The Secret Life of Winnie Cox

by Sharon Maas

  Papa dismissed whatever distressing thoughts had fleetingly distracted him, and, as we still did not speak – not even Yoyo, who usually added her comments at every turn of a conversation – he continued, somewhat absentmindedly, as if speaking to himself.

  ‘Yes, yes. Keep that in mind, and you might as well write it behind your ears right now: no Booker husbands for you! Fortunately, there are no leering young bachelors from Glasgow and Dieu Merci. No immediate danger.’

  Glasgow, to the east, and Dieu Merci, to the west, were our neighbouring plantations. Papa was correct in that business affairs were kept strictly from our ears, but we would have had to have been living under a bush not to have known that the great behemoth Booker Brothers was taking over the colony’s smaller, privately owned plantations one by one.

  Papa’s nemesis, the Booker clan. The gargantuan Liverpool company, Booker Brothers, was a malignant beast crawling up and down British Guiana’s coastline devouring all the smaller, floundering estates. One by one, the privately owned plantations fell into the jaws of Bookers. There remained only Promised Land, belonging to us, and Albion, belonging to the Campbells, further west, towards New Amsterdam on the Berbice River, not in the claws of Bookers. It was no secret that Promised Land was next on the agenda; that offers had been made, and rejected.

  Booker Brothers practically owned the colony. Sugar, shops and shipping were now all in the Booker domain. People joked that BG – as we all fondly referred to British Guiana – actually stood for Booker Guiana.

  It did not help that we lacked our own processing factory – that we had to pay ever more exorbitant fees to use the Booker factory at Dieu Merci. At grinding season we could hear it chugging away day and night, a great growling monster at the edge of our world as if eager to devour us all. We needed a factory of our own. But all this was vague knowledge, picked up here and there by accident, mostly through chit-chat with the darkies – according to Papa’s firm belief that business must be kept away from Home and Women.

  A moment’s silence followed. Yoyo and I exchanged looks; and then I spoke.

  ‘Does this mean, Papa,’ I said, ‘that you expect one of us to marry Clarence Smedley?’

  ‘That is the intended outcome, indeed,’ said Papa. ‘What I mean is this: I would like you – you especially, Winnie, as the elder – to cultivate an attitude of positive inclination towards him, as he certainly will towards you. Human nature will do the rest. It always does.’

  ‘But, Papa – what about love?’

  ‘Love – ha! That is exactly what I mean by human nature doing the rest. I know that you in particular have developed a certain sentimentality in this regard, Winnie, and I blame it on the novels of that Miss Austen you so relish. But that is just a fantasy. In fact, what we call love is better built on practicalities than on flighty emotions. Take it from me: the violins in the sky soon outplay themselves when faced with harsh reality. I know whereof I speak.’

  Indeed, he did. We knew the story. Papa met the pretty, young, gay Ruth Birnbaum when hardly out of his teens, in Vienna. He was on the Grand Tour of Europe customary for young people of the English aristocracy. She was enjoying the opera season with her Austrian family. They were introduced by a mutual family friend, and it was mutual love at first sight. Archie held her in her arms, and as they waltzed to the Blue Danube at a Viennese ball, they vowed never to part.

  Mama was from a cultured, wealthy, but not aristocratic family. Both sets of parents objected to the match; Papa’s, because she wasn’t English, had no title, and worse yet, was Jewish; and Mama’s because marriage would mean her leaving Austria for England, which was simply too far away, and worse yet, because he was a goy. They never dreamed that in fact, she would end up in South America, almost at the end of the world. It would have been inconceivable. But Papa and Mama were young and in love: they knew better. They eloped, and the deed was done. Eventually, both families forgave them, especially after Kathleen’s birth. Mama converted to Christianity; but then the Earl banished Papa to the New World, to take over the floundering fortunes of Promised Land. As a younger brother with few prospects in England it was, in fact, a sensible decision and got him and his foreign wife conveniently out of the way.

  It wasn’t banishment to them; it was an exciting new adventure, and they believed their love would conquer all. So the story went – romantic and sentimental and heroic – causing me to dream of a similar True Love waiting for me in the wings of time.

