Queen (39 page)

    if anything should happen to me, I want you to be ready. Do you like the

    Perkins girl?"

    It came as a small bolt from the blue, and Jass was thrown by it,

    although the connection was obvious to his father.

    " Well, yes, I guess. Lizzie's charming" was the best Jass could manage.

    "She is also a most eligible heiress." His father, having taken the

    plunge, waded on. "'You're too young to even contemplate

    anything-serious-with her, and if circumstances were different we would

    not be having this conversation. But--

    Jass knew where they were going. In that "but" a whole future lay.

    It was apparent to Sally too, still fiddling with dead flowers in the

    hall, and to Cap'n Jack, still uselessly trimming a wick that could

    scarcely be trimmed any more.

11

    -you will have to marry eventually, and I hope it will be sooner rather

    than later. I was not a young man when I married your mother, and I

    sometimes regret that I did not find her earlier."

    He had completely lost track of how to say what he wanted, he knew,

    although his goal still beckoned him, if only he could reach it. Why is

    it so.difficult? he thought again, although he already knew the answer.

    He was trying to control something that, ultimately, he did not believe

    was his to control. He lost his temper with himself.

    "You must have sons, Jass!" he announced angrily. "Sons to inherit what

    I have created here."

    As soon as he said it, his anger at himself increased, for he knew he

    sounded even more pompous than before. Jass was puzzled by his father's

    vehemence, but a second glass of port was making him bold.

    "Of course, Papa," he said. "I'm looking forward to being married one

    day. But I was wondering about-" He found

232 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

the word difficult to say, for he was suddenly feeling a complex anger,

too. Here he was with his father, drinking port and discussing his future

as man and master, yet he was still being treated as an inadequate boy.

He felt an intense, burning need to communicate to his father that he

wasn't a boy anymore, he was a man, in charge of his own destiny. Suddenly

he wanted answers from his father to some of the questions that had been

puzzling him.

"I was wondering," he repeated, "about love."

    James stared at his son, as if staggered by his impudence. Love, he

    thought, oh, love. That is the heart of it. That is what I should be

    discussing with him, and what I am trying to deny him. I am considering

    everything that matters--this house, this land, this estate, this family,

    this fortune-but not the thing that matters most. I have not considered

    his heart. Is that what my father did to me?

To his son he said: "Love?"

    Jass began a confused apology. "Where that comes into it. I mean, I know

    all about girls and things, and getting married, and babies, all the

    fellows at school talk about that all the time, but no one's ever talked

    to me about love."

    It was eminently fair and reasonable, thought James, and completely

    unanswerable. He struggled to describe the indescribable. "Love is-"

    What? A young man's dream? An intangible, foolish, impractical something,

    dictated by the heart, not the head, which if undirected could sabotage

    everything he had worked for, all he had built, the tiny empire he had

    created. Yet it was a most basic right of any man-and, he knew, totally

    unpredictable, perhaps dangerously so. He had never questioned, would

    never have challenged, A.J.'s right to love whom he would, for A.J. would

    have loved the right woman, James was sure. A.J.'s sense of

    responsibility would have dictated to his heart, and he would have chosen

    a bride who would have been worthy mistress of this mansion. Why was he

    not so sure that Jass would do the same?

    "I hope you will find love," he assured his son, longing for Sally to

    help. "But marriage and love do not necessarily go hand in hand."

    They do, his heart insisted, they do. Let the boy love. But let him love

    wisely, his mind responded.

    MERGING 233

    "When I first met your mother, I thought she was the most beautiful

    creature I had ever seen, and I-wanted her-at that moment-"

    The unguarded thought had slipped out. So anxious was he to impress duty

    on his son that he was not embarrassed by the admission of lust.

    --but I didn't love her then, I didn't know her, I'd never spoken to her.

    Love came with knowledge. The more I came to know her, the more I came

    to love her, until now I cannot bear to be apart from her. "

    Sally's heart sang a sweet duet. This is my husband, whom I love. And

    this is my son, who has dared my husband to speak of love.

    "But we married for different reasons," she hardly heard James continue.

    "We married for mutual benefit; we married to have a family. Love came

    later."

    Whatever motives she had for wanting to overhear the conversation in the

    study now seemed irrelevant to Sally, for she knew her son would love

    whom he would, marry whom he must. She hoped they would be one and the

    same woman, but if not, she hardly cared, for the boy would be his own

    man, and that, for Sally, was all that mattered. Only one tiny cloud

    troubled her otherwise flawless horizon. She moved to the study and

    softly she closed the door.

"Easter's turned into a fine girl," she said to Cap'n Jack.

"Yes, missus," the slave replied.

"Master James is very fond of her."

"Yes, missus."

    Sally moved away, as if that were the end of the conversation, but, at

    the stairs, turned back.

    "Let us hope he doesn't become-too fond-of her." Her meaning was

    precisely clear, and Cap'n Jack looked at her steadily.

"No, missus."

    Why did she fear this so? Why, in this moment of otherwise complete

    certainty about Jass's character, did she have such profound misgivings

    about a simple slave girl?

    Sally moved in what she often thought was a hypocritical hemisphere with

    regard to her son's libido. She knew, as did all Southern mothers, that

    most of their young men found their

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first sexual pleasures with slave girls, and that many of these young men

continued to take that pleasure throughout their adult life. She knew-they

all did-of older male friends who kept a black mistress, or several

concubines, or of those who simply raped their slave women as and when the

urge took them. It was seldom discussed by the women, and then only

"behind the fan," but oh, how busy those fans could be, feeding the embers

of gossip into lurid flames of speculation.

