little money she did receive from the selling of simples for the relieving of indigestion and bilious complaints, she took upon herself the arranging of a series of social dances and gatherings at the assembly rooms within the town. This society was sorely needed. For an unfortunate acquaintance of Miss Clara’s (let me not use her name, but just say that she was a mulatto woman whose papa was a lawyer-man from County Wexford in Ireland), had been pressed by a coloured man into keeping house for him. This coloured man said that his mama was a mulatto housekeeper from Westmoreland. He then swore that his papa was a book-keeper from London Town. This would make him a quadroon, and a quadroon was what this honey-coloured man avowed himself to be.
But the subsequent child that was born to this mulatto and supposed quadroon came forth dark as cocoa nut! How could this be, Miss Clara’s friend wailed? Far from raising that mulatto woman’s colour nearer to white, her offspring had taken her backwards. Yet, despite the shame of this rogue pickney, the woman refused to give up either the deceiving man or the sable child. Miss Clara could no longer be a friend to her.
But Miss Clara determined that she would lose no more from within her circle after her mulatto seamstress, believing her union to be with a mulatto man (which Miss Clara had cautioned her against, for only another worthless mulatto could result), found the smooth-tongued man to be nothing more than red negro. A sambo was brought forth into this world, and a broad-nosed one at that. Come, Miss Clara was left with no one to stitch her fine needlework.
The tar brush, reader, is quick to lick. For a mulatto with a negro, or a quadroon with a sambo, will produce the misfortune of a retrograde child. And that dusky offspring will be sent nowhere but spinning back down to sup with the niggers in the fields. A mulatto with a mulatto, or a quadroon with a quadroon, will find you suckling a ‘Tente-en-el-aire’ —a suspended child. They will neither lift forward to white, nor drop back to negro.
Only with a white man, can there be guarantee that the colour of your pickney will be raised. For a mulatto who breeds with a white man will bring forth a quadroon; and the quadroon that enjoys white relations will give to this world a mustee; the mustee will beget a mustiphino; and the mustiphino . . . oh, the mustiphino’s child with a white man for a papa, will find each day greets them no longer with a frown, but welcomes them with a smile, as they at last stride within this world as a cherished white person.
Forward only to white skin became Miss Clara’s mission.
So only white men were allowed introduction to the coloured women at Miss Clara’s Friday dances. Be he a red-haired attorney from Galashiels who talked of nothing but home; a drunken Bristol naval man with a fearsome crimson face; a handsome Irish overseer who never learned to dance; a lecherous planter from Liverpool who had many more than two hands, or a foppish merchant from Surrey with plenty missing teeth, as long as their money tinkled with the correct sound, any of these white men would be welcome to partner her coloured women for a quadrille or a scottish reel. Or fetch them some Madeira and punch. Or perhaps take their arms for a stroll in the evening air. But only white men.
It was a great relief to all. Soon, ‘Have you been to Miss Clara’s dances? Oh, you must come to Miss Clara’s’, became the call of all coloured women within the parish. And Miss Clara did puff up and puff up higher than any guava jelly did ever take her.
But do you believe Miss Clara would let someone like our July walk happily into that exalted company? For the coloured women who desired association with these white men, Miss Clara prepared a list of features that they simply must possess to be approved admittance. July advanced no more than to the door of one of these gatherings before Miss Clara descended upon her.
‘Now, Miss July,’ she said, ‘you know me dances be just for coloured women.’
‘But me is a mulatto, Miss Clara,’ July informed her. For a mulatto July had to be, at the very least. Her papa was a white man.
‘You is just hoping to lift your colour, Miss July.