Marianna

by Nancy Buckingham

  It was late in the afternoon when Marianna heard sounds that signalled her husband’s arrival home. She dreaded having to meet him after last night, but she took a grip on herself and went down to the hall. She intended, without preamble, to tell William what she had done regarding the dressmaker, and why. It was a matter, quite simply, of making him understand that she was a woman now, not a child, and expected to be treated as such.

  Foster was just taking his master’s hat and coat. Shaking with nerves, Marianna began, ‘I should like to speak to you at once, William.’

  His smile was mechanical and did not reach his eyes. ‘In the drawing room, then.’ To the manservant, he said, ‘Whisky, right away.’

  When they were upstairs, her husband went to the fire and stood with his back to it, hands linked behind him. His expression was cold.

  ‘Well, Marianna?’

  But Foster would be appearing at any moment with the whisky. With a servant present, she could not make the little speech she had prepared. Instead, she said, ‘I ... I did not realize you would be out today, William.’

  He said nothing, as if feeling that no comment or explanation was called for. To Marianna’s relief the footman entered at that moment. Setting down the salver on a side table, he mixed whisky and soda as his master liked it.

  ‘Will that be all, sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The man withdrew and Marianna said at once, while she still had the courage, ‘Why did you not tell me that you had arranged for a dressmaker to call today?’

  Her husband held up his whisky glass to the gaslight. ‘I left a message for you,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, a message — a fait accompli. You did not see fit to discuss it with me.’

  ‘What was there to discuss? Mrs Prebble is one of the best dressmakers in London.’

  ‘I don’t doubt that for one moment. But I found my choice of style was restricted to a small selection previously made by you.’

  He sipped his whisky and waited for Marianna to continue. She stumbled on, ‘I cannot accept that I am to be allowed no freedom at all, William, even in the matter of my own clothes. So ... so I sent Mrs Prebble away.’

  ‘You did what?

  ‘I sent her away.’ She was trembling now, wishing desperately that she had been more circumspect in challenging her husband. But the deed was done and there was no going back. She watched as he swung round to lodge his whisky glass on the high mantelpiece before turning to face her again.

  ‘That was a grossly impertinent thing to do,’ he said, and there was a steel edge to his voice. ‘You had better understand that I will not tolerate such willful behaviour. I am in half a mind to put you across my knee here and now, and administer a thoroughly good chastisement. I warn you that I shall not hesitate to do so, if you do not mend your ways.’

  Outraged, Marianna started to protest, but he interrupted her sharply. ‘Be silent! You are to go up to your room this minute and write a letter of apology to Mrs Prebble, requesting her to be so good as to call again in the morning.’

  ‘William, you cannot expect me to —’

  ‘You will do as I tell you. And when the letter is written, bring it to me to approve and I will have it delivered by hand at once. Be off with you!’

  To be dismissed like a child from her own drawing room! Marianna stalked out and ran upstairs with fires of rebellion raging. But if she did not do as her husband commanded, he would carry out his threat to chastise her physically — she had no doubt of that. In bitter resentment, she took a seat at the escritoire in her bedroom and drew out writing paper and pen. For a long time she pondered over the exact tone to adopt, that she might retain a shred of dignity. She spoiled at least a dozen sheets of paper before finally giving up in despair and writing meekly. Dear Mrs Prebble, I am sorry that I was so rude to you this morning and must ask your pardon. I shall be obliged if you could arrange to call here again tomorrow morning. Yours sincerely, Marianna Penfold.

  ‘It will do,’ her husband conceded when she showed him the letter.

  Marianna spent a lonely evening. William joined her at the dinner table but was silent and withdrawn as on the previous evening. Afterwards, she tried to settle with a book of poetry in the drawing room, but was far too unhappy to make any sense of the words. She rose to her feet and wandered about the room, touching the smoothness of porcelain, the coolness of bronze, and giving a few moments’ idle study to one or another of the paintings on the walls. She moved to the piano and, lifting the lid, struck a few keys at random. The pure notes shivered on the silent air and died. She stood for a long while staring at her reflection in the Napoleonic mirror on the chimneypiece. There was a pallor to her face, and dark smudges of shadow beneath her eyes.

