July had been pleased with her price. Thirty-one pounds! She used to boast of it. Then, one day, whilst perusing some papers, she discovered that the missus had also received thirty-one pounds in compensation for the useless, one-eyed Molly as well.
Now, July was a servant who did read and write—better than many white people upon the island; she did have wit enough to negotiate the best prices from even the most craven of negro traders, and consequently kept the stores full upon a meagre purse; she quelled house servants’ quarrels, and kept house boys tasking; she rode a horse at her missus’s side and could steer her in a gig; she brushed her missus’s hair and laced her missus’s clothes; and at her missus’s bidding she would visit the boiling house—her feet being chalked upon entering that Hades—to examine the liquor within the teaches and convey her missus’s commands to the head man. And so much more—too much to list with my miserable supply of paper.
And Molly, reader? What did she do? Well, Molly was now the cook. She could kill you with her custard and make you sigh with wistful longing for the deceased cook, Hannah, with every mouthful of her disgusting fare. Thirty-one pounds for Molly! Cha! But there is slavery’s spite, reader. That pitiless document left our July so downhearted that in that moment she wished she had never learned to read; so shocking was it to know that high-high, bewhiskered white men in England believed her and Molly to be of the same value.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock. When the clock finally chimed the midnight hour upon that night that slavery ceased, July counted along with soft breath the one, two, three, four . . . until that last, fateful chime of twelve shuddered, sonorous, through the room.
Yet, her missus was still twittering, ‘If I had told him of the overseer arriving swift on his heels to take his place, that would have struck at John Lord’s throat. Oh, I should have told him that. I should have said that, Marguerite.’
Through the long window, past the hissing of the cicadas and the chirruping of night creatures, July could discern yells and hallooing whistling upon the air. Drum beats pulsed from afar. Conches peeped and squeaked to awake the free. And her missus carried on, ‘I should have told him about the correspondence I have had from Mr Goodwin from Somerset Pen. Several letters of recommendation that overseer carries with him. He is coming as soon as tomorrow. Even Mrs Pemberton has talked very highly of him. She says he will understand this business better than John Lord ever could. I should have told him about this new overseer. Oh, why can I never think of clever things to say in time . . .’
In an effort to interrupt her missus’s ceaseless babbling, July considered raising herself from her seat and treading her bare black feet within the footsteps of all those white overseers’ boots—to walk down the veranda steps and out of her missus’s employ. But instead, while still seated at the window, she commenced to yawn out loud and stretch herself long. Caroline Mortimer soon stared at her.
‘Are you no longer listening to me, Marguerite?’ she said.
‘Surely, missus,’ July replied, ‘but me just be t’inking that me is now free.’
Her missus was suddenly quieted. How long did she gaze upon July in that muzzled silence? Long enough for the distant sound of a fiddle and a cymbal, that tripped-in softly through that open window, to gradually arrange its tangled notes into clear verse and chorus within both their ears. Then Caroline Mortimer’s reddened cheeks and troubled eyes began to strain with a smile that she had wished would look gracious. And, all at once, the missus, with quiet breathlessness said, ‘But you would not leave me, would you, Marguerite?’
CHAPTER 20
IT WAS AT 11 A.M. the next day, that a horse was heard approaching the great house at Amity. The rider dismounted his steed to bound up the steps at his own gallop. Robert Goodwin did not enter in upon the veranda growling at Byron to hold his horse steady or he’d see him whipped, as so many other overseers had done before him. He did not call out, ‘Oi, anyone there?’ while banging with his fist upon the pillar of the eaves, causing the whole house to shudder. He did not arrive slurring his words, as the Irish overseer did, whilst burping the foul