The Secret Life of Winnie Cox Read online

  Lightning flashed. The heavens broke and a waterfall gushed over us. We stood still, barely a foot apart. Not moving, not speaking, not reacting to the rain. He was soaked through within a moment; he seemed not to care. He only gazed at me through the rain.

  And then he spoke, at last, and said the word.

  ‘Miss Winnie – oh. I love you so much. I just love you so much. I can’t stop thinking of you. I just love you so much …’

  And then his hands were on my cheeks, cupping my face, and he was leaning forward, tilting my head up by the chin, drawing my face closer, kissing me, kissing my forehead and my cheeks, my nose, my chin, my closed eyelids, and at last, my lips. The slanting rain beating my cheek from the north was hard and cold and harsh, but his lips were soft and warm and sweet. Then he drew away and looked at me through the rain. His face was blurred and wet and I knew not if it was from rain or tears, because his face was a crumpled mask of abject misery.

  ‘I just love you so much! I’m sorry!’

  He turned away then, away from me, and wheeled his bicycle off its stand and jumped on to it and rode away from me through the rain. I stood watching him ride away, into the water. He never looked back. And then I turned and continued on my way to the library.

  I no longer walked. I ran, I danced. I twirled and skipped through the rain. I laughed, I sang, I yelled, I flung out my arms to the rain and the sky and the sodden earth; I grew wings; I flew, I sailed, I whirled and waltzed all the way to the senior staff compound. A puzzled guard opened the gate and I danced past him in a twirling, prancing, laughing, waving, rain-sodden gambol, a foal let out to play. He must have thought me mad; and mad I was. Mad with an ecstasy too huge to hold; mad with a sweet euphoria bubbling up through my being, a rush of golden splendour. The guard shook his head and smiled to himself as if to say, these white people!

  On I spun, dancing through the compound. The rain still fell in a steady cascade, lighter now after the first rush yet still enough to keep people indoors, and so I arrived at the library out of breath, grinning from ear to ear, without any further human encounters, and only one animal: Rummy, the librarian’s dog who usually waited patiently on the bottom step, ran out from beneath the house and greeted me with her usual overflowing joy. Elation exuding from every pore of my body, I stooped down and patted her soggy fur. It wasn’t enough. I flung my arms around her, cuddled her and laughed with her and she, enjoying such unabashed ardour, whined and wagged her tail and licked the rain from my face. I hugged her one last time, laughed goodbye, and ran up the stairs to the library.

  The library wasn’t really a full-time library. It was a private venture of Miss Hull, one of the European primary school teachers, whose passion was literature. It had started with her extensive private collection, which she lent out to the book-starved members of the senior staff compound. The demand was so heavy that this casual lending needed to be administered; that is, book borrowers needed to be monitored, and the lent books tracked. The books were duly indexed, classified, and given a room of their own in Miss Hull’s home; borrowers had to become library members, and were allowed access three days a week for two hours. In these two hours Miss Hull acted as honorary librarian. Books reached her from many sources; they were donated to her by senior staff members, and sometimes there were library book exchanges between other plantations. We would never run out of new books.

  Still grinning from ear to ear, I opened the front door and burst into Miss Hull’s gallery – her door was never locked – and water sloughed off of me onto her polished floor.

  ‘Oops!’ I cried, and exited again. On the sheltered porch I removed George’s mackintosh, laid it across the railing, took off the wellingtons, and re-entered the house. Miss Hull, drawn by the opening and closing of doors and my cry, now entered the gallery herself. Seeing me, she rushed up.

  ‘My dear Winnie! What on earth! Why, you’re soaking wet!’

  I had not noticed; how could I have, in the oblivion of ecstasy? In my reckless cavorting the hood from the mackintosh had fallen from my head and my hair was wet, and so was the hem of my skirt, all the way up to my knees, for I had skipped and danced through puddles without thought or care. Water had trickled past the mackintosh’s collar as well, down my neck and wetting my blouse thoroughly. It had even eased in through the tops of my wellingtons; my stockings were soaked. What did I care!

