The Long Song Read Online Free PDF

way round; no command in an English language Caroline knew could get this slave to place it about her shoulders in the right way. As for the tape ties at the seam of her dress, the girl merely played with them like a kitten with string, for she was unable to tie a simple knot, let alone a delicate bow.
    She combed hair as if untangling some rogue threads on the fringe of a carpet and tipped a full bucket of cold water over Caroline as she sat naked in a bath believing warmed water about to be brought. When Caroline summoned her brother to protest her behaviour, this slave girl, with hair matted as carding-wool, threw herself at his feet, clutching his legs and begging, ‘Me make mistake, massa. Me no do it again, massa. Me learn. Missus gon’ smile pretty ’pon me soon,’ to avoid her punishment.
    Caroline’s sister-in-law, Agnes, having been born upon the island a Creole, found no trouble in procuring the required help. Her clothing was pressed and presented to her in the mornings, a jug of water brought for washing, her night pot collected and cleared, her room swept when she was not present to choke upon the dust, and her shutters opened for her upon the daylight.
    But Caroline observed that Agnes was able to command these slaves in their own strange tongue. She could bellow at those negroes with the same force that the negroes did bellow at each other. Agnes was heavy with child and although slight of frame, still she allowed no bulging protrusion at her waist to impede her when she was admonishing her slaves. Why, she jumped about as spiritedly as a mad hare—arms flailing, feet stamping, her thick red hair coming loose from its tie as she snapped, shouted, clapped and yelled to get her way.
    After this exhausting work was done Agnes would lie upon her daybed with her arms dangling, too fatigued to lift them. She was then unable to answer even the simplest of Caroline’s enquiries without a weariness entering her tone or a gentle snoring commencing—sometimes when Caroline was still speaking.
    In her first meeting with Agnes, in the cool drawing room of the great house, her sister-in-law had, in a blast of breath that left Caroline quite giddy, proclaimed that her family was from Scotland. Excepting Agnes’s flaming red hair, the profusion of freckles upon her face and neck (which she happily displayed instead of hiding with cosmetic preparations), and an abundance of tartan trimmings in and about the chairs in the room, Caroline detected nothing of the Scotch about this bouncy young woman.
    ‘You must show them who is master and who is slave. Leave them no room to fool you. Them is tricky, Caroline,’ Agnes said when instructing Caroline on the management of slaves. Using Molly as her example, Agnes called the slave girl to her and pointed her finger at the blackened eye. ‘She tie me shoe so tight me have to scream. She sitting at me feet so I give her one kick. You think she ever tie me shoe so tight again? No, no, no—for she learn.’ Pushing Molly forward so Caroline might better inspect the bruised wound for the imprint of Agnes’s shoe, she said, ‘Be firm. For these blacks be like children—all must be shown how is good and how is bad.’
    And, every night since Caroline had arrived upon the island, she had been forced to listen to the panting, slapping, and giggling that crept over the walls from her brother’s room into her own. For this grand house, which had been lavished with so much vulgar finery—why, even the silver was gilded—nevertheless had bedroom walls that were not tall enough to reach all the way up into the wood of the eaves. The ridiculous din of the night creatures with their eternal screeching could not block the lusty sounds Agnes—oh yes, Agnes—made every night. Her brother, Caroline decided then, was quite prudent in never having brought Agnes to England, for his wife’s inelegant, beastly manners and ridiculous way of speaking would surely have seen her locked