Marianna (2 page)

Their way home was along the course of the
levada,
one of Madeira’s hundreds of channels which had been laboriously cut in the volcanic rock to bring precious water from springs in the high
serra,
twisting and turning for many miles along the edges of the gorges and ravines to irrigate the growing crops. At certain points the
levada
ran so close to a dizzying drop that Marianna stepped down into the water itself and waded, to feel a little safer. Jacinto scorned such caution and kept to the narrow maintenance path that was scarcely more than a parapet. His surefootedness and blithe unawareness of danger was something she begrudged him, begrudged all the country folk. To walk as Jacinto was walking now, on the very edge of a precipice, would make her sick with fear.

The
levada
abruptly changed course, leaving the side of the ravine and entering a grove of chestnut trees. Fans of sunlight slanted through the leafy canopy, striking blue fire into the hydrangeas that scrambled everywhere in wild profusion. The air was warm and close, filled with a sweet, indefinable fragrance. Once or twice they spotted a wild mountain strawberry that was fruiting out of season, and they paused to taste the tiny, bright red berries.

Presently they came to a cottage with a lemon tree at the door, its foliage dark green against the whitewashed walls. On the thatched roof some fat yellow pumpkins had been ledged to ripen, and maize cobs were draped over a trellis, A few scrawny hens scratched around in the dust, each hobbled by an old boot or length of rusty iron chain. A brindled mongrel dog, flopped out in the shade, lifted its head occasionally to snap at a fly.

Two women dressed all in black sat together on a low stone wall, where they were able to catch the full brilliance of the morning sunlight for the fine stitchery of a tablecloth they were embroidering between them — work done by so many of the country women to bring in a few extra
reis.
In
appearance there was little to choose between them; with their faces wrinkled and their mouths toothless, they were a pair of ugly old crones. But in fact the one was the daughter of the other.

‘
Bom dia
, Menina Marianna,’ they called, making a token of rising to bob her a curtsey without disturbing their work. ‘May the Good Lord’s blessing be upon you.’

There was a coolness in the greeting, though, which Marianna failed to understand. Artfully
,
she went forward and admired the tablecloth.

‘You do such beautiful needlework,’ she enthused. ‘I could never embroider a quarter as well, no matter how long I practised.’

The younger woman responded with a thin smile, then glanced slyly at Jacinto.

‘Our Tereza now, there’s a one for beautiful embroidery. Don’t I speak the truth, old woman? Our Tereza is good at so many things. A fine wife she’ll make for a young man, and her father offering a bit of land to go with her. It will be a fool who does not snatch her up.’

Jacinto coloured in embarrassment and scuffed at a stone with his bare toe.

‘A fool for all he’s called Clever One!’ the older woman agreed with a cackle.

Marianna knew the girl they spoke of well, for Teresa was employed as a maidservant at the
quinta
during the summer months. A dull, lumpish creature of fourteen or so who always managed to look slovenly even in a newly-washed apron. It was ludicrous to imagine that such an unattractive girl could ever hope to capture someone with Jacinto’s good looks and superior brain.

‘Ho, ho, Senhor Clever One!’ she teased him as they strolled onwards. ‘So when are the nuptials to take place?’

‘Pai keeps on and on about it,’ he mumbled, his face sullen. ‘He says it’s high time I was wed.’

The thought of Jacinto getting married was hateful to Marianna. He was seventeen now, an age by which his brother Miguel was long since wed and had already fathered his first child; while their sister Amalia was betrothed, though she was barely fourteen as yet. And there could be no gainsaying Jacinto’s rapid change towards manhood — a deepened voice and a chin that sprouted stiff black stubble, which he shaved off proudly each Sunday before the early Mass. Even so...

‘You wouldn’t, would you?’ she asked anxiously. ‘Not just because your father says you ought to. People should only get married when they fall in love with someone.’

‘It’s all very well for you to talk,’ he said.

‘But not that awful Tereza!’

He shrugged. ‘She may not be pretty, but there are many worse girls. My mother says that Tereza has the hips to bear fine strong babies. She’ll make a good enough wife for me, when the time comes.’

