The Long Song by Andrea Levy
But at once the overseer pulled sharply away from July. ‘I am sorry, I am sorry. Forgive me. I am sorry,’ he said, as he moved quickly across the room. Some might consider that he ran. Certainly, July thought herself to be chasing him when she followed behind him urging, ‘No, no, it be right, massa.’ But every time she approached upon him, the man would take a stride backwards away from her. What sort of dance was this? She stepping forward and he jumping back? Around and around that room they went in this manner. Come, it was quite comical.
But July, skilled in the catching of rats, soon trapped this man within a corner. He held out his arm to keep her from him, as he kept repeating upon a panting breath, ‘My father, my father, my father,’ before finally completing the plea with, ‘My father would not approve.’
‘But your papa not here,’ July said softly.
‘My father,’ he carried on, ‘has the highest contempt for white men who abuse their position with negroes.’
‘Me is a mulatto, not a negro. It not be wrong, massa.’
‘My father sent me here to do good. He is a righteous man.’
‘Him will never know,’ July said, almost gaily. But when he glanced full upon her, July recognised the anguish stricken within this white man’s face.
‘I can see my father before me and I must not.’ He lifted up his head to plead heavenward saying, ‘I will not give in to this temptation, Father, I will not.’
And July, looking up to that same spot where he could see his papa said, ‘But there be no one there.’
‘Please go, Miss July.’
‘Your papa want you to be kind to negroes, massa.’ July said as she moved a long step closer toward him.
‘No, Miss July. Please leave now. Please, please, please, I beg you. You are too beautiful, you are too good . . .’ The rest of his words were muffled and lost as he covered his face with his hands.
It was now July’s turn to feel all her breath leave her. For this white man thought her beautiful. This white man thought her good. She lunged at him to catch him about the shoulders, for this prize was just too close for July to give up upon it now. But he pushed her off so fiercely that she nearly fell.
‘Please, Miss July, please just go now.’ Then clenching fistfuls of his own hair as if to wrench it from his head, he howled, ‘Help me, Father, help me, Father,’ before sliding down to sit in his corner and sob like a child.
CHAPTER 24
READER, I MUST WHISPER you a truth. Come, put your ear close to this page. Lean in a little closer still. For I am moved to speak honestly regarding the last chapter you have just read. Are you listening, reader? Then let me softly impart to you this fact. That is not the way white men usually behaved upon this Caribbean island.
CHAPTER 25
AFTER THAT DAY ROBERT Goodwin was forever watching July. She would find him at the garden’s edge, astride his grey mare—enthralled, motionless—as she, seated upon the veranda steps ate an orange and licked her sticky fingers. Never did he come close when the sun was high and never did he greet her by name. But she caught him in open-mouthed reverie gawping upon her swaying hips as she walked the long path through the stony provision lands to do her business there, secretly, instead of using the pit near the kitchen. And wherever he did chance her—within the garden, upon the veranda, crossing to the kitchen, walking a path—anywhere, anywhere, he did spy her alone, July would sense the overseer’s watchful pining. And, oh, how his blue eyes did gaze. Only the imagined commands from his tormenting papa did slap, shake, and rouse him to stop this foolish yearning and go about his day.
The overseer even surrendered his book to her—the one with the pictures of Scotch Land. July found it abandoned outside the door of her dwelling. And upon the pages where he had pointed so delightedly at her papa’s house lay three pink periwinkles, compressed thin as gauze, within its leaves.
Then, one evening after sundown when all the shadows were gone, July was walking back from the garden after collecting up the windblown pods from the tamarind tree when she heard a palm bush panting. ‘Miss July,’ was called with urgency. She turned to find her eye bedazzled by a candle lantern held high and swinging. She knew it was him, but strained to see his face as it danced in and out of shadow. He held out his hand in front of him, his fingers splayed with insisting, ‘Please stay quite still, Miss July, quite still.’ July parted her lips to speak but he commanded, ‘Please, do not speak.’
