The Long Song (33 page)

As I earlier disclosed, the artist Francis Bear was obliged to employ some invention within this portrait,
Mr and Mrs Goodwin
. My example upon that occasion was the not-quite-as-fat-as-she-should-be missus and her unduly slim foot. But the tray that displays the sweetmeats hides another trespass. That July is offering a tray to the mistress is correct, but the colourful and abundant sweets upon it were, in truth, added later. For every time July became weary in her pose the tray would tip and the sweets would slide and scatter on to the floor. After this spilling occurred for the fifth time, the artist suddenly yelled, ‘Enough!’ He then posed July with an empty tray and set up a still-life of confection in his studio so he might paint them later, at his leisure. However, this resolution was to be the artist’s excuse when a quarrel arose after the picture’s completion.

So pleased was Caroline Goodwin with the finished picture,
Mr and Mrs Goodwin
, that not only did she have it replace Agnes’s portrait within the long room, but she also sent the artist two bottles of Amity’s finest rum. She then invited all her neighbours within the parish to view it. Her intention was to bathe herself within their envy.

However, after commenting how Caroline looked strangely sad in the portrait, the next observation from anyone who viewed it, was that her husband, Robert, appears to be gazing firmly upon the nigger. Now although Caroline insisted, ‘No, no, it is the sweetmeats that have his eye,’ (and the viewers tipped their heads upon the picture, first to the left, then the right, eager to agree) finally, everyone of them had to declare, ‘No, no, he stares upon the nigger.’

Robert Goodwin was indeed gazing upon July through the whole of the portrait’s execution. For July was carrying his child and he wished to stare nowhere else. Indeed, a few months after the completion of this portrait, July gave birth to a daughter for him. A fair-skinned, grey-eyed girl who was named Emily.

So furious was Caroline that the artist had caught her husband’s folly, that she insisted he take back the portrait to his studio to rectify this error. Now, although Francis Bear retouched the likeness for several more weeks, still his daubings could not raise Robert Goodwin’s eyes from off our July. Caroline then placed all her wrath at the situation with Francis Bear. She was enraged—for was it not he who so cleverly managed to capture that scene for her friends to view? Come, Caroline was forced to hang the picture within a room that was rarely used. And obliged to demand that the artist return to her the gifted rum!

 

 

 

 

R
EADER, I BELIEVED AFTER all the fuss-fuss my son Thomas did make over the last pickney born to July, that I would soon have to endure his reproaches anew. Once he learned within my tale that July gave life to another child then the pulsing vein upon my son’s head would throb and wriggle once more. And with a face untouched by the fury that he felt, he would ask his mama, ‘Is this baby soon to be left upon a stone outside a preacher’s house, like the ugly black pickaninny July gave birth to? Or because the child Emily is coloured, a quadroon with fair skin and a white man for a father, did July look to cherish her instead?’

But an old-old woman should not be scolded by her own son! So I hid myself from him within the hut in our garden, for several hours while he perused those pages. Miss May, my son’s daughter, soon joined me. Seeing her old grandmama sitting small upon the tiny seat in that little wooden place, amongst all the broken-down things that were forgotten there, amused her. We two played old maid to pass the time and I beat her at every go. Oh how she wailed! I should let her win, she tell me. Why? I ask her. Because she is young was her only reasoning. Then she has time to learn to beat me, was my reply to that.

But my knees did ache from being folded so long within that wretched place—I was soon forced to hobble back to the house. And there my son greeted me without ever having missed me. As he handed back those pages he said with a thoughtful tone, ‘One thing, Mama . . .’ And how my heart began to race—come, it beat nearly through the cloth of my dress. Until he continued, ‘I believe I may have seen some of Mr Bear’s work,’ and commenced to describe for me, in weary detail, another of the silly artist’s pictures.

Reader, my son’s moods must now be as much of a puzzle to you, as they are to his own mama.