  But the romance ended with Mama’s arrival in British Guiana. She had never been happy here. She had come for love, stuck it out for love: a devoted wife and mother who masked her nostalgia for her homeland, her Heimat Austria, with the role of busy housewife, and tried to introduce her daughters – with little success as far as Yoyo and Kathleen were concerned – to a culture as far removed from the raw splendour of the Courantyne cane fields as the moon was from the earth. For we were British Guianese, born and bred.

  But Mama was like a tender garden flower transplanted to the wilderness; she could not flourish in the torrid heat of British Guiana, in the isolation of Plantation Promised Land. Papa tried his best, by giving her the best, biggest, coolest room in the house, the Seaview Room on the second story, whose man-high windows stayed open all day to catch the cool Atlantic breezes and whose private shaded balcony kept the sun from pouring through those windows. This was Mama’s personal realm; here she kept her memories and dreams: the trunk with Edward John’s baby clothes, the desk where she wrote her letters home, her bookshelves filled with books in the German language, the oil painting on one of the walls – a wedding-present – of the snow-capped mountains surrounding Salzburg. There were other pictures of the Alps placed at strategic points all over the house; as if Mama needed these reminders of her true home wherever her eyes rested. And now she was gone. She had chosen those snow-capped mountains, and left us behind. She had no choice, I kept reminding myself. She had to go. She is ill. Dr Joy will cure her.

  ‘What I want for each of you,’ my solicitous father continued now, ‘is a sensible marriage with a wealthy young man who can offer you a continuation of the security and comfort you have found in Promised Land. There are a few such young men in the colony, and when the time comes I shall certainly ensure that you are introduced to them – I’m thinking of you, now, Yoyo, assuming that Winnie and young Clarence are mutually compatible.’

  Father guffawed. ‘We can only hope and pray,’ he added, ‘that Clarence does not fall for one of the delightful Booker damsels!’

  Booker Brothers sat like a huge spider on the perimeters of Promised Land, waiting to pounce. We two girls, of course, were prime victims as prospective brides, for then the takeover would be assured. For Clarence, as heir, to fall for and marry a Booker girl – well, it would be the death knell for our little kingdom.

  ‘But, Papa …’ Yoyo’s face was as red as a tomato. I was anxious, fearing she might say something inappropriate. I was sure she was thinking exactly as I was – that life would never be the same again, after what we had seen today. That Promised Land was anything but what its name implied. That the whole concept of its existence was based on error, and that this error must be put right before we could even think of importing eligible young men of fortune. This was my worry, and we needed to tread carefully when we discussed it with Papa. I didn’t want Yoyo plunging in with premature accusations; she could get emotional when she caught the bit between her teeth. But Yoyo had other concerns.

  ‘Papa, is he qualified? What does he know about the sugar business? He sounds a bit of a dandy to me. Is he capable of running the business, making it profitable?’

  ‘Now don’t you worry your pretty little head, Yoyo! You are far too young to be concerned with marriage and future plans for the plantation. Enjoy what is left of your youth; for it will be over all too soon. Now, if you will excuse me – Miss Wright, do you have a moment? Will you join me in the library?’

  The meal was over. Yoyo and I had eaten
little, but Papa had not noticed, just as he had not noticed the subtle change in our demeanour. We ourselves – and at that stage I could speak confidently for Yoyo, for we were still of one mind – were hanging in vague uncharted territory as far as Papa was concerned, unsure of who he really was and how to respond to him. Up to now, he had been our hero, our Sir Galahad who could do no wrong. The knowledge we had gained this day had tarnished that once-shining armour. But then again, we could not be certain. I wanted so very much to believe in Papa: that he was as good and honourable as we had always thought. That the wrongdoing occurred on a level below his authority, and that he remained blissfully unaware of it. I hoped and prayed that it was so: that he lived in ignorance of the horror taking place on his own property, under his very nose. It could not be his fault. No, it couldn’t! Papa was a good man. Hadn’t he always supported Mama in all her little ‘causes’?

