The Long Song (5 page)

The negro girl, Molly, the one with the bruised, swollen eye, was charged by her brother to act as Caroline’s temporary lady’s maid. And act she did. For this girl seemed to know nothing of the duties that were required of her. Why, every morning this dull-witted creature would attempt to incarcerate Caroline into her spotted linen spencer the wrong way round; no command in an English language Caroline knew could get this slave to place it about her shoulders in the right way. As for the tape ties at the seam of her dress, the girl merely played with them like a kitten with string, for she was unable to tie a simple knot, let alone a delicate bow.

She combed hair as if untangling some rogue threads on the fringe of a carpet and tipped a full bucket of cold water over Caroline as she sat naked in a bath believing warmed water about to be brought. When Caroline summoned her brother to protest her behaviour, this slave girl, with hair matted as carding-wool, threw herself at his feet, clutching his legs and begging, ‘Me make mistake, massa. Me no do it again, massa. Me learn. Missus gon’ smile pretty ’pon me soon,’ to avoid her punishment.

Caroline’s sister-in-law, Agnes, having been born upon the island a Creole, found no trouble in procuring the required help. Her clothing was pressed and presented to her in the mornings, a jug of water brought for washing, her night pot collected and cleared, her room swept when she was not present to choke upon the dust, and her shutters opened for her upon the daylight.

But Caroline observed that Agnes was able to command these slaves in their own strange tongue. She could bellow at those negroes with the same force that the negroes did bellow at each other. Agnes was heavy with child and although slight of frame, still she allowed no bulging protrusion at her waist to impede her when she was admonishing her slaves. Why, she jumped about as spiritedly as a mad hare—arms flailing, feet stamping, her thick red hair coming loose from its tie as she snapped, shouted, clapped and yelled to get her way.

After this exhausting work was done Agnes would lie upon her daybed with her arms dangling, too fatigued to lift them. She was then unable to answer even the simplest of Caroline’s enquiries without a weariness entering her tone or a gentle snoring commencing—sometimes when Caroline was still speaking.

In her first meeting with Agnes, in the cool drawing room of the great house, her sister-in-law had, in a blast of breath that left Caroline quite giddy, proclaimed that her family was from Scotland. Excepting Agnes’s flaming red hair, the profusion of freckles upon her face and neck (which she happily displayed instead of hiding with cosmetic preparations), and an abundance of tartan trimmings in and about the chairs in the room, Caroline detected nothing of the Scotch about this bouncy young woman.

‘You must show them who is master and who is slave. Leave them no room to fool you. Them is tricky, Caroline,’ Agnes said when instructing Caroline on the management of slaves. Using Molly as her example, Agnes called the slave girl to her and pointed her finger at the blackened eye. ‘She tie me shoe so tight me have to scream. She sitting at me feet so I give her one kick. You think she ever tie me shoe so tight again? No, no, no—for she learn.’ Pushing Molly forward so Caroline might better inspect the bruised wound for the imprint of Agnes’s shoe, she said, ‘Be firm. For these blacks be like children—all must be shown how is good and how is bad.’

And, every night since Caroline had arrived upon the island, she had been forced to listen to the panting, slapping, and giggling that crept over the walls from her brother’s room into her own. For this grand house, which had been lavished with so much vulgar finery—why, even the silver was gilded—nevertheless had bedroom walls that were not tall enough to reach all the way up into the wood of the eaves. The ridiculous din of the night creatures with their eternal screeching could not block the lusty sounds Agnes—oh yes, Agnes—made every night. Her brother, Caroline decided then, was quite prudent in never having brought Agnes to England, for his wife’s inelegant, beastly manners and ridiculous way of speaking would surely have seen her locked away.

After two weeks in Agnes’s company—where even a little light embroidery or the arranging of a vase of flowers seemed too much toil for her sister-in-law, who slept upon her daybed for so many hours of the day that Caroline began to believe that perhaps, like a bat, she was only aroused at night, Caroline was forced to admit to being bored. She even began to crave the company of Mary, her lady’s maid, who had never uttered more than three words of sense in the whole time she had been in her employ; she did, however, remain awake. But Mary was still quite sick; nursed in a darkened hut no bigger than a kennel by a large negro woman who guarded Mary’s feeble, sweating, panting body as fiercely as a dog with a bone. And as for the companionship of her brother John, he had begun to seem like a vision in the heat, for every time Caroline approached him he would simply vanish. Until one day, with the determination of a trapper, Caroline contrived to snare him upon the veranda of the house.

‘John, may we take a stroll around the grounds?’ she implored.

‘A stroll, Caroline! This is not England. In two steps the heat would claim you. No one strolls here,’ her brother replied.

‘A ride then, John—I still know how.’

‘The terrain is far too dangerous and, besides, I have no horse that could possibly take your . . .’ he said, prudently losing into a mumble the words which referred to Caroline’s robust dimensions.

‘Oh, John, please take me around, I wish to see my new home and understand all its workings,’ she said, her voice rising shrill enough to conjure that squeaking hinge anew.

So, reader, let me once more draw your eye to that road through the plantation named Amity—to the gig, to the single chestnut horse and the bumpy progress being made by John Howarth and his sister Caroline who sit within. Walking along this road in the path that the gig would eventually take, was a large black slave woman. Upon her head was a straw basket filled with unruly sweet cassava roots, poised so ably she looked to be wearing an ornate hat. Her skirt, once striped yellow and black was, from its years of being drenched in a river, pounded against rock and baked in the sun, only whispering its former lustre. But the child walking at her side was attired in a dress of the same fabric and, like a draper’s sample, this miniature displayed the cloth almost in its original hues.

