Marianna

by Nancy Buckingham

  He paused, his back to her; then without glancing round again he strode out and slammed the door shut.

  For a few moments Marianna remained standing, gripping the chairback to prevent herself from falling. Then very carefully she lowered herself into the tapestry seat and sat with her eyes closed and her hands tightly clenched in her lap.

  ‘Have you told Dick?’

  She looked up and saw Jacinto in the doorway. She nodded without speaking.

  ‘He took it badly?’

  ‘I... I had to tell him everything.’

  Jacinto came in and closed the door. ‘You mean you explained that I might be his father?’

  ‘It was the only way,’ she said, her voice heavy with sorrow. ‘Dick can be so willful, so impetuous. He was in a mood to defy me. He will have money of his own when he comes of age, and he said that nothing you or I could say would prevent him from marrying Lucia sooner or later. He said that they would make a vow of betrothal before God. So I had to tell him the truth, to put an end to it.’

  ‘Will he tell Lucia?’ Jacinto asked anxiously.

  ‘You needn’t worry on that count — Dick poured scorn on me for even imagining that he might tell her.’ A sigh shuddered through her body. ‘He said some dreadful things. He has lost all respect for me, all love. He thinks I am the very lowest kind of woman.’

  ‘I will speak to the boy myself,’ Jacinto said.

  ‘Do you think he would listen to you? He is in a mood for violence rather than reason.’ She gave Jacinto a strained grimace that was intended for a smile. ‘The more I come to know this son of mine, the more I recognize him as a son of yours. Just take Lucia away with you as quickly as possible, back to Monte. How is the poor child?’

  Jacinto made a helpless gesture with his hands. ‘As one would expect — she wept bitterly and would not let me comfort her. She has gone to her room now to prepare for our departure.’ He sighed. ‘‘I told her that you and I consider them too young to marry, but she knows that for our people this is not the case. I had to say that it is different for an Englishman. That Dick must finish his education, go to university, and that an early marriage would threaten his future career.’

  ‘And...?’

  ‘Lucia remained unconvinced. She is a Portuguese girl, though, and I am her father. She accepts my authority in deciding whom she will marry. But she feels no love for me, only duty.’

  Marianna shook her head sadly. ‘These poor children! What have we done to them, Jacinto? What have we done to ourselves?’

  He took her two hands in his. ‘Be brave, querida. We can only pray that time will prove a healer for our children, and that one day things will come right for you and me.’

  ‘Will it ever be so?’

  ‘It must be,’ he said. ‘Love such as ours cannot be denied forever.’

  When Jacinto left her, Marianna remained where she was, with no will to move. In minutes he was back, looking deeply perturbed.

  ‘I cannot find Lucia.’

  ‘She is not in her bedroom?’

  ‘No, nor anywhere else. I have searched the house and asked the servants, and looked around outside. There is no sign of the girl.’

  Marianna felt a shiver of undefined fear. ‘Perhaps Dick can tell us something.’

  They found him upstairs in his bedroom. ‘We are looking for Lucia,’ said Jacinto without preamble. ‘Have you seen her?’

  Dick nodded sullenly. ‘Yes. I told her what I was expected to say — that since our two parents refuse consent, we must just fall out of love and give up the whole idea of getting married.’ He looked Jacinto full in the face, and the contempt in her son’s eyes made Marianna quail. ‘So you see, you and my revered mother have succeeded in making a liar out of me, as well as a bastard.’

  Jacinto asked curtly, ‘Where is Lucia now?’

  ‘In her room, I imagine. Packing. Wasn’t that what she was ordered to do?’

  ‘She’s not there,’ Marianna told him. ‘Not anywhere in the house.’ She turned swiftly to Jacinto. ‘We had better look for her again, more thoroughly.’

  Their anxiety communicated itself to Dick and he followed them downstairs. Outside the house they separated and Linguareira was despatched to fetch others to join in the search. Marianna herself made for the levada path, walking quickly, constantly calling Lucia’s name, her eyes scanning from side to side. The early morning mist had been slow to disperse from the valley, and the sun, where it slanted between the trees, made a blinding, golden haze.

