again did slop the soup over the floor—the turtle soup this time—while looking for somewhere to place the tureen.
Godfrey, looking to finally fill his glass with a big slop of forget-all brew, sucked his teeth as Giles, James and two of the musicians—numb with rum and slurring words about them soon to be free men—passed his now empty bottles between them. Godfrey called July to him, ‘You can take Byron and get us some rum?’ July, her cheeks swollen with pigeon pie, nodded and ran off as Godfrey called after her, ‘Or anything that you can get. No come back with nothing. You hear me, nah?’
July usually performed her pilfering within the dining room when, with only the brass candelabra upon the table, the two candlesticks upon the sideboard, and her massa and missus chewing their food in silence, the room was quite gloomy. With the massa’s stock of drink unlocked for this big-big dinner, July thought to slide herself invisible as a duppy towards the cabinet that held it. But all those candles saw her dark corners chased away. She had to step cautious—pressed flat as the pattern upon the wall. At one step she stood still when she thought her missus did spy her and the tip of her kerchief was singed within the flicker of a candle flame. But her missus’s head was merely resting upon one hand, her eyelids drooping with the effort of staying attentive to the talk from that wearisome old man from Unity. Her massa, although nodding to this man’s chatter, idly banged a spoon against an empty decanter in front of him. While the other guests, paying this man no heed at all, continued to nibble and drink at what they could. Except for one, for if July’s eye was seeing true, the massa from Windsor Hall was sound asleep.
The fiddlers, now playing in the yard for the servants’ gathering, began to strike up a song. No more clatter or unrecognisable tune—the sound of a sweet melody came whispering through the open window. For, like most slave fiddlers, it only amused them to play bad for white ears.
July had been promised by Patience that, when the fiddlers struck up a good quadrille, then she would teach July all the steps to the Lancers. And it was a quadrille July could hear. It was just the confusing question of which was her left hand and which was her right, that stopped July from skipping this dance very well. Once she had that matter learned, then she would dance it better than Molly—for with only one eye Molly did lose her partner on every spin; it did mess up the set for everyone. July yearned to return to the kitchen before the dance was done for Cupid, the old fiddler, had promised her that she might get a bang of his tambourine, and she was hungry for more pie.
Byron hissed at the window, ‘Miss July, you there?’ so loud that July feared Tam Dewar had heard. For suddenly the overseer declared, ‘Not so. We won’t have trouble with negroes here. There are good negroes and there are bad . . .’ Although Byron was hidden deep as a shadow upon black velvet, still July held in her breath, then waved her hand out of the window as signal for him to hush up and wait.
Hordes of night creatures lured to the candles’ open flames dropped upon the wooden top beside her—scorched and smoking, they whiffed of baking food. As the talk-plenty old man from Unity said, ‘Well, I hope you’re right, Mr Dewar . . .’ July whipped a bottle from the cupboard top and passed it quickly out of the window. Another bottle she picked up was already empty. She shook it, then placed it back. But two more that were full, soon sailed over the window’s ledge into Byron’s tiny grasp.
Not too many, and all must be open, Godfrey had instructed July when first teaching her this little deception. That way the massa never knew what had been drunk by his guests; so any accusation of thieving was made with a hesitation from the massa which allowed Godfrey to perform his well-used, big-eyed display of affront.
July was waving another bottle—was it heavy glass or was it full? Hearing the slop of liquid, she was about to pass it through the window when the man who was sleeping suddenly awoke. He stared upon her with a look so keen that July felt it