As I write, Miss May stands before me, shuffling her pack of cards. She commands me to stop scratching my pen upon this paper and play another hand of old maid with her. Come, I fear I will first have to allow this child to beat me if I am ever to get peace enough to continue my tale. Cha!

 

 

 

 

T
HE OLD DISTILLER-MAN who toiled within the boiling house, Dublin Hilton, was one day wandering up near the great house when he did spy a white man with a fancy feathered hat upon his head. This man, standing still and erect as a doorpost, was wiping a small brush upon a large board that was resting stout upon an easel. Dublin Hilton, approaching upon this man from behind, did strain his neck to see what this man was doing. Painting a picture, Dublin soon said to himself. For there upon that board was a good likeness of Miss July (serving up something), a not-too-bad copy of the new massa, and a white woman resting upon a seat who looked like the missus—but nah, for she was too narrow.

After watching this man for a long while, Dublin Hilton soon came to think that this must be the artist he had heard so much chat-chat of. Leaning upon a stick Dublin dallied awhile longer, observing the artist painting the view of the lands of Amity into the background of this picture. One strange picture, Dublin was to tell everyone later. For the artist-man was looking down the hill and over the scruffy thatched tops of the houses within the negro village.

Now Dublin Hilton stood only a few feet behind the artist and yet this white man, gazing out with frowning absorption upon the view before him, time after time painted another bush where Dublin could clearly see the higgledy-piggledy of the negro village.

Soon Dublin approached this man with the question, ‘Pardon me, massa, but you can no see the negro dwellings?’

‘All too clearly. Now, be off with you, nigger,’ was the reply Dublin Hilton received.

However, Dublin being no longer a slave (and a man who had no need to dabble a skimmer to see if liquor would granulate), decided that now he was a free man he was able to enquire anything of this white man he desired. So he posed his question once more. The artist-man, with a heavy sigh, then told the old boiler-man that he admired the view of the lands from that position, but had no intention of including the disgusting negro hovels.

‘But they are there before you,’ said Dublin Hilton to he. At which the artist barked upon him, that no one wished to find squalid negroes within a rendering of a tropical idyll, before promising Dublin that he would set his dog upon him if he did not leave him alone.

‘But you paint an untruth,’ said Dublin Hilton.

And the artist-man did stamp his foot and scream upon the old man, ‘What business is it of yours? Away with you, nigger, away!’

Now, according to Dublin Hilton, it was just after this encounter with the artist-man that the trouble with the new massa, Robert Goodwin, did begin. However, Peggy Jump did not agree. She recalled that the massa Goodwin had already rode in upon the village to pull Ezra from out his house by his hair before she had heard the story of the artist-man. But Cornet, Peggy’s husband, agreed with Dublin. He remembered that day well. The day when the massa, caught in a devilish rage, shook Ezra like a dog with a rat for neither labouring, nor paying his rent. Come, how could Cornet forget, for he had raised a stick to the massa, yelling upon him to let Ezra go or else he would thrash him with it. And even though the massa soon calmed himself and pulled Ezra to his feet, that white man’s clear blue eyes, staring anger upon him, still haunted Cornet’s mind’s eye when he slept.

But Cornet remembered chatting with Dublin Hilton long before that day, upon the change in the overseer since he became the massa by marriage, and he was sure it was then Dublin had told him of the picture, the artist and the missing negro village. For Cornet thought the artist a cunning man to turn his eye blind to those run-down negro places.

No, the trouble had started at Christmas tide, when Robert Goodwin had sent the driver, Mason Jackson, to round up all the negroes still residing upon Amity and gather them into the mill yard. Cornet recalled that to press this gathering to move faster the driver had fired his whip. And one commotion did break out as Giles Millar and Betsy wrested that slaving cow-skin from out that dog-driver’s hand. They were slaves no more, they yelled upon him, and would dance to no lash! They threw his whip into the river and would have drowned the driver too, but the massa Goodwin had already begun to speak.