The Secret Life of Winnie Cox

by Sharon Maas

  ‘All those lovey-dovey stories of how she and Papa met and fell in love and defied their parents in order to marry. All that dancing to the Blue Danube – remember? Like a fairy tale. And that’s all it was. There was never any love. It was just some kind of sentimental emotion and it fled at the first opportunity. Where’s love in that, Winnie? Where’s love, when a mother can stop loving her daughters just because one little baby dies – stop loving them to the point of actually deserting them and running back home to her own mummy and daddy? All that talk about the power or love – just empty talk. Sentiment. Stupid. I swore long ago never to let love influence my decisions and I’m keeping to that. I swore never to marry for love. A marriage is nothing more than a business arrangement. That’s what I’m doing, Winnie. My wedding to Mr Smedley – actually, I call him Clarence, now – is just a contract. Once I sign it, I’ll be working myself to the bone to be head of this plantation. And there’ll be some sweeping reforms, I can tell you! I still can’t believe what Papa did to Nanny. Because if anyone taught me about love, it was her.’

  I could say nothing to that.

  ‘But he’s such a – such – I mean, haven’t you heard? He runs after all the African and Indian women. He’s got bastards with them. He’s …’

  ‘So what? All the senior staff men have darkie bastards. Papa’s got a few, for that matter.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’

  ‘Oh Winnie! You’re so – so utterly naïve! You’re such a child! I can’t believe you’re two years older than me! You live in some perfect little dream world – you’ve no idea! Of course Papa has his fun with the servants and labourers! They all do! Don’t you know what men are like? How do you think he’s managed all these years without Mama? Do you think he’s some kind of a – a monk, or something? You’re the ridiculous one. You really should grow up.’

  I bit my tongue so as not to say what was on my mind. Instead, I took a deep breath. ‘In some ways, maybe,’ I said instead. ‘But at least I have enough self-respect not to marry a man for profit.’

  She turned on me then, eyes blazing. ‘You, with your romantic dreams! Your stupid sentimental dreamy ideas of love! You don’t even begin to understand. This is about change. It’s a plan. You’ve probably forgotten everything we talked of that day, that day when Papa whipped the coolie. You’ve forgotten, haven’t you? Remember how we said we’d change the whole plantation? Well, I haven’t forgotten. One of us has to sacrifice herself. And it has to be me. It couldn’t ever be you. Maybe you hate what’s going on with the coolies as much as I do but you’ve just put it to the back of your mind and one of these days you’ll fall in love with and marry one of those Booker boys and close your eyes to what’s going on and raise a horde of children and nothing will ever change. You were never one for action, Winnie, and I don’t mean it as a criticism. People are different, and you’re a soft feminine woman who will always fit in and goodness knows, there’s nothing wrong with that. You’ll make some man a wonderful wife, a wonderful mother to his children. But I’m different, Winnie! I’ve always been different. I want to change things. I want to help the coolies. I want to make a name for myself in British Guiana. Women can do great things just as well as men, and I want to be that woman. I want to change history! I don’t suppose you’ll ever understand that, but it’s just the way I am.’

  ‘Yoyo, I …’ I was bursting to tell her. Everything. To refute her condescending judgment of me. To let her know that I too, in my own way, could be an agent for change; that I too had secrets and plans and that marrying some Booker boy and settling into a life of placid convention was the last thing on my mind. I was a spy, against my own father! I was part of a brewing revolution that came from the coolies themselves! I was aiding and abetting that revolution because they trusted me! I was harbouring secret plans to drop out of all the privilege granted me by the accident of my birth and to start again from the very beginning – that I loved and was loved outside of my race and my class and that that was as revolutionary a thing as anything she would ever do through this repugnant marriage.

  But I held back the words. Betraying even a small portion of the task would be to play with fire. Yoyo was unpredictable – as evidenced by this whole Clarence Smedley development! – and I had learned through cruel experience that the wrong knowledge in her hands, coupled with her volatile nature, could be disastrous. So I swallowed my pride and her insults and instead picked up another of the bombs she had dropped.

