of a rock lest she be blown away to England; when she did slip and slide in filthy mud, then wade through rain water that did gush from the hill to eddy around her knees like the tide of a swelling river, then July lost all count of her stride.
July looked from her missus to the window, where the deluge of rain was obscuring the view sure as muslin curtaining. ‘Me can go to the overseer when the rain stops,’ July said.
But her missus replied, ‘Oh, it’s only little rain, go now.’
Free. Cha! What change had free brought that July might seize?
By the time July reached Robert Goodwin’s house that day, she was bedraggled and sodden as a mound of rotten trash. Her white cotton blouse, the one with the lace trim at the neck, clung to her tight as skin. She had to wring out her blue skirt as she ascended the steps, for the heavy rainwater hobbled her tread. And even when under the shelter of the eaves, her red head kerchief continued to trickle a tide of water down her face as if a sly cloud had pursued her into the house so it might continue its drizzling.
Upon entering the long room of the overseer’s quarters, a turmoil assailed July. In the centre of the room, Robert Goodwin, his shirt dangling loose and untied over his breeches, was prancing lightly upon his toes, while first waving his arms, then pointing here, then pointing there, before clapping his hands at four negro boys who were upon their knees about the room. These boys, in an attempt to obey the overseer’s tangled directions, were fussing in corners, peering at the base of the wainscot, pouncing at cracks in the boards of the floor, throwing chairs aside, scuttling under the table, and generally rushing from this side to that, as the overseer bellowed upon them, ‘Look, look over there. There were some in that corner! Here is one, here is one, Elias! Horatio, look to here boy!’
The overseer had never before been within his house when July had had to call—she usually left her missus’s messages with his house boy, Elias. And always she had to repeat those missives several times, for that rude boy just stared entranced upon the rise of her two breasts as she spoke. At other times, when even his house boy could not be chanced, she was obliged to seek an audience with his man servant, Joseph, a skinny man of five and thirty who always giggled like a being of thirty years younger, before anything and everything he said.
July, observing this new overseer, was struggling to understand the task he was engaged upon. For this young white man so gracefully stepping lightly, skipping, turning, stepping lightly, skipping, turning, could have been dancing a quadrille, not tasking scruffy boys. And his exertion was producing such perspiration upon him, that his hair clung damp to his neck in black curly lines, and his white shirt was blemished with dark stains about the armpits.
When the overseer did at last behold July within the doorway, he held up his finger in quick acknowledgment for her to wait, before turning away again. But then, just as hastily, he turned back to her. And the overseer began to gaze upon July with the same captivity as Elias staring upon her breasts. From the soaking wet kerchief upon her head to the mud dragging at the bottom of her skirt, his eyes attentively perused her. It was only a boy calling, ‘Come, massa, look here,’ that drew his attention away. He held his hand up to July once more saying, ‘One moment. I will be there in one moment,’ before turning to pay heed to the crouching boy.
‘Me have some, massa!’ the boy cried as he held up something within his two hands for the overseer to look upon.
The overseer saying, ‘Good, good, excellent . . .’ began retreating. But the boy just followed, as if obeying this partner in a dance. The man almost tripped over an upturned chair in his prancing to avoid the boy’s proffer. ‘Good, yes, yes, just carry on,’ the overseer commanded. ‘I must just . . . I must just see to . . .’
July was what he ‘must just see to’ and, ‘You’re very wet,’ was what he presently said to her. July opened her mouth to begin her message, but was stopped when the overseer said, ‘I think I can see steam rising