will . . .’
Now, July knew that her missus would not actually whip her, for she kept no whip. If any whipping were required then it would fall to John Howarth, the massa, to perform that duty. But he of late did not flog. Since his wife Agnes’s death only five weeks after Caroline’s arrival in Jamaica, he had not the energy for beatings, for there was no crime, to his desolate mind, that seemed to require it.
Upon the other hand, the overseer, Tam Dewar, was ever prepared with his industrious lash. But Amity was a busy plantation with many, many, many indolent, skulking, tricky, senseless, devious slaves. On the last occasion that Caroline Mortimer had bid a stripe be laid upon July (for leaving her missus quite alone in the house for an entire night), Tam Dewar had bemoaned—whilst his chewing tobacco stained his breath a darker and darker brown for the eternity of the discourse—that he could not be everywhere at one time. In a shower of rancid spittle he had finally inferred that the mistress might do better to learn to use her own whip.
So Caroline had tried once to use the braided buckskin lash (with the terracotta-painted handle) that her brother had bequeathed to her from his wife Agnes’s belongings at her death. But as she flicked it at July’s departing back (on this occasion for spilling the contents of a night pot over the floor, as I recall), Caroline hit herself with the thrashing hide quite smartly in the eye. The whip then went missing. And despite a thorough search made by all the house negroes none ever managed to find where July had hid it.
The missus’s favoured punishment was to strike July sharply upon the top of the head with her shoe. Although hopping and hobbling, the missus could chase July around a room for several minutes to deliver her blow. At these times July would jump, weave and spin to avoid her. For she knew that soon the tropical heat would so exhaust that demented fatty-batty missus that she would fall upon her daybed in a faint of lifelessness. But her missus was a tricky one. Any time she might creep up upon July to deliver that blow. For a punishment left unbestowed brooded within her missus like the memory of a delicious dinner left uneaten.
Sometimes, if the missus was just too weary for spirited reprimand, she might slap July about her face. Mostly one swipe with the flat of her palm. But occasionally, if July had missed the menace in her missus’s eye—those two colourless, vigilant villains that squinted into tiny slits—then she might still be standing to catch the slap from the back of her hand too.
When the missus had first stuck a needle firm into the back of July’s hand, the memory of that earliest smarting wound stayed with July longer than any of the other piercings that patterned her arm thereafter. For it was administered in those early days, when July was only a child of nine years and as constant to her beloved white missus as a newly hatched chick to a fowl.
July had wanted so much to learn how to sew and stitch nicely when she was still that small girl for, at that time, she loved to see her missus pleased with her. Her pink-white cheeks puffing into a grin so wide they looked to span the room as she bounced excited upon her toes. Like the time when July first bent her knee in a perfect curtsey. Come, her missus squealed louder than a trapped pig, ‘Marguerite, you are a good, good, good nigger.’
Yet it was not so much the threading of the little spiky needle with a whisper of yarn thinner than her own hair. Nor that, when July had first started to sew for her missus, she began as she had seen her mama do—with broad stitches that always caused her mama’s stout arm to extend in a wide arc so the long thread may be pulled tight through the rough weave of the Penistone cloth; and that her missus, seeing this lavish movement, frowned and with a wagging finger said, ‘No, no, no, not like that,’ before insisting upon the tiniest stitches
Now, July knew that her missus would not actually whip her, for she kept no whip. If any whipping were required then it would fall to John Howarth, the massa, to perform that duty. But he of late did not flog. Since his wife Agnes’s death only five weeks after Caroline’s arrival in Jamaica, he had not the energy for beatings, for there was no crime, to his desolate mind, that seemed to require it.
Upon the other hand, the overseer, Tam Dewar, was ever prepared with his industrious lash. But Amity was a busy plantation with many, many, many indolent, skulking, tricky, senseless, devious slaves. On the last occasion that Caroline Mortimer had bid a stripe be laid upon July (for leaving her missus quite alone in the house for an entire night), Tam Dewar had bemoaned—whilst his chewing tobacco stained his breath a darker and darker brown for the eternity of the discourse—that he could not be everywhere at one time. In a shower of rancid spittle he had finally inferred that the mistress might do better to learn to use her own whip.
So Caroline had tried once to use the braided buckskin lash (with the terracotta-painted handle) that her brother had bequeathed to her from his wife Agnes’s belongings at her death. But as she flicked it at July’s departing back (on this occasion for spilling the contents of a night pot over the floor, as I recall), Caroline hit herself with the thrashing hide quite smartly in the eye. The whip then went missing. And despite a thorough search made by all the house negroes none ever managed to find where July had hid it.
The missus’s favoured punishment was to strike July sharply upon the top of the head with her shoe. Although hopping and hobbling, the missus could chase July around a room for several minutes to deliver her blow. At these times July would jump, weave and spin to avoid her. For she knew that soon the tropical heat would so exhaust that demented fatty-batty missus that she would fall upon her daybed in a faint of lifelessness. But her missus was a tricky one. Any time she might creep up upon July to deliver that blow. For a punishment left unbestowed brooded within her missus like the memory of a delicious dinner left uneaten.
Sometimes, if the missus was just too weary for spirited reprimand, she might slap July about her face. Mostly one swipe with the flat of her palm. But occasionally, if July had missed the menace in her missus’s eye—those two colourless, vigilant villains that squinted into tiny slits—then she might still be standing to catch the slap from the back of her hand too.
When the missus had first stuck a needle firm into the back of July’s hand, the memory of that earliest smarting wound stayed with July longer than any of the other piercings that patterned her arm thereafter. For it was administered in those early days, when July was only a child of nine years and as constant to her beloved white missus as a newly hatched chick to a fowl.
July had wanted so much to learn how to sew and stitch nicely when she was still that small girl for, at that time, she loved to see her missus pleased with her. Her pink-white cheeks puffing into a grin so wide they looked to span the room as she bounced excited upon her toes. Like the time when July first bent her knee in a perfect curtsey. Come, her missus squealed louder than a trapped pig, ‘Marguerite, you are a good, good, good nigger.’
Yet it was not so much the threading of the little spiky needle with a whisper of yarn thinner than her own hair. Nor that, when July had first started to sew for her missus, she began as she had seen her mama do—with broad stitches that always caused her mama’s stout arm to extend in a wide arc so the long thread may be pulled tight through the rough weave of the Penistone cloth; and that her missus, seeing this lavish movement, frowned and with a wagging finger said, ‘No, no, no, not like that,’ before insisting upon the tiniest stitches
Similar Books
