The Long Song (24 page)

And Molly, reader? What did she do? Well, Molly was now the cook. She could kill you with her custard and make you sigh with wistful longing for the deceased cook, Hannah, with every mouthful of her disgusting fare. Thirty-one pounds for Molly! Cha! But there is slavery’s spite, reader. That pitiless document left our July so downhearted that in that moment she wished she had never learned to read; so shocking was it to know that high-high, bewhiskered white men in England believed her and Molly to be of the same value.

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock. When the clock finally chimed the midnight hour upon that night that slavery ceased, July counted along with soft breath the one, two, three, four . . . until that last, fateful chime of twelve shuddered, sonorous, through the room.

Yet, her missus was still twittering, ‘If I had told him of the overseer arriving swift on his heels to take his place, that would have struck at John Lord’s throat. Oh, I should have told him that. I should have said that, Marguerite.’

Through the long window, past the hissing of the cicadas and the chirruping of night creatures, July could discern yells and hallooing whistling upon the air. Drum beats pulsed from afar. Conches peeped and squeaked to awake the free. And her missus carried on, ‘I should have told him about the correspondence I have had from Mr Goodwin from Somerset Pen. Several letters of recommendation that overseer carries with him. He is coming as soon as tomorrow. Even Mrs Pemberton has talked very highly of him. She says he will understand this business better than John Lord ever could. I should have told him about this new overseer. Oh, why can I never think of clever things to say in time . . .’

In an effort to interrupt her missus’s ceaseless babbling, July considered raising herself from her seat and treading her bare black feet within the footsteps of all those white overseers’ boots—to walk down the veranda steps and out of her missus’s employ. But instead, while still seated at the window, she commenced to yawn out loud and stretch herself long. Caroline Mortimer soon stared at her.

‘Are you no longer listening to me, Marguerite?’ she said.

‘Surely, missus,’ July replied, ‘but me just be t’inking that me is now free.’

Her missus was suddenly quieted. How long did she gaze upon July in that muzzled silence? Long enough for the distant sound of a fiddle and a cymbal, that tripped-in softly through that open window, to gradually arrange its tangled notes into clear verse and chorus within both their ears. Then Caroline Mortimer’s reddened cheeks and troubled eyes began to strain with a smile that she had wished would look gracious. And, all at once, the missus, with quiet breathlessness said, ‘But you would not leave me, would you, Marguerite?’

 

 

 

 

I
T WAS AT 11 A.M. the next day, that a horse was heard approaching the great house at Amity. The rider dismounted his steed to bound up the steps at his own gallop. Robert Goodwin did not enter in upon the veranda growling at Byron to hold his horse steady or he’d see him whipped, as so many other overseers had done before him. He did not call out, ‘Oi, anyone there?’ while banging with his fist upon the pillar of the eaves, causing the whole house to shudder. He did not arrive slurring his words, as the Irish overseer did, whilst burping the foul odour of porter and rum upon the air. And he did not slap July hard upon her backside, feign the movement of fornication to her, then shout, ‘Tell yer missus it is ’er lucky day.’ No. Robert Goodwin stepped on to the veranda with his arms held high, like a preacher engaged in the glorification of the almighty.

‘A new day is come, Mrs Mortimer,’ he said. Then, with a broad, blithe smile that even shed its gleam upon July, Robert Goodwin rapturously declared, ‘Behold, a new morning has broken. Slavery—that dreadful evil—is at an end.’

This new overseer was neither a ruffian nor a drunkard; he was a gentleman, the son of a clergyman with a parish near Sheffield. A man of six and twenty with soft hands, clean fingernails, and hair thick and dark as river silt. Although only standing to the same height as the missus, his upright and steadfast bearing made him appear two feet taller, at the very least. And no ugly whiskers nor shockingly bushy eyebrows befouled the youthful roses that still flushed at his cheeks. Robert Goodwin was someone who, in England, the missus could, with all propriety, have shaken by the hand. Come, his mother’s family even had a baronet residing somewhere within its ranks.

After a long and lengthy visit to survey the field negroes at Amity, Robert Goodwin delivered his findings to the missus thus: ‘Such a number of poor, miserable black people I have never seen before, Mrs Mortimer. Their houses and gardens have been neglected—some are in perfect ruin.’

Now, these words were precisely the same ones employed by the last overseer (just before that bluster of contempt for our missus had run him away, out of her employ), yet Caroline Mortimer gasped with such astonished ignorance at Robert Goodwin’s words that any would believe that this was her first time of hearing this charge. ‘Oh, whatever can be done?’ she exclaimed. ‘Just tell me, Mr Goodwin, and it shall be my wish, too.’

