Marianna

by Nancy Buckingham

  At luncheon, Eunice was full of excitement because she just received a telegram from her fiancé. He would be arriving the next day on a brief, unexpected leave. Though Marianna was pointedly excluded from the conversation, by listening she deduced that Cedric Kendall’s parents — his father was a baronet — lived in an Elizabethan manor house just across the county boundary in Sussex. Cedric, it emerged, was twenty-three years old and a lieutenant in the Blues; and if Eunice’s opinion could be trusted, the young man was utterly perfect in every conceivable way. William’s daughter was quite transformed when the bitterness left her eyes, into a girl blissfully in love. Marianna could not suppress a feeling of envy for someone whose cup of happiness was full and brimming over.

  Somehow, she wore away the long hours of the day. She read a little from a book she found on the library shelves, a novel of Mr Thackeray’s, and then she took her sketchbook and walked down to the river to make a drawing from the little rustic bridge, as she had promised herself. But the day had turned bleak again by now, with a flying wet mist that shrouded the countryside. Marianna shivered and in angry frustration she ripped out her attempted drawing and crumpled it in her hand. She was thankful to get back to the house, and the warmth of a fire.

  She retired early, and though she composed herself to sleep, she was still restlessly awake at midnight. There was no denying it, she missed the closeness of her husband beside her; the closeness of another human being who did not hate and resent her. William loved her, he had repeatedly made that clear, he loved her with extreme devotion. And she would come to love him too, in due course of time. When babies began to arrive, her role as William’s wife would take on its proper meaning. Marianna was filled with a sudden longing for a child, clinging to that happy prospect as the answer to all her problems. But for her to bear a child her husband must first implant his seed. Till then, her marriage bed seemed devoid of its true purpose.

  * * * *

  Cedric Kendall arrived the following afternoon. He came directly from the train and secured Harriet’s permission to carry Eunice off to stay overnight at his parents’ home. He was a tall, dashing, fresh-faced young man — everything that a young officer in one of the most fashionable Guards regiments should be, looking quite splendid in his uniform of blue with scarlet facings.

  Harriet introduced him perfunctorily to Marianna, and it was manifest that a few hasty explanations had already been made regarding herself. The young man was far from being at ease in the presence of his future stepmother-in-law. Nevertheless, with inbred good manners, Cedric applied himself to making conversation as they drank tea in the drawing room, while his fiancée was upstairs preparing for her night away from home.

  ‘Er ... I daresay everything in England must strike you as different from what you are accustomed to, Mrs Penfold?’

  ‘Indeed yes, Lieutenant Kendall.’

  ‘Vastly different,’ Harriet observed coldly.

  ‘I find the bleakness of the weather and these cold winds somewhat trying,’ Marianna added, after a slight pause.

  ‘Yes, I imagine you must do.’ In his grey eyes there was a kindly, sympathetic expression, conveying to Marianna an understanding that she had worse than merely the weather with which to contend. ‘Tell me, was the voyage comfortable?’

  ‘Yes, very smooth and agreeable. It was the first time I had travelled by ship, Lieutenant Kendall, and I found it vastly exciting. Also, after we docked at Southampton, I was thrilled to ride in a train, and likewise in a wheeled carriage. You know, perhaps, that we have no wheeled carriages in Madeira, for the terrain is too mountainous?’

  ‘I was unaware of that,’ Cedric replied with a smile. ‘I hope, most sincerely, Mrs Penfold, that you will find many other new experiences in England to afford you pleasure.’

  The pleasant conversation continued. Was not Highmount a fine house? Yes, very splendid, and the grounds were truly delightful. Harriet suggested with a tight smile that perhaps Marianna found the park and pleasure gardens bewilderingly large, after her father’s much smaller estate in Madeira. A faint flush appeared under Cedric’s clear skin and he hastily inquired if it were true, as he had heard, that Madeira was an exceedingly beautiful island, with magnificent scenery and all kinds of exotic flowers?