  A thought halted her. Perhaps Lucia had gone to the church to seek solace. Turning about, she hurried back to take the lower track that led down to the little white church on its knoll. Heading in this direction she had a clear view of the cliffside that rose behind the quinta, its bare, rocky face bathed in misty sunlight. Suddenly, high up, she saw a flash of white. Lucia’s dress! But what was the girl doing there, in such a dangerous place — she might easily fall and kill herself.

  The possibility froze Marianna into stillness; then she was running, racing as fast as her legs would move, her skirts scooped up so as not to impede her.

  There was no one about as Marianna drew near the quinta. Then she saw a young maidservant emerge on to the veranda and gape open-mouthed at the sight of her mistress running in such agitation.

  ‘Carlotta, quickly!’ she called. ‘Find Dom Joao. Tell everyone to look for him. The menina is up on one of the Devil’s Horns. There is great danger!’

  Marianna hastened on without pause and the way became ever more steep. Gasping, scrabbling for handholds, she clambered upwards. She could see that the girl, far from being fearless of such a height, was clinging; to the slender pinnacle of rock in a state of terror.

  ‘Lucia!’ she cried on a snatched breath. ‘Keep quite still. There is help coming.’

  ‘Go away ... go away and leave me alone! It is all your fault, Dona Marianna, I know it is. Papa would have let us marry. He was married to mama when she was only a little older than I am.’

  ‘Lucia, for pity’s sake listen to me!’

  ‘No, no, I will not listen. It is a cruel and dreadful thing you have done, and ... and I do not want to live any more.’

  Dear God in Heaven, was the child truly in a frame of mind to throw herself to destruction? Marianna glanced back quickly to see if indeed help were on the way — a foolish mistake. Looking down the almost vertical cliff-face up which she had just climbed brought an unnerving vertigo. She felt herself swaying and grabbed feverishly at a poinsettia growing in a crevice of rock. Keep looking upwards, that was the only thing. She moved again, lifting herself higher and nearer to Lucia, but at once the girl shrieked out and there was a frightening note of hysteria in her voice.

  ‘Go away, I tell you, go away!’

  Lucia was in a most perilous position. If she slipped, if she fell, it was a drop of more than fifty feet to a tumbled mass of rocks below. Making an effort to keep her own voice gentle and unalarming, Marianna said, ‘I’m not going to come any nearer, Lucia, if you don’t wish that. But I beg you to listen to me. What you are thinking of doing is wicked — it is a mortal sin — and you must not do it.’

  ‘I don’t care! I don’t care about anything any more.’

  ‘But think of your father. Do you really want to bring such grief to him? And think of your mother ... she was a good, devout woman, and you should honour her memory. And think of Dick, too. If you truly love him, as you say you do, then you will not wish to burden him with the sorrow of your death. I know what has happened between you and my son has made you deeply unhappy. But you must believe me, Lucia, that when I refused permission for you two to marry, I only did what had to be done.’

  She kept on talking, repeating herself, saying whatever words came into her head, knowing that every moment she kept the girl listening was a precious moment gained. A moment nearer to the arrival of help. Yet the waiting seemed everlasting before she heard a shout from somewhere below and the sound of someone climbing q
uickly up the rockface, of pebbles set loose and sent skittering. She dared not look down again, but clung there still pouring out the soothing flow of words.

  Seconds later Jacinto was beside her.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘Yes, yes. But get to Lucia. Be very careful how you treat her. She is in a mood to throw herself down. She would not allow me to get near to her at all.’

  ‘I understand. Stay where you are, Marianna. Don’t try to move.’

  Jacinto hurried on past her and scaled the final distance with the surefootedness of someone born to this terrain. Marianna watched as he reached out to his daughter and gathered her tenderly into his arms, cradled her, talked to her soothingly and let her cling to him and sob against his shoulder. Then he proceeded to bring Lucia down, bearing her whole weight with one arm and finding foot and hand holds for himself where none appeared to exist.

