The Secret Life of Winnie Cox

by Sharon Maas

  ‘Here it is!’ I cried. ‘I’ll read it aloud.’

  And that I did. We learnt that the country had belonged to the Dutch and the French before the British; but we had known that anyway. That’s why some of the places had names like Stabroek and New Amsterdam, Mon Repos and Dieu Merci. We learned that the Dutch had built the sea defences and prepared the coastline for agriculture with their expertise in land drainage, canals and kokers; that they had built the Demerara seawall. But we had already known that too; it’s one of those facts you pick up in the course of BG childhood. We learned that the British came and changed the name of the capital, Stabroek, to Georgetown. That made sense, but didn’t impress us much.

  Cotton, we learnt, was the first crop, but was driven to failure by the more successful cotton industry in the southern states of North America. We learned that sugar was the next successful industry. We learned that labourers from Africa were brought in to work the fields. We learned that ‘after Emancipation’, first Chinese and then Portuguese labourers replaced the Africans. We learned that subsequently, labour was recruited in India; that East Indians came in their hundred-thousands as indentured servants, to replace the slaves … slaves. The word leapt out at us.

  ‘Miss Wright,’ I said, looking up at her with great solemnity. ‘Did the Cox family own slaves?’

  And from the annals of my memory the Troublemaker re-emerged. How could I have forgotten that terrible night, the Night of the Troublemaker!

  Mama’s Diary: Salzburg, 1890

  Liebes Tagebuch

  I have not written to you for many months because when I write at all, it is to him! So please forgive my neglect of you. I will keep his letters forever – they are so funny, in his broken German! Yes, he studied my language but never perfected it so it is quite amusing to see how he stumbles over the language. I admit it must be difficult for him. I write back in German, for his comprehension is superb – he has a dictionary! I told him to write me in English and I will use a dictionary too, but he insists on his broken German – how droll! How charming!

  He has repeated his proposal of marriage. He repeats it every time. I have not said yes even though I scream it in my heart. I have tried to explain to him the difficulties involved but he does not understand. Father will never allow me to marry a goy. Though we are not practising Jews, and Father is indeed quite liberal, I do know that that is written in stone. Oh, how I wish Mother were still alive! I’m sure I could have confided in her, and she would have persuaded him. Mother was a great believer in Love. But I am all Father has left now, and he is so protective of me! Now that my brothers have all moved out and married he is focused on me entirely – I am his family. He wants to see me well settled – I believe there is a friend of Rudolf’s they are all hoping to see me engaged to. Never!

  My heart is heavy, dear diary. Sometimes I feel I am under water, unable to breathe. Unable to reach the freedom of fresh air where I will be in his arms, his lover, his wife. It has to be! But how! I have told him a thousand times but he won’t believe me. We will find a way, he keeps saying. Love will find a way. Love will conquer. I would love to believe it but I can’t.

  Father suspects nothing. I always manage to get my hands on the post first, and fish out his letters. If they knew they would put a stop to it. But I won’t let them! No! I must sustain this love as long as I can! Sometimes I dare to believe him: Love will find a way!

  Chapter Four

  I don’t remember the name of the Troublemaker; just that he made Trouble, and most rudely, at the dinner table. Our parents had given one of those elaborate dinner parties that Promised Land, back then, had been famous for. I hadn’t been listening to the adult conversation; I was only about eleven at the time and Mama’s darkness had not yet descended. On the contrary: she was in the prime of her womanhood, beautiful, spirited, charitable and gentle, the perfect hostess. Papa was proud of her; we girls adored her. She was one of those people who, without ever trying, somehow became the centre of attention; she had a natural charm. She spoke quietly, yet with vigour, for what she had to say was never frivolous but always heartfelt.

  All I remember of that particular conversation is that the word ‘slavery’ featured prominently in it. The Troublemaker was not a planter; I vaguely remember him as being a Bookers man, possibly involved in shipping. Other Bookers men and their wives sat at the table – the sugar planters’ aristocracy. As dinner progressed, the conversation became more and more heated, and ever more divided: it was the planters united against him, this Troublemaker. Eventually, Yoyo and I listened in, but as we were but children we did not understand, and only one sentence, spoken slowly and with great force and dignity by the Troublemaker, remains clear in my memory:

  ‘Indenture is slavery in all but name; nothing has changed.’