  But when Eunice entered the room a moment later, looking very lovely in an amber-coloured gown trimmed with lace points, and a straw hat bedecked with daisies, the warmth Marianna had felt at Cedric’s friendly attitude towards her was instantly gone. All his attention was for his fiancée, his adoration for her shining forth from his eyes. Marianna gave a little shiver, wishing forlornly that William would come home soon.

  The young couple left in the brougham and Marianna joined Harriet at the front steps to wave them off. The wind was lessening now and the rain had quite ceased, so on an impulse she set out for a short stroll, just as she was, keeping to the gravelled path. Presently, she found that without conscious intent she had come to the belvedere where the telescope stood. The atmosphere was too misty for her to see any details of the distant view, but she found a strange comfort from pointing it in the general direction of Madeira. Somehow, the very magnification of the lenses seemed to carry her a little nearer to the beautiful island where her heart still lingered. Unexpectedly, a sob caught at her throat as memories rushed in — memories of carefree summer days at the Quinta dos Alecrims, of her walks with Jacinto and their lessons together. Of Jacinto strumming his machete and singing in that wistfully melodic voice of his. What was he doing now, at this very moment that she stood here?

  Marianna swung the telescope away just as a shaft of sunlight struck through a gap in the clouds. It illumined, some distance away among the parkland trees, the motionless form of a coachman perched on his high box. She adjusted the focus as William had shown her. It was the brougham which Eunice and Cedric had taken, and she wondered why it had stopped there, still within the grounds. Searching the area, she quickly found the answer. A couple of hundred yards away but doubtless concealed from the coachman’s sight, Eunice and Cedric were standing on the little rustic bridge over the river, where she herself had stood with William on her first day there. But they were not gazing down into the water flowing beneath their feet; they were locked in a close embrace, kissing passionately. The telescope brought them startingly near, almost as if within reach of her outstretched hand. It gave Marianna a sense of shame; she felt like an invader of their privacy, like some horrible Peeping Tom who greedily spied upon lovers in their moments of intimacy. Even so, Marianna could not look away. She stared and stared, fascinated, her heart surging with such painful jealousy that she could scarcely breathe.

  The sound of someone descending the stone steps made her turn guiltily. Abandoning the telescope, she saw to her great surprise that it was her husband.

  ‘I have just this moment arrived home,’ he called down to her. They told me you were strolling in the grounds, and I couldn’t wait to be reunited with my darling pet.’

  ‘William! Oh, William!’ Seeing the look of fondness on his face, Marianna felt a great leap of joy. If she had secretly harboured other dreams, they were forgotten now. She ran to meet him and hurled herself into his arms. William held her close for a moment, his lips pressed to the softness of her hair; then gently he set her back from him and tilted her chin with one finger to study her face,

  ‘What is this? Such fluttering excitement! Are you really so delighted to see your Billykins again?’

  ‘Oh William, of course I am.’ Then, because she wanted at this moment to say what would please him most, she added shyly, ‘I am overjoyed to see my Billykins.’

  He closed his eyes and sighed his pleasure. ‘Was it very cruel of me, going off and leaving my precious one? It was only for two days ... less than two days.’

  ‘It seemed like an eternity,’ Marianna whispered.

  ‘Never mind, I am returned now. And if my absence has made your little heart beat even more fondly, well, that is no bad thing, e
h? What were you so interested in, my angel, peering through the telescope?’

  ‘Oh, nothing,’ she said quickly. ‘It was just ... well, the telescope makes all the scenery look so miraculously close. I find it fascinating.’

  Her husband smiled benignly and pulled the leather cover over the instrument, ‘There is something I have to tell you.’ He paused for effect and his face became grave. ‘I am off to London again in the morning, for two or three days this time.’

  ‘Oh no, William, must you? It’s so soon.’

  ‘I’m afraid that I must. In fact, my little love, I think you would be quite cross with me if I were to change my mind about going now.’

  ‘Cross? Why so? I don’t understand.’

  He laughed and playfully tweaked her nose. ‘Because this time, kitten, you are coming with me. There now, hasn’t that made my darling girl happy?’

  William’s loving presence, his kindness and thoughtfulness, had all at once transformed her world. The problem of his family’s hostility, of her loneliness and sense of isolation, were swept away as mere bothersome details. She clung to her husband’s arm with both hands and gazed up eagerly into his face.