  But Miss Hull cared. She bustled away and returned with a towel and went about briskly rubbing down my hair while muttering comforting things like tut-tut and silly girl and come, dear! The towel was not enough. She ushered me into her own bedroom and made me change into clothes of her own: a skirt that was far too wide and long, which she rolled at the waist so that I would not tread on the hem, and a blouse that was far too loose at the front, Miss Hull being rather big-bosomed. She dried my feet and eased them into thick, hand-knitted woolly socks, the kind no one ever wore in BG.

  That done, she took a second look at my face. She frowned, and her lips puckered. ‘Whatever were you thinking, my dear, to come here through the downpour? And why on earth are you smirking like a Cheshire cat?’

  ‘Oh, Miss Hull, I’m just so happy!’ I replied, and added, ‘I love the rain, don’t you?’

  And then I hugged her.

  Unaccustomed to being hugged by her ex-pupils, and nonplussed by my out-of-character exuberance, she could only purse her lips some more, mutter a few more silly girls and pull away. She picked up my wet clothes from the floor and laid them over a clothes horse; and then she picked up the bag that had been slung over my shoulder.

  ‘Oh! Oh look!’ she cried. ‘These books are wet! They’re quite sodden! Oh, Winnie, really! You might take better care of our precious books! Oh, how careless of you! Oh, what a shame! They’re ruined!’

  I took them from her hands. ‘No,’ I said. ‘See? Only the top one got wet, and it’s only a few drops. It’s just a bit moist, that’s all; it will dry. Just lay it in the sun for a while. It’s only water, not tar or anything.’

  ‘What sun? I haven’t seen the sun for weeks. Oh Winnie, this is just so tiring of you. Whatever were you thinking?’

  ‘I wasn’t,’ I admitted. ‘I’m so sorry, Miss Hull. Truly I am. I’m afraid I got carried away a little.’

  ‘By the rain? I never knew the rain could have such an effect on you. Are you sure that’s the reason?’ She peered into my face as if looking for some hidden source of foolishness. My cheeks turned hot.

  ‘You’re blushing, my dear; I think there’s more to this than meets the eye. However, I won’t pry. What you young people get up to in your spare time is your own business and that of your parents, not mine. It’s such a pity about that book, however. Mr Dickens would be horrified at the way you treat his precious words. Haven’t I always taught you all to treat books with very special care? Oh dear, oh dear. And even of it dries out, it will be warped.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I repeated, truly sorry now. ‘If it does end up warped, Papa will replace it.’

  ‘That’s the trouble with you planter children,’ said Miss Hull in her sternest teacher voice. ‘Spoilt silly. “Papa will replace it”, indeed. That’s exactly the reason you take no care in the first place. If you had to pay for damaged goods with your own hard-earned money you would think twice before cavorting through the rain with my library books! Now, I suppose you want to borrow some more, so run along and choose a few, and please take better care next time! No running around in the rain with them! And in fact I’m not going to send you home until this weather lets up. If it doesn’t let up I’ll order a coach. Now run along, chop-chop.’

  Half an hour later I had chosen my books and the rain had diminished to a light drizzle. Miss Hull packed my damp clothes into a dry bag, wrapped up the books carefully and placed them in another, waterproof bag, and placed an umbrella in my hand as I left the house.

  ‘You can return it next time you come – I’ve got another one,’ she said as I pulled on my wellingtons. ‘Now ta
ke care, my dear!’

  I said goodbye and left the house. Over the porch railing lay George’s mackintosh. I picked it up and lay it lovingly over my left arm. I raised the umbrella over my head and walked down the stairs. Rummy jumped up at me, wetting my skirt with her paws, but I had no hands free to return her greeting so I only smiled at her and said ‘good girl’.

  Actually, I was thinking of the mackintosh. One fine day I would return it to George. I could hardly wait.

