Queen (37 page)

    up immediately, and Polly glanced at Parson Dick. They all had varying

    degrees of knowledge about the wedding, the whites and the blacks, from

    the invitation, from the Perkinses, or from the grapevine, although Jass,

    whose only sources were Easter and Lizzie, knew less than most.

    "What's it all about?" he asked, and his family all spoke at once, to

    fill him in, and in relief from the talk of Nat Turner. From the

    confusion of names, opinions, and gossip, Jass learned what he did not

    already know.

220 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

    When President Jackson's son, Andrew Jackson, Jr., had recently married

    Sarah York, the president gave his new daughter-in-law a slave maid,

    Gracie, as a wedding gift. Alfred, never far from the president's side,

    had fallen in love with Gracie, and she accepted his offer of marriage.

    Sarah, wanting the wedding to be celebrated in style, was organizing a

    grand function at the Hermitage, and had invited the gentry of the South,

    together with their most valued slaves, to attend. It was the inclusion

    of the slaves in the invitations that was causing the fuss.

"Can you imagine?" Sassy giggled. "Slaves? As guests?"

    Jass was tickled pink. "What a grand idea," he laughed. "And not so very

    unusual-we often go to their weddings."

    "To watch, or because we own them." Sassy shared some of Lizzie's

    outrage. "Never all mixed up together. No one will go!"

    "I think most everyone will," James corrected his daughter. "Sarah is so

    close to the president. Who will turn her down?"

    "Will you go, Papa?" Sassy asked. They all knew of the cooling of their

    father's friendship with the man who was now president. "I thought you

    and Uncle Andrew had a quarrel."

    James shrugged it aside. "We've had our differences from time to time.

    That's all over and done with."

    "Andrew Jackson has been a good friend to this family," Sally said. "He

    helped us considerably in the early days."

    She was only telling them what they all already knew, but felt she had

    to defend the days of their youth. Whatever her private opinion of

    Andrew, she knew that he was responsible for much of their considerable

    fortune.

    "If it's going to be such a grand occasion, what am I going to wear?"

    Sassy wailed. "I can't go in these old rags!"

    Everyone laughed again. The "old rags" were gorgeous, handmade in

    Charleston, and worn twice at most, but a party atmosphere prevailed, and

    the rest of the meal was spent in a discussion of new clothes for Sally

    and Sassy, and of who might be attending the wedding and who might not.

    Jass longed to be away. The talk of the dresses had interested him

    briefly, if only because they were soft, feminine things, but now he

    wanted to see Cap'n Jack, for he was still puzzled by Easter's recent

    attitude, and needed older, wiser, male help.

    MERGING 221

    As soon as they had given thanks for their meal, he begged to be excused,

    and scooted out of the room, to James's disappointment, for he had been

    planning to talk to his son.

    "Off to see Easter," Sassy giggled, and she hurried away to find Angel,

    Sally's personal maid, and plan new ball gowns.

    Suddenly then, James and Sally were alone but for the slaves. James

    stared at his wife for a long moment. The years seemed to be making her

    more handsome, not less, and motherhood had given both a tranquillity and

    purpose that enhanced her personality. She was born to be what she is

    now, thought James, and hoped she loved him still, knowing that she did.

    Parson coughed gently. "No," said James, "I'll take it here. "

    Parson Dick poured a small glass of port, looked a question at Sally, who

    shook her head slightly, and the butler and the maid left the room.

    James sipped his port, and they sat in companionable silence for a while,

    the dull ticking of the grandfather clock a metronome to their thoughts.

    Sally knew something was worrying her husband, and she guessed it had to

    do with Andrew. Ever since James Coffee's visit last week, when the two

    men had spent the entire afternoon in the study supposedly discussing

    business matters, James had been distracted. Well, she thought, he will

    tell me in his good time, if it's important, knowing that it was. James

    always shared his most worrying concerns with her eventually, unlike some

    men who treated their wives as decorative imbeciles when it came to

    business affairs. She could not imagine a better husband, and thanked her

    Maker that she had found this gentle, reasonable man. She saw his graying

    hair, the wrinkles around his eyes, and the thickening waistline, and it

    made not one jot of difference to her feelings for him. For this is how

    it was meant to be, she thought. This is what love is: We are friends as

    much as lovers, we will grow old together, and I would trust him, I do

    trust him, with my life. She prayed with all her heart for a similar

    contentment for her children.

    Especially Jass. Because he was not born to the role of first son, she

    knew life was not easy for the boy. A.J. had been blessed with a more

    forceful personality. No one ever worried about A.J., for he seemed to

    understand naturally what was

222 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

expected of him, and even as a youth you could see in him the future head of

the family, master of the estate, the slaves, and their fortunes. But Jass

was different. Honest, caring, and studious, he was scrupulous in his

attention to other people's feelings, and she knew that his eventual

responsibilities as master would weigh heavily on him, for she saw in the

blithe boy a wretched affliction for those in authority: Jass could always

see both sides of every question.

    Briefly, bitterly, she felt a sudden stab of almost inconsolable grief, and

    cursed God for taking A.J. from them, not just because she loved her

    firstbom-which she did with all her heart; his death had caused her untold

    pain-but also because his presence would have made Jass's future so much

    easier. It hadn't mattered so much two years ago, when AT had been killed

    in that awful accident, because Jass had still been a boy, basking in the

    careless, carefree days of innocence. But it mattered now, as she watched

    him daily becoming more of a man, with a man's care, and she knew, if only

    from Mrs. Perkins's fan language, Lizzie's flirting, and James's too ready

    receptivity of their plot, that a man's future was being planned for him.