As she slowly lowered her arms to her sides, the handful of tamarinds she had collected scattered on to the floor. She planted her feet to stand as still as she might. Lifting her chin she stared into the lantern light. His hand upon the lantern held it so tight that the knuckles upon his fingers shone white as hens’ eggs. And although his face was lost to shadow, his gaze was so keen upon her that she felt it like a fingertip stroking.
It traced a line that brushed over her forehead, caressed her nose, touched the bulge of her lips and stroked her throat, before resting its phantom pressure upon her breasts. Then Robert Goodwin whispered, ‘This is wrong, I know this is wrong but I cannot help myself.’
Throwing the lantern to one side, he suddenly stepped forward to seize July about the waist. He was hot as the bread oven. July was puzzling whether to push him from her or close his embrace, when he threw her away. She stumbled. As she righted herself to stand before him she thought to shout, ‘Careful, me nearly did fall,’ but the sound of him weeping stilled her. She lifted her hand to find his face in the dark. His cheek beneath her touch was damp. At the feel of her fingertips upon him, the overseer placed his hand over hers. ‘It is against everything,’ he said, ‘But, Miss July, you must know that I have come to love you. I love you.’ And he softly kissed her palm before pulling away from her to vanish within the dark.
Yet it was to be a few weeks before July encountered Robert Goodwin again. Seated at the far corner of the veranda where a breeze occasionally blew the sultry still air with a little cooling, July was mending her missus’s undergarments—the ones where the rats had eaten out all the sweaty parts—when the overseer came from out the house and saw her.
July, thinking that the overseer would only stare upon her, for it was daylight and morning, lifted her eyes to gaze up at him, but continued to stitch the nasty garments. It was when his quizzical expression changed into a broad smile of recognition and he commenced to walk towards where she sat, that she, in astonishment at his approach, dropped the needlework over the rail of the veranda. He was soon upon her. He pulled her to her feet, then looked quickly around himself for somewhere to hide her, like she were some stolen booty, before steering her down the veranda steps and around the corner to shelter within the secrecy of a large clump of bamboo.
As they stood concealed together he lifted her face to meet his by placing both his hands upon her cheeks. ‘Look at me, Miss July. Look at me,’ he said. At once July began to pull away from his grip for the urgency within his tone startled her. But he held her face firm. ‘Listen to me, listen to me,’ he carried on, until the shock within her expression began to reach him. He let her go.
Blinking to look softer, smiling to look calmer, he stepped back and raised his hands to show he meant no harm to her. But his boyish excitement soon overcame him again when he said, ‘I have made a plan which I have just this minute set into action,’ and he squeezed her face once more. ‘Oh, Miss July, I have a plan that means we can be together. A plan,’ he went on, ‘so I might have you. A scheme that my father will have no quarrel with. Indeed, he will rejoice in it. He will thank God. I believe . . . I truly believe that my father will thank the Almighty for delivering his son from this temptation.’
Robert’s blue eyes were large as moons. For a long moment they stared down upon July—until, that is, he leaned forward to kiss her. His lips brushed so gently against July’s mouth that she became entranced by his sudden tenderness. She could think of no response to him. But the missus calling, ‘Marguerite, Marguerite,’ very close, soon ended July??
He slipped away and out of all sight just as the missus rounded the corner to find July alone. ‘Oh, there you are, Marguerite,’ said the missus. July, now searching for the needlework she had thrown into the bush, began to babble to her missus about the breeze snatching the undergarments away from her, and how they flapped like some monstrous bird as they flew across the garden.
But Caroline Mortimer hushed her by waving her arms in front of July’s face. ‘Not now, not now, not now. No, no, no, no, no, there is too much to do,’ her missus squealed. ‘Oh, Marguerite, there is just so much to do.’ Then, with the aid of her fleshy fingers, each of those splayed digits struck in turn, the missus commenced to list the tasks that must be done. There was pink satin silk that must be found, blond needle lace that must be sent for, slippers that must be trimmed with ribbon, a gown with fashionable bishop sleeves that must be made. ‘And where are those yellow kid gloves?’ The pig must be slaughtered, all the chickens too, a cake must be baked, ‘But not by Molly’, cards must be printed, candles must be bought . . .