  Mama’s Diary: Norfolk, 1890

  Liebes Tagebuch,

  I keep resolving to write to you more often but everything gets in the way and holds me back. Kathleen grows bigger by the day, and fills me with delight – if not for her I would surely be pining away, I miss Archie so much. I have an excellent nursemaid for her, who loves her almost as much as I do – well, that is an exaggeration, but she is such a devoted nurse and I am grateful for her loving care. She is almost a friend. But I can’t let the family know. I am sometimes shocked and appalled by the way the servants are treated in this household. It is as if they are mere chattels. It is so un-Christian! It seems to me that I, though born Jewish, have a far more Christian heart than my in-laws. For instance, one of the maids, a slight, fearful girl younger even than I am, tripped on the carpet and fell, and in falling she dropped the vase of flowers she was carrying and it broke, and water splashed all over the floor, wetting the carpet. Her head hit the corner of a table and she had a cut on her forehead. We were all there as witnesses. But instead of showing concern for her injury, Lady Cox shouted at her for her clumsiness, and informed her that the price of the broken vase will be taken off her wages! And the servants earn so little to begin with! I could not bear it – I was so embarrassed, mortified by her arrogance and cruelty. The poor little maid.

  I managed to slip away once the maid had cleaned up and I went in search of her. I found her and ensured she was well looked after, and spoke a few words of sympathy. She was crying, and I longed to take her in my arms, but that of course would not do.

  I did take her hand and squeeze it, to let her know that I at least cared. She is human, just as we are, and it is not her fault she is born into lowly circumstances, just as it is not our accomplishment that caused us to be born into more advantageous conditions. As a new Christian I have taken the teachings of Our Lord to heart and does He not say we should treat each other with love and kindness? I just do not understand it. If this is the English upper class – well, I do not want to be a part of it.

  I almost forgot to mention that Archie has arrived safely in the colony of British Guiana – for at last I have memorized the name of my new home! – and seems to have settled in nicely. I cannot wait to join him, but we must wait till Kathleen is a little bit bigger and stronger. Thank goodness, my nursemaid – Elsa is her name – will be travelling with us.

  I look forward to it, and am no longer frightened by the Atlantic Crossing. I have found faith, as Archie instructed me, and now look forward to joining him at our new home across the seas. What an adventure it will be!

  I do feel homesick sometimes. I miss the mountains, the snow in winter, the cobbled streets of Salzburg; the music, the concerts, the opera, the balls. Occasionally, we do go to stay in the town house in London but it just isn’t the same. Most of all, I miss my language. Though I am now fluent – but very far from perfect! – in English, I miss conversing in German. How glad I am to be able to write to you, Liebes Tagebuch. I would surely forget my own language otherwise.

  Chapter Eleven

  The soaking was too much for me. The next day I woke up with a bad cold and a fever that kept me bedridden for over a week. I didn’t care; I relished it even, and understood. The fever seemed more a thing of the soul than of the body; or rather, it seemed to me that the fever of the body was a reflection of the fever of my soul, burning away at everything in me that was impure, heavy and dark, everything that was not of that great shining central essence of me, Love. It was a fever that sapped my heart of everything that might distort or cloud that essence; everything that was dross, or shallow, or of the self.

  And even as I tossed and turned in the single bed they moved me to, in the single room across the way from my old room, at the back of the house, so as not to infect or disturb Yoyo, even in the heat of my physical fever, I rejoiced and understood the great thing that had happened. And even as the doctor from the senior staff compound read the thermometer that refused to go down and shook it and frowned and tut-tutted and whispered to Miss Wright in a corner of the room, even as the nurse they hired from New Amsterdam wiped my body with cool flannels and changed my wet nightgowns and helped me to the potty and back, even then I smiled to myself, and knew; and when they left me to myself I hugged myself and basked in the deliciously sweet memories of that day on the way to the library. The kiss. I played it over and over and over again in my mind. I saw his face, bent low to mine, dark and wet with rain and maybe tears, his eyes, limpid with love. I felt his fingers on my chin, gently tilting my face up to his, the warm, soft touch of his lips on my cheeks, my eyelids, my mouth. And each time I replayed that scene visually, I once more went through that metamorphosis: the spectacular opening of a closed bud into the sunshine. Darkness became light. Sadness became joy. I felt, I knew, it would last forever, if only I could remember that scene and keep it present within me. It was real, it was present, it was the truth of my whole being.

