised to

  organize a search.

  Then Minnie appeared at the top of the hill, and George asked her if she

  had seen Abner.

  "I see'd him," Minnie confirmed, and Queen ran to her, grabbed at her, and

  begged where.

  "At my pappy's place," Minnie said, surprised at the commotion. Abner had

  come home with her pappy, and was perfectly all right. She'd been sent to

  tell Queen and Dora where the boy was.

  With the news that Abner was safe, Queen's emotion changed. She became

  immediately suspicious.

  "What's he doin' there?" she asked, but Minnie was slightly frightened by

  the fuss, and shook her head.

  "Don't rightly know, m'm," she said. "But he there, safe as can be."

  Abner was indeed safe and happy and having the best time. He was sitting on

  the nice man's knee, on a chair that rocked backward and forward, and the

  nice man was telling him a story. Abner didn't understand what the story was

  all about; he didn't know what a tortoise was, nor a hare, but it was fun.

  Alec had given him lemonade, and played with him, and then settled to tell

  him fables. He was at the end of the one about the tortoise and the hare

  when he heard a furious yelling of Abner's name in the distance, and Queen

  appeared, running down the track.

  Queen hardly paused when she saw Abner, but ran to him, and grabbed him

  from Alec's lap.

  "Jus' tellin' him stories," Alec said calmly.

  But Queen didn't want him to tell Abner stories; she wanted him to keep

  away from her boy, and demanded to know how he had got here. He couldn't

  have toddled all this way on his own.

  "He's here, ain't he?" Alec said, filling his pipe with tobacco. His

  resolute calm in the face of what had been, to

  A WIFE AND MOTHER, LOVED 745

  Queen, a considerable crisis, infuriated her. She lost her temper, said

  she was sick of the whole world knowing what was better for her child than

  she did; she was sick of this place, and as soon as she had enough money

  saved, she would be on her way. With Abner. With that, feeling she'd had

  the satisfactory final word, she stomped away.

  "How much do you need?" Alec asked quietly, and that made her madder

  still. She rounded on him, because she'd told him before that she didn't

  want charity, and if he was still worried about the nickel she owed him

>   for the ferry ride, he'd get it back with interest. This riled Alec, but

  he did not forget his purpose.

  "We'll all be right glad to see the back o' yo' bad temper," he snapped.

  "An' if'n it'll get you on your way a little quicker, I need someone to

  work for me."

  Queen laughed in derision. She wouldn't work for him if he was the last

  man on earth, but what did it involve? Alec shrugged that he needed a

  part-time housekeeper for his children.

  "Tho' why I'd wish yo' mean ol' ways on them, I surely don't know."

  Queen had stopped walking away, but she wasn't sure why. She didn't want

  to stay in Savannah, but she didn't want to leave. She was suspicious of

  Alec, but she didn't know why. She was sure there was more to Abner's

  disappearance than he was telling her, but he had been kind to her, and

  found her the job with Massa Cherry. She had no intention of working for

  him, because she didn't need a job, she had one. But she still cherished

  the fantasy that as soon as she was back on her financial feet she could

  move on, and a few hours part-time work would speed that day. And she

  wasn't sure how long she would keep her job with Massa Cherry, for she

  knew she was on trial with him. She was doing her best to be pleasant to

  him, but she wasn't sure how long she could keep that up.

  "How much?" she asked cautiously. They negotiated in anger, and settled

  on a figure that was sufficient but not large, and agreed on a starting

  time, which was now. Queen had a few conditions of her own.

  "But I don't want to talk to you, 'cept when I have to," she insisted.

  "An' you keep away from my boy."

  746 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

  "Suits me fine," Alec agreed.

  Queen looked at him for a moment, deciding if he could be trusted, and

  reached a positive conclusion. She went into the house, and had things

  summed up in a trice. She put little Julie in charge of Abner, and when

  Minnie came home, somewhat nervously, Queen put her in charge of Julie and

  Abner.

  Alec sat rocking on the porch, puffing on his pipe, wondering what he had

  got himself into.

  87

  Within days, Alec's children adored her. She was careful and cautious with

  them, but firm and kind. It was an enormous relief to Minnie and Julie to

  have a woman to talk to, and they almost swamped her with an accumulation of

  love, and adored Abner, and played mother to him. George accepted her

  happily and willingly, for she represented a longed-for maternal figure in

  his life, and only Freeland resisted her presence, but not for long.

  Dora was pleased by the new arrangement, and gave it her blessing, provided

  it did not interfere with Queen's duties at the mansion. Queen assured her

  it would not; she would work evenings and Saturday afternoons for Alec, and

  work doubly hard to make sure her duties at the mansion were attended to.

  Mr. Cherry was a mildly dissenting voice, worried that Queen would not be

  able to do the two jobs, and that she would not have any time to herself,

  but the almost immediate change in Queen's attitude persuaded him not to

  interfere.

  - Good Lord," he said to Dora. "She's almost pretty when she smiles. " Dora

  nodded smugly.

  Her relationship with Alec took longer to improve. She kept her word, and

  spoke to him only when she had to, and he kept his part of the bargain,

  except at night, when she left the shack to go home, and he always spoke to

  her first.

  He sat on the porch every night, puffing on his pipe and

  A WIFE AND MOTHER, LOVED 747

  rocking in his chair. Queen came out of the house, and he thought she

  looked tired.

  "Take the weight off yo' feet," he said, indicating the other rocking

  chair. Tennie's chair.

  Queen was very tired and very tempted, but she wasn't ready to relax with

  him, and refused.

  "Jus' askin' you to sit!" he grumbled. He wasn't going to bite her; he

  was just asking her to sit for a while. Or was she too scared of him to