  ‘Where will you live in Georgetown? I mean, have you talked it over with Papa? Does he agree to it? He was always so against the two of us going to school in town!’

  ‘Yes, but we’re older now. Grown up, almost. I haven’t told him yet, but I will soon. And trust me, he’ll let me go. I’ll make him.’

  Oh, I trusted her to make him, certainly.

  ‘And I’ll come with you!’

  ‘You? What’ll you do in Georgetown?’

  I smiled to myself. If only she knew! ‘There must be some course I could take, too. Maybe not business, but history, or French, or something.’

  ‘There’s that finishing school some of the senior staff girls go to,’ Said Yoyo. ‘Miss Yorke’s. They learn things like etiquette and running a household and art and music. That sounds good for you. I’d love you to come! I didn’t think you’d want to – you have seemed so – satisfied these last couple of years. As if you’d made your peace with the way things are and you’re just waiting to get married. I never thought …’

  More insults, but I put them behind me; from her perspective she was right, and from mine as well. These last few months my waiting, waiting, waiting for the age of maturity had become a mere passive counting off of the days till I was 21, and legally able to marry whom I wanted. I had made up my mind to wait, and it had never occurred to me that there might come a time and an opportunity to leap ahead of myself. Georgetown! To live there, with Papa’s permission; to see George now and then! He would still have to be a secret of course, until the time was right, but oh, how much happier the waiting would be!

  ‘Of course I want to go! I’d like nothing better than to get away from this – this …’

  Yoyo leapt to her feet then, reached for my hands, pulled me to my feet.

  ‘We’re going to Georgetown, Georgetown, Georgetown, to start a new life, life, life!’

  She threw back her head, delirious with laughter, caught hold of my waist and danced a jolly polka round the room, I laughed too as I swirled with her, but all I could think as she sang was, ‘I’m going to George, George, George!’

  Mama’s Diary: Plantation Promised Land, British Guiana, 1906

  Liebes Tagebuch,

  It was indeed a boy. I use the past tense because he did not stay with us. He was born early and from that aspect my secret was safe, but he was weak and after a week he died in his sleep. And with his passing every last sliver of hope has departed my soul. The darkness has taken over completely. Nothing but black. It is like being in a deep dark pit where I cannot see, and however much I scratch at the walls to escape I cannot. I know I need to live on for the sake of my daughters and that is the only thing that prevents me from jumping from the top window of our home. I am no longer a mother to them, trapped as I am in this darkness. I cannot even speak to you. I don’t know when I will write to you again, if ever. I take refuge in music but it does not help. Nothing helps. I fear this is goodbye, forever. How melodramatic. But I have reached the end of everything.

  All I have left are my daughters; but I can do nothing for them. The only thing I can claim is duty; I must stay with them for the sake of duty alone, and that is the only thing that keeps me going. They have my physical presence but nothing more. I know that my Winnie especially suffers from my withdrawal and yet there is nothing I can do to be the mother she needs. Kathleen and Yoyo are different, more independent somehow. Kathleen dreams only of England, and Archie will send her there one day. Yoyo has learnt to cling to Nanny. I am grateful for Na
nny’s presence – if I can even speak of gratitude in this state. But Winnie! The way she looks at me! The pain in her eyes! I can see it there but I can do nothing about it. I cannot come back to her. I am no longer her mother, but just a body that resembles her mother but without a soul.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  At the next opportunity, I slipped out of the house grabbed, my bicycle and flew down the path to Uncle Jim’s. Breathlessly I told him the news – that not only would Yoyo be marrying the loathsome Clarence Smedley, but that she also had ambitions to be the manager and to make the required changes.

  ‘So, you see,’ I said, ‘it’s good news! The labourers will eventually get the changes they want.Yoyo is quite determined! She will be a kind mistress, Uncle Jim. I know it! Though I admire her immensely for the enormous sacrifice she is making in order to do so – I know I certainly couldn’t! Marrying that lizard! But it means the labourers can hope for improvements. It will take a few years, of course, but change WILL happen.’

  ‘Hmm,’ is all Uncle Jim replied. I was disappointed; he seemed to doubt me.

  ‘It’s wonderful news, isn’t it?’