  Mama in her own pensive way had imbibed us with the concept of Doing Good to Others Less Well Off. One of the highlights of the Christmas season was always Boxing Day, when each of the house servants was given a hamper filled with special things to eat, and the half-day off to spend with their families – on a rotating schedule, of course, so that there was always a skeleton staff of darkies to look after us. And sweets were distributed to the children of the coolie workers. How we enjoyed those days of largesse! Yes, we were good people, Christian and kind. Including Papa.

  We may only have been young girls, but Papa was fond of us and it was certainly within the realm of possibility that he would hear our pleas on behalf of the coolies. He was a good-hearted man, and what we had witnessed that afternoon was completely contrary to the courteous and civil manner with which he treated our house servants. Didn’t they all live in their own pretty little cottages at the back of the compound, behind the orchard and the vegetable patch, the wood as sparkling white as our own house, and, though small, perfectly clean? Weren’t we brought up to be polite to our servants under all circumstances? Hadn’t we been allowed, when we were very young, to play with the darkie children who lived in the servants’ quarters? Hadn’t Iris, Mildred’s granddaughter close to me in age, been almost my best friend, in spite of being a darkie?

  I had been so fond of Iris; she had taken on the role of big sister to me, a role which Kathleen had failed to fulfil. Then, when she was twelve, Iris was brought into the house to work as a maid, our own personal maid, at which time our friendship had been deemed inappropriate by Papa. And then, a year ago, Iris had disappeared, without a goodbye. When I asked Mildred, she only shook her head; as I persisted, she only said, ‘Iris belly swell’. She refused to say another word. I remembered Iris now with a pang of guilt. Perhaps I should have continued our friendship in spite of Papa’s command; sought out Iris, found her, persisted. Life was so hard; how could one ever know what was right or wrong?

  It was our habit to withdraw to the gallery after dinner; sometimes Papa and Miss Wright joined us and, in the past, so had Mama, and sometimes even Mrs Norton, our English housekeeper. Tonight, though, Yoyo and I were alone, and I was glad of it. We took our places in the wicker chairs next to the gallery’s glass-topped table. Nora brought out our evening drinks, our Twilight Twizzles – fruit punch made from whatever was in season; now it was passion-fruit – and placed them on the table.

  Evening was upon us. The crapauds were out in full force down below, croaking their good-night serenades, while the buzz of night beetles lent a shrill, constant accompaniment to their tuneless song – a twilight chorus of a thousand invisible singers. Far away to the north, the sky was still streaked with gold though the sun had sunk beneath the Atlantic. I slapped a mosquito on my arm. We were both silent; the night noises grew louder. In the distance, a baby cried in the overseers compound. A dog barked, and set off a torrent of barking as one dog after the other joined in. In the village, towards the coast, a donkey brayed, the sound carried clearly on the Atlantic breeze that played with my hair and now and then puffed out my blouse. The breeze was cool but never cold, not even in the fully-fledged rainy season; and yet I shivered.

  I needed to talk. So much had happened today – first the logies, then this letter from England, and yet something else, something big, some unidentified thing looming in the recesses of my memory, so vague and yet on the other hand huge, like a mountain towering in the background of a landscape. What was it? I could not for the life of me identify the third momentous event of that day. I only sensed it.

  Night had completely fallen. The steady flame of a kerosene lamp cast an orange glow on Yoyo. She sat next to me as still as a statue, eyes closed. I realised what her unusual silence meant: she was grieving for Nanny. In the half-light I saw that her cheeks were wet.

  I turned to her: ‘Yo …’

  In that moment she turned to me. ‘Winnie …’

  We smiled in unison, understanding. We had this day been tried to the limits of our endurance; we had reached that place where our basic unity could have broken apart. Our differences could have wrapped themselves around each one of us and pulled us into separate shapes which no longer fit comfortably – pieces of a jigsaw incorrectly placed instead of slotting into a unified whole. Without saying a single word, we each of us reached and grasped the other’s hand.