    Not Lizzie, she begged, anyone but Lizzie, wanting for her son a woman who

    might more easily comprehend his forgiving nature and make considerably

    fewer demands on his gentle morality.

And then there was Easter.

    As if tracking her thoughts, James smiled at her. "Easter's good for him,"

    he said. He took a sip of brandy, and his tone was cautionary. "He's nearly

    a man, after all."

    Yes, thought Sally, he's nearly a man. She felt a sudden flash of temper

    again. But he isn't a man yet, he's still a boy, and I want him to be that

    boy for as long as his heart desires. She yearned for the pioneer days of

    their youth, when building a life was more important than sustaining a

    fortune, for she knew that now they were rich, now they were people of con-

    sequence, what her son might want in a bride was secondary to the

    successional needs of a good marriage.

    He's still a boy, her heart insisted. But she looked at her husband.

    " Yes, " she agreed. " He's nearly a man. " She wasn't trying to avoid the

    inevitable, merely delay it. For as long as was humanly possible.

    MERGING 223

The young man in question was looking for advice about women, specifically

Easter, from his mentor, Cap'n Jack.

    "She's growing up," Cap'n Jack told Jass. "She want woman things."

    Jass grabbed at the only straw he felt confident with about girls. "You

    mean pretty dresses and things?"

    Cap'n Jack smiled. He'd had a long talk with Easter and knew that her

    ambition ran to much more than a frock.

    "And invitations to weddings an' things." Cap'n Jack dropped the tiny

    bombshell lightly.

    Jass was astonished. "You mean, she wants to go? But that's ridiculous,

    she's too young, she's not even a lady's maid, she-"

    "Don't stop her wanting it, all the same," Cap'n Jack responded.

Jass stared at the night. Fireflies sparkled in the long grass.

    The slave quarters, a collection of shacks around a large clearing, were

    almost a second home away from home to Jass, for he spent almost as much

    time here as in the mansion or the weaving house. A bonfire, large pot

    of food simmering over it, burned in the middle of the clearing. Most of

    the slaves had already eaten and were relaxing as best they could, gath-

    ered in little groups outside their shacks. Somewhere Monkey Simon was

    strumming a banjo, and a mother was washing a child in an old bathtub.

    A sense of tranquillity prevailed, for whatever resentments any of the

    younger, more hotheaded men felt for their status, no slave had run away

    from The Forks for years. There was no point in it.

    Old Tiara, who had been Jass's nurse and now cared for her young

    grandson, Isaac, sat on a broken-down rocker, the boy on her lap,

    discussing the coming wedding with anyone who cared to listen.

    "Yo' gwine be Alfred's best man?" she called to Cap'n Jack, only a small

    distance away.

    Cap'n Jack shook his head. "Ain't seen too much of him. Not since the

    Massa and Massa Presyden' fell out."

    He sorely missed his old friend but was proud of his status as most loyal

    slave to the president, whom he never called Massa Andrew anymore, but

    always Massa Presyden'.

224 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

    "Alfred gettin' awful old," Tiara cackled. "Same like you. Time you was

    hitched agen, Cap'n Jack."

    Her husband, Micah, was whittling on the stoop of their little shack.

    "Hush, woman," he said, knowing the command was useless.

    "Don't yo' shush me!" Tiara was indignant. "Cap'n Jack need a woman to

    look after him, cain't go on dreamin' 'bout Annie fo' evuh an' evuh."

    Isaac, warm and secure against his grandmother's capacious bosom,

    stirred. "Who's Annie?" he asked.

    "You hush too, boy," muttered Micah. "She ain't with us no more."

    A slave child must learn early, at his mother's knee. Or his

    grandmother's, and Tiara was always ready to pick at an old sore, as much

    for the young Massa's benefit as Isaac's. "Don't you tell Isaac hush. No

    reason he cain't know what Massa did."

    She was looking at Jass, but talking to Isaac. "She wer' Easter's mammy.

    Massa sol' her away."

    Jass, who ' had heard the story many times, but had no memory of it, was

    not listening. His mind was filled with images of Easter in a pretty

    dress rather than the simple homespun she usually wore.

    "Weren't the Massa," Cap'n Jack said sharply. "Wer' the overseer,

    Harris."

    Tiara laughed derisively. "Don't make no never mind. She got so]' away."

    She hugged Isaac to her. "Things differen' now," she told the boy, "but

    in the ol' days, hit didn't make no never mind if'n a slave had family.

    Massas sell anyone away if"n they had a mind. Sons from pappies. Mammies

    from sons."

    Micah stopped his whittling and stared at the fire. "Still happen, most

    places," he said. There was no bitterness in his voice; it was a simple

    statement of fact. The only thing permanent to a slave was slavery.

"Not here," Cap'n Jack insisted. "Massa wouldn't let it."

    In Jass's mind, the vision of Easter in a pretty frock gave way to Lizzie

    in the same frock. It shocked him from his reverie, and he heard Tiara

    speaking.

"Him Massa. An' all Massas the same. Don't give a hoot

    MERGING 225

'bout. black folk, other'n to work their selves to the grave for ern.

    -That's tosh, Tiara," Jass broke into the conversation, without rancor,

    for it happened all the time. "We look after you, don't we?"

    "Jes' sayin'." Tiara rocked in the gentle night. There was no point in

    starting an argument with Jass about it, for she would never win.

    It was also true. Despite the visceral resentment many of the slaves felt

    about their servitude, the Jacksons looked after them reasonably well.

    Furious with Harris for selling Annie, James, on his return to The Forks,

    had sacked the man instantly, and had spent many weeks searching for a

    suitable replacement. Edward Mitchell had come to him with good

    references that praised his work but complained of a certain leniency in