It was only July’s quizzical look that made her missus stop between breaths to ask, ‘What, have you not understood?’ Then, sighing hard, for the missus was quite winded with all this activity on such a hot day, she carried on, ‘Oh, I have not said.’ She giggled. ‘I have not told you.’ She laid her hand upon July’s arm. ‘I have such news, Marguerite. I accepted him just a minute ago.’ And she smiled broad, as she said, ‘I am to be married. I am to be married to Robert Goodwin.’
PART 4
CHAPTER 26
SOMEWHERE, READER, THERE IS a painting, a portrait rendered in oils upon an oblong canvas (perhaps an arm’s span in width) entitled, Mr and Mrs Goodwin. This likeness was commissioned by the newly married Caroline Goodwin from a renowned artist who did reside within the town of Falmouth. The painter—a Mr Francis Bear—produced, in his evidently short life, many portraits of Jamaican planters and their families; indeed, at one time, it was quite fashionable to have a Bear in your great house.
The sitters in this portrait sat for several weeks within the long room at Amity making no movement nor sound, as requested by the artist, whilst steadily perspiring their finest clothes several shades darker. But what became of this portrait I do not know. It was lost or stolen or perhaps even nibbled to tatting by some of the many ravenous creatures that live here upon this Caribbean island. However, if you should perchance alight upon this portrait, Mr and Mrs Goodwin, please be sure to make a careful study of it—for hidden close within its artifice lies the next piece of my tale.
Standing tall in the foreground of this splendid picture you will find Robert Goodwin. His manner is casual, one leg crossed in front of the other, while he leans his elbow upon the chair back in front of him. He wears a light linen jacket with a waistcoat of cream silk embellished with a tracery of green floral stitching. There is no hat upon his head, and although his curling hair and bristling whiskers confer the distinction of a gentleman upon him, they also cause him to look a good deal older than his years.
Not yet married a full year, his countenance appears serene enough. But, come, look closer still, for the beam within his blue eyes is pure relief, the spirit within that meek smile is satisfaction; for Robert Goodwin had finally been released from the long-preserved state that, in deference to his good father, he had kept achingly intact until his wedding night—his virginity!
However, it was not Caroline that plucked him. For while Robert Goodwin’s new bride lay reclining upon her bed—the ribbons at the neck of her nightgown untied and the garment teased down low to reveal the ample mounds of her primped and scented breasts, as she eagerly waited for her new husband to finish his business within the negro village—he was in the room under the house, frenziedly dropping the clothes from off our July’s back.
He had turned July around within the feeble light of a tallow candle like an anticipated birthday gift finally unwrapped. And, as if to confirm that each inch of her was indeed as delightful as his possessed mind’s eye had conjured, he studied her close. Laying her down, his hands stroked all over her. And where his hands roamed, his tongue and lips soon followed. When he entered her his breath came so fast and he yelled so loud that July slapped her hand across his mouth to stifle the sound lest her missus hear this obscene intimacy seeping up through the boards of her floor. Afterwards he hugged July close to him—her back against his front. He had married ‘that woman’, he told July softly into the dark, just so he could be with her like this—just like this. And then he whispered to July over and over that he loved her, oh how he loved her.
By the time Robert Goodwin finally arrived at his new wife’s chamber, he was exhausted. He promised Caroline that their coupling would take place soon and not to bother him now, for he was very tired as the negroes had quite worn him out with their demands . . . and, oh please could she cease mentioning it . . . and certainly she was his love, but would she stop incessantly whining, for it was making his head ache . . . and, of course, of course, he desired her, but had she not heard him? . . . soon, he promised, soon. Then he slept sweet as a suckled and belched babe.