  The coals in the fire shifted with a rustling sound, and Marianna reached a sudden decision. Her husband’s displeasure, his enmity, was more than she could bear. She would go to him now and somehow, without arousing him to fresh anger, she would win back his favour. If a change was to be made in their relationship towards a greater degree of personal freedom for her, then it must be done slowly, one small step at a time.

  William was in his study. So intent was she on putting her plan into effect that she entered without waiting for a reply to her knock. She found her husband seated at his desk, his back to the door. He did not turn his head but asked in a strangely muffled voice, ‘Is that you, Marianna?’

  ‘Yes, it is I.’

  She took a step or two nearer, then halted in dismay. Spread out on his desk were the photographs taken yesterday, each set in an oval mount with an engraved border of leaves. In one that she could see — and her cheeks flamed at the sight — she was almost totally naked.

  Her husband turned slowly in his chair. ‘Yes, my dear, you see what I have here. They were delivered half an hour ago.’ With a tired gesture he removed his spectacles, and Marianna saw to her consternation that his eyes glittered with tears. His tone was wistful as he went on, ‘I told you yesterday that I would have a permanent reminder in these photographs of how you looked in your purity and innocence. But I never dreamed I would so soon need to be reminded.’

  ‘I ... I don’t understand, William. Why should you need pictures to remind you of me, when I am here?’

  ‘Who is it now stands before me in this room?’ he demanded sorrowfully. ‘Not the sweet little innocent so touchingly portrayed here. Alas, alas, she is gone from me now, gone for ever. My precious angel child is tarnished beyond redemption.’

  ‘Tarnished?’ protested Marianna, her resolution to be cautious deserting her. ‘Just because I ordered a dressmaker from the house?’

  He made an angry dismissal with his hand. ‘That was mere willfulness, which I have corrected. No, Marianna, I am speaking of the temptress you played last night. Ah yes, you held out the apple and made me eat of it. You ... the beloved little virgin I held in such reverence. How could you?’

  She stared at him, too bemused to feel truly indignant.

  ‘William, you came to my bed — you forced yourself upon me.’

  ‘I am a man, Marianna, and a man’s flesh is weak. You used the shameless wiles of a woman, when you should have been content to remain an innocent child.’

  ‘I am a woman!’ she cried, and despite herself she felt a stir of pride. ‘I... I expect to bear your children.’

  He turned a heavy glance upon her, as if she had offended him afresh. ‘Do you not mourn, Marianna, for what you have lost?’

  ‘I fail to see why I should.’

  For long moments he looked at her with reproach so deep it was akin to repugnance. Then he heaved a sigh that seemed to shudder through his entire frame. ‘You had better go away and search your heart. Endeavour to feel a sense of repentance.’

  ‘You are a vile hypocrite to say that,’ she flashed. ‘If either one of us should feel repentance, William, it is you.’

  At the blaze in his eyes, Marianna wished to heaven that she had restrained her tongue. But it was too l
ate for regrets. Her husband snatched up the heavy boxwood ruler on the desk.

  ‘By God, I gave you fair warning, you wicked, willful child! If a thrashing is the only way to make you heed me, then so be it.’

  Although Marianna twisted and turned to escape the grip of his hands, he held her without effort. Flinging her across the back of the armchair, he dragged her clothing aside and brought down the ruler on her exposed buttocks with vicious force. And then again, and again.

  ‘Please, William,’ she begged him, ‘please don’t.’

  But the thrashing continued without mercy. Before her husband had done, Marianna was sobbing helplessly — from both the pain and the terrible humiliation. Never before in her life had she been beaten.

  ‘Now, get up and go to your room!’ he commanded, when at last it was over.

