by Sharon Maas
The Secret Life of Winnie Cox
Slavery, forbidden love and tragedy - spellbinding historical fiction
Sharon Maas
For Aliya
Chapter One
1910 – British Guiana
A telegram! There it sat, in its innocence and its power, staring at us in silence from a silver platter on the hall sideboard. Waiting. Unsuspecting, we had gambolled in from tennis, sweaty and exhausted, chattering and laughing as young girls do; Yoyo was fourteen and I sixteen, as blithe and blind as our age and our daydreams. And then we saw it, and an axe of reality fell through our little carefree world, cutting off our prattle mid-sentence; and we remembered: Mama. My heart lurched and slid to the soles of my feet; the tennis racket slipped from my hand. Yoyo gasped and her hand flew to her mouth. Such is the power of an unopened telegram.
It paralyzed us. We simply stared. It stared back, daring us to rip it open and read – which of course we couldn’t. My first panicked thought – once I could think again – was, Mama’s ship has sunk. The second was, or has been captured by pirates. One heard such dreadful stories about the Atlantic crossing. One sang hymns For Those in Peril on the Sea. One prayed and hoped and yet still imagined the worst at the sight of that little grey envelope:
THE HON ARCHIBALD COX
PLANTATION PROMISED LAND
BERBICE COUNTY
BRITISH GUIANA
Papa was out in the cane-fields and wouldn’t be home for another two hours at least. Once we had recovered our minds and our speech we ran to Miss Wright, our governess: we begged her to let us ride out to Papa, to deliver it ourselves, but she was adamant.
‘You know the rules, girls! Either we’ll send it with one of the yard-boys, or we’ll wait till your father returns.’
We did know the rules: the fields were forbidden territory for us girls. We pleaded; we reasoned: ‘But surely Papa would want to know at once, and have us all together, for support?’ But no, Miss Wright was adamant. Yoyo and I looked at each other; she raised her eyebrows and I nodded. There was no question: we couldn’t send it with a yard-boy. We sighed and surrendered to Miss Wright’s decision. We would wait. I knew this of Yoyo and she knew it of me. That’s how close we were in those days: we read each other’s minds.
We had to be there when Papa opened the envelope. We needed to read his face as he read it – distorted with pain, or smiling in relief. And so, pacing the gallery and glancing out the windows every few seconds, or running downstairs to the drive and out to the gate, we waited and watched for Papa’s return; we listened for his horse’s hooves, the creak of the gate when the guard-boy opened it, the barking of the watchdogs.
As luck would have it, Papa was late that day and the six o’clock bee had already started its punctual screech before we finally heard the longed-for hooves on the driveway. Yoyo and I flew down the front stairs. Papa, unsuspecting, flung himself off his horse and handed over the reins to the waiting groom, only to find himself beleaguered by two desperate daughters leaping at him, grabbing his hands and dragging him up the stairs, crying into his ears in a jumbled chorus.
‘Papa, Papa, Papa! There’s a telegram, Papa, from England! Quick, hurry! We’ve been waiting ever so long!’
Thankfully, Papa picked up on our urgency and hurried over to the sideboard where the little grey envelope still sat waiting on its platter. His eyes widened. He turned pale, just as we had. Yet still he would not be hurried. He picked up the silver platter, placed it on the side-table next to the Berbice chair. He removed his pith helmet and handed it and his whip to the hovering house-boy. He sat himself down in the chair and held out his legs for the boy to remove his boots. He slipped his feet into the waiting slippers. He removed a big handkerchief from the pocket of his breeches and wiped his face free of sweat and dust. He drank the entire contents of the water-glass held out to him by the boy, not without first taking the time to squeeze a sliver of lime into it. And only then did he pick up the telegram. By this time I had almost wet myself with desperation. It might be indecorous to mention this, but it’s true.
We watched his face, hardly daring to breathe. I’m sure my heart must have slowed to a stop as I waited for him to slit open the envelope, remove the slip of paper within, unfold it, and read. As he read, Papa’s moustache turned upwards at the ends with the curl of his smile. ‘Everything’s fine, girls!’ he said as he passed it to us to read: RUTH AND KATHLEEN ARRIVED SOUTHAMPTON STOP LETTER CONCERNING HEIR ON WAY GOOD NEWS STOP PERCY.