  Sometimes, often, in fact, Yoyo came to visit, and of course wanted to talk. As the week wore on, the fever subsided, but the cold persisted and the doctor said I should keep to my bed. Yoyo, sometimes with Maggie in her wake, brought board and card games to entertain me; she offered to teach me chess, and even, if I were too weak to hold a book, to read to me – a great concession from Yoyo, who considered the reading of fiction a waste of time. But I did not want to be entertained, and I feigned weariness just to make her go away. Papa came too, of course, his brow at the beginning furrowed with worry. As the week wore on and I began to recover, his face took on its usual weather-beaten crispness. Papa’s presence was even more unwanted than Yoyo’s, and even more, I feigned weariness and heavy-eyed sleep, so that he would not stay long.

  The only company I wanted was the rain, and it did not disappoint. Day after day it poured down, a constant hammering on the roof. We were now in the fourth week of almost interminable rain. With it came a delicious sweetness, for it reminded me of him, and that precious stolen moment. I closed my eyes, curled up in a ball beneath the sheet, hugged my legs tightly, and smiled to myself, basking in the glow of my secret.

  I was not a secret-keeper. Papa would say fondly that I wore my heart on my sleeve and it was true: I had always, before the dramas of this season, blurted out all I felt and thought. But never had I felt anything of this magnitude, of this substance, and of this consequence. This new heart of mine I would not wear on my sleeve. This secret was precious, a treasure that was mine alone, all the more priceless because nobody else could even begin to understand. On the contrary: they would revile and rebuke me for it. Even Yoyo, I feared. And so I pushed away the thought of others and kept my heart as tightly locked as a vault.

  They say distance makes the heart grow fonder, and I now understood why. The distance between us, both in time and space, could only be breached by reaching out from within – my soul stretching out across the abyss to meet his. I did not need to see him, to talk to him, for love to grow. It grew as a plant grows, in silence; and the fact that it was forbidden was only nourishment, for love pushed against resistance and grew muscles. It would prevail!

  But after a while, I began to yearn for someone to confide in. I longed to share my secret, tell of my joy; doing so would surely double the delight. If only I had a friend, a girl my age, a sister of my heart! Yoyo could not fill that role. She with her mocking judgments and proclamations of Schmaltz. And besides, Yoyo now had Maggie, and preoccupied with her new friendship, she had turned away from me. There was only Mama, and she was far away
.

  Nevertheless, I wrote to her. One early morning, I slipped down once again to the study and Papa’s desk. Once more, I poured out my heart to her. I did not edit or understate my rapture; she must know it just as it was, raw and abundant in its flowering. She might never read these words; still she must know. Mama was an invisible god who must know each tiny movement of my soul; I told her all. What I did not tell her were the details of George’s person. I merely said: ‘He is of a social standing Papa will deem beneath me: but, Mama, Love shall conquer all. This much I know.’

  I folded the pages and put them in an envelope, sealed and addressed it, and hid it in my desk till the time should come to post it. The very word ‘post’, if only in thought, caused my heart to leap.

  As my illness subsided so did the rain, and by the time I was back on my feet it had diminished to only a light drizzle. I returned to the classroom and to the daily life of the household, physically weakened and much thinner; and also, a changed person.

  I was almost fully recovered when the note arrived, the call to action. Nora passed it to me one evening as I left the dining room. She placed a finger on her lips and slipped it into my hand, a piece of paper folded many times so that it was a small square hardly bigger than a thumbnail.

  I hid it in my bodice and unfolded it later, when attending to nature’s needs. Just a few scribbled words: ‘Please come to the post office as soon as possible.’ And George’s initials. I could hardly contain my cry of joy; instead, I closed my eyes tight and clasped the paper to my breast; then I folded it as tightly as before, slipped it back into my bodice, and went to bed. Tomorrow, it must be.