    In the more sensational cases, such as that of Mr. Herrisvale, only three

    counties away, who had taken his black concubine into the main house,

    into the very nuptial bed, relegating his true and lovely white wife to

    the second-best guest room, the fans had worked overtime, for every white

    woman could only too easily imagine herself in a similar predicament. The

    dear, sweet Mrs. Herrisvale had absolutely no recourse of any kind. As

    wife she was chattel, to be done with as her husband wished-in many ways,

    Sally frequently thought, no better than a slave-and no matter how much

    her family might rail on her behalf, the husband was lord of the estate

    and king of the lives of those who dwelt therein, and if he was of a can-

    tankerous nature, like Mr. Herrisvale, all the suffering Edna could do

    was bear the indignity with as much fortitude as she could muster. Her

    outraged brothers had demanded her return to them, with or without her

    substantial dowry, but Mr. Herrisvale had kept them at bay with shotguns

    and the full force of the law. "We can only be grateful," swooned the

    fanning gossips, "that our dear husbands are reasonable, faithful,

    Christian men."

    But were they? What woman could be sure that her husband was not finding

    some pleasure, at least, in the slave quarters, and if he was, what might

    this lead to? Surely Edna Herrisvale had put her complete faith and trust

    in her husband, and look at her now. Yet for many of the wives, the slave

    concubines were a considerable relief, for it meant fewer sexual demands

    on them. And a mightier relief too, on behalf of their daughters. for if

    the young beaux had no other outlet for their base desires, the virginity

    of every young Southern belle was potentially at risk, and for a girl to

    go to the altar already deflowered was a shame no mother could bear.

Still Sally worried about Jass's fondness for Easter. She

    MERGING 235

guessed that any eventual physical relationship with Easter would keep him

satisfied and happy, for the realist in her knew that her son must be

developing carnal needs, and she prayed that he would eventually find a

bride who would not be too obtuse in the bedroom. Yet that other,

maternal, side of her dreamed that her boy might be temperate of desire,

that he would remain a virgin until his marriage, and that he would be as

sweet and undemanding of his spouse in bed as he was in life. That this

hope somehow emasculated her son was a demon fear she worked very hard to

keep at bay.

    She wanted for Jass a simple life, she told herself, and Easter was an

    unnecessary complication.

    "Good night, Cap'n Jack," she said, and went up the stairs. If anyone had

    influence over Easter and lass it was Cap'n Jack, and she was relying on

    him to do his utmost to put restraints on their friendship.

    "Good night, Missus Sally," Cap'n Jack replied, and started turning down

    lamps.

    What Sally did not understand, for she had no knowledge of it, was the

    bitter complexity of Cap'n Jack's ambition. Unable to persuade Annie's

    new owner to part with his new slave, even for considerable sums of

    money, Sally had spent countless hours comforting Cap'n Jack, and

    believed that his pain had eventually healed.

She was wrong.

    All the furious vows of vengeance Cap'n Jack had made the day Annie was

    sold away still raged beneath his compliant exterior. He had no clear

    idea of how to achieve his goal, or even what his goal might be, but he

    had the slave's gift of patience, and fortune seemed to be playing

    directly into his hands. The deep friendship of his daughter and Jass

    held promise of future fruition, and the death of A.J. would eventually

    elevate Jass to a position in which Cap'n Jack's primitive oath to

    subvert his father's expectation of him would have some real hope of

    success. The stories of Mr. Herrisvale and his black concubine had

    encouraged exaggerated ambitions in Cap'n Jack, and the thought of Easter

    as surrogate mistress of this mansion, however disparaged by the world

    at large, put him at direct variance with what Sally wanted. If this were

    not possible, if Easter's ascendancy, or his own, were

236 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

less spectacular, something else would happen, Cap'n Jack was sure, for

the actual focus of his triumph didn't matter. The revenge itself was all.

    Leaving a few candles burning to light his Massas, young and old, to bed,

    he left the hall and went out into the night.

In the study, James thought things were going rather well. "A family is

everything, Jass, in this world of ours. Without family we are nothing,

and you must start thinking of your future. You will meet many young

women, of course, at Nashville, and when you go to college-"

    He felt the need to invite some comment from his son, since he was trying

    to exercise such control over the boy's future. "Are you content with New

    Jersey?" he asked.

"Oh, yes, very much," saidJass. "If they'll have me-"

    "You won't have a problem there," James said. "Money talks, even to the

    old Yankee colleges." He could have bitten his tongue off; he was even

    denying his son's scholastic ability. So he looked for a compliment.

    "Always remember that you are a highly desirable young man, if only

    because of your position and your wealth, and you will be much sought

    after. But you could do a lot worse than Lizzie Perkins. She's a fine

    girl, and would make a splendid wife, I'm sure. Talk to her, call on her,

    get to know her."

"Yes, sir." Jass was dutiful again.

    "Good," said his father, anxious now for it to be over. "Well-that's

    about it. Best to bed, eh? It's getting late."

    "Yes, sir." Jass, who had been hoping for another glass of port, went to

    the door.

    James could not let it go at that. He'd botched the whole thing, had

    probably confused the boy more than clarified anything, and felt that