one green-eye upon July—whispering jealous chat-chat of the arrangement beneath the house in hushed tones—July paid that silly woman no mind. For as the beloved, true wife of a white English man, July did now dazzle even a haughty quadroon like Miss Clara into a dark drab.
Come, Robert did not want July’s little feet to walk upon the filthy dirt floor—they should walk upon silk, he said. The red and blue patterned rug he gave July he brought from the floor of his own study. And he kissed first the toes upon her left foot and then upon her right, as she stood pressing her bare feet into the soft pile of the mat. And oh, how Elias cussed, as he struggled down to their little room with a dining table and two ill-matching chairs upon his back. But her husband wished her to sit at table with him so they might chat upon England, his papa, the wretched negroes, and the problems of his day. Her husband at the head of this table, and she with her chair pulled up close to his, so she might peel a mango and feed him the segments of sticky fruit, one piece at a time, from her own lips to his.
For in only a few hours the missus would expect her husband up in the house. And July would be commanded to ready the table for dinner. ‘Before he comes, before he comes, everything must be ready, hurry up, Marguerite, he will be here soon,’ her missus would fret upon her. July would then have to direct the house boys to set the table (and slap their heads to get them to do it again, properly), while she unlocked the wine from the cupboard. She would then need to attend the kitchen to inspect the food. After enquiring of Molly what the nasty dish was meant to be, and insisting that the sulking cook add a little more salt, she would have to charge the house boys to carry in the dinner to their massa’s table. And July would have to enter in upon the dining room. And while still tender and damp from love-making, she would have to prance about the table serving her husband and the keen-to-please-him missus their food.
As I earlier disclosed, the artist Francis Bear was obliged to employ some invention within this portrait, Mr and Mrs Goodwin. My example upon that occasion was the not-quite-as-fat-as-she-should-be missus and her unduly slim foot. But the tray that displays the sweetmeats hides another trespass. That July is offering a tray to the mistress is correct, but the colourful and abundant sweets upon it were, in truth, added later. For every time July became weary in her pose the tray would tip and the sweets would slide and scatter on to the floor. After this spilling occurred for the fifth time, the artist suddenly yelled, ‘Enough!’ He then posed July with an empty tray and set up a still-life of confection in his studio so he might paint them later, at his leisure. However, this resolution was to be the artist’s excuse when a quarrel arose after the picture’s completion.
So pleased was Caroline Goodwin with the finished picture, Mr and Mrs Goodwin, that not only did she have it replace Agnes’s portrait within the long room, but she also sent the artist two bottles of Amity’s finest rum. She then invited all her neighbours within the parish to view it. Her intention was to bathe herself within their envy.
However, after commenting how Caroline looked strangely sad in the portrait, the next observation from anyone who viewed it, was that her husband, Robert, appears to be gazing firmly upon the nigger. Now although Caroline insisted, ‘No, no, it is the sweetmeats that have his eye,’ (and the viewers tipped their heads upon the picture, first to the left, then the right, eager to agree) finally, everyone of them had to declare, ‘No, no, he stares upon the nigger.’
Robert Goodwin was indeed gazing upon July through the whole of the portrait’s execution. For July was carrying his child and he wished to stare nowhere else. Indeed, a few months after the completion of this portrait, July gave birth to a daughter for him. A fair-skinned, grey-eyed girl who was named Emily.
So furious was Caroline that the artist had caught her husband’s folly, that she insisted he take back the portrait to his studio to rectify this error. Now, although Francis Bear retouched the