July bounded that room in a leap to wrest her child from out of her missus’s affections. ‘Marguerite, I was doing no harm,’ her missus said as July snatched her baby from the daybed. But the sound of a heavy footfall stomping briskly up the veranda steps had both July and her missus turning, startled, towards the door.

Robert Goodwin rushed in upon the room.

His hat was off his head. His hair wet. His face blackened with soot and striped by slides of dripping sweat that ran down. His shirt hanging out his breeches—dirty as rag—had a slash of blood at the collar. His brown jacket was ripped—at the sleeve, at the shoulder. His boots were enclosed in putrid mud. A ragamuffin, not an English gentleman. Yet he bestowed an air of wholehearted jubilation as he said, ‘It has been a great success!’

Who he was addressing, July could not tell, for he looked at neither she, nor the missus, as they both gaped upon him.

‘The negroes finally understand where their duty lies. And it is to their masters and to God.’

He hesitated, as he stepped further into the room, on where he should rest his gaze. ‘I have returned them to their rightful work,’ he addressed first to the missus, who glowed quite crimson before him. ‘The negroes are to commence taking off four of the cane pieces at conch blow tomorrow morning, they have assured me of that,’ he continued to July. ‘All is well,’ he laughed before lifting his head heavenward to declare, ‘If my father were here, I believe he would shake my hand upon this day. Yes. Yes. I believe my father would be very proud of his son.’

But then Robert Goodwin clasped at his arm—the one where the jacket sleeve was ripped—and staggered as he took a further step. The missus squealed like a poked pig—as if it were she that felt some pain—and pitched her fat white batty across the room to steady him. July had never seen it move so fast, nor wobble so wide.

‘Oh, Robert, Robert,’ the white-woman twittered, ‘What is it? Robert, Robert,’ as if he could not recall his own name.

As he placed his arm about the missus’s shoulder, the feeble woman nearly folded to the floor. For nothing heavier than Nottingham lace had ever bore hard upon that limp neck before. Come—she teetered graceless as a bakkra drunk on rum under his burden. Yet as the missus bumped and jolted him to a seat she boldly impudenced July by commanding her to, ‘Get some water quickly, Marguerite.’

Cha. July was not there to serve her. July had been required only to sit with her. For was it not July who nursed the pickney of the master of this house? Was it not July who wore his gold cross and chain about her neck? Was it not July who, curled tight within Robert Goodwin’s heart, unfurled only at his will?

July lingered, waiting for Robert Goodwin to throw off the missus’s succour and reach out his hand to her. July dallied, expecting soon that he would request she help him out of his boots. He would wish to gaze upon his child soon—to caress a gentle finger across her cheek or coo-coo upon her sweetness. So July waited for him to grumble, ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Caroline, leave me alone,’ so July might send a sneer across the room to spitefully slap her missus’s face. But when Robert Goodwin, with so little care, snapped upon her, ‘You heard your mistress, Marguerite. Bring some water,’ it was July who was abruptly struck.

The next morning, July did not find her Mr Big-big blue-eye, her Mr Sweet-sweet Massa, sleeping close against her in their bed, his renk morning breath warming her ear, his rogue knee pressing at the small of her back. No. July found Robert Goodwin sleeping within his hammock upon the veranda.

And where once, when she watched him, he lay sprawled and tranquil in sleep like a newborn, now he twitched. His lips, caught in a silent discourse, chattered together. His eyes, trapped beneath darkened lids, fluttered restlessly. His arms, embracing a pistol, gripped it tight. As she drew near upon him, he suddenly awakened with the jolt of a fearful quarry.

‘Did you hear the conch blow?’ was what he asked her.

And July, at once aware that indeed this bright blue morning was more tranquil than any she had ever known, replied, ‘No.’

CHAPTER 31

OH HOW THE FLOOR did quake as the missus bustled through the long room at a galloping pace. ‘Marguerite!’ July was nearly flattened to the ground so fast did the missus fly at her. ‘Marguerite, we must send Byron quickly,’ was all she managed to utter before her panting breath choked her. July rolled her eyes waiting for this convulsion to pass. When, finally, the missus had breath enough to continue she said, ‘We must send Byron or Elias to the cane piece at Virgo.’

When July sucked quietly upon her teeth—that such fuss-fuss could be made from so little a request—the missus fixed her pale eyes close upon her to say, ‘No, you don’t understand. I have just been told by an odious little man who rode out to the fields with Robert this morning, that he has begun acting strangely. When I asked him if Robert was unwell, the man just said, “Well, you could say that.” Then he picked his teeth with a stick right before me. When I enquired why my husband did not return with him, he said that Robert refused to be moved from the cane piece. But whatever could he mean, Marguerite?’

July rushed to the stables to command Byron to harness up the pony and cart. She would go to the cane piece herself. She would send no foolish house boy who would think only to shine the massa’s shoes if he found him wretched or bleeding. If Robert Goodwin was struck down with a fever from the sun then he would wish only her to gather him up to nurse and cool his brow. If he was broken then no one else must raise his fractured bones, for only she could perform that ministration with enough tenderness. If he was bitten by a snake then who else but she could suck out that sting?

But the missus ran to follow after July screeching, ‘I must come too.’ July was unable to stop that fool-fool woman from gathering up her fancy skirts, tying on her bonnet, and fussing with her parasol before struggling her batty into the cart.

July was careful to ride carelessly over the stony paths so the missus would be bounced about that cart like a leather ball. ‘Must we go so fast?’ the missus kept pleading with July as they travelled. Only as they approached by the negro village did July rein in the pony to slow.

July recalled that, at that point in the lane, she should have been looking upon Miss Peggy’s dwelling place. But that boarded hut with the string of calabash hung over the door was no longer there. In its place only the crooked arch of a door frame was left standing, while a pig lay dead under a pall of black flies before a disordered heap of splintered wood. Further down that lane, Miss Fanny’s hut—where July had chased out after Robert Goodwin, not so very long ago—still possessed its stone walls, but had no thatch upon the roof. Outside its open door, a broken-down chair lay upturned beside a dutchy pot that was crushed almost flat.

As the cart moved along, July saw that all was devastation within the village. The blackened ground was strewn with a debris of tables, stools, mattresses, cooking pots, fragments of cups and plates, branches of trees, smashed and rotting fruit. Wisps of smoke rose here and there, releasing a woeful stench of scorching. While many of the huts that were still where July knew them to have always been, now stood forlornly crippled by missing walls, windows, roofs. And apart from a brown dog—whimpering and lame, dragging its useless bloody back legs along behind it, and some chickens pecking heedless about, there was no one to be found there.