  We sat in silence as night wrapped closer around us and folded us into its chant. Eventually, a background rhythm gently merged into the soprano cricket chorus; a pounding bass, rising and falling with the wafting of the wind; it drifted in from over the savannah, night’s irregular heartbeat. A distant throbbing: tum-tum, tum-tum, tum-tum, alternating with a rapid tum-tum-tum-tum, sometimes silent, then picking up again, a steady yet arrhythmic pulse, sometimes rolling like thunder, sometimes staccato; a deep tuneless voice that seemed to hold in its thrall the entire savannah – the land and the cane, the sky and the ocean, the very moon and the stars and the wind, and us two listeners, and who knows how many more. We often heard the drums at night, but usually later, after midnight, and further away, from Dieu Merci, our neighbour to the west.

  ‘Gracious! The drums sound so close tonight!’ said Yoyo.

  ‘Yes,’ said I. ‘I say … could it be coming from the village?’

  ‘Yes, I think so … Oh! Maybe it’s a wake! A wake for Nanny!’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That must be it. A wake. For Nanny.’

  ‘I wish we could be there. It just seems so unfair.’

  ‘Yoyo: we wouldn’t be welcome. Didn’t you see those faces?’

  Mama’s Diary: Salzburg, 1889

  Liebes Tagebuch,

  I am back from that dinner I told you about and it fulfilled every one of my expectations. Archibald Cox sat opposite me at the table – a long table with a white cloth and sparkling silver – and as servants floated in and out serving food and everyone else was chattering away about who knows what, Archie – as he asked me to call him – and I just kept gazing at each other, and each time our eyes met my heart went pitter-patter, pitter-patter, and I could hardly breathe, and I just wanted to smile, smile, smile! My cheeks are sore from all that smiling! Sometimes people spoke to me, trying to engage me in conversation. I was placed next to Liese Bohoffer and she had a thousand things to say, but I can’t remember a thing she told me. I must have appeared so very rude, but frankly, I don’t care! Thank goodness Liese was sitting next to Dr von Brandt’s son, and I think it was deliberate; I think there is some matchmaking going on there, and so she was distracted for much of the time, leaving Archie and me to have our secret conversation across the table.

  After dinner, the men repaired to the study for whatever men do when they are among themselves and we women repaired to the sitting room. But I managed to escape. I am so wicked! I went in search of him and he in search of me and we met in the hallway and he whisked me through a door and we were alone at last, in the Morning Room!

  He did not waste time. He drew me into his arms the moment we were alone and kissed me, and I will never forget that kiss just as I will
never forget a word he spoke – few were the words, but every one was pertinent. His German is not very good, and neither is my English, but he knew the right words and said it in both languages. ‘I love you,’ He said. ‘Ich liebe Dich.’ He loved me from the first moment he saw me, he said in stumbling German. Just as I loved him! It was real and strong and everlasting. ‘We must marry!’ he said. ‘As soon as possible!’

  And that was when the first drop of bitter vermouth entered my heart. It must have shown on my face for he then asked, ‘What’s the matter, my darling Ruth?’

  I did not have the words to tell him. My English is faltering and weak – how I wish I had paid more attention to my governess! But I much preferred French and now I must pay the price for my inattention. So I just told him the essentials.

  ‘I am Jewish!’ I said. I’m not sure if he understands the implications. He seemed not to care, for he only kissed me again. And that kiss swept away my own fears, my own concerns … what a magical moment!

  There was a desk in the corner of the room, with a writing pad and a pen on it. We exchanged addresses, for he is to leave for England in a day or two. At the thought of not seeing him again the second drop of vermouth entered my heart. ‘We must write!’ he said, and I nodded, but deep inside my heart was crumbling. How could I not see him again! How could I not marry him!

  Chapter Three

  We went to bed, calmed and somehow recovered. There could be no thought of sleep, and so, lying side by side in bed, we finally spoke of the matter of the logies. Something within me wished I had never seen what I had seen, that Yoyo had never stumbled upon that horror, had never drawn me into its implications, had never forced me to follow her down that stinking alley, had never pulled me into Nanny’s dreadful hovel. It was an abomination, unlike anything I’d ever known outside of a novel.