by Sharon Maas
‘Poor Winnie!’ said Miss Wright, patting me on the back. ‘Your eyes are quite red! Such a caring, sensitive nature! Don’t cry, dear. Your Papa is a clever man. He’ll sort everything out.’
I glared at her through my tears, and gritted my teeth. She was so condescending! The train stopped, as usual, at Kitty Station. I resisted the urge to rush to the door and leap down to the platform. Rush off to Auntie Dolly and lay the problem in her lap. I hadn’t seen Auntie Dolly for over two years, but I knew where to find her and soon I would. I would see her and Myrtle and the children. And of course George. My George.
It was plain to see that last night had been the climax to a long, long stalemate. A bloodletting from which there would be no going back. Yoyo might pass it off blithely as simply another incident of self-defence against ‘coolie insubordination’ but I knew better. I knew the minds of the coolies. I knew that this would be more, much more, than Yoyo could even imagine. Their rage would erupt into something beyond imagination.
Yoyo had grown so callous. Two years ago, when we had first discovered the plantation’s dark secret, she had been on our side, on the side of the coolies. Now she was firmly lodged on the planters’ side. But then again, Yoyo’s entire being was dedicated to the pushing away of all feelings she deemed weak, and to push ahead with those she considered strong. The planters’ position was one of strength; the coolies’ position one of weakness. Yoyo had simply grown up and found her rightful place. She would do things her way, and that was it.
The train’s whistle screeched; we chugged away from Kitty. A few minutes later we pulled into Georgetown. Porters swarmed around us, loaded our luggage onto trolleys, and we emerged from the building into the hot midday sun. Several hansom cabs were waiting outside; Miss Wright hired one and soon we were clip-clopping down Main Street.
It was only a few minutes to the Park Hotel, a long low white wooden building like a bungalow on stilts, lined with dark green Demerara windows. It looked so cool, so welcoming. We walked beneath the green-and-white striped canopy above the entrance. It was like walking into an oasis of peace. Involuntarily a wave of quietude and harmony washed through me, conjured up by the greenery of the forecourt with its waving palms, the serenity of the hotel lobby with the smiling, bowing, liveried African staff. We were shown up to our rooms: a single for Miss Wright, a double for Yoyo and me, with a wide balcony facing the back of the building.
Later we descended to the open-aired dining room for our dinner. More palms and flowering bushes around a wide clipped lawn. A few guests sat at tables placed around the lawn; English guests, the ladies looking cool in their long white gowns, the gentlemen looking hot in their black suits. White-gloved black waiters glided back and forth, bearing trays of drinks. At the other tables sat other English guests. The hum of conversation, the clink of glasses and cutlery on china formed a muted backdrop of sound.
It was halfway through that meal that Miss Wright chose to drop the bomb that finally split apart whatever was left of our family.
‘Girls,’ she said, looking from one to the other of us, ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’
We both looked up. Something in her voice let us know that she was not simply going to announce her resignation.
‘Your father and I are going to be married,’ she said then, and smiled. A smile of such smug triumph I wanted to reach out and slap her. My face must have revealed that very unladylike thought, for she added quickly, ‘I know this will come as a shock to you but as a matter of fact we have grown very fond of each other over the years and you can’t expect him to live like a widower for the rest of his life.’
‘But – Papa’s still married! To Mama! And she’ll be back!’
‘Nonsense, Winnie. Your mother has deserted you and him, and has no intention of returning. That should be clear to you by now – it’s been well over two years and not a sign of life from her in all this time. Desertion by the wife is grounds for divorce, as you might know; and your father plans to file for divorce.’
Yoyo, who had said nothing all this time, threw down her cutlery. ‘I suppose that’s what you planned from the start!’ she jeered. ‘Don’t think I didn’t notice. I know what you’ve been up to. I’ve seen you sneaking into his room at night. In fact, I’ve listened at his door when you’ve been in there. I should have known you were up to more than fornication!’
‘Yoyo! How dare you!’
‘You’ve always wanted to catch him as a husband, haven’t you? Mama returning would have put an end to all your plans, wouldn’t it? I’ve seen the looks you’ve given him. Batting your eyelashes at dinner while you discuss the crisis in Austria and all that rubbish. I should have known.’
