The Sugar Planter's Daughter

by Sharon Maas

  ‘You monster!’ Winnie dropped her open handbag and flew at Yoyo. Something silver, metallic, flashed. To his horror, George saw a knife in Winnie’s hand. ‘No!’ he yelled. He lunged at Winnie, grabbed her round the waist. He yelled: ‘Jim! Jim, come quickly!’

  Winnie fought George with a strength he had never guessed she had.

  ‘I’ll kill her, I’ll kill her!’ she kept yelling. ‘Let me kill her!’

  Her hand still held the knife; George reached for it, but holding her and grabbing the knife seemed impossible. He wrestled her to the ground and finally managed to prise the knife from her grasp. He flung it far away, but Winnie fought on, scrambling to her feet the moment George loosened his grip, her hands reaching out towards Yoyo as if she would grab her throat, strangle her. She wept and shouted all at once; incoherent words now, words of hatred and loathing and unconstrained rage. This was a Winnie no one had ever seen or even guessed existed; a beast once caged in darkness, now let loose. The maid stood watching, screaming.

  ‘Run outside – bring Jim!’ yelled George to her.

  Yoyo, paralysed at first, now cowered backwards, arms stretched out, and fell backwards into a Morris chair.

  But then, simultaneously, two things happened. Uncle Jim, who had been waiting outside, crashed through the unlocked front door.

  ‘Fire! Fire!’ he screamed. ‘Upstairs! The curtains – upstairs!’

  And another scream. The scream of a baby. A scream of utter terror, primal, raw, visceral. A scream that chilled the blood of every single person present, and stopped the fighting immediately.

  Had they all rehearsed their roles, they could not have acted faster.

  ‘Mary!’ screamed Yoyo.

  ‘Grace!’ screamed Winnie. And these two mothers both lunged towards the stairs. But George was faster. Letting go of Winnie, in two strides he was on the stairs and bounding up. Jim, quick as a flash, as if he had anticipated the women’s moves, bounded from the doorway straight to the foot of the stairs after George, nimble as a deer. And there he stayed. Solid as a rock as he stood there, one hand on the newel cap and the other on the wall, blocking the way with his solid bulk, back to the room. A fraction of a second later both women were on him, pummelling his back, trying to prise his arms away, shrieking. Jim just stood there, absorbing the attack. The maid ran out from the kitchen, screaming ‘Fire! Fire! Fire!’ as if nobody had noticed.

  ‘Get a bucket of water!’ yelled Jim, and she ran back into the kitchen.

  A yell came from upstairs. It was George, staggering to the top of the stairs. In his arms he carried a wailing bundle wrapped in a blanket. As quickly as he had raced up he leapt down, two or three stairs at a time. Smoke, presumably from an open doorway further down the landing, billowed behind him.

  ‘Good God!’ cried Jim. George, reaching the foot of the stairs, collapsed into his arms. Holding him aloft with one arm, Jim took the wriggling, screaming bundle from him and flung it to Yoyo, who caught it deftly and ran to the gallery, Winnie in close pursuit, crying, ‘Is she all right? Is she all right?’

  George collapsed into Jim’s arms.

  The maid ran from the kitchen with a slopping-over pail of water, the red fire pail always held in readiness in these wooden houses. She headed for the stairs, but Jim raised a hand.

  ‘No!’ he said. ‘No use. We can’t fight the fire. Everybody – downstairs. Outside. Quick!’

  Yoyo and her bundle, Winnie and the maid ran for the still-open front door. Jim hoisted the collapsed George over his shoulder, then he too ran for the door. In a trice they were all out of the house, on the front drive.

  ‘We need to get to hospital,’ said Winnie, in an instant transformed into a figure of calm. The Winnie of old was back, the crazed beast laid to rest. She laid an arm round Yoyo, who was weeping over the bundled shape of Grace.

  ‘Sssh,’ said Winnie to Yoyo. ‘She’s all right. Hear her crying! That means she’s all right.’

  ‘The candle!’ Yoyo wailed. ‘I must have knocked over the candle! It was on the windowsill! It’s all my fault!’

  ‘We need to get her and George to hospital,’ Winnie repeated, turning to Jim. But Jim was already at George’s car, opening the back door, shoving George into the back seat. He ran round to the front, removed the crank, shoved it into place.

  ‘Take the other car! No room for you both in this one,’ he cried to Winnie as he cranked the car. George’s car was an almost-new one. The engine turned just once, and began to purr. Jim strode to the driver’s door and got in. He turned to Winnie. ‘Yoyo’s hysterical. You need to go with her and hold the baby. Or drive yourself. Can you manage?’

  Winnie took a deep breath to calm her panic. ‘But George! I need to be with George!’

  ‘You need to be with Yoyo and the baby,’ said Jim, and Winnie nodded.

  The watchman appeared out of the darkness.

  ‘Crank the mistress’s car!’ yelled Jim out of the window as he drove off, wheels crunching on the gravel.

  The watchman obeyed, ran to Yoyo’s car. The car coughed and spluttered, shuddered and groaned, the lazy old motor reluctant to start. Winnie opened the driver’s door.