When he continued with, ‘Firstly, madam, we must endeavour to restore their best feelings to you by telling them how fairly you intend to treat them now that they are free,’ and informed the missus that, ‘I will address all the negroes shortly within the mill yard. And Mrs Mortimer, you must accompany me on that mission—we must leave them with no question on whose authority I now speak,’ he was unaware that words similar to these, requesting actions that were identical, had once caused the missus such offence that she nearly—if only she’d thought of it in time—told the last man who uttered them to go to blazes. Although Robert Goodwin was wise enough for his brow to furrow in the fear that so forthright a command might cause his employer some displeasure, he need not have fretted, for the missus responded to him with unbounded enthusiasm.

‘Of course! Whatever you say,’ she said. ‘But do you think the negroes will heed us, Mr Goodwin?’

‘Oh yes, madam,’ he replied and when his frown moved from worry to pensive contemplation all in the raise of one eyebrow, the missus leaned forward upon her chair so she might listen with deeper fellow feeling.

‘Negroes are simple, good fellows,’ he went on, ‘They need kindness—that is all. When it is shown to them then they will respond well and obediently.’

She tilted her head and a sympathetic smile appeared.

‘They are not so far from dogs in that respect,’ he said, which allowed our missus the chance to emit an attractive titter. ‘Please do not misunderstand my meaning, Mrs Mortimer.’

Oh, no, no, no—our missus shook her head.

‘The African stands firmly within the family of man. They are living souls. God’s children as sure as you or I.’

Of course, she mouthed soundlessly.

It was only when he continued with, ‘But I know within my heart that now that they are free to work under their own volition, they will, if treated with solicitude, work harder for their masters,’ that the missus let a little doubt widen her eyes.

She asked, ‘Are you sure of this, Mr Goodwin?’

His reply, ‘I know it as surely as I know anything, madam,’ made her once more relax and adjust the lock of hair that continued to flop on to her forehead, despite the use of a pin. ‘It is for this reason that I have come to Jamaica. It was my father’s wish, of course. My father believed wholeheartedly that slavery was an abomination. “Take kindness to the negro, Robert,” he told me. “Show them compassion. Pledge yourself by all that is solemn and sacred to never be satisfied until the negro stands within society as men.” ’

‘Really?’ escaped our missus, but she lifted her fingers to her lips to smother the rogue quip.

‘England,’ he carried on, ‘that great, noble, Christian land of ours, must be cleansed of the abominable stain that slavery placed upon it, do not you think, Mrs Mortimer?’

And said she wholeheartedly, ‘Oh yes, Mr Goodwin.’

‘Oh how that gladdens me, madam,’ the overseer carried on. ‘If only all planters upon this island felt as you do. The attorney at Unity, my first position, simply laughed in my face. And Mrs Pemberton at Somerset Pen, although a good Christian woman, just could not reconcile labour with kindness. Both were unwilling to hear my father’s simple message.’

‘But not I,’ the missus said quietly and demurely. This simple compliment that the new overseer had paid her—that he, on such short acquaintance, could discern that she was indeed more compassionate than Mrs Pemberton and more reasonable than that dullard at Unity—caressed Caroline Mortimer as surely as the light fingertip strokes she began to lay upon her own neck. And although the overseer was about to carry on with more of his papa’s musings, he did not yet realise how capable our missus could be with her own windy-words when roused.

‘I inherited this plantation,’ she continued while staring earnestly into his face, ‘from my own dearly departed brother. And even though he was brutally and savagely slain at the hands of a fearsome, bloodthirsty negro—but let us leave that distressing story for another day—I have, since becoming mistress of this plantation, always endeavoured to be kind. I have, in the past, been thwarted in my mission by the sometimes thoughtless actions of my agents and overseers. I hope that now that you are with us, Mr Goodwin, the improvement we both seek will be upon us soon.’ Then she smiled broad upon him.

When Robert Goodwin took his leave of the missus that day, he bowed low with elegant grace. And following him out on to the veranda, she waved good-day to him as he departed, as if he were her valued guest and not her employee. Then, once he was out of her sight, the missus suddenly grasped July tight by the arm. She leaned toward her with a playful giggle, as if July was a great friend with whom the missus simply must confide her secret and said, ‘Oh, hasn’t he the bluest eyes, Marguerite.’