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.

There was, of course, more, far more in the diary. Shocking things. Mama had had a love affair! Edward John was not Papa’s son, but the son of this secret lover! Perhaps, for that reason, I should understand him for sending her away – but he could have sent her to Georgetown, couldn’t he? Set her up in a house in town, so that at least we could have seen her from time to time? But no – he had to send her back to Salzburg, to the other side of the world!

I could not blame Mama for her infidelity. I understood it. Reading of her anguish, I could comprehend her finding solace in the arms of another. Solace, and even healing – but it was not to be. Edward John died, and that was the beginning of the end, for us all.

That night, I hid the diary under my pillow. The next day, if I could, I would go to Uncle Jim and discuss it all with him. Oh! I had even forgotten the telegram! I had to pass that information to Uncle Jim as well! But most of all – I needed to talk it all over, before I left for Georgetown. I couldn’t wait – the secrets revealed by the diary were too much for me to digest on my own. Yes – tomorrow I would see Uncle Jim.

But tomorrow had other surprises in store for me. Tomorrow held the final falling of the axe.

Mama’s Diary, Plantation Promised Land, 1910

Liebes Tagebuch,

Many years have passed without me writing to you. I no longer even talk to you in thought. I am lost. Completely lost in the darkness. I don’t even know if I love my daughters any more. I cannot find even the smallest spark of love for them, for God. The darkness has won. Not even music, my last refuge, can save me. My husband is a monster. I have married a monster. There is no escape. I am trapped in a cage. What can I do, where can I go? Just today, some little tendril of faith caught hold of me and I thought of you, dear Diary, and thus I am trying again. Yet I sit here with the pen in my hand and the words do not come.

Edward John’s death was the final straw. Though many years have passed there is no recovering from my grief. Mourning has made everything so much worse. I reach out to you in my thoughts but you are absent. All that I find is a black thick vacuum. I am lost in this pit of darkness and if ever …