  ‘Yoyo. Can you drive? Or shall I?’

  ‘I can’t! I can’t! I have to hold my baby!’ wailed Yoyo.

  ‘All right then. I’ll drive,’ said Winnie nervously.

  The watchman cranked at the bonnet. The car juddered, but nothing happened.

  ‘Come on!’ wept Yoyo. ‘Start! Start! Start!’

  Winnie turned to the maid.

  ‘You come too – get in the back. What’s your name?’

  ‘Mabel, miss!’

  ‘Good. Sit next to the mistress and try to calm her down.’

  Mabel got into the back seat just as the motor turned over, coughed and finally growled into action. The watchman backed away. Already George’s car was out of sight. Yoyo’s much older car shuddered, almost stopped, coughed again in protest as Winnie turned it to face the gate. She wasn’t an experienced driver and had never driven fast. That was Yoyo’s forte. But Yoyo was a bawling, spluttering mess, clinging to the equally bawling baby she held in her arms. Winnie said a silent prayer and pressed her foot down on the accelerator, as far as it would go. The car protested, but crept forward, after Jim.

  It took two hours to reach the New Amsterdam hospital. George’s car was parked outside, empty. The three women, Yoyo still weeping and holding the baby, rushed into the emergency entrance, where they were met by an attendant in white who was waiting for them. He prised Grace from Yoyo’s arms, laid her on a bare rusty gurney and wheeled her away, two nurses running beside him, Yoyo at the rear. Winnie closed her eyes and prayed again. She took a deep breath. A nurse approached her and placed a hand on her back.

  ‘Are you all right, madam? Were you injured?’

  ‘No – no, I’m fine. but – my husband. George. Where is he?’

  ‘Oh – the man they brought in earlier. He’s got a burn on his arm. And smoke poisoning. They took him to the Burn Unit, madam.’

  ‘Where’s the Burn Unit?’

  ‘Come with me.’

  The nurse led her outside, pointed to a wooden building across the courtyard.

  ‘That’s the Burn Unit. Lots of fires in this country, madam.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I hope he’ll be all right!’ the nurse cried after her. ‘I’ll pray for him!’

  Winnie walked across towards the building the nurse had pointed out. She walked slowly, wearily, as if she dreaded reaching it, as if she sensed the worst. A few paces before she arrived Jim emerged from the door. His face was unfathomable. He was struggling to hold back the tears: tears of relief, or tears of pain? Winnie couldn’t tell. He said nothing. He simply opened his arms and Winnie fell into them.

  And at last she was able to sob, into Jim’s broad chest, his mighty arms round her, holding her, offering a comfort that would never be enough.

  As for the final outcome:
I’ll let Yoyo’s letter explain.

  Epilogue

  Eight Months Later

  Dear Winnie,

  I’ve put off writing you this letter for the longest time – ever since that terrible night, but even before that. Long before that. But the time has come now to write it. Everything happened so quickly, afterwards, and I’ve never seen you since. You said it wasn’t my fault but of course it was.

  What I’ve wanted to say to you all this time, what I tried to say to you that night is: I’ve changed. I really have. People can change, you know. Yes, you know that. You of all people know that. I need to ask your forgiveness. For everything.

  I was so blind, Winnie. It was Mary who turned everything around. The moment I saw that girl something in me melted: something hard and unrelenting and proud and self-obsessed. Selfish! The moment I saw her that day on the Sea Wall: that’s when it happened. I had to have her, Winnie. I’m sorry but that’s the truth. I knew from that moment on that I had to have her – have her back. I know I was harsh the way I went about it but there was no other way as you would not have given her up willingly – would you? You wouldn’t.

  I had to have her back because I needed her as you don’t. You didn’t need to learn the lessons of love – I did. And only Mary could teach me. Only she could teach me that love is the greatest, the strongest, the holiest thing on earth. Only she could heal me. And she did. I don’t know if I am completely healed but I’m getting there, Winnie, I am. All that hard miserable mixed-up mess that made me such a horrible person – it’s gone, it’s going. I’m making progress. Remember what Mama used to say: we live in order to learn the lessons of love. That’s what I’m learning, and Mary is teaching me. You were a natural for those lessons. I wasn’t. But I am now.

  That night I was so stupid. So blind. So blind in my own happiness I could not see you – not really. I could not see your grief and righteous anger. I honestly thought you had already understood that I had to have Mary and had come to visit her, as a friend and sister. I was so eager to let you know I had changed I did not see you. That’s what selfishness does. It blinds you to the feelings of others. You care only for yourself. You’re like a mule with blinkers. That was me, that night, stupidly chattering away unable to see you were about to explode!

  So that’s my explanation. Mary has healed me, is healing me. I hope that is reason enough for you to at last forgive me. For everything. But because you are the better of us two, and the stronger, I feel you will. I hope you will. I know you will.

  I just wanted to say I’m sorry. Sorry about George, sorry about the pain I caused you.

