Queen (34 page)

    horizon promised. He yearned to see the wild Mexican province of Texas,

    the almost uncrossable Rocky Mountains, and the distant, legendary land

    beyond that the Spanish called California.

    Part of him, too, longed to visit the Northern cities, for however much

    they were disparaged as dens of Yankee liberalism, they were always

    spoken of with excitement. He tried to imagine Florence a hundred, two

    hundred, times bigger, but then he could not imagine how a world without

    slaves functioned in any practical sense, and itched to understand what

    it

    MERGING 203

was about slavery that seemed to make so many Yankees so very cross.

    Torn between the desire to build or to explore, to settle as eventual

    master of a successful plantation or travel thousands of miles to a

    distant place and create his own empire as his father had done, he would

    spur Morgan at the edge of town and gallop home, Cap'n Jack beside him,

    through the lovely, fertile country.

    The wind laved his aching body and bruised spirit, and the sense of the

    power of his horse, which he was controlling, inspired his blossoming

    manhood. They rode down avenues of untidy cypresses, on roads that had

    been created only by the traffic of horses and carts. They passed lonely

    farming shacks, on land only partly and recently reclaimed from nature.

    He could easily imagine how it was when the true native people still

    lived here, smoke from their fires curling through the lazy afternoon to

    the distant, vaulting heavens. He could see himself in their company, as

    his father had been not so very many years ago, learning of their values

    and beliefs and endless, unwritten, recited history.

    He loved those stories at his father's knee. He could listen for hours

    to the tales his parents told, his mother too, for they were both pioneer

    people who had come to this extravagant wilderness, done battle with it,

    and won. They had collected a vast repository of folklore that was, to

    the impressionable, dreaming Jass, a living thing, because his parents

    had lived it.

    And if they were capable of doing what they had done, not so very many

    years ago, almost within the span of his own lifetime, then what was he

    capable of9 What adventures awaited him out there, just a few miles

    farther than his parents had gone? What stories would he be able to tell

    his children one day, of frontiers extended and mountains crossed and

    wilderness made productive? He knew that out there lay the possibility

    of experiences richer than all the treasure on earth, in this country

    called America.

    They broke through the sheltering trees, and Jass slowed his pace. There

    it was, on a little hill, dazzling him as it always did, the pristine,

    elegant mansion, surrounded by cotton fields of apple-pie order on land

    that had been a sacred place to the native peoples. He could see the

    stallions grazing in a paddock

204 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

beside the immaculately maintained racecourse, and wished that Leviathan was

kept here instead of in Nashville, for he was the most famous stud in

America. He could see the trim acres of the cotton fields, with row upon

orderly row of the budding plants that yielded such a bountiful harvest. He

could hear the distant song of the weeding gang as they moved among the

sprouting cotton under the careful eye of Mitchell, the overseer.

    The splendid vision caught at his heart, just as always, and all sense of

    the roaming life deserted him. His only ambition, at this moment, was to

    cherish this place, to nurture it, to watch it grow and be a haven of

    happiness and tranquillity, as it was to hirn now.

    Cap'n Jack's thoughts on staring at The Forks of Cypress were colored by

    other experiences, different memories. For Cap'n Jack hated this house,

    which represented to him all the things he despised in old Massa James, all

    the many promises sweetly made and bitterly broken. Even building the house

    on this hallowed land now seemed to him profane, and represented the

    precise moment from which he could date his many bitter disappointments in

    James Jackson, whom once he had held in such regard.

Jass knew nothing of this, and smiled at him, just as always.

    "Race you," he called, and galloped away. Cap'n Jack knew the pattern of

    it; it happened every day. Jass would make for the house, but halfway along

    the drive he would spur Morgan over the fence and gallop once around the

    racetrack before heading home, to the amusement of Monkey Simon and the

    stable hands, and the ire of Murdoch, the trainer, who thought it disturbed

    the broodmares. Cap'n Jack kicked his horse too, and, better rider, he

    could easily have overtaken Jass, but held back, to let the young man win.

    Jass rode hard and fast now, laughing, as if suddenly freed of care, in

    what seemed to be exhilaration but might as easily be a mask for the

    impending moment when he must face his parents, and they would know he had

    been fighting again.

    26

Pocahontas Rebecca Meredith Boiling Perkins fanned herself vigorously. "A

wedding!" she exclaimed. "It's nothing but a charade! A fiasco! Just so

a couple of nigras can jump the broom. Why, I feel faint even thinking

about it!"

    Sally smiled. Mrs. Perkins had felt faint several times that afternoon

    already, although the day was not overly warm. "A little more tea, Mrs.

    Perkins?" she asked. The fanning worthy gave an aggrieved nod, and Polly,

    a slave maid, refilled her glass with cool sun tea.

    "That the president's daughter-in-law could do such a thing! "

    She was in full flood now and Sally knew from experience that little

    could stop the flow unless something of more pressing import occurred.

    Which was hardly likely, given the thunderous rarnifications of Sarah

    York Jackson's correspondence, which had arrived at both the Perkins

    place and The Forks that day. Although it was apparently a simple

    invitation to a wedding, Sally was sure that matriarchs (and not a few

    patriarchs) throughout the South would be as agog about it as their

    present visitor. The mail had been delivered to the Perkins estate at

    midday, and when Mrs. Perkins read the letter, her first reaction was to

    go and lie down with a sick headache, but almost immediately her second

    reaction took charge, for she had to share her feelings with someone, and

    her daughter was not audience enough. Ordering Elizabeth to dress for

    visiting, she had summoned the landau, taken some care over her toilette,

    and arrived at The Forks in time for afternoon tea and, she hoped, some

    comforting apoplexy. But the wretched Jacksons hardly seemed bothered by

    the outrageous correspondence, and seemed to think the whole thing rather

    amusing.