  Several minutes passed in which Marianna could hear confused voices coming from below, but each time she dared to glance down she was assailed again by dizziness. She could only hold on desperately, praying that all was well. At last Jacinto was beside her once more, easing open fingers that had clamped themselves to the rock.

  ‘Lucia...?’ she asked on a whispered breath.

  ‘Linguareira has taken charge of her, she is quite safe. Come now, querida, just give yourself into my hands and I will get you safely down.’

  * * * *

  Marianna, painfully aware that Lucia would accept no ministrations from herself, left it to Linguareira to put the girl to bed and watch over her. The rest of the day was a strange and unhappy interlude. Dick retreated to his own room and remained shut away there. No formal meals were served; there could be no coming together at table for any of them. She saw very little of Jacinto. They were uneasy in each other’s company, and everything they said was stilted.

  ‘Do you really believe...?’ Jacinto began abruptly at one point, then broke off.

  ‘Do I believe what?’

  ‘Would Lucia, do you think, really have ...?’ Their eyes met, and a bleak message passed between them.

  ‘The poor child was half demented,’ Marianna said. ‘She did not understand what she was doing. And now she is suffering from shock, as is only to be expected.’

  Jacinto nodded sombrely.

  Next morning father and daughter left the quinta for Monte. Lucia was not well enough to ride, and a hammock was ordered for her. It was almost a relief to Marianna to have them gone.

  She and Dick remained in the country a few days longer, two strangers. When finally they returned with Linguareira to the house in Funchal, it was to learn that Senhor Carreiro and his daughter had sailed the day before in a steamer bound for Georgetown. Jacinto had left no message for her. There was nothing further to be said.

  * * * *

  On New Year’s Eve the city of Funchal erupted in a wild celebration, to mark not merely the coming of another year but also the promise of a brand new century. At the house in Rua das Murças, though, there was only a brooding silence. Marianna released the servants to join the jubilant crowds swarming in the streets. She herself slipped almost furtively to the English Church in Bela Vista Street for the watch night service, and was aware of curious glances from neighbouring pews. She knew it was a matter of considerable speculation why she and her son had refused all invitations to the season’s parties and balls. Afterwards, murmuring a few ‘Happy New Year’ wishes, she hurried home to the sight and sound of the gigantic firework display, the soaring rockets exploding in showers of coloured stars which were reflected in the waters of the bay. Every ship at anchor hooted a raucous welcome to the twentieth century, and the church bells rang out for joy. But in Marianna’s heart there was only a lonely misery.

  In those first days of January she watched the inner conflict that was ravaging her son and knew there was nothing she could do to help. The battle was his own, a battle of identity. She came to realize that Dick was desperately striving to exorcise from his mind the possibility of Jacinto being his father and establish himself once again as unquestionably the son of William Tenfold.

  One morning when he should have been at his studies he came walking into her office at the wine lodge. With defiant directness, he announced, ‘I am going to England.’

  ‘Tell me what you mean, Dick,’ she said, steeling herself to speak in an even, gentle tone.

  ‘I am going to England to live with my brother.’ He waved a letter he held in his hand. ‘I wrote to suggest it to Ralph, and I have just collected his reply from the post office. It is right that I should be in London, learning my father’s business.’

  ‘Are you doing this to hurt me, Dick?’

  ‘No, it is for myself,’ he insisted passionately. ‘For myself alone. This is what I must do.’

  Marianna gave a deep, resigned sigh. ‘Yes, I suppose you must.’

  ‘So you don’t intend.to try and prevent me? I thought you might wield your authority as my legal guardian.’

  ‘No, Dick,’ she said sadly. ‘I know when I am defeated.’

  If he felt the least compassion for his mother, it was not revealed in his stormy eyes. Yet for a few moments Dick stood hesitating, as though he might withdraw his decision. Then abruptly he turned on his heel and went to the door.

  In a sudden panic, Marianna called after him, ‘You won’t ... tell Ralph?’

