steps, mounted his horse and galloped away out of her employ.
‘I should have said, what I should have said, oh how I wish I said it. What I should have said was, “Why must I have the expense of an overseer when I am then required to do the work myself? Must I keep a dog and also bark?” Oh, if only I had said that, Marguerite, he would have held his tongue about making us visit the negro village. But it is so hard to think of a clever riposte within the time. And that worthless man just assailed me with his instructions. He would never have had the courage to speak to my brother in that manner. If my brother were alive (God rest his soul), he would have insisted that the overseer sort out the negroes’ worries for himself—as was his employment. My brother would have told him to go to blazes. But he believes he can make any request of me because I am a mere woman. Well, I will not do it—I will not. There is no need of it. I have another overseer who will perform his tasks properly and good riddance to John Lord with his ugly whiskers and shockingly bushy eyebrows. Oh, Marguerite, I should have said, “Shall I bark myself?” If only I’d thought to be so sharp . . .’ And with that her missus fell upon her daybed, still twittering like a bird sorely distressed.
John Lord was the tenth—no wait, perhaps the eleventh—overseer that had been employed at Amity since Caroline Mortimer had taken over the running of her deceased brother’s plantation. He had stayed a little longer than most—past a year.
It was six years since Caroline Mortimer had laid her brother’s body to rest within the hallowed ground of the churchyard, to the left of his wife Agnes, and on top of his short-lived pickney. After that sombre burying, a long parade of white people from about the parish—dressed from their top to their tip in the black of crows—had come to pay their respects to our missus. And every one of those guests that solemnly entered in upon that great house at Amity was treated to the ghastly story of what befell John Howarth upon that wicked night, when he was brutally and savagely slain. Come, there was even a guided tour included within the tale, directed by the missus, through the pertinent rooms.
At first her account was soberly enough conveyed; a nigger was waiting beneath the bed and shot her brother within the face; the murdering nigger was then pursued to the slave village where the nigger was captured by the overseer; but during the dreadful riot that had erupted, the overseer was attacked by a fearsome slave and died later of his wounds.
But the panting anticipation of her listeners, the clutched breasts and hastily sat upon chairs, the gaping mouths, the astonished wide eyes and the compassion—the, ‘Oh my dear . . . Oh, you poor, poor woman . . . Oh, good God in heaven, what you have suffered . . . Oh, you brave, brave woman, your brother (God rest his soul), would have been so proud of your fortitude . . . You, my dear, are a credit to the name of Jamaican planters . . .’—that caressed Caroline Mortimer’s esteem, gradually grew the story that exhaled from her into a tale worthy of the most flamboyant writer.
Soon, Caroline Mortimer, seeing the nigger shoot her brother, picked up her pearl handled pistol and gave chase. Mad with grief, though she was, she determined to bring that nigger to the gallows herself. And Tam Dewar, who at the start of her storytelling was just the overseer, who everyone knew as a rather vulgar, disagreeable and boorish Scotsman, gradually turned into her gallant knight. He took her into his arms to swear that he would move all within heaven and earth to bring the culprit of this heinous crime to justice. The nigger, Nimrod, needless to say became barbarous and bloodthirsty, cunning as a wild dog and base as a lowly worm. July made no appearance in any of the tellings, except once to spill a jug of water, like a buffoon, in fright. And as for the slave that attacked our gallant, brave and forthright Tam Dewar (that is Miss Kitty), she was a black devil woman, who with pitiless savagery, brutish fists and sharp teeth, hunted down white people upon this island