  I had no idea what indenture was; I had never heard the word before. But I could tell it was important. The table fell silent. Everyone seemed to hold their breath, Yoyo and I included. And then Mama, like all the other women silent until now, spoke up. Her voice was calm, but firm, and she spoke only two words, ‘I agree.’

  And then the table exploded. All the men began speaking at once, shouting, in fact, at the Troublemaker, who shouted back.

  Mama remained silent for a few minutes. Then she turned to me and said, ‘Winnie, take your sister upstairs.’ Too scared to protest, we fled. Mildred brought up our puddings, and much confused, we ate them at the schoolroom table.

  We could hear the shouting well into the night. At breakfast – for of course everyone stayed the night – there was nothing but silence. The Troublemaker had apparently left at dawn. The other guests left after breakfast. The following day was spent in silence. And that night, Mama and Papa had their big quarrel. They tried to keep it from our ears, but BG houses are built to circulate the air, they are full of louvres and vents that carry sound as well as they do breezes. Though we could not follow the substance of the argument, its heat and passion were palpable. I was terrified; so was Yoyo. I assume Kathleen was too; but she was older and living on different principles from us, as became clear in the following days when Mama and Papa made up and things returned to normal.

  For of course, we wanted to know. What was slavery? we asked, tentatively. What was indenture? Instead of an explanation, Mama handed us a little book – apparently the Troublemaker had given it to her, secretly, before leaving – and told us to read it, secretly, and give it back when we had finished. The name of the book, I have forgotten; it was a first-hand account of a North American slave, and told us all we wanted to know. We were horrified.

  When the three of us had read the book, Mama said simply, ‘That was going on here in BG as well. Do you understand?’ Yoyo and I nodded; Kathleen shrugged.

  Then Mama told us that slavery had been abolished, and thank goodness; but the shortage of labour had forced the planters to bring in labourers from other parts of the world than Africa: Portuguese and Chinese and, most successfully, Indians. The Indians, Mama explained, came on a five-year contract known as indenture; but, in practice, it was just the same as slavery. As she spoke those words, tears gathered in her eyes; but she wiped them away and said, fiercely, as if to herself, and in German: ‘and that is what I have to live with’.

  Of the three of us, only I understood the words, but I did not understand their deeper meaning. A few months later, Edward John was born, dead. Mama fell into her darkness. The quarrel faded into non-existence in the shadow of that tragedy; we had lost not only our potentially much-loved little brother, also our very real and very loving Mama. That was our tragedy. What did we care about slavery, indenture, and quarrels that Mama and Papa may have had on the subject? The Troublemaker, the quarrel, the book: they disappeared, forgotten. Until now.

  Now, I realized, that little book might still be in Mama’s room, somewhere; possibly hidden away, as she had kept its existence a secret from Papa. I reminded Yoyo of the quarrel; her memory of it was much vaguer than mine, but she
remembered the book and together we searched Mama’s room. In the end, it wasn’t hidden away at all: it was right there on the shelf with all her German books, next to a copy of Rilke poems. The title of it was: A Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper, from American Slavery; and it was written by Moses Roper himself.

  We read that book, and now, with our greater maturity and understanding, the horror of it rose like bile in our throats, for we now understood Mama’s revulsion: slavery might have been abolished, but the fortunes of the Cox family, our wealth, our status, our very lives, was built upon an atrocity! And furthermore, what we had seen over the last few days made clear to us that the Troublemaker and Mama were right; indenture was slavery in all but name, and indenture was alive and well and flourishing under our very noses.

  Papa hardly ever came home for lunch, but today he did, and he did so with a slamming of doors and a stomping of boots on wooden floors and a roar that we heard right up in the schoolroom.