‘Yoyo, I will not have you speaking to me in this tone of voice! Go up to your room immediately!’
‘I certainly will!’ cried Yoyo, and rushed from the table. Several heads turned as she fled to the door. Miss Wright turned to me.
‘I know it’s a shock for you, Winnie, and I know how devoted you still are to your mother and how you always hoped she would return. All I ask is that you try to understand. Your father was extremely lonely and of course he turned to me for comfort. A man needs a woman to help him through difficult times. You’re almost an adult now and you must understand that. You’ll be marrying soon yourself, if all goes well. This is adult life and you need to know these things. And besides – besides …’
She had the grace to blush. I waited.
‘Besides – your father is desperate for a child. A little boy! An heir! And I plan to give him just that. As soon as these troubles are over, he’ll be filing for divorce and we shall be married.’
Chapter Twenty- Five
It was two days before I was able to meet George, and by that time the news of Bhim’s death had hit Georgetown with gale force. The newspaper headlines screamed of it, and everyone we met seemed to be whispering of it, to repeat every detail and every rumour. At the hotel, people stared at us – they knew we were the killer’s daughters. The killer. My father was a killer. At the thought of it, the memory of it, my knees gave way. But I fought, fought against the creeping sense of hopelessness and despair. When people stared, I stared back, which was very unlike me. Not in protection of Papa, for he was a stranger to me. Not in defiance. But to tell them: You know nothing. Mind your own business! They would then look away in shame. I was in fighting mood.
I had to see George.
The day after our arrival Miss Wright took us both to Miss Yorke’s Institute for the Womanly Arts on Carmichael Street and arranged for our accommodation, supervision and education: not an easy task in mid-term, but Papa’s name carried some weight – in spite of the present scandal – and Miss Yorke was no doubt eager to fill beds, and no amount of tut-tutting and lip-pursing and frowning could hide the gleam in her eyes as she finally brought out her ledger and entered our names, having accepted ‘the little bonus’ offered by Miss Wright.
Yoyo, still sulking and refusing to speak to Miss Wright, achieved her desire to attend courses in Economics, Accounting and Business at the Government College, while I would be studying violin with a Mr Greer, whom Miss Yorke claimed was the country’s best music teacher. I would also be studying Advanced French and Art in Miss Yorke’s school. Both of us were to attend classes in Housekeeping, Needlework, and Culinary Arts, along with all the other boarders. There were twelve of us boarders – all upper-class daughters from the plantations or New Amsterdam – as well as several day girls, who were daughters of English and Scottish businessmen settled in Georgetown. The boarders slept in dormitories of three or four girls. We all ate together at two long tables, headed by Miss Yorke and her second-in-command, Miss Humphries.
Having settled us in, Miss Wright skedaddled back to the Courantyne. We were on our own.
I had to see George. I could not wait another day. It would require a certain amount of lying and subterfuge, but by this time I had no qualms and no conscience. That first morning at Miss York
e’s I complained quite brazenly of excruciating pains of a female nature, bending over double to demonstrate my agony. Miss Yorke sent me back to bed after breakfast. The moment the house was quiet I sneaked down the stairs, out the back door, down into the yard, and through the front gate.
Carmichael Street, to my great joy, was immediately parallel to Main Street. I had decided the best place to meet George would be on his delivery round. I had his home address, for I had been writing him there, but no idea whatsoever where Albouystoun was. Also, I knew that he was seldom at home, and I saw no point in confronting his parents on my own. And so, Main Street, just a block away, it had to be. I had worked out the approximate time we had met him here last time, and all I had to do was wait. I walked up and down the length of Main Street in my nervousness. I was not sure from which direction he would come, or which side of the street he would serve first: would he walk south from Lamaha Street, or north from the town centre? And so I prowled the avenue: up, down and up again, peering into the gardens of those splendid white mansions to catch a glimpse of the man I loved.
