The Sugar Planter's Daughter by Sharon Maas

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    â€˜You must be mad,’ I repeated, calmer now. Mama had raised my hopes only to dash them again; we were back to the beginning.
    Mama only chuckled. She took a sip of her coffee before she spoke again. ‘I’m not mad, but they say that he is,’ she said. ‘You might know him better as Mad Jim.’
    My jaw fell open; Mad Jim Booker! Mama must really be out of her mind.
    Mad Jim lives on the edge of Promised Land; he owns a big house there, and has a coolie wife, and all the coolies run to him with their troubles. Rumour has it that he is the brains behind all the labourer bother we have been having. That he masterminds the uprisings; that he instigates the protests and strikes that have plagued us the last few years. Mama’s suggestion was in fact to put the wolf in charge of the herd! It was preposterous. I said as much. Mama only laughed again.
    â€˜Hear me out,’ she said. ‘Jim’s good. In his young days he was trained in estate management, so he knows the ropes. He grew up on Estate Prosperity, in the Essequibo – one of the most successful of the Booker estates. He’s a renegade, it’s true – he had too much empathy for the workers for the company’s liking, refused to push them to their limits. But what he is now – as I’ve heard from Winnie, who knows him well – is a man who the labourers trust. They’ll work for him.’
    â€˜But Mama – you can’t run an estate on kindness! Mr McInnes is a brute but we can’t go in the opposite direction! We need someone moderate – not a nigger-lover.’
    The word slipped out before I could check it. I think I was as shocked as Mama. She sprang to her feet and strode towards the door.
    â€˜Never let me ever hear you say that word again in my presence!’ she exclaimed, and she was gone.

    T he second part of my plan for Clarence – my impregnation – is proving rather more difficult than the first. It’s said that men who drink rum are more easily excited by the ladies, but rum seems to have the opposite effect on my Clarence. It’s rather frustrating. In the four months we have been married we have had only had conjugal relations three times. It’s certainly not my fault. Once we are in our chamber I do all I can to charm and seduce him, but he simply flops and sleeps. How will I produce a son at this rate?
    I have taken to reducing his rum intake at the evening meal, which is harder than it sounds. Some time ago he took to inviting his friends from the senior staff quarters, Mr McInnes, Mr Hodgkin, Mr Frith and so on, to join him for after-dinner drinks and conversation on the verandah, just as Papa had done in the past, and of course drinks are always served.
    What an unpleasant, raucous lot those men are! I do not remember this level of noise when Papa was head of the household. Mr McInnes especially. Winnie and I had always loathed this man and had vowed to dismiss him the moment we had the power to do so, which unfortunately proved to be easier said than done; we can only let him go once we have a replacement, and that is proving more difficult than anticipated. Qualified estate managers simply aren’t running around free in British Guiana looking for work.
    We will have to look further afield; to the islands of the Caribbean. I sent a telegram to our relatives in Barbados, and they are spreading the word among their acquaintances on other islands; but till we find the right man we are stuck with Mr McInnes, whose main off-plantation strength seems to be telling bawdy jokes and guffawing heartily once he has told them – fuelled, of course, by our rum. Not in my company, of course – he isn’t that uncouth – but I make a point of listening behind doors and curtains, and tough though I am even I blush at some of the filth coming out of that man’s mouth. His daughter Margaret is my best friend and I cannot believe the