The little girl halted her stride so she might better peruse a scrubby periwinkle that struggled to bloom dainty at the side of the path. She plucked the plant and waved it gently in the air in the hope that the woman might stop to look upon the purple petals. But the woman was unaware that the child no longer walked at her side. ‘Mama,’ the girl called, and as her mama turned upon hearing the cry, the girl ran to her, holding out the flower.

The woman, bending to look upon the bloom gripped tight in her daughter’s hand, tipped her head only enough so the balance of the produce would not be disturbed. She nodded a smile upon her child, then straightened once more and walked on. But the little girl began pulling ferociously at the cloth of her mother’s skirt to arrest her progress—planting her bare feet firmly into the earth for a solid grip. Although only pulling with one hand, the skirt nevertheless began to strain, almost to ripping. The woman, slapping the child’s hands from the feeble cloth, was forced to stop to take heed of her.

She removed the basket from her head to place it carefully upon the ground, then took the flower from the child between her finger and thumb. She lifted it to her nose before passing it under the nose of the child. Cupping her hands around her mother’s broad fingers, the girl inhaled deeply upon its scent. And as the mother began to brush the dainty petals of the flower across the cheek of the little girl, they both closed their eyes in the reverie of the soft strokes. At last the woman, straightening up to place the basket of produce once more upon her head, began walking on, while the little girl, still curious, dallied to find more flowers to pick.

‘Oh, how adorable,’ Caroline said upon seeing a little negro girl in a yellow and black striped dress, tenderly gathering up a posy of purple flowers. Her brother, however, observing only two slaves walking in this late morning upon a road that climbs out of the valley and off his lands, had concerns of a different kind.

‘Hey you, stop there,’ he commanded of the slave woman as the gig drew up by her side. And it was then that Kitty turned her eyes to look upon her massa.

‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

‘Me have pass, massa. Me and me pickney. Me have talkee-talkee, massa.’

John Howarth held out his hand so Kitty might deliver him the pass. She took the ragged piece of yellowing paper from the folds at the band of her skirt. His snatching hand almost ripped the precious consent. ‘Where are you going? It’s too late for market?’ he said.

‘Please, massa, me go Unity Pen.’

‘On what business?’

‘Me mus’ market me fruits.’

Caroline, alighting from the carriage, walked over to where the child stood. Standing over this little girl, Caroline watched her tiny black fingers as they plucked and gathered the pretty blooms. This girl was no more than nine years old perhaps, with wide brown eyes, fat rounded cheeks and a white kerchief upon her head. Caroline knelt down beside the child, who turned to gaze upon her. If her skin were not as dark as boot blacking, why she favoured one of Caroline’s childhood dolls. ‘Oh, how adorable,’ drifted once more upon a sigh from Caroline’s mouth. The little girl held her posy of flowers under Caroline’s nose so that she might better smell their scent. And Caroline was amazed to find herself delighted by a negro. ‘Oh, thank you, my dear,’ she said, as she sniffed. Caroline called out to her brother asking, ‘John, what’s this one’s name?’

‘How in heaven’s name would I know?’ came his reply.

‘But she’s adorable. Do not you think so, John?’ Caroline said before adding, ‘What did you say she was called?’

Commanding Kitty with a nod of his head to answer his sister’s question, John Howarth let go the horse’s rein and got down from the gig. When Kitty said nothing, he shouted, ‘Tell your mistress the name of the child.’

And Kitty spoke in a whisper, ‘July.’

Not hearing Kitty’s reply, Caroline asked once more, ‘What’s her name?’ at which John Howarth snapped impatiently upon his sister, ‘July, Caroline. She said July. Like the month!’

‘But July is not a suitable name,’ Caroline said, while her brother asked of Kitty, ‘What are you called?’

Her reply, spoken softly to his feet, gave him reason to laugh. ‘Kitty. I thought so. Yes . . . yes, I remember now,’ he said, before calling his sister to him, ‘Caroline, come here, I have something amusing for you.’

When Caroline joined John where he stood, she found herself forced to look up at the slave Kitty. For Kitty was tall and none but the stoutest ever looked upon her in the eye. Come, not even the massa had that licence. After staring upon Kitty—into the deep nostrils of her broad, flat nose, around her thick lips and past her sturdy ample shoulders—Caroline leaned toward the ear of her brother to whisper, ‘Is it a woman?’

‘It is indeed,’ he laughed.

‘And the mother of this child?’

‘I believe so.’

Caroline wondered how any man under God’s sky would want to lie with such a loathsome creature. And how a beast so ugly that she blocked out all sunlight before her, could mother such an adorable child?

Her brother was still speaking, waving his arm upon his slave so Caroline might best take in the full summit of Kitty. ‘The amusing thing about this one is that when she was first purchased she was called Little Kitty. She was bought here as a baby from the Campbells at Nutfield. I got her cheap because she was not expected to live. Guy Campbell thought himself very sharp to have sold me such a rum deal. Little Kitty. And now look at her,’ he laughed. ‘Let me assure you, Caroline, that your brother is the best planter in the whole of the Caribbean.’

As Caroline stood listening to her brother blowing upon a horn that was surely his own, July, stepping to stand by her side, placed her young hand within this white woman’s palm. On feeling this touch from a negro Caroline snatched her hand away. But then, looking down, she saw July’s sweet face turned up to her; her eyes wide and watery. Caroline, relenting, squeezed July’s little fingers. Kitty began to shift her eye from her massa’s feet, where they had rested through this whole encounter, on to her child. She watched as July held up the dainty posy of flowers to the white woman as she had before held them up to her mama.

‘You see,’ John Howarth carried on, ‘It was a gamble. It’s not like with a dog—they aren’t born with big paws that can give an indication as to their eventual size. So, in truth, I was not only astute, but lucky too. It’s a good thing Guy Campbell is back in Perthshire because if he saw her now he’d have to chew on his own hat.’