her with such a youthful husband a dozen years younger than herself). She wished for children. She would be a very good mother—none who knew her did doubt it. Yet the nearest she had ever come to having a child was with . . . But she could hardly bring herself to think upon it—that little thing she had given birth to all those years ago in London. It had been taken away by the midwife, wrapped like a pennyworth of fish in a copy of the Evening Mail. Her first husband, Edmund, had complained that he had not yet read the contents of that newspaper’s pages. After that, he never again came to her in a husband’s way. And even though his morning decision was always whether it was wiser to fasten his breeches pulled above or pushed under his enormous belly, he told Caroline that she was too fat for him to find much that was desirable in her.
But her new husband, Robert, was not of that mind—he thought her handsome, he said so all the time. Only, sometimes, when he looked upon her she thought . . . but no, she must be wrong . . . she thought . . . no, no, she was his love . . . but she thought sometimes she could see a little disdain sitting coyly at the corners of his mouth.
It was those wretched negroes that kept him from her so long. So determined were they to enjoy the first fruits of their freedom that they were more indolent, gloomy and demanding than ever before. Every night her husband returned home to her at such a late hour and in such a state of exhaustion that all he wished to do was sleep. He was too sentimental with that bothersome race of people. Why, he treated Marguerite almost as if she were one of his own kind.
He demanded Caroline call her Miss July. Quite insistent he became about it. He once yelled upon her, ‘Desist, desist!’ when she forgot. She wished to oblige him, of course she wished to oblige him—he was her husband. But it was very troublesome for her to remember the change. And Marguerite was such a pleasing name to call about the house.
She was only idly chattering—sitting upon her husband’s knee, curling his hair fondly around her finger, and idling chattering—when she asked, very sweetly indeed, if instead of her having to remember the tiresome change to her negro’s name, might he not consider knowing her nigger as Marguerite too. His mood need not have changed quite so quickly. He need not have tipped her on to the floor, nor banged his fist down as he said, ‘But that is not her name, Caroline. Her name is Miss July.’ It was only her thought!
And did her husband now require her to have polite society with ‘Miss July’? Did he wish her to enquire after ‘Miss July’s’ family whenever she were in her presence? Was she to invite ‘Miss July’ to sip port and madeira with them? Did he desire her to engage ‘Miss July’ in chatter on whether she hoped for a Christmas breeze this year or invite her to join her other guests from the parish for an evening’s entertainment at whist? Was his instruction to her that she must shake her nigger’s hand? He need not have grimaced so, as if the mere sound of her voice were causing him pain, nor shouted, ‘Oh for pity’s sake, Caroline, shut up.’ What did he expect her to say after he had bid Marguerite to sit at the table with them!
Having enquired of Marguerite one dinner time upon the availability of pickle to have with his meat, her husband proceeded to enter into something not unlike a conversation with her negro. Firstly he laughed—for a reason Caroline could not comprehend—when Marguerite informed him that she would be happy to go into town to purchase some pickle for him. And even though Caroline still required the ham to be laid down and her napkin to be picked up from the floor where it had fallen, she was obliged to wait while her husband, having told Marguerite that he preferred his pickles hot, smiled gladly upon the negro as she replied to him that she thought sweet would be more his fancy. The prattle on who in town made the best pickles went back and forth between them like gossip, until her husband, quite glowing with merriment