Whose suggestion it was that the backdrop for this portrait—Mr and Mrs Goodwin—be the open landscape of the plantation and not the long room at Amity, is arguable. The artist—who took several months to carefully figure the grounds into a tropical idyll—claimed it was his. However, Robert Goodwin maintained that he saw a similar background used in a painting of some English gentry and so declared the idea his own. But whoever fathered the notion, Robert Goodwin stands before the trunk of what appears to be a rather puny baobab tree. No longer a lowly overseer, he looks every part the master of the beautiful view that the artist has constructed. Come, his chin is held high. And why would it not be?
Eight letters Robert Goodwin had received from his father which had urged him with increasing passion, to think of marrying soon. His father wrote of his age—how he was no longer a boy; of his circumstance, which would be greatly eased with a wife to share his burdens; of temptations that were easily overcome within marriage; and of Lucinda Partridge, a young girl within his father’s village in England who always talked of Robert with affection and had ambition to travel.
Robert Goodwin had longed to oblige his father with this seemingly commonplace request. But he loved a negro girl. He loved July. And to marry a negro . . . to marry a negro! Oh, who could countenance such an indecent proposal? Certainly not his father. To bring kindness to the negro, to minister to the negro, to pity the negro, was his father’s dearest wish for him. But for his son to marry the negro—that would surely kill him.
However, within the next letter that he received, his father had written: ‘Remember, Robert, that a married man might do as he pleases.’ Now, although Robert Goodwin had never dared to even hint to his father of the troubling attraction he felt for the negro house servant, he somehow came to believe that those instructive words were meant as suggestion. A married man might do as he pleases.
If, Robert Goodwin had pondered, he were a married man, then might he not be able to keep July outside his marriage but within his firm affection? Could he not fulfil the promises he made before God to a wife and still treat tenderly the woman who had his heart? And who would know? Who would suspect? And if they did, might not they turn a blind eye upon a married man? Of course they would—he had known his father do it many times before. And there was such blindness upon this Caribbean island.
Besides, to marry Caroline Mortimer would be to help her further. Robert Goodwin’s firm conclusion had been that she would benefit greatly from the arrangement. His standing with the negroes upon the plantation would rise once he was no longer merely the overseer, but master of Amity. The simple negroes would surely do anything that was required of them if they were bid by him—their new, beloved mass
Robert Goodwin had soon come to believe that it was not only his father, but God the Almighty, that compelled him to conceive this plan—for it was to the injury of no one, and the advantage of all. So his chest is puffed proud within the portrait—for his marriage now kept two women quite content with him and his father above pleased with his son’s turn of fortune. Indeed, the letter of congratulations he received from his father read:My dearest son, Robert,
How proud you have made me by your marriage. Your new wife, Caroline, is welcomed into our family with arms both open and embracing. We pray that one day we shall have the honour of receiving her into our home here in England as willingly as we have taken her into our affections. It spoke a great deal of your wife’s wisdom and contrition when you wrote how earnestly she desired that the negroes—whom she once considered as her property—were now treated as well as can be under her employ. I am sure that as the new master of the plantation called Amity, the injustice of that abominable state of slavery will become just a distant memory for the negroes in your charge. Once burdened like beasts, they will now be able to go happily and joyfully about their tasks under your compassionate guidance. My dear son, Robert, you are a credit to your family and the pride of my heart.
Your ever loving father.
Within the painting you will find the missus, Caroline Goodwin, seated upon a chair—the one that her second husband leans upon so casually. She is arranged at a decorous angle within the frame, one that shows off the slope of her shoulders and the intricate array of twisted braids and curls within her hair very well. Her hands, resting demurely on her lap emphasise the billowing folds of the full skirts of the wedding gown she wears, and also succeed in flaunting the fashionable tight cuffs of her bishop sleeves. Indeed, so attentive was the artist to render truthfully the detail of this gown, that the pink silk of the garment shimmers as if the actual cloth were pasted upon it.