It was on that second walk up that I ran into Mrs Pennington, the wife of Papa’s friend Brigadier Pennington. I didn’t recognise her at first, as I hadn’t seen her for at least four years. But she recognized me immediately. She was walking in the opposite direction, accompanied by an older woman with a pink-lace parasol.
‘Why, Miss Cox! It is you, isn’t it? Miss Winifred Cox? Yes, it is. My, how you’ve grown!’
I stared at her, not sure what to say. She took both my hands in hers and pulled me to her plump breast in a rudimentary embrace, pressing a dry powdered cheek to mine.
‘Mrs Pennington. You do remember me, don’t you? We met at the Governor’s garden party some years ago – your mother was with you, and both your sisters – how are you all? I heard your mother is still in Europe? Oh, my manners – Mrs Dalton, this is Winifred Cox, the middle daughter of the Honourable Archie Cox, of Promised Land – in Berbice.’
Mrs Dalton, a tall, ramrod-backed woman held out a long thin arm ending in a white glove. I shook her hand; within the glove it felt like a dying bird.
I gave a little curtsy and managed to mumble, ‘Pleased to meet you, Mrs Dalton.’
At that very moment I glimpsed a flash of khaki between the two women. I stepped aside to get a better look. Yes. It was him.
‘Excuse me!’ I cried to the two women, and fled.
I leaped across the parapet and out into the street. I raced behind the bicycle, crying at the top of my voice: ‘George! George, come back! It’s me! Wait! Stop!’
I must have been loud enough, for he braked, jumped off the bicycle, and turned around. Two seconds later I was in his arms. The bicycle clattered to the ground. We clung to each other. I could do no more than cry his name, again and again and again. He nuzzled his head into my hair. His arms held me so tightly I knew he would never let me go. Never. Never. But then he did.
‘Winnie!’ he said, pulling away from me and I saw that look on his face once more, the look I hated. The look of worry and fear, and his eyes unsteady, shifty, glancing left and right in suspicion.
‘What you doin’ here?’ he gasped. ‘Why? You can’t do this, Winnie. In the middle of the street! Come, let’s get away from here.’
He picked up his bicycle and wheeled it over the parapet to the avenue walkway. I glanced up: Mrs Pennington and Mrs Dalton stood exactly where I had left them about a hundred yards away, stock still and staring as if they’d seen a ghost. I didn’t care. I didn’t care one bit. In fact, to show I didn’t care, I flung my arms once again around George and pulled him to me and kissed his cheek.
‘Winnie, stop it! You can’t do this!’ He pushed me away; he too had seen the two ladies, staring unabashedly at us.
‘Oh, fiddlesticks! I don’t care! I don’t care about anything anymore. I’m tired of hiding and sneaking and lying. I don’t care who sees or what they say. I love you and if you love me still you won’t care either. You do love me, don’t you? You do George, don’t you?’
I frowned as I gazed up at him, scouring his face for a hint of denial. He only squeezed my hand.
‘Yes – but Winnie, it’s dangerous. You don’t know how dangerous – people watching. And after what happened …’
‘Bhim died, George! Oh George … Bhim!’
His eyes grew moist at the name. ‘That’s what I mean, Winnie. Don’t you realize – no, you don’t. We can’t, Winnie. Don’t you realize – after this – we just can’t – no matter what – it’s just impossible – now …’
‘Nothing’s impossible, George! All I know is that I love you and I don’t care who sees and what they think.’
But George had found some inner source of sense and strength, and he pulled away from my hands even as I tried to embrace him again.
‘No, Winnie. You don’t understand. You out of your mind, or what? How you could even think we could have a future after – this?’
‘I just love you. That’s all. And you love me too.’
‘You don’t understand’. All that don’t matter. It don’t matter one bit. We’re jus’ two li’l people and what we want don’t count one li’l bit. This is bigger that both of us and what we want. So much bigger.’’
And then I opened my eyes truly and saw in his what he had been trying to say in words: grief and fury and desperation and emptiness. A deep pit of fear opened within me. I opened my mouth to speak but no words emerged.
‘You got to go, Winnie. Go now. Don’t walk past them ladies. Where you staying?’
I told him in a dull flat voice.