Marianna heard only his words and missed the underlying bitterness in his voice. Trying to dispel her odd depression, she jumped across the
levada
and struck up the hillside towards a dragon tree that stood alone in a little clearing, its branches rising from the gnarled trunk like the fingers of an imploring hand.

‘I’ll race you,’ she called and broke into a run. But the tangled undergrowth was rough on the untoughened soles of her bare feet, slowing her. With Jacinto pounding close behind, she spurred herself on and trod carelessly on a piece of dead branch, which sent her flying headlong. Her knee scraped an exposed boulder and she cried out in pain.

Jacinto halted and stood looking down at her, anxious and uncertain. ‘Are you much hurt?’

Sitting up, she pulled back her skirts to reveal a graze from which blood was already oozing. The sight made her feel a little sick, although people of Jacinto’s class would simply wipe the blood away and promptly forget it as a trivial, everyday occurrence.

‘I don’t think it’s very bad,’ she said, with brave honesty.

Jacinto knelt down and studied her knee gravely, trying to decide the proper thing to do.

‘Perhaps I had better cut into the tree and get some Dragon’s Blood,’ he suggested.

‘Oh no, you’re not putting that horrid messy stuff on my knee! It’s just a superstition that sap from the Dragon Tree will cure things.’

‘Then we will cover the wound up to stop it bleeding,’ he said, for once not arguing with her. ‘Have you one of those kerchief things in your pocket?’

She produced a square of snowy cambric daintily edged with lace. Jacinto, whose strong brown hands could whittle odd pieces of orange and lemon wood with such delicate precision, was all at once clumsy and inept. With jerky movements he folded the handkerchief diagonally, then wrapped it round her knee and tied a knot at the back. This done, he remained crouched down and gazed at Marianna with intent eyes. After a moment, hesitantly, he let his fingertips brush down the length of her calf, leaving a tingling trail that made her heart beat abnormally fast.

‘Your skin, it is so soft,’ he whispered. ‘Like the ears of a new-born puppy dog.’

‘Jacinto, you shouldn’t...’ she protested. But he shook his head impatiently and the hand which now encompassed her bare foot was warm and reverent. Obscurely, uncertainly, Marianna knew that this was wrong. In a voice that trembled, she murmured, ‘Jacinto, please don’t.’

He released her foot, but his dark eyes were still fixed upon her face in a strange look. Then, moving with swift stealth, Jacinto leaned forward and rested his lips lightly against hers. They were cool and sweet-tasting, like the nectar of a dewy flower. Marianna closed her eyes and uttered a soundless sigh. She could feel tiny quivers of excitement from deep within her body flowing out along her limbs. She wanted this delightful experience, this lovely floating dream to last for ever. But the dream ended with frightening abruptness when Jacinto snatched her clumsily into his arms, his lips now hard and urgent and searching.

‘What ... what do you think you’re doing?’ Marianna gasped, as she wrenched herself away from him.

He stared sullenly at the ground, his mouth taut. With a vicious movement he broke off the head of a belladonna lily and tore the fleshy pink petals apart, tossing them aside.

‘I was just kissing you,’ he jerked out at last. ‘Is that such a dreadful thing?’

‘You had no right!’

His eyes blazed as anger surged through him. ‘I forgot that you are Menina Marianna, the noble
fidalgo’s
daughter. I should have kissed the dust at your feet instead, I suppose.’

Marianna felt scared of the disturbing new emotions that had suddenly been awakened within her — this strange breathlessness, this trembling awareness of her body, this wild thudding of her heart. She gave free rein to her indignation.

‘You’re a hateful, horrible boy and you ought to be punished.’

They eyed one another warily, and there was a throb to the silence. At long last Jacinto glanced away and asked, ‘Are you going to tell your father?’

‘I will, if ever you dare to behave like that again.’ This didn’t sound nearly severe enough, so she added haughtily, ‘Not that you’ll get the chance to. I shan’t be giving you any more lessons after this.’

She saw temper flare in his eyes, but he kept it under tight control and said with typical humility, ‘You don’t really mean that. Please say you don’t.’

So this, Marianna thought furiously, was all their friendship really meant to Jacinto — an opportunity to reap the benefits of the schooling she received at the small academy for the daughters of English gentlemen, which was run by a pair of maiden-lady sisters in a gloomy sixteenth-century merchant’s house at the top of Bela Vista Street, above the English church. During the hot weeks of summer, when she should have been free of all that, he expected her to turn teacher ... with a pupil, she had to admit to herself, who was so quick to learn that she was sometimes hard-taxed to keep ahead of him.