  Dick spun around, his anger blazing.

  ‘Do you seriously suppose I am likely to tell Ralph that we might not be brothers? Do you imagine I am likely to expose my mother’s shame? No, mama, you can depend on me to keep silent.’

  ‘Dick, I know that you cannot forgive me,’ Marianna said. ‘But I beseech you, do not despise me. I and Dom Joao — though that is not really his name — have loved one another from the time we were very young. And when I met him again in England —’

  ‘I don’t want to hear about it.’

  ‘But you must, you must. You have to be made to understand. William Penfold was a great deal older than I — three times my age — and the marriage was arranged by my father. I tried my best to be a good wife, but ... I cannot go into details, but there were circumstances which made it impossible for me to love my husband as a woman should.’

  Dick turned from her impatiently and Marianna caught at his arm.

  ‘Listen, please listen! I was desperately unhappy in my marriage, and when Jacinto — that is his real name — came to London three years later and we met again ... can you truly blame us for becoming lovers?’

  Dick’s blue eyes withered her with contempt and he snatched his arm free. Without another word he wrenched open the door and strode out.

  Six days later a Penfold Line ship called at Funchal, diverted by telegraph from the Azores especially for Dick to embark. What triumph Ralph must be feeling that the boy had turned to him, Marianna thought — not because he particularly wanted Dick in London, but because of the pain her son’s desertion would inflict upon herself.

  Dick was adamant that their goodbyes should be said at the house; and Marianna knew better than to insist on seeing him off at the beach. When the servant posted down by the Custom House came to report that the steamer was entering the bay, Dick permitted his mother to embrace him, though he was unresponsive. She kissed him on both cheeks, wished him a safe voyage, and somehow stemmed her tears.

  ‘You will write often, Dick?’ she could not restrain herself from saying.

  ‘I will write.’

  ‘All this...’ She gestured around her. ‘All this will be yours one day, you know. It will always be here waiting for you.’

  Dick shook his head, ‘No, mama, this is yours and yours alone. I feel no part of it. I want no part of it.’

  A few minutes after he had departed, Marianna stirred and with leaden steps climbed to her bedroom in the turret. Linguareira was waiting there already and the two women stood at the window that faced the bay, watching. Presently, over the jumbled rooftops, they
saw a longboat come into view, making for the blue-funnelled vessel that stood offshore near the Loo Rock, a plume of white smoke hissing out as if it were impatient to be away. The oarsmen drew alongside and Dick’s baggage was hauled up on ropes. Then Dick himself, a tiny figure, mounted the ship’s ladder.

  The two women remained there at the window, hardly exchanging a word, until the steamer had rounded the Brazen Head and was lost from view.

  Chapter 18

  1901

  It was a common enough dispute among the caseiros, the precise line of demarkation between two of their small terrace plots. Had Osorio slyly moved the boundary stone a few inches during the night, or was Pinqueiros only claiming he had done so in order to pay off some old score? The two men confronted each other with angry faces and raised fists, but Marianna was unimpressed.

  ‘I wouldn’t put it beyond either of you to try and cheat the other one,’ she said bluntly, ‘but alas there is no way for me to be sure which of you happens to be in the right this time. So my decision is that you move the stone halfway between the two positions and that becomes the new boundary. I warn you both, however, do not try this again. I have noted the exact spot, and I shall remember it.’

  Nowadays Marianna spent most of her time at the quinta, the energy and determination which had achieved so much and brought her so far all but spent. Apart from giving a minimum of supervision at the wine lodge in Funchal, she drifted her days away in the tranquillity of the countryside.

  Events in the outside world made little impact on her. Even the death of Queen Victoria the previous month seemed remote and of small concern. It was the end of an era, people said; but Marianna’s own era had ended more than a year ago.

  As for the progress of this dreadful war with the Boers — the Madeirense, pro-English in their neutrality, seemed more involved and interested than she was. For the inhabitants of Funchal it was a daily topic of conversation, and there was constant evidence of the war in the supply ships anchored in the bay, en route to or from the Cape.