  ‘We shall see,’ is all he had to say.

  ‘Of course, it’s only one plantation …’

  ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘And there’s no telling what power will do to your sister.’

  ‘Oh, you needn’t worry about that!’ I cried. ‘She’ll be a wonderful estate owner! After all, she’s a woman – perhaps that’s exactly what we need, more women at the helm! Women will be kinder!’

  ‘Women can be just as cruel.’

  ‘I don’t believe it! At least, not Yoyo! She’s sincere, I promise you! And she wants to see the labourers treated well. But the best thing is that we’ll both be moving to Georgetown! Isn’t that marvellous! Yoyo and I have already asked Papa’s permission, and he has given it! So I’ll be able to see George whenever I want to!’

  ‘Winnie, no! No, no, no. Don’t talk like that. Don’t even think like that. Just because you’ll be in Georgetown, it doesn’t mean that anything has changed. You cannot see George whenever you want; you cannot be seen together. You cannot risk a scandal at this point!’

  ‘I don’t care about a scandal! Let people talk!’

  He took a deep, audible breath, as if he was completely fed up with me. ‘Do you care about putting George into danger?’

  That silenced me. What a selfish, spoiled little girl I was, thinking only of myself! I vowed to improve. I vowed to be careful, to protect George. To put my own needs aside, and to wait.

  But there was one more thing I needed to say. ‘I’m sorry I won’t be able to spy for you any more, Uncle Jim. Not that I produced much information.’

  ‘Don’t say that! You did. You were an enormous help. But you know, Winnie – there’s one more thing you could do. Just one.’ He paused.

  ‘Go on!’

  ‘Well, I don’t like asking this of you … I asked you to just listen, and this requires a little more than just listening …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘A telegram was delivered to your father yesterday. Mr Perkins told me. We need to find out what it said. If important information about our plans has leaked to the estates. Especially now, when so much is at stake. We need to know …’

  I smiled, and winked. ‘I’ve been listening to the drums!’ I said. ‘I know what’s going on!’

  He put a finger on his lips. ‘Shhh! Not a word more. Now, I wonder if you …’

  ‘… can go into his study and find the telegram, read it and report? Of course I can! I’ll do it!’

  Papa was still out in the fields, Miss Wright was in her room, Mrs Norton had gone to the village, and Yoyo and Maggie were out riding. The time was right.

  Papa’s study was sacrosanct; I had never in all my life been in there on my own before. This now, was proper spying; everything that had gone before was child’s play. To actually go into his room, search his desk, read his papers! Because of course I wouldn’t only look for that telegram – I’d keep my eyes open for anything else that could be of use to the protest movement.

  My heart pounded audibly as I opened the door and crept into the study, tiptoed over to his grand purpleheart desk. There! I’d done it! I took a deep breath, and the panic subsided. I set to work.

  I went about it methodically. First the papers on top of his desk, held in place against the sea breeze with a glass globe as paperweight. Then, one by one, the drawers. I glanced up: on the bookshelves there were files, all bearing letters to indicate their content: A-D, E-H, and so on. What a pity, I thought, that I had only now found the courage to take this step. My job of listening for information now seemed truly amateur. THIS was real spying.

  Spying against your own father. I shook my head firmly, banning the bite of conscience. No! This was the right thing to do! My father was a cruel man, a despot, and he had to be stopped!

  I found the telegram almost at once; it was right there under the paperweight. I read it, wrote down the content in the notebook I had brought with me. It seemed innocuous enough: notice of the Governor of Trinidad’s impending visit and an invitation to a meeting in Georgetown. But I would let Uncle Jim decide. I continued my search, for something, anything, that might be of use.

  One of the drawers in the desk, right at the bottom of the desk, was locked. That aroused my suspicion. Perhaps that was where he kept the truly important information. True, Uncle Jim only wanted to know the contents of that telegram, and I had that – but what if there was something more, something vital to the movement, and he kept it in that drawer! I had to find the key.

  I opened a smaller drawer at the top, one in which he kept smaller items such as pens, paperclips, and stamps – the obvious place for a key. And indeed, there it was, right before my eyes. A little key, a desk key. Did it fit? I tried it. Yes! It turned in the lock. I slid open the drawer.