  She rose slowly, shakily, and straightened her disordered skirts. Her thighs were so bruised that she could scarcely stand. William had turned away from her and stood with a hand on the mantelpiece, staring down into the fire. He was breathing heavily, and there were beads of perspiration on his brow. In her fury and outrage, Marianna wanted to scream at him, to berate him with bitter scorn, to express her contempt for a man who could so misuse his superior strength. But she was too afraid of provoking a fresh storm of violence. So she left the room without speaking a word. Painfully, on trembling legs, she climbed the staircase to the sanctuary of her bedroom.

  Much later, as Marianna lay sleepless in the dark, William came to her. He crossed the room quietly and stood at the bedside. Her whole body went cold and she was filled with dread. Was there no end to the humiliation she had to suffer?

  Then, astonishingly, he was slipping gently into her bed, enfolding her tenderly in his arms, drawing her close and touching his lips to her hair, his voice a husky whisper.

  ‘Ah, my little darling ... my own pettikins! William had to reproach you, he had to be stern. But all that is done with now, and I find it in my heart to forgive you. Alas, alas, my Marianna is no longer a beautiful, unsullied little angel, but I love her still. Yes, I forgive you, my treasure, I forgive you. William cannot be so cruel as to remain cross with his sweet precious. There ... a kiss for my beloved, and another. How your little heart flutters against my hand. You are overjoyed, are you not, that your Billykins has forgiven you?’

  Marianna lay rigid and unresponsive as his hands caressed her body and stroked her hair. Then slowly, gradually, from a sense of utter despair, she softened and allowed herself to be moulded more pliantly against him. She must cling to her husband’s love, on whatever terms it was offered. There was nothing else for her now.

  * * * *

  Travelling back in the train to Hampshire, after a mortifying interview in which the dressmaker had taken no pains to conceal her triumph, Marianna turned her thoughts to the letter she would write to her father enlarging upon-the few hastily-penned lines that had announced her safe arrival in England. Such a lot would have to be omitted, for it would be unfair to burden papa with her misery. She must try to give an impression of being happy, and in truth there was much she could write about favourably — the charm of the English countryside, the grandeur of Highmount, the many wonders of London. And she could say, too, how she yearned to see him again, how eagerly she looked forward to her first visit home. Home! It would always be how she thought of Madeira. She would beseech her father to write to her at length, telling her of everything that had happened since her departure, giving the fullest news of everyone she knew.

  Madeira seemed so infinitely far away and beyond her reach. If only, she thought with a throb of longing, a telescope could really be powerful enough to bridge such a vast distance, so that she could see again the island’s mist-wreathed mountains, its sunny terraced slopes, could look once more upon the faces of the people she loved.

  The landau, its hood raised against the drizzling rain, was waiting for them at the station. Marianna was grateful that few people were abroad to be acknowledged; the elderly vicar, riding by, gave them a bow from the saddle. At Highmount, the park looked bleak and windswept.

  Jenson, holding a large umbrella, was already at the foot of the steps as the carriage drew up. He carried a silver salver, which he held out to William.

  ‘This telegraph has just arrived, sir. I thought you should have it at once.’

  William slit the envelope and withdrew the flimsy sheet. He studied it briefly, eyebrows raised. Then he said, ‘It’s from my agent in Madeira. Come with me to my study, Marianna, I have something to tell you.’

  Harriet appeared as they crossed the staircase hall—Marianna walking stiffly from the thrashing she had received — but William waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. Marianna had a brief glimpse of his sister-in-law’s affronted expression, and then they were in the study with the door

  ‘Sit down, my dearest.’ He poured a small measure from a decanter and held the glass out to her. ‘Take a sip of brandy, it will help to brace you.’

  She sipped obediently as she stared up at him, pierced through with anxiety. ‘What is it, William? News from home? Is it something to do with papa?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. My child, you must be very brave.’

  ‘Is papa ill? Then I must go to him ... I must set out immediately.’ She sprang to her feet, but her husband pressed her back into the chair.

  ‘It is too late for that,’ he said sombrely.