‘If you want me to continue with your lessons,’ she declared, rather enjoying the feeling of power he had given her, ‘you must make a solemn promise to me that you’ll never, ever, behave like that again.’

‘Of course I promise.’ But he said it too quickly, too readily.

‘Cross your heart and hope to die?’

Jacinto’s humbleness could only be pressed so far. His chin raised defiantly, he muttered, ‘You make such a big fuss. It was nothing.’

Nothing! How dare he suggest that a kiss which had left such a tumult in its wake was nothing.

‘It was an insult to me,’ she insisted. ‘You know that very well.’

‘I beg to be forgiven for the insult.’

‘I suppose you imagine, just because people call you Clever One, that you may do exactly as you please?’

‘I have begged to be forgiven — isn’t that enough for you? Of course,’ he added bitterly, ‘it would be different if I were a young
senhor.’

‘Well, you aren’t,’ Marianna flashed back. ‘Now, go and wait by the
levada
while I put on my shoes and stockings.’

He stood there, unmoving, staring at her morosely,

‘Do as I say!’ she ordered. Not for the world, now, would she draw on her stockings in front of him, though she had done so dozens of times before with casual innocence. For Marianna Dalby, the world had suddenly changed; and the change was deeply disturbing. She felt bewildered, to a degree fearful. But she was also conscious of a warm delight that suffused her whole body.

Jacinto fought her with his eyes and then, defeated, swung away. She watched him stride off down the slope and take up a position beside the watercourse with his arms akimbo, his back turned to her in silent resentment.

* * * *

Jacinto came part of the way with Marianna, unspeaking and moody, but left her to clamber down to the
ribeiro
in the hope of finding one or two eels lurking beneath the boulders, to take home as a placatory offering. His mother was intensely proud of her intelligent son, but he would need more than maternal pride to shield him from his father’s wrath when it was discovered that the yams had not been dug.

As Marianna sauntered on alone, her thoughts were as shapeless and intangible as the smoky wraiths of cloud that hovered around the highest mountain peaks. A peasant woman came towards her with a huge bundle of rich grasses and fragrant herbs, as fodder for the family cow. This she carried on her head, long trails of it drooping about her shoulders. She called a polite God’s blessing upon Marianna and looked surprised and hurt when the
fidalgo’s
daughter barely responded.

The Quinta dos Alecrims stood at the head of the ravine and together with its gardens it occupied the only comparatively level piece of ground in the neighbourhood, nearly a whole acre in extent. The residence was built in a solid colonial style with green-shuttered windows and wide verandas that were overhung with bougainvillea.

Behind the
quinta,
a sheer wall of rock rose in sombre grandeur, its dark-veined face a background to the two curiously-shaped pinnacles of paler rock known locally as the Devil’s Horns. These were the object of much superstition: any pregnant woman who looked upon the Devil’s Horns by the light of the full moon was fated to give birth to a monster, a child of Satan himself.

In front of the
quinta
and on either side were the vine terraces belonging exclusively to her father, those not tenanted by
caseiros.
The
lagar
house, where the ripe grapes were trodden, lay half hidden in a small hollow to the left.

How curious it was, Marianna had sometimes thought, that in other parts of the world a great deal of the land was flat, or almost so, and one could travel for miles and miles without ever coming to a mountain. And in elegant carriages with wheels, too, drawn by horses, not the clumsy old sleds that were drawn by plodding oxen up the steep pebbled streets of Funchal. What fun it must be to go bowling along in a carriage at a spanking pace, or even faster in a train drawn by a huge steam engine. That was how people travelled in England, where her father had gone to Oxford University, and one of these days she would go to England too and see it all for herself,

Nevertheless, she loved the mountains of Madeira, with their craggy peaks and deep mysterious ravines. And she loved the summers here at the
quinta
far more than the winter months spent in the house adjoining the wine lodge down in Funchal. The gardens were a lovely wild tangle of roses and jessamine and heliotrope and the rosemary that gave the place its name, with trees bearing all kinds of delicious fruits.