We breathed again.
‘I wonder what Uncle Percy means about an heir,’ Yoyo mused later, as she climbed under the mosquito net to join me in the big bed we shared. I held the sheet back for her and covered her as she lay down.
‘What does it matter?’ I replied. ‘Mama’s safe, and that’s the important thing. And Kathleen.’
Kathleen, our eldest sister, was the ostensible excuse for Mama’s voyage to England. Hungry for the London season and, hopeful of finding a suitable husband, Kathleen had begged to go too. Mama was to be her chaperone. But we all knew that Mama’s illness was the real reason for the journey.
But Yoyo frowned. ‘It must mean something!’ Yoyo’s mind, even then, was sharp and critical, less trusting than mine. Though we were close we were so very different. Yoyo – the childhood pet name that had stuck, short for Johanna, pronounced the German way, Mama’s way – was the one more likely to rebel, to protest, to challenge and break the rules. I was the gentle, compliant one, all of which makes my story all the more improbable. My story should have been Yoyo’s. The story of my transformation from a girl into a woman.
But on that day, I felt safe and comforted, as safe and comforted as a girl can feel when her mother is so very far away. It was the calm before the storm. Our very last days in the artificial paradise of Promised Land.
Two Months Later
I was in the middle of my afternoon violin practice – Elgar’s Salut D’Amour – when Yoyo burst in, a vision to behold. Her clothes were disarrayed. Her blouse that hung out from the waistband of her riding culottes was not only limp from the heat and sweat of her body but strangely mud-splattered, and her face was spotted with brown, and tear-smudged. She was wearing her riding boots – strictly forbidden indoors. Her cheeks were ruddy with some violent emotion and her eyes wide, and wild, and red. Her hair was dishevelled, falling free from its molly, and her voice was shrill with dismay.
‘Winnie! You’ve got to come with me! Now!’
‘Yoyo! What on earth … Why …’
‘I’ll explain. Just come. I need you to come. Please, Winnie. Please!’ She took the violin from my hands, peeled my fingers from the bow, and laid both on the table. I moved to put them away properly, but she would not let me.
‘Yoyo, really …’ Miss Wright, sitting at the piano, interjected. Yoyo ignored her.
‘Come on!’ She pulled at my arm. ‘Khan’s saddling Tosca for you.’
‘We’re riding? I need to change!’
‘Yes, but hurry! Hurry!’
I hurried – up to my room and then back down the stairs to the bottom house where I sat and pulled on my riding boots. That done, Yoyo grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. Infected by her urgency, I dashed across the sandy forecourt behind her to the stables, where Khan had already saddled a second pony for me. Yoyo’s own pony, Pascale, was as splattered with mud, or worse, as she was. His flanks still heaved from what had obviously been a punishing ride back from … somewhere. Khan handed us our helmets. We put them on; Yoyo mounted.
Both of us rode astride; we had given up our side-saddles a year ago and rejoiced in the freedom of riding like men. Papa had of course protested, saying it was most unladyli
ke. But who cared about being ladylike out here on the plantation? We were Sugar Princesses in a magical realm, a sunlit, wind-blown bubble of sweetness: sugar was our livelihood, sugar determined the seasons, sugar was our world. When your father is a Sugar King you grow up basking in such sweetness and light you think it will last forever. You grow up never knowing how fragile that bubble is, and that one day, it must burst.
I was about to swing myself up into the saddle when the ringing of a bicycle bell caused Tosca to leap away. I stumbled behind her, hanging on to the reins, and looked around.
A darkie was sailing up the drive on a bicycle. Not one of our darkies; I’d never seen this young man before. He approached with carefree abandon, his bicycle swinging down the drive in wide curves; as he drew nearer he flung one arm into the air in greeting. Yoyo, already mounted, and I, still on foot, watched in mute surprise as he rode right up to us, swung his leg over the cycle’s saddle and dismounted. His clothes were clean but worn: long khaki trousers, a short-sleeved khaki shirt and a peaked khaki cap: almost a uniform, a little too large for his lanky frame, a little too short for his height, for the trousers stopped well above the scuffed brown shoes. He wore no socks.