  ‘Too late?’

  ‘Your papa has passed away. A stroke.’ Marianna scarcely heard the rest above the thudding of her pulses, the sound of her anguished sobbing. ‘Try to comfort yourself with the knowledge that he did not suffer ... quite instantaneous ... did not linger ... no pain.’

  William held her close against him, stroking her hair, gently patting her shoulder while his voice continued, soothing, trying to console. It was minutes on end before Marianna could utter a word through the thickness of tears that choked her throat. Then it was a cry from the heart.

  ‘Oh, what am I to do, what am I to do? How shall I bear it?’

  Her husband eased her back from him and tilted her chin to look into her face. His expression held reproach.

  ‘My sweet darling girl, what are you saying? Your father’s death is very tragic, a grievous loss for us both, for he was a dear friend of mine. But we have each other, my beloved, for ever and always. You must look to your William for everything, little one. I shall be your whole life now.’

  Chapter 10

  1881

  Marianna, in a softly-draped gown of apricot silk, surveyed the guests around her dinner table with a measure of satisfaction. She took pride in the knowledge that, despite her youth, she had come to be regarded as an accomplished hostess. The fact that the guests invited to Cadogan Place were never her personal choice but associated with her husband’s business affairs made it all the more a challenge to her skill. And she had desperately needed such a challenge these past three years, to give some kind, of meaning to her otherwise empty, sterile life.

  If only she had been blessed with children, things would have been so different. She would have found happiness as a mother, to set against her misery as a wife. But there had never been any sign of her becoming pregnant. Whether her husband truly cared about this, Marianna was undecided. Certainly he pretended to care, lamenting the fact loudly and often, but she could not avoid suspecting that it was merely a weapon at hand with which to exact his revenge. Patently the fault must lie with her, he insisted, since he had fathered Ralph and Eunice by his first wife.

  William, at the head of the table, was holding forth at the moment about his ‘new baby’, a matter which interested him far more, Marianna felt certain, than any baby she might produce. Still on the drawing-board as yet it was ordained to be the pride of the Penfold fleet, a steel-hulled vessel with twin screws and triple expansion engines, a massive six thousand tons of her cutting through the water at a full twenty knots. There would be electric lighting in all the cabins and the very latest in
luxury with which to tempt passengers.

  ‘Humph,’ declared Sir Percival Rockingham, seeming unimpressed by all this. ‘To my way of thinking, Penfold, it sounds much too revolutionary.’ The guest of honour was in his late forties, a thin, cadaverous-looking man with large ungainly hands and a permanently sour expression. He had little personal charm to commend him as a dinner guest, but something far more important. As a merchant banker, he could put up the money to finance William’s shipping project.

  ‘Rockingham always likes to play God,’ Marianna had overheard her husband remark to his son earlier, before the company arrived. ‘He’ll cough up in the end, though. He knows a good proposition when it’s laid before him. But I don’t want you blundering in and ruining everything, Ralph. You keep your mouth shut and leave me to do the talking.’

  The talking, it appeared, was now about to commence in earnest, and it was time for the ladies to withdraw. Marianna discreetly collected eyes - Lady Rockingham, in amber velvet, seated on William’s right; Isabel Franklyn, whose husband was an underwriter at Lloyds, and their eighteen year old daughter Thelma — invited to pair with Ralph in the table seating. And the other two women, whose stockbroker husbands had been brought in as makeweights. All in all, it was a nicely balanced gathering for the evening’s purpose.

  The drawing room upstairs had been completely refurbished during this past summer. Marianna had discovered an unexpected talent in this direction, and her choice of modern colours and styles came in for much admiration. If Lady Rockingham, as conservative as her husband, judged the room revolutionary, she managed to refrain from saying so. Despite the Rockingham riches, she was basically a homely woman, and after a few minutes she reverted to the subject — which had already been thoroughly aired at the dinner table — of Eunice and her recently born infant, a daughter to complement the year-old son and heir.