‘Then go on down a bit and turn left at New Market Street. Walk for a block and then turn right into Carmichael Street.’
‘When can I see you again?’
‘You still don’t understand? You can’t! We can’t meet ever again. Not ever – look how them ladies still starin’! They prob’ly gon’ report me to the postmaster and then I gon’ get the sack. And you …’
‘They’ll tell Papa but I don’t care.’
‘You’re a silly, foolish little girl. And so reckless, so careless. I don’t know what to do wit’ you. I just wish I didn’t – didn’t have feelings for you.’ He was crying, and trying not to.
‘Just talk to me one more time. Please! Come outside my house tonight. I’ll find a way out. Please!’
He stared at me, glanced at the ladies, back at me. ‘All right then. One more time. Tonight. Nine o’clock. No, ten. Outside your house.’
And he walked off. I stared after him. He did not look back. He got on his bicycle and sailed away. I waved at Mrs Pennington and Mrs Dalton and went the way he’d said.
I had not reckoned on the speed with which gossip flies in Georgetown. I managed to return to my room and my bed without being seen, and indeed, I came down for lunch, claiming my pains had disappeared. But by evening Mrs Yorke, and possibly every white adult female in the whole of Georgetown, knew. Well, I had known it was inevitable … I had just misjudged the pace of passed whispers, and the morbid curiosity of bored English ladies.
Mrs Yorke removed me from my dormitory and locked me into a small room in a front corner of the house. ‘I’ve telegrammed your father,’ she said, ‘And I expect he’ll be here soon to deal with you. This is a home for decent young ladies, you realize. I cannot jeopardize its reputation with loose girls.’
And then the facade of calm dignity crumbled. Her face, up to now a stiff mask of perfect emotional indifference, collapsed, twisting into a grimace of sheer contempt.
‘How could you,’ she spat, ‘how could you? Behaving like a common street girl with a – with a …’ She said it. She said that horrible ugly forbidden word, the word that not even Papa in his worst temper used in our presence, the word that would never pass my lips, that I would never write down or even think. She spat it out with such contempt, such hatred, such utter revulsion, I literally shrank into a corner.
‘There’s a chamber pot under
the bed,’ she said, regaining her countenance. ‘Here’s a lamp and your nightdress. You will be released when your father or your governess arrives.’
She thrust a roll of clothing and a small wicker lamp and matches at me. Slammed the door in my face and turned the key.
I inspected the room, but there wasn’t much to see; a cot, a chair, a table. There was a water jug on the table with a basin for washing, a towel rack with a threadbare towel on it; and, as she had promised, a chamber pot under the bed. This was plainly some kind of a punishment room, a prison for naughty girls.
But the window was unbarred, and I lunged towards it. It was a tall Demerara window, with a little slatted shelf on the outside and a slanting, top-attached shutter, a pole to hold it open, and ornately carved triangular wooden sides. I leaned over the shelf to inspect the possibility of escape. The room was in a corner and a drainpipe ran down the side, but even in my state of agitated rashness I knew I would never be able to scale it; the drop was too sheer, and too high; the ground was three stories down.
I had hoped that the room was above the gallery; that I could somehow clamber down on to the gallery roof and from there, using a rope of bed-sheets, down to the ground. But the gallery did not run the entire length of the house. It stopped two windows away from mine, and beneath me was only a wooden wall. I was truly trapped.
The six o’clock bee announced the descent of dusk. The key turned in the lock and a servant entered with a tray: a glass of water, two slices of bread, a small pat of butter. But I was too wound up to eat. I drank the water, paced the room, thought and thought and thought. I had to get out. I had to speak to George. I could not let it end like this. George would be coming soon. In his present attitude of pessimism he would be glad when I didn’t turn up. He didn’t care for me. He didn’t love me. What shame, to be chasing a man who repelled my every move! He could not love me, or he too would be willing to take every risk to rescue our love. But he did. I knew it. I saw it in his eyes. I saw everything in his eyes. I saw the love and the conflict and the misery and the desperation but he couldn’t hide that small spark of hope. It was up to me to cultivate it. I had to do something. I could not give up.