"Well, that's Yankees for you," snapped Mrs. Perkins, as

    205

206 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

if Yankees were the reason for the world's ills, and took a sip of tea.

    James, distracted by other letters, had taken little interest in the

    conversation, or monologue with interruptions as Sally thought of it. Now

    he looked up. "Sarah's hardly a Yankee," he said.

    "Might as well be," Mrs. Perkins snapped back. "Mixing nigras and white

    folk at a social event, can you imagine? Is that your boy?"

    As it was uttered all in one breath, it took Sally a moment to realize

    that the tiny, hoped-for miracle had arrived. Something had happened to

    distract Mrs. Perkins from her obsession with the wedding. Jass was

    galloping across the racetrack toward the drive, Cap'n Jack only yards

    behind him. Sally watched him for a moment, maternally satisfied that he

    was home safe, and knew just by looking at him that he had been fighting

    again. She was also acutely aware that Mrs. Perkins was making urgent,

    silent eye contact with her daughter, known to them all, but not to her

    parents, as Lizzie, who was sitting with Sassy on the lawn, some little

    distance away. Sally sensed matchmaking in the air.

    Although only fourteen, Lizzie completely understood her mother's

    unspoken signaling from the veranda, but saw little need for it. She knew

    she looked pretty, she always made sure she looked her very best when

    visiting the Jacksons, and she knew she had little, if any, competition

    in the district. The potential of Jass as her eventual spouse had never

    been overtly discussed by her parents, but their constant hints at the

    suitability of such a union made their opinion clear.

    Lizzie thought it was a fairly good idea, too. Old James Jackson was much

    richer than her own father, a reasonably successful businessman who had

    small interest in agriculture but had bought a plantation near Florence

    five years ago to give himself a sense of place, and because land was a

    secure investment. The day-to-day running of the farm bored him, and he

    had little aptitude for picking overseers who might make up for his own

    shortcomings, so the plantation jogged along, and the Perkinses were able

    to dwell comfortably in the fantasy that they were landholding gentry.

    Not that they were poor-Lizzie would bring a handsome dowry to her mar-

    riage-but they were not, by any means, rich.

    MERGING 207

    Lizzie was an only surviving child, raised alone, taught by tutors, only

    now being allowed to go to school to finish her education. The

    overwhelming influence on her life was her mother, and from her mother

    she was learning all the attributes of a Southern belle, as if the mother

    were creating in the all too willing girl the woman she herself had never

    quite become. Lizzie could flirt and charm and tantalize, even faint if

    necessary, with the best of them, but somehow none of it came naturally

    to her. It was as if she were playing a role that was demanded of her,

    and she behaved as if everything she did would be graded and commented

    on by her mother afterward. Which it was.

    In her private world, her fantasy world, Lizzie might dream of a more

    dashing husband than Jass, a sweeping cavalier, but Jass was the reality:

    certainly rich enough, potentially handsome enough, and undoubtedly

    gentleman enough. They got on well together, and Lizzie thought she could

    manage him well enough to create in him, if not her ideal husband, then

    at least a reasonable facsimile. That they were both too young to

    contemplate marriage was hardly a factor. Young girls, and their parents,

    had to plan for the future.

    She glanced at Sassy Jackson, as if to reassure herself that she was the

    prettiest present, and turned to watch Jass. Followed by a black who

    seemed to be his personal slave, Jass took the fence, and his horse

    cleared it with energy and graceful ease.

    "Why"-Lizzie affected what she thought to be her most seductive drawl,

    and primped her hair-"your brother is positively gorgeous. Last time I

    saw him, he was all gangly and spotty. "

    Sassy, aware of the subtext that was being prepared, giggled. She

    couldn't stand Lizzie. She was so very-young.

    On the veranda, Mrs. Perkins echoed her daughter's sentiments. "What a

    fine young man he's becoming," she cooed. "Best keep him out of

    Elizabeth's sight. She has an eye for a beau. "

    Driven by some internal, matemal clock, Sally dismissed the idea out of

    hand. "Nonsense," she snapped, "they're both far too young." The rebuff

    didn't bother Mrs. Perkins, who did elaborate things with her fan, said

    "Mmmmm" in a way

208 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

that allowed, she hoped, considerable interpretation, and glanced at the

boy's father, who glanced at her, and she knew she was in striking distance,

at least, of the mother lode.

    But Jass didn't stop and dismount, didn't join them on the veranda, didn't

    even attempt to fulfill the various expectations of him. Instead he slowed

    to a trot, waved cheerfully at his parents, and spurred his horse away,

    behind the house, Cap'n Jack following. To the weaving house, Sally knew.

    To Easter.

    "He's been fighting again," Sally said, perhaps to give Mrs. Perkins some

    doubts about her son's potential suitability. "He likes to pretend that we

    don't know." She didn't disapprove of fighting; she took the view of many

    pioneer mothers, that her door was always open to brave men and permanently

    closed to cowards, but since the death of A.J., she didn't want anything

    untoward to happen to Jass. She felt a sudden flurry of exasperation with

    the world and with the boy. "It's happening almost every week. You should

    talk to him."