Queen (42 page)

    to everyone as the Trio, and several more distant relations, elderly or

    absentminded, began to forget their individual names.

    They had arrived at the beginning of summer in a bustle of boxes and

    carts and schoolboy noise, in the care of their cousin John, who had come

    to look for a house in Florence, since several of the Kirkmans were

    moving to Florence. The Trio clutched at their mother, weeping, begging

    her never to send them away from her to that awful school again, but

    within minutes they were gone, causing havoc in the garden, chaos in the

    kitchen, and endless tolerant vexation from Tiara in the slave quarters,

    for she had been nurse to them, as she had to all the boys, and still

    loved them and their boyish games.

    The Trio left chaotic, frustrated joy in their wake wherever they went,

    and especially for Sally. She loved them all dearly, but it was a less

    fretful love than she had lavished on her older children when they were

    young. She guessed that she had become used to motherhood, and didn't

    worry so much whether she was doing the right thing. So she could shout

    at them, and cuff their ears, and laugh at their games, or simply tell

    them to get out from under her feet when she was too busy with other

    things. Whatever her other duties though, she tried to set an hour of

    each day aside, exclusively for them.

    Running a household as large as theirs was never easy for Sally, least

    of all in the summer months when they had so many visitors. Although she

    could rely on Parson Dick, and Julie, the cook, several of the younger

    girls needed constant supervision, were frequently sick or forgetful of

    their duties. Sometimes, Sally thought, the more house slaves you had,

    the more work there was to do. She envied those few Northern hostesses

    she had met who, employing domestic staff, could sack them if they were

    incompetent or lazy, for it seemed

252 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

excessive to Sally, but not to some others, to have a slave girl whipped

or sold away for neglecting to empty a chamber pot or dust under a bed.

Her various female relatives understood this-they shared the problem-but

still they made demands on her time, for she was one of the reasons they

had come.

    Jass found it hard work trying to remember all the family connections.

    Elizabeth, his mother's daughter by her first marriage, had married his

    cousin Tom, which meant she was both his half sister and his first cousin

    once removed. But what about Sam, their young son? Was he first cousin

    twice removed, or second cousin once removed, or half nephew? These

    things seemed to matter in a family, especially to the women. Aunt

    Letitia Hanna was the family authority, and very sharp with Jass whenever

    he flunked a relationship. "You will have to find an intelligent bride,"

    she had admonished once, clearly dismissing him as a dunderhead. "Someone

    has to remember all their birthdays."

    The cotton ripened, the buds bursting with the white gold that was their

    fortune. It was going to be a good yield, over a bale an acre, and with

    the recent reduction of tariffs demanded by South Carolina, the profit

    would move from the good to the spectacular.

    The work songs of the picking gangs could be heard everywhere on the

    plantation, drifting in to James through the open windows of his study,

    where he sat for hours on the sultry, sweaty summer days, counting his

    wealth, as if knowledge of the scale of it was insurance against its ever

    being taken away. When not in his study, he spent time at the stables

    inspecting his lucrative stallions and watching their training. He still

    fretted about John Coffee's visit, but the horses calmed him, or

    distracted him, and he put on a jolly, Irish face for his relatives,

    especially when they were Irish.

    It pleased him, too, when rich landowners came with their wives and

    daughters to call, the girls doing their best to make an impression on

    young Jass. The aristocratic families of the South were always plotting

    their survival, and although Jass was too young to be in a serious race,

    it was never too early to start building alliances. It pleased James, and

    thrilled Jass, that he was the object of these welcome attentions, and

    it amused Sally that any visit by a family with a daughter to

    MERGING 253

dispose of was quickly followed by a visit from Lizzie Perkins and her

mother. Sally watched with approval as Jass grew better and better at

conducting himself in the presence of young ladies, and toward the end of

summer, Sally realized that Jass was going to be a considerable catch.

    She had always thought him a good-looking boy, but the Jass who was

    measured for his new clothes at the beginning of summer was not the Jass

    who was fitted into them at the end, even though allowance had been made

    for growth. The cuffs of his trousers had to be let down a solid inch,

    and the sleeves of his jackets. His chest had filled out and his neck

    thickened, so that his new shirts were already tight, and Sally clucked

    in despair.

    That clucking stopped when he tried on his new evening clothes, and

    presented himself for her inspection, grinning because he knew they

    suited him.

    The elegant velvet coat, the pearly white jabot, flowing in elaborate

    ruffles from his neck, and the beautifully cut stovepipe pants changed

    him, before her very eyes, from a boy bursting out of his scams to a

    strikingly handsome young man.

    "What on earth are you crying for?" he laughed. And Sally laughed too,

    and could not tell him why.

    The end of summer also brought the last of their visitors and, for James,

    the most welcome.

    Sara came from Baltimore with her family, and for a few days James tried

    to lose himself in an orgy of Irish reminiscence, and music, and stories

    of their youth.

    Sara could see that something was troubling her brother but, like Sally,

    knew it was useless trying to provoke him to talk before he was ready.

    The two women discussed it at length, but Sally could shed little light

    on the matter.

    It had begun with the visit of John Coffee, she said, and she was sure

    it was related to Andrew and, somehow, the Indians. James scanned the

    newspapers avidly when they arrived, but was interested only in that one

    subject. A few weeks before, some reporters from the Washington

    newspapers had come to interview James, but he had refused to discuss his

    private business dealings.