He carried a canvas bag slung around his shoulder, and into that bag he pushed a hand as he greeted us with an affable ‘Good afternoon, Miss!’ – and looking up at us, grinned, first at Yoyo, and then at me. He looked me straight in the eye, which I found strange; darkies always looked down when they addressed us. Yet his gaze was not impertinent; there was no disrespect in it, but also no deference. Instead, a playful innocence, coupled with such self-possession as I had never before seen in a darkie: frank, unfettered by convention. His eyes, I noticed, were almost black, deep-set and wide apart in a smooth-skinned face of burnt bronze. His voice, when he spoke, was deeper than one would assume for his apparent youth; a rich voice, with a pleasant Creole lilt.
‘You mus’ be Miss Cox? A letter for …’ he removed a small white envelope, and read the name on it, ‘The Honourable Archibald Cox.’
Did I detect a mocking note as he spoke the words the honourable? I must have been wrong, for his face showed nothing but innocent candour.
‘Yes, that’s our father,’ Yoyo replied, although he had addressed me; but I had lost my tongue. ‘There’s a letter-box at the gate – didn’t you see it?’
The young man scribbled in the air. ‘Registered delivery, Miss! Somebody gotta sign.’
I stepped forward to sign, Tosca’s reins slung over my arm, but Yoyo spoke out. ‘No, we’ve no time, Winnie’ She looked down at him, twirled Pascal around to show her impatience. ‘Take the letter to the door; give it to the housekeeper. She’ll sign.’
I finally found my voice.
‘Where’s Mr Perkins?’ I asked. Our letters were usually delivered by genial old Mr Perkins who lived above the Post Office in the village.
‘He retired, Miss,’ said the youth. ‘I’m the new postman, temporarily at least. I …’
‘We have to go,’ said Yoyo, interrupting impatiently. He nodded, touched his cap – I noticed he had not removed it – smiled again, placed his cycle on its stand, and walked towards the main entrance to the house.
‘No!’ called Yoyo, ‘The back door: you have to walk around the house, to the kitchen!’
‘Ah! Righty-ho, Miss!’ He grinned, again – looking at me, not at Yoyo – and then marched off to the back of the house. He turned around one more time, grinned again, touched his cap, and disappeared behind the building.
‘Winnie! Come on!’ Still whirling on Pascal, Yoyo was red-faced with displeasure.
‘No,’ I said simply. ‘I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s wrong? Where are we going?’
Yoyo had a tendency to overdramatize events; she also possessed the skill of infecting others with her zeal before they were aware of what they were doing. For all I knew she had trodden on a beetle and wanted me to save its life. Not that I didn’t think a beetle’s life worth saving. I just needed to know.
‘It’s Nanny! She’s dying!’ It was a cry that would rend the heart of a statue. Her voice broke. ‘I was out riding on the back dam … I met Gopal … he told me.’
‘Oh!’ was all I said, and swung myself into the saddle without a further word. Yoyo had already spurred Pascale and leapt away, towards the gate. I cantered off after her, down the driveway and out the gate onto the gravel road outside. This road ran east-west, parallel to the coast, but soon met a junction, a wider road that ran south towards the back dam and north towards the senior staff compound, the Promised Land village, and the East Coast. Yoyo turned north and spurred her pony into a gallop. I followed suit. The road cut through the cane fields, the growing canes now at half height were almost six feet tall. They acted as a funnel for the strong Atlantic breeze, which whipped the wide legs of my culottes high up around my thighs. Ahead of me, Yoyo lashed Pascale with her crop, urging him on. The gap between us widened.
Where on earth were we going? I had no idea where Nanny lived, and as far as I knew, neither did Yoyo. But perhaps she did? Gopal must have told her where to find her. In the village perhaps, as we were headed in that direction.
