‘Now, Miss July,’ she said, ‘you know me dances be just for coloured women.’
‘But me is a mulatto, Miss Clara,’ July informed her. For a mulatto July had to be, at the very least. Her papa was a white man.
‘You is just hoping to lift your colour, Miss July. You is not a mulatto. Be on your way,’ Miss Clara told her.
‘Me is a mulatto!’ cried our July.
‘Your papa be a white man?’ Miss Clara scoffed. ‘You is too dark for your papa to be white.’ For July’s skin had to be light. Honey to milk hues only, could Miss Clara approve. No bitter chocolate nor ebony skin ever stepped a country dance in her presence.
‘Me tell you true, Miss Clara. Me papa be a white man.’
‘No him was not.’
‘Him was.’
‘Him was not—him was some nigger.’
‘Him was the overseer ’pon Amity.’
‘Him was not.’
‘Him was a Scotch man.’
‘A Scotch man! You no speak true.’
This argument between the two continued for so long awhile—too long for me to give detail of it here—that Tam Dewar did enter in upon this squabbling. Yes, reader, Tam Dewar! For you and I know that he was indeed July’s papa. And within July’s telling he rose again. In the face of Miss Clara’s scorning he dallied within July’s story; no longer the pitiless and brutal overseer she knew him to be, who did imperil her reason, pursuing her once in life and now through every cursed dream. No. As he was a white man, he now became July’s much cherished papa who had made promise to one day take her to Scotch Land before he was struck down by a fearsome nigger.
‘Me is a mulatto, a mulatto, a mulatto, you hear, Miss Clara!’ July did state until Miss Clara wearily and reluctantly offered to inspect her.
Within a little room, before the dimming light in the window, Miss Clara proceeded. First she measured the width of July’s nose with her finger, before turning July to see how far that nose lifted from her face. For no broad, flat nose was tolerated. Miss Clara then stared into July’s eyes. Were they much admired green, vastly coveted grey, prayed for blue or simply dull brown? Removing July’s head kerchief, Miss Clara felt her hair. She lifted it to see if it fell back or stayed up like fright. Hair must be good. Straight with a little curl is best, be it fair, brown, red, or black. For no picky-picky head would ever tangle and frizz around her white men. She required July to open her mouth while pouting her lips forward. Miss Clara then pinched them to feel their bulk before demanding July close her mouth and turn to profile. No fat lips ever sipped porter or punch at her gatherings. And then, with a slow, searching, measured glare that travelled up and down July two, three, four times, Miss Clara perused the whole of her. For without the whiff of English white somewhere about her, July would just never do.
‘Your lips not too bad,’ Miss Clara finally pronounced, ‘Nor be your nose too broad. But your hair not be good. And your skin—your skin be just too dark. Oh no, no, no, you will not do. You is too full of negro. Me men only like a fair skin and pretty face. And your dress, Miss July, why you no wear one of your missus’s dress? Oh, me remember now, she be too broad. But your dress be a house-nigger’s dress. You is not fine, Miss July. No, no, no.’
Miss Clara did not kick July to see her gone, for she would never countenance such an indelicate gesture. And even though July folded her arms under this scorning and raised her not-too-broad nose into the air and told Miss Clara that she did not want to wiggle at this fool-fool dance, and would one day come to jig upon Miss Clara’s grave, and that she knew her mystery guava jelly had in rum and cinnamon, and that she did cook it up whenever she pleased—yet still our July came to feel the forceful impress of Miss Clara’s pretty, pale, slippered foot upon her backside as she was spurned for being too ugly to market.
July had not seen Miss Clara since that day. But no, let me make an amend; Miss Clara had never chanced upon July since that time.
But now upon that hot-hot day within the shabby dusty street, Miss Clara was once more peering down her slender up-turned nose and pinning her disdain upon the top of July’s head. July felt it land heavy as a firm hand. Soon those green eyes and that delicate mouth would conspire to sneer pitifully upon her, until July would feel the ugliest thing that coloured woman would encounter that parched morning.
‘Good day to you, Miss Clara,’ July said with the hope of moving quickly on.
But Miss Clara caught July’s arm to bind her in conversation. July did not notice the four gold rings upon Miss Clara’s fingers. Four! Two with green stones that clicked together—big as swollen knuckles, yet July did not see them. Nor did she regard the delicate ruby beads mounted like pin pricks of blood within a striking gold chain which laced about her throat.
‘You have no parasol this day, Miss July? You be get very dark,’ Miss Clara said.
July did have a parasol—a hand-down from her missus—but Molly did recently sit upon it and bust two spokes, so it hung like a broken bird wing. When she returned to Amity she must remember to once more punch Molly for the nuisance of that misdeed.
‘So, Miss July, you still working ’pon Amity for that broad missus?’ Miss Clara asked from upon high.
‘It be so, Miss Clara, although me missus be no longer so broad,’ July responded.
‘Not what I have heard,’ Miss Clara said before carrying on, ‘I could not abide to still be upon a plantation. Me upon a plantation!’ And how Miss Clara did laugh. She raised her hand to cover her mouth as little puffs of mirth were discharged within it. Then, composing herself, she gravely shook her head to say, ‘The wife of a white man upon a plantation,’ before a sweet titter again escaped her at such a ludicrous affront. ‘Me husband would never allow it.’
Husband! Oh yes, July had heard the chat-chat of Miss Clara’s husband. Come, the whole parish knew how Mr William Walker the attorney at Friendship plantation had paid for her dance and bought her hand. Her husband! That fat-bellied, peel-headed, ugly old white man had a wife and five children in England. There was never any marriage ceremony—at least none that a crowd could stand within a church to witness. Miss Clara just clasped this rich Englishman’s shrivelled private parts and now led him around by them.
‘He buy me a lodging house, me husband,’ Miss Clara carried on. ‘You know it? It be the big white house ’pon the corner of Trelawny Street, near to me shop.’ She airily waved her hand around in the general direction of that nearby corner before turning her devilish green eyes full upon July to glory delightedly within her envy.
But July would let not a muscle, nor a hair, stir to admit jealousy of Miss Clara. Come, a gutted fish upon a slab did speak its thoughts more tellingly.
‘You did not know of me lodging house?’ Miss Clara went on, ‘I believed everyone did hear of it. But wait.’ She felt within a small, white satin pouch that dangled from her wrist and produced a calling card. She held out the card to July. But just as July inclined to take it, Miss Clara withdrew it saying, ‘Oh, but me forget plantation slaves cannot read.’
July soon snatched it from her saying, ‘We be slaves no more, Miss Clara. Me nor you.’ And holding up the card to her eye, July began loud and clear to read, ‘Miss Clara’s boarding house, for the con . . . the con . . .’ July stumbled over the word convenience for she had never before seen it. So many letters, but none made the sound of sense within her head.
‘Oh, your missus let you read a little now,’ Miss Clara said.