    Then John Coffee died, of a chill he had caught coming back from

    Washington. James had ambivalent feelings about

254 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

the death. He tried to mourn the friendship they had once enjoyed, but had

grieved enough for that long ago. He sent his condolences to the family,

and attended the funeral, and said all the appropriate things, but there

was a constant sense of relief in the back of his mind that John, at

least, would no longer trouble him. He did feel a genuine sense of loss

at this evidence of the passing years.

Toward sunset, on the day before she was due to leave, James asked Sara

if she would like to visit the stables with him. They walked to the

racecourse arm in arm, gossiping, and leaned on the fence to watch the

horses being exercised. Lauderdale, grazing in a paddock, came trotting

over to his owner.

    "He's from Miss Shipton, and he's going to make me a fortune," James

    said, stroking the stallion's nose and feeding him the apple he had put

    in his pocket for the purpose.

    Sara laughed. "All you've talked about this last hour, this last week,

    is how much money you've made. As if you were scared of losing it."

    James smiled. She could read him like a book. That was why he had brought

    her here. If anyone could make sense of it, it was Sara.

    The story came pouring out of him, in flooding relief. He told her

    everything, kept nothing back. Except his present feelings about the

    Indians.

    Sara felt keenly her brother's distress, and was not surprised that

    Andrew was at the heart of it. She wanted to crow in triumph, "I told you

    so." She wanted to box her younger brother's ears for getting involved

    in the sordid mess, but knew that would get them nowhere.

    "You lent Andrew money," she said. "What Andrew did with it is his

    business. You've been lending him money for years. Did he ever pay a

    penny of it back?"

    James stared at her, trying to come to terms with the simplicity of the

    statement. It was true. All he had done was lend Andrew a sum, admittedly

    a very large sum, of money. And that was all.

    "Oh, James--there was a trace of sadness in Sara's voice, but she

    couldn't resist the dig-"we've been trying to warn you about Andrew for

    years, Sally and 1. Why didn't you listen?"

    MERGING 255

    She knew the answer. James had wanted to be part of something grand,

    something magnificent, and ambition had clouded his mind. Men leave such

    a mess behind them wherever they go, Sara thought. 'Tis women have to do

    the cleaning up.

    "The only evidence of anything is in those letters," she said. "As long

    as they remain under lock and key, your nose is clean."

    Sara wasn't sure what he was thinking now, but pushed her case. Living

    in Baltimore, closer to the heart of things than James, tucked away on

    the other side of the Appalachians, she had heard the stories about

    Andrew coming out of Washington. He was already an old man when he first

    became president; now his years in office were said to be making him more

    and more cantankerous, more vindictive toward his enemies, less and less

    tolerant of opposition. She wanted James done with Andrew, and she feared

    his great, soft heart might lead him to actions he would regret.

    "Don't give them to Andrew, I beg you. Who knows what the old devil would

    do with them?"

    She knew it was useless to publish them. The resulting scandal would

    surely harm James, but Andrew, as usual, would find a way to wriggle out

    of it. And she didn't completely disagree with Andrew on the matter of

    the Indians.

    "As for the Indians," she continued, as if guessing his moral dilemma,

    "there's nothing you can do. We can't give back every square inch of land

    to the bloodthirsty savages, go back where we came from and pretend we

    were never here."

    She was smiling, he knew, teasing him with the absurdity of the idea.

    Then she became serious again. "This isn't the British in Ireland, Jamie.

    This was wasted land before we came."

    She hadn't used his pet name since he was a boy, and he almost laughed

    in relief. Sara's analysis of the settlement of America was so very

    realistic. He couldn't alter the past; he couldn't unmake history; he

    couldn't pretend the European migration to America had never happened and

    send everyone home again. That would create a new race of dispossessed,

    the children who were born here-they had no other home to go back to. His

    guilt at the piteous plight of the Indians had clouded his objectivity,

    and he now saw that he had been an

256 ALEX HALEY'S QUEEN

easy victim to John Coffee's blackmail. John had simply been telling him to

shut up, to keep quiet about what he knew. James would oblige.

    Still, Sara was wrong. There was something he could do. He could still talk

    to Andrew, try to persuade him to end the removal of the native people. But

    he would do so with a considerably lighter heart.

Sally, on the veranda, could see them talking and guessed they were

discussing whatever it was that had so been distracting James these last

several weeks. She felt a mild twinge of jealousy that her husband should

choose to discuss these things with his sister and not with his wife, but it

quickly passed. When they walked toward her, Sally could tell, from James's

laughter and the energy in his stride, that Sara had resolved whatever

problem had been vexing him so. She blessed her sister-in-law for being a

practical, pragmatic woman, and waved cheerily to them as they came up the

hill.

    31

in the first week of September the family traveled to Nashville. It took

them a full day to cross the river at Muscle Shoals; their carriage had to

be ferried across, and then the luggage wagon and the slave cart. Jass spent

most of the day at the water's edge, fishing or, with Cap'n Jack, chatting

with the black laborers, and from one of them he bought a few freshwater

pearls. They were silly, small, irregular things, but the man hadn't wanted