You is not a mulatto. Be on your way,’ Miss Clara told her.
‘Me is a mulatto!’ cried our July.
‘Your papa be a white man?’ Miss Clara scoffed. ‘You is too dark for your papa to be white.’ For July’s skin had to be light. Honey to milk hues only, could Miss Clara approve. No bitter chocolate nor ebony skin ever stepped a country dance in her presence.
‘Me tell you true, Miss Clara. Me papa be a white man.’
‘No him was not.’
‘Him was.’
‘Him was not—him was some nigger.’
‘Him was the overseer ’pon Amity.’
‘Him was not.’
‘Him was a Scotch man.’
‘A Scotch man! You no speak true.’
This argument between the two continued for so long awhile—too long for me to give detail of it here—that Tam Dewar did enter in upon this squabbling. Yes, reader, Tam Dewar! For you and I know that he was indeed July’s papa. And within July’s telling he rose again. In the face of Miss Clara’s scorning he dallied within July’s story; no longer the pitiless and brutal overseer she knew him to be, who did imperil her reason, pursuing her once in life and now through every cursed dream. No. As he was a white man, he now became July’s much cherished papa who had made promise to one day take her to Scotch Land before he was struck down by a fearsome nigger.
‘Me is a mulatto, a mulatto, a mulatto, you hear, Miss Clara!’ July did state until Miss Clara wearily and reluctantly offered to inspect her.
Within a little room, before the dimming light in the window, Miss Clara proceeded. First she measured the width of July’s nose with her finger, before turning July to see how far that nose lifted from her face. For no broad, flat nose was tolerated. Miss Clara then stared into July’s eyes. Were they much admired green, vastly coveted grey, prayed for blue or simply dull brown? Removing July’s head kerchief, Miss Clara felt her hair. She lifted it to see if it fell back or stayed up like fright. Hair must be good. Straight with a little curl is best, be it fair, brown, red, or black. For no picky-picky head would ever tangle and frizz around her white men. She required July to open her mouth while pouting her lips forward. Miss Clara then pinched them to feel their bulk before demanding July close her mouth and turn to profile. No fat lips ever sipped porter or punch at her gatherings. And then, with a slow, searching, measured glare that travelled up and down July two, three, four times, Miss Clara perused the whole of her. For without the whiff of English white somewhere about her, July would just never do.
‘Your lips not too bad,’ Miss Clara finally pronounced, ‘Nor be your nose too broad. But your hair not be good. And your skin—your skin be just too dark. Oh no, no, no, you will not do. You is too full of negro. Me men only like a fair skin and pretty face. And your dress, Miss July, why you no wear one of your missus’s dress? Oh, me remember now, she be too broad. But your dress be a house-nigger’s dress. You is not fine, Miss July. No, no, no.’
Miss Clara did not kick July to see her gone, for she would never countenance such an indelicate gesture. And even though July folded her arms under this scorning and raised her not-too-broad nose into the air and told Miss Clara that she did not want to wiggle at this fool-fool dance, and would one day come to jig upon Miss Clara’s grave, and that she knew her mystery guava jelly had in rum and cinnamon, and that she did cook it up whenever she pleased—yet still our July came to feel the forceful impress of Miss Clara’s pretty, pale, slippered foot upon her backside as she was spurned for being too ugly to market.
July had not seen Miss Clara since that day. But no, let me make an amend; Miss Clara had never chanced upon July since that time.
But now upon that hot-hot day within the shabby dusty street, Miss Clara was once more peering down her slender up-turned nose and pinning her disdain upon the top of July’s head. July felt it land heavy as a firm hand. Soon those green eyes and that delicate mouth would conspire to sneer pitifully upon her, until July would feel the ugliest thing that coloured woman would encounter that