  I’m not sorry that Mary is with me. I can’t be sorry about that. I just can’t. I am sorry I did it the way I did.

  I don’t think you’ll care about my news, but I’ll tell you anyway. Jim has been doing well running Promised Land since my departure. As soon as he got my telegram Geoff booked my passage to America and here I am: we married soon after my arrival. You must have heard that from Mama.

  But I do not like it here. That is, I like it well enough but it is not the place for Mary. I am a stranger here; the people I have met, those high-class plantation ladies, look down on me because of Mary and I really have no explanation for her existence that would satisfy their judgement. She is a bastard, of mixed race, and there is no place for her here, as there is in BG. She would grow up here an outcast, a pariah, bullied and excluded. She and I, we do not fit in. Geoff was brave to send for us both, but he should have known better. But men never do, do they? Also, since I am here, I have seen his true nature and I do not like it, Winnie. He reminds me so much of Papa – do you remember how shocked we were, when we saw that particular side of Papa? Geoff is the same. Charming and chivalrous on the outside, but a heart of steel when it comes to those beneath him. So for all these reasons we have decided to part company. It will be an amicable divorce as he too sees that we do not belong together. I suppose I am married to the Corentyne, to Promised Land. I cannot be happy anywhere else, not even in Georgetown.

  Promised Land might be just a heap of ashes now, but it shall rise again. I shall build it up, make it great, just as I have always promised myself.

  So I am coming home. We are coming home, Mary and I. I have already booked my passage and will arrive on 4 March. I am hoping that by then you have forgiven me. That you will allow Mary and myself to stay in your home for a while – there are matters in Georgetown I need to attend to.

  I will rebuild Promised Land, Winnie. I will. You and the boys will always have a home there. The boys need to know their heritage, know the smell of burnt sugar. Perhaps one of them will be interested in sugar farming. Who knows? Mary is their sister; it will be wonderful for her to have eight brothers.

  So this is what I am asking. For your forgiveness, and a place in your heart, and in your home. Let me be the sister I was meant to be, before everything went so very wrong! I write this with tears in my eyes, Winnie, and I beg you from the bottom of my heart. Because Mary may have healed me but it is your love that will make me whole. Love me as you used to do. Love me again.

  Please give my regards to George. I want to say sorry to him too, in person, but I know he isn’t as forgiving as you. Nevertheless: I am sorry. Please tell him that.

  * * *

  In all sincerity,

  * * *

  Your sister Yoyo

  About the Author

  Thank you so much for reading The Sugar Planter’s Daughter. I do hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  I’d love to know how you reacted to this story. Did it make you sad? Did it make you cry? Did it make you think? Did it take you back to the past? To a country that you perhaps did not know before? Which of the characters did you like the best, and which one did you love to hate? Did it make you see history from a new perspective? Did it change you in any way? I’d be delighted to hear your reaction, and the very best way of getting back to me is through a review, even a short one.

  Getting feedback from readers is always wonderful, and it also helps to persuade other readers to pick up this, or another one of my books, for the first time.

  When I write I am always thinking of you, the reader, and feel somehow connected to you. It’s thrilling for me to know that out there you, a perfect stranger, are reading the words I wrote, following a story that came from my heart; somehow, this makes you not a stranger, but a friend. Isn’t it wonderful how words, stories, can connect us all?

  If this is the first ‘Winnie’ book you’ve read, perhaps you’d like to find out how her story began. You can do so in the first book of the Quint trilogy, The Secret Life of Winnie Cox. And if you’d like to know how the story continues – because of course it does! – then stay tuned, as I’ve more up my sleeve. And here’s a big secret – you can take a sneak peek far into the future by jumping a few decades: you’ll meet Winnie again as a wise Grandma in my previously published novel, The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q. She doesn’t play the main role in that book, but she’s there all right!

  To keep up-to-date with the latest news on my new releases, you can sign up to receive an email whenever a new book comes out by clicking on the link below. I promise to only contact you when I have new book out, and of course I’ll never pass your email on to anyone else.

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  The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q

  An epic page-turning family saga…

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  Thirty years of family secrets. Three generations of women. One family heirloom that could change everything.

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  When she ran away from her childhood home in Guyana, Rika swore that she would never return. Cut off from her family, she has fought hard to make a life for herself and daughter, Inky, in London.

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  Now, over thirty years later, Rika’s cantankerous, wheelch
air-bound mother, Dorothea, arrives in London. But as old wounds re-open, Dorothea and Rika are further apart than ever.

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  Inky soon learns that her grandmother is sitting on a small fortune. As she uncovers the secrets of the past one by one, she unravels the tragedy that tore her mother and grandmother apart. But nothing can prepare her, or Rika, for Dorothea’s final, unexpected revelation.

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  An epic, mesmerising tale of tragic loss, the strength of words left unspoken, and the redeeming power of love.

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  Buy here!

  Read what readers are saying about The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q:

  ‘A beautiful story about tragic love and ultimately about forgiveness…with powerful messages about love, life and learning to let things go in order to be happy.’ livinglifewithjoy