  ‘Tell me what we shall do in London, William. Where shall we be staying? Didn’t you say that your London house is still closed up for the summer?’

  His deep-set grey eyes twinkled. ‘I left instructions at Cadogan Place for the house to be made ready for us, so you will see your other home, my angel one. As to what we shall do in London, I am saving all that as a surprise.’

  She laughed up at him. ‘You tease me so, William. Tell me, tell me!’

  ‘Well now, let me see ... for one thing, I plan to take you to the Zoological Gardens in Regent’s Park. How will you like that?’

  ‘Oh William, how thrilling! And shall I see real live tigers and lions and elephants?’

  ‘Indeed you will,’ he chuckled. ‘And if you are a very good girl, I might even allow you to ride upon an elephant.’

  ‘Oh William!’ she exclaimed in an extravagant show of delight. ‘And what else shall we be doing?’

  ‘No, I am not going to give away any other of my surprises. My pettikins cannot wheedle anything more out of me, however prettily she pleads.’

  William was in such a thoroughly benevolent mood this afternoon that as they mounted the steps and began walking back to the house arm in arm, Marianna mentioned having met Eunice’s fiancé earlier on. Cedric Kendall had been so pleasant towards her that she felt a need to speak up in his favour.

  ‘I thought him a most agreeable young man,’ she told William. ‘And he is so very handsome!’

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘He and Eunice seem extremely happy together, William. They are obviously very much in love with one another.’

  ‘The fellow is nothing but a vain poseur, who struts around in that fancy uniform of his expecting to bedazzle every foolish young girl he encounters. As, seemingly, he has bedazzled you.’

  Marianna was stung into a heated response. ‘Since you appear to have such an exceedingly low opinion of Lieutenant Kendall, it seems curious that you gave your consent to his marrying your only daughter.’

  William halted abruptly. The expression on his face was thunderous.

  ‘You are not to question my actions, Marianna. I thought that was clearly understood.’

  ‘But I... I was merely…’

  ‘I shall not warn you again,’ he rapped. ‘Heed what I say, child, or you will regret the consequences.’

  Chapter 7

  Dinner was a subdued and silent meal. Marianna’s temper, which at first had raged rebelliously at her husband’s unfairness, had long since been quenched by a dismaying thought. If she were to make an enemy of William, she would have no friend at all in England. Her plight then would be truly terrible.

  Immediately dinner was over, Ralph took himself off somewhere in the gig and William adjourned to his study. Rather than spend time in Harriet Fielding’s unwelcoming company, Marianna excused herself and went up to her room, where she rang for Hilda. When she explained this early retirement to bed with an invented headache, the girl showed touching concern.

  ‘I’m ever so sorry, ma’am. What can I get you for it?’

  ‘Er ... nothing, thank you, Hilda.’

  ‘P’raps you’d like me to borrow a bottle of smelling salts, ma’am. I believe most ladies find that a help.’

  ‘No, no, truly. I shall soon be right as a trivet, I’m sure.’

  Faced with this kindhearted sympathy, Marianna felt quite guilty about her white lie. She was fairly confident now that allotting Hilda to her as personal maid had been a deliberate insult on Harriet’s part, since the girl was so young and inexperienced. But in the event, this choice was to Marianna’s liking. There was a frankness and simplicity about the freckle-faced country girl, and a genuine desire to please. They were much of an age, and both of them were feeling their feet in a new and untried way of life. Hilda’s inexperience was a solace to Marianna for she did not feel threatened by having critical eyes watching her every step, as would have been the case with an older maidservant.

  In bed, with Hilda dismissed, Marianna lay between the cool sheets and prayed that her husband would come to her tonight, despite his anger this afternoon. William was her anchor, her safe harbour in these alien surroundings. She desperately needed to be reassured that he still loved her, that she was no longer in disgrace.

  She had almost abandoned hope when at long last she heard the door from William’s dressing room open. As he slipped into bed beside her she did not feign sleep, but turned and clung to him in a tumult of relief.

  ‘Why, whatever is this?’