Nanny had left us years before, dismissed by Papa and replaced by Miss Wright. We were too old for a nanny, Papa had said, and Nanny was too old to work. Yoyo, the youngest of us all and the closest to Nanny, had thrown a tantrum, but Papa was adamant: Nanny must go. Nanny had gone and we’d never seen her again. More concerned with trying to win back Mama’s love and attention than by Nanny’s dismissal, I had forgotten her. Yoyo hadn’t. I had always been aware of the little notes she sent Nanny via her grandson, Gopal, our gardener. Nanny never replied, as far as I knew; but then, Nanny couldn’t read or write. I assumed someone had read the notes out to her. I hadn’t taken much interest. I hadn’t even thought of Nanny again before today.
The village was just over two miles away, but we weren’t anywhere near the first house before Yoyo slowed to a trot and then to a walk. She seemed to be looking for something in the cane field, and before long found it: an opening, barely visible between the man-high canes, and an overgrown stone bridge over the trench that ran beside the road.
She turned to me. ‘This must be it,’ she said. She walked Pascale over the bridge into the opening, which was, in fact, a well-hidden path; so well hidden that I had never noticed it before. We often rode to the village, where we would buy a packet of boiled sweets from Chan’s grocery, or crispy mittai from Singh’s bakery, or a variety of other treats. The village belonged to the plantation, and served the people who worked there. We knew the villagers and they knew us, and would smile and salute us, the men removing their hats if they wore them, and the women curtsying as we rode past, and we would smile, wave, and greet them, sometimes by name, in return.
Some instinct told me that this path was taboo, hidden as it was between two cane fields and made of earth, not of gravel or sand, and I hesitated. Narrow and crude, it was no path for a sugar princess to venture down. It felt alien, wrong; I had an intimation of venturing into forbidden territory, a vague sense of peril. But Yoyo had no such scruples. Without a word she led the way. She turned in the saddle, and gestured to me to come. I followed.
It was the beginning of the rainy season and it had rained on and off all day: a burst of rain lasting for five or ten or twenty minutes, followed by sunshine in a brilliant blue sky and fluffy white clouds drifting by until the next cloud came with a new downpour. As a result the earth on this path had turned to mud. Yoyo slowed to a walk and our ponies’ hooves squelched as they moved. Now and then we came across a puddle that filled the entire path, and still in single file, we waded through it. I called out:
‘Are you sure this is the right way, Yoyo?’
She half turned in the saddle. ‘Yes. Gopal told me. Just follow.’
So I followed and mud from the hooves splattered up onto my culottes – now decorously around my legs again – and fronds of green from the ca
ne on either side reached over and stroked my bare arms as the path grew narrower, and my heart beat faster for I did not like this place at all.
After twenty minutes of this my nostrils became aware of a pungent smell, a smell that grew into a stench as we continued.
‘Yoyo … I think …’
‘Be quiet!’ she commanded, and I left the sentence unfinished. On a normal ride, even if we were far apart, she would be chattering away gaily of this and that and I would be smiling and nodding. Now, I understood her silence; I knew well that death made people silent. I had learned that from Mama, after Edward John’s death. Dear little Edward John, our baby brother, his life snapped shut before it had even begun.
Yoyo’s attachment to Nanny began long before Edward John’s death. For years before that sad day, Mama had been drifting away from us, losing herself in a melancholy none of us could pierce. Yoyo, too young to cope with the gradual withdrawal of motherly affection, turned with full force to Nanny, who responded in kind. Nanny took Mama’s place in Yoyo’s heart; quite literally a Mutterersatz, as Mama would say in her own tongue.
We did not know the source of Mama’s sorrow; we suspected a part of it was mere homesickness, yearning for Austria, her homeland – but so extreme? It was puzzling. We only knew that she buried that sadness in the keys of her piano, and for years the Plantation Promised Land reverberated with Beethoven, Brahms, and Bach, incongruous on the hot flat plains of the Courantyne Coast.
Edward John’s death – finally broke her. Little Edward John, the only son and long-awaited heir – dead in his cot, a week after his birth – just when it seemed that Mama was returning to life, and rediscovering lost joy. His death almost took Mama with him. Her body recovered; her soul never.
And if Nanny was now dying – well, no wonder Yoyo was too distraught to speak. I understood it. But right now, disquiet was slowly seeping through me, and the silence made me shiver in spite of the heat of the afternoon, and it had nothing to do with death.