  ‘Winnie! Yoyo! Come down here right this minute!’

  There was no disobeying that voice; but we did not hurry. The ‘this minute’ part of the command was certainly thwarted, for it was the only rebellion we could reasonably afford. We closed our books and walked down stairs to the front hall, knocked on the library door where Papa waited, and arrived not right this minute but the next. We stood before him, hands behind out backs like good little girls. My heart hammered within my breast. But I held my head up high.

  ‘Yes Papa?’

  ‘Is it true,’ he said, and his voice was slow and rather low, the anger behind it constrained. ‘Is it true that you two girls went out to the logies yesterday?’

  ‘Yes Papa.’

  ‘You walked through the logie compound and you went to one of the homes?’

  ‘Yes Papa.’

  ‘You entered Yashoda’s logie?’

  ‘Yes Papa.’

  Papa by now was marching up and down. He still held his riding whip in his right hand, and both his hands were behind his back, as were ours; and as he marched the riding whip twitched as if eager to fulfil his purpose.

  I stole a look at Yoyo in alarm. Could it be that Papa might actually whip us? If he could whip the coolies why not us?

  It was a thought that would never have occurred to me before that morning. Papa was Papa: a kind, dear man who loved us with a boundless affection; who had tried to compensate us for Mama’s withdrawal with extra portions of kindness and paternal consideration. I had no idea how other fathers treated their daughters, but certainly we had no complaints. He never forgot our weekly pocket money with which we could spoil ourselves with sweets from the village shop; he praised us when Miss Wright reported on our diligence and intelligence; he patted my head when I played a violin tune for him, and Yoyo’s when she finished the Times crossword puzzle, and Kathleen’s when she showed off a new silk gown. Yes, he had a temper, and when we did wrong he let us know in no uncertain terms, but his anger was short-lived and his punishments were fair. Sometimes, he and Yoyo had heated arguments, but they blew over quickly. He had never spoken an unkind word to any of us. We adored him.

  I glanced at Yoyo out of the corner of my eye, and my left hand reached out, behind my back, fumbling at her skirt until her right hand closed around it. Our fingers intertwined, and our two hands clasped, palm against palm.

  I squeezed her hand. Don’t, I was trying to say, just don’t. Don’t attack him, don’t argue with him, don’t let your outrage erupt. My brave, headstrong sister! How often she plunged into conflict carried only by the passion of the moment, speaking or acting before thinking; and how often that impulse only served to complicate the conflict. How often it was left to me to speak the calming words that would quiet the waves. How many storms, fanned by her own unrestrained temper, we had thus ridden out together! She had no fear of Papa; she would clash with him without a further thought, as always in the past; but this was not the time. This was different. A different Papa; a Papa we did not know. A stranger.

  ‘Could you,’ he said now, his voice still calm and collected but with an undercurrent of wrath, ‘could you please explain to me what in the good name of all Christian folk you were doing there? What devil whispered into your ear told you to set foot in that – that …’ he searched for a word, and found it: ‘that nigger yard?’

  I started as if truly whipped. I had never heard the word before, but from the way he spat the word, the way his eyes glared cold and hard, the way his lips curled and his face darkened, I sensed a slagheap of ugliness, a mire of utter abhorrence. My soul cringed; my body wanted to curl into a ball to protect itself from such speech. That Papa, always so particular about our language, always correcting us should we fall into the vernacular used by the servants, should let slip such an expletive in our presence was beyond comprehension.

  Yoyo must have felt the same, for her fingernails dug into the palm of my hand. We stood before Papa in shocked silence, neither of us daring to speak.

  ‘I’m waiting,’ he said. He now stood before us, legs apart; he held the whip in his right hand and absent-mindedly tapped his open left palm with it. We remained silent.

  ‘Give me an answer!’ he shouted. ‘You, Winnie!’

  He aimed the whip at me, pointing me out like a convicted criminal.

  ‘Papa, I – I don’t know. We were just …’

  ‘It was my fault, Papa!’ Yoyo had finally found her voice. ‘Please don’t be angry with Winnie! It was all my fault. I took her there. She didn’t even want to go. I’m to blame. I wanted to see Nanny. Nanny was dying. Nanny died, Papa!’