  He seemed a trifle taken aback by her intensity, but gratified nevertheless. As his arms closed around her and he drew her against him, Marianna was aware of his heart beating loudly, his body trembling.

  ‘There, there, my darling one. I’m afraid that Billykins has to be cross sometimes with his willful little girl. But that is all forgotten now, forgotten and forgiven. So off with you to the Land of Nod. We have an early start in the morning.’

  * * * *

  The clatter of horses’ hooves on the smooth macadamized road seemed to Marianna as joyful a sound as the pealing of church bells at festa time. The overall greyness of the morning had little effect on her soaring spirits. She sat beside William in the carriage with her arm through his, while his fingers pressed hers fondly. Outside, sitting perched up with the coachman and Marianna’s trunk, Hilda was just as agog to see London as her mistress. And later, in the reserved first-class compartment (with Hilda in a nearby third-class), Marianna felt almost sick with excitement as the train hurtled along at an incredible rate, surging and swaying as it rattled over the iron rails.

  The outskirts of London were disappointing, street after street of identical drab little houses backing on to the railway.

  Then Marianna caught a glimpse of the River Thames and, across its majestic width, the stately gothic towers of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. Waterloo Station was enormous, a bewildering tumult of shunting, snorting locomotives and shouting porters. William despatched Hilda and the trunk in a hansom cab, to await her mistress at the house in Cadogan Place. Then he handed Marianna into another cab which carried them over Waterloo Bridge. On the Victoria Embankment they paused for a few minutes so that William could point out the workmen busily erecting scaffolding to lift the giant obelisk called Cleopatra’s Needle. This, he explained, had been brought all the way from Egypt in a specially-made floating chamber.

  ‘Is that really true, William? How wonderfully clever!’ Marianna had discovered, in the brief period of her marriage, that the best way of pleasing her husband was to exclaim in awe at everything he told her, to express extravagant praise for all that he showed her. Today she found this no effort; every moment, on every hand, there was something to call forth rapturous exclamations.

  ‘My angel, you are so good for me,’ William murmur
ed delightedly. ‘Showing you London is like seeing it all again for the first time myself, with the fresh young eyes of innocence.’

  St Paul’s Cathedral was the most wondrous edifice Marianna had ever beheld. It was infinitely larger than the cathedral at Funchal and none of the illustrations she had seen of Wren’s great masterpiece had prepared her for such vastness. She and William spent half an hour in reverent admiration of its many glories, then climbed the steps to the Whispering Gallery, and still further to the Golden Gallery.

  ‘But this is high enough,’ William declared, somewhat short of breath by then. And indeed it was high enough, for the panorama across London was far more extensive than anything Marianna had ever seen, even from the very summit of Pico Ruivo in Madeira. The buildings of London stretched and stretched away to the distant countryside. And through it all the River Thames wound like a huge silver serpent.

  For luncheon William took her to a luxurious restaurant called the Criterion, at Piccadilly Circus, where they ate in the most palatial surroundings among such fashionable ladies and gentlemen that Marianna almost gaped at them open-mouthed. Then she caught her husband’s eye, and blushed.

  ‘Oh dear, it’s very rude of me to stare, isn’t it?’

  Surprisingly, though, William was not displeased with her. Instead, he smiled and patted her hand in full view of everyone,

  ‘You really are enjoying yourself, my pettikins, aren’t you?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she averred. ‘It’s truly, truly wonderful, William.’ And she noticed that he was quite overcome, with even a few tears in his eyes.

  After luncheon there was still more sightseeing from a cab. Round and round the streets of London they drove, until Marianna became dizzy with the effort of trying to store in her memory all the famous places and buildings she had seen. Then at last William decided that it was time they went home to rest and change before the evening’s outing.

  In Funchal, every residence was as different as it could be from its neighbour. But her husband’s home in Cadogan Place was one of a long terrace of houses almost exactly similar. Elegantly impressive, of solid construction and four stories high, each had a flight of steps rising beneath a columned portico, with identical stone balconies at the first floor windows. A grave manservant in black was opening the front door even as William handed her down from the cab, and bowed to them deferentially.