  The drawer contained just one item. A book. A book with a green fabric cover. Just one word graced the cover, embossed in great gold letters: Tagebuch.

  The fact that the word was German told me everything, all at once. Mama’s diary! What was Papa doing with Mama’s diary? My hand trembled as I opened it to the first page. It was a terrible thing to read someone’s diary, but if Papa had read it – and he surely had, having hidden it away in his desk; Papa would have had no scruples! – then I had to read it too. I had to know what he knew. My eyes, blurred now with unshed tears, read the first lines:

  Liebes Tagebuch,

  I cannot contain it. I am simply bursting with it all but I have to tell someone or else I will explode! Oh, I will! How I wish I had a friend, a sister of my heart! Since I do not, dear diary, YOU must be that friend. I am in Love!

  I sobbed out loud and snapped the book shut. I slipped it into the waistband of my skirt, closed the drawer, locked it, replaced the key, and hurried down the hallway, up the stairs and into my room.

  It was a short diary, and I read it, from front to back. Every word. I read it, heart hammering. Now and then a little cry escaped my lips; once, my hand flew to my mouth in horror to prevent an even louder cry. My eyes stung and I pressed them with the backs of my hands to hold back the tears. I closed them, breathed deeply, and read on. I came to the end. A sentence, unfinished – why? Why had she broken off? Had she – but of course. The realization came: Papa must have entered the Seaview room and caught her in the act. I could well imagine the scene:

  ‘Ruth, what are you doing?’

  Mama snapping the diary shut, trying to hide it.

  ‘I – I was writing a letter.’

  ‘To whom?’

  ‘To – to Father.’

  Papa striding up to her, invading her room. Looming above her as she sits at her dainty lady’s desk, glaring down at her. Mama’s hands fumbling as she tries to hide the book, in vain.

  ‘That doesn’t look like a letter! What is it!

  ‘It’s nothing – just a book – I was reading…’

 
; ‘So you lied to me? What book is it? Let me see …’

  Papa reaching out for the diary. Mama trying to hold it back. A struggle. Papa grabbing the book from her hands.

  ‘What’s this – Tagebuch? What does that mean?’

  ‘It means – it means nothing. Please give me back my book, Archie!’

  Papa recovering the little German he once knew. ‘Tagebuch – day book? It’s a diary?’

  Mama reaching out for it, Papa pushing her away, opening it, turning to the first page.

  ‘It’s in German! Read it to me! Translate!’

  ‘No! It’s none of your business! It’s private!’

  ‘You’re my wife! You have no privacy! All that is yours, is mine! So, I can’t force you to translate. But luckily, Miss Wright knows German. I’m sure she’ll oblige. Goodnight Ruth.’

  Papa striding away to the door, Mama’s diary and all her secret thoughts in his hand.

  Yes. That was what must have happened. Papa found her writing and grabbed the book, never gave it back. Kept it, and read it with Miss Wright as translator.

  And then sent Mama away.

  That, more than anything else, is what now filled me with both horror and relief. Horror, that Papa could exile his wife, the mother of his children, send her across the world and leave us deserted. But also relief, immense relief, that Mama in her own way had loved us to the end, and had never wanted to leave.

  Yes, of course – it all made sense now. That scene on the ship that bore her away. It came back to me, even more vividly now that I understood: Mama finally waking out of her torpor, clasping me in her arms, her desperate cry: Ich wollte es nicht, mein Schatz; ich wollte es nicht! I didn’t want it, my treasure; I didn’t want it!’

  Mama had not deserted us. It was Papa who had sent her away! Papa, who had kept her away. Papa, who had transformed from the gallant, kind and loving man she had once loved into the brutal despot he was today. Papa who had turned away from her from the start, and had let himself be drawn into the wicked web of Mr McInnes and company. Right under Mama’s eyes, Papa had embraced cruelty, abused his power and become the hateful man he was today. I remembered Uncle Jim’s words: There’s no telling what power will do to your sister. Is that what power did? Change all that was good into all that was bad? It had certainly done so to Papa.