  ‘Aha,’ said Papa. ‘So now we’re slowly approaching the truth. Can you now tell me what induced you to take your sister, and yourself, into places that don’t concern you? That are not your damned business?’

  Another expletive! A word Papa had never, ever used in our presence. A profanity, a sacrilege, a bolt of lightning. Our clasped hands squeezed tighter than ever.

  ‘Papa, I’m very sorry. I …’ Yoyo stopped, took a deep breath, and repeated, ‘I’m very sorry, Papa. I won’t go there again.’

  ‘I should think not!’ Papa bellowed; but Yoyo’s contriteness worked its magic. To my relief, he placed the whip on the table, folded his arms on his chest, and said, in a much milder tone of voice, ‘remember, from now on the logies are out of bounds for you girls. Absolutely and completely out of bounds. You are never, ever to set foot in that place again. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Papa,’ we said in chorus. Papa now seemed completely pacified. His voice gradually turned into the old familiar Papa-voice, the voice he used to explain the world to us growing girls. Paternalistic, authoritative, but concerned and kind. It was the Papa we knew; but the words he spoke were foreign, and as he came to the end of his speech, we recognized them as lies.

  ‘There are certain matters which do not concern you whatsoever. In particular, the running of this plantation. That has nothing to do with you. Keep out of it. It’s not your business. Do you know what trouble you set into motion? A riot! The situation is volatile as it is, but two rich white girls walking through the nigger yard …’ that word again! I inwardly cringed ‘to gloat at the conditions of the coolies is the last thing we need on this plantation. Do you know what could have happened? Do you know the fuse you lit? Thank goodness I was able to talk the coolies into submission! They are a very emotional people, you know; sometimes they do erupt and one needs to take them in hand though firmly. They are like children, like you, Yoyo. A stern word or two, and they are back in their place. Sometimes, even, a good flogging does the trick.’

  I heard Yoyo’s sharp intake of breath and I pressed her hand as hard as I could: say nothing! Be quiet! Don’t contradict him! Glancing at her again, I saw the tight clench of her jaw, the pulsing vein in her neck. She was about to burst. Extremely anxious, I squeezed her fingers again in warning. Don’t. Keep it down.

  As if completely exhausted, Papa flung himself into the high-backed l
eather armchair which had been among the furniture shipped from England, and was his favourite. He smiled at us. I could not look at him, nor meet his gaze. I kept my eyes lowered. I saw only his heavy boots – astonishingly, he had kept them on! – and khaki socks, and the hairy bare knees above them.

  ‘Come,’ he said in a different voice, and he gestured to us both to approach, then held open his arms. In the old days, that is, just a day earlier, we would both have rushed into those waiting arms, laughing with affection; we would have hugged him and sat on his knobbly knees, left and right, and known all was right again with our world. We would have forgiven him the scolding at once; our hearts would have lifted to hear the familiar fatherly cadence of his speech as he explained himself. We would have believed.

  ‘It’s not easy being a planter in British Guiana,’ he said in a tone of deep confidentiality. ‘It’s tough work; it toughens you. Thickens your skin. Emotionally tough, emotionally draining, even for a man. There are hard decisions to be made; decisions no woman could make, or ever understand. Business decisions. Now, I want you girls to trust me, to know that everything I do, each decision I make, each step I take, it is all for you, for your comfort and well-being. That is all I care about. This is our home; I must protect it the way I think best. An Englishman’s home is his castle, but I share it with you and you come first. It is a place of peace and well-being, a refuge. I do not want the travails and the hardships of business to ever enter these walls. They must be kept out. That is why I have this rule: plantation business stays outside every room except my study. That is why we never discuss plantation business at the table. That is why I want you girls to keep your pretty little heads pretty. There are words I never want you to speak within these walls. There are some aspects of this business I never want you to think about. I want you to be happy and carefree, and up to now you have been – is that not true?’