Marianna (20 page)

It was Jacinto who moved first. Still a yard from her, he held out his arms and Marianna went into them. She melted against his chest, feeling the warmth of his body even through the thick cloth of his greatcoat, and laid her head on his shoulder. He held her, roughly or gently Marianna scarcely knew — only that it was blissful, the realization of her tenuous dreams these past three years. Jacinto’s lips were on her brow, her eyes, her cheek, and then her mouth. She clung to him wildly, hungrily, abandoning all pretence.

‘Minha
Marianna,’ he murmured huskily. ‘I love you,
querida.’

‘No ... no, you must not say that.’

‘Yes! I always have loved you, I think, from the very beginning when first we became friends. But how could I let myself hope for what was contrary to all reason? Then, when I knew you were to be married,
cara
, I was in despair. Without ceasing I have longed for this moment to be possible, when I could hold you in my arms. It has been my constant torment that it would never happen.’

Somehow Marianna found the strength to push away from him, but her voice was scarcely audible. ‘Please ... I should never have agreed to meet you. We must only talk ... just talk. You must not touch me, Jacinto. If someone were to come along the path and see us...
’

‘Then let us conceal ourselves from view. Over there, perhaps, among the trees.’ At least she still had wits enough to resist this suggestion.

‘If someone
should
come, I will make it appear that you have taken the wrong path and I am directing you.’

‘If that is what you wish.’ He
took a grudging step back to leave a wider space between them, but his eyes still held her, still caressed her.

‘Tell me about your life,
querida,’
he said. ‘Your marriage....’

‘I have told you already, my marriage is like most others.’

‘Like most others? With a difference between you and your husband of how many years? The man is old enough to be your father. Your grandfather, almost. You even have stepchildren older than yourself, yet you can pretend there is nothing unusual in your marriage.’

‘I was aware of these things before I accepted Mr Penfold’s hand.’

‘Oh Marianna, why did you do it?’ She was silent, and he went on pitilessly, ‘It was because of your father, wasn’t it? He
made
you. After his death I heard that the
fidalgo
would have faced financial ruin had it not been for William Penfold’s timely assistance.’

‘No, no,’ she protested, ‘that wasn’t the way of it at all! It was my own free choice. Papa would never have insisted on my marrying Mr Penfold against my will, I know he wouldn’t. I admit that I wanted to please my father, when he told me it would help him ...’

‘And it was all for nothing!’ said Jacinto, his face tightening in bitterness. ‘The
fidalgo
drank himself into the grave just the same. From the night of your marriage until he was struck down only a few days later, he wasn’t sober enough to stand on his own two feet. Was that from shame at what he had done to his daughter?’

‘Please,’ she begged. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. What’s the use, Jacinto, of dragging up the past? However my marriage came about, it is a fact now. And that’s all there is to be said!’

He let a few moments of silence go by, then, ‘At least tell me this — is the man good to you?’

Marianna thrust away the temptation to spill out the misery of those past three years.

‘He ... we understand one another.’

‘You are protecting him.’

‘Should I not? He is my husband, and a wife owes loyalty to her husband.’ And yet, most strangely, it was not to her husband but to Jacinto that she felt disloyal. ‘Tell me about Madeira. Have things there changed much? Linguareira, you say she is well?’

‘She is grown fatter than ever! The
quinta
is falling to pieces around her, but there is food enough to eat, even if there is no wine to go with it.’

‘And your father? What does he think of your coming to England?’

‘Pai thinks I am mad, of course. But he will be proud of me one day, when I have made my fortune. When I can send home money enough for him to buy his own land and be a tenant no longer.’

‘Oh, Jacinto! You have always been so ambitious. I wonder where you will finish up.’

‘I shall be as wealthy as the man you married, before I am done.’

‘Will that bring you happiness, do you suppose?’

His dark eyes glinted. ‘Perhaps it will buy me a beautiful young wife, when I am approaching my old age.’

‘You can be so cruel, Jacinto.’ Wildly she sought for words to wound him in return. ‘This craving ambition of yours, that was all our friendship meant to you, wasn’t it? You were using me as a stepping stone.’

‘No! It’s not true.’

‘It is, you cannot deny it. And even now — are you
still
using me? Have you some notion in your head that through my husband I can assist your rise in the world?’

Jacinto drew in a quick, sharp breath. ‘I would accept no help from your husband even if he were to beseech me on his bended knees.’

‘Then it is your arrogance! You turn up in London after all this time and expect me, a married woman, to fall into your arms.’

The anger in his eyes had turned into a blaze of triumph. ‘You wanted to fall into my arms. You
did
fall into my arms.’

‘Only in the first joy of seeing you, the remembrances of home that the sight of you brought me.’

‘And that is why you permitted me to kiss you? Why you responded to my kiss? Because you were reminded of your happy childhood days?’

‘It ... it was a foolish impulse. It meant nothing.’

‘No, that is a lie,’ he shouted. ‘It was your heart speaking. Admit the truth.’

‘What happened was the weakness of the moment,’ she insisted, ‘And I will not allow it to happen again.’

‘You think we can meet together and merely talk, without expressing our love? That is no more possible than sprouting wings and flying to the moon.’

‘Then we must not meet any more,’ she said, hardening her voice. ‘I don’t want to see you again.’

His eyes burned with reproach. ‘If I held you in my arms, Marianna, how quickly you would change your mind.’

‘No, no! Well, if that be so, then it is all the greater reason why we should not meet again.’

‘I will never agree to that, not now that I know you love me. You accused me of using you as a stepping-stone. Yes, Marianna, I did use you — to make myself as good as you. To make myself
worthy
of you. Was that so wrong of me? In my love for you, I refused to admit the unbridgeable gulf between us.’

She was choked with tears and could not speak.

‘And then you married that man and went away,’ he said bitterly. ‘I vowed then to prove to you that I could be the equal of Mr William Penfold in wealth and position.’

‘If you love me,’ she said on a sob, ‘then for pity’s sake go away and leave me be.’

He shook his head. ‘I would die for you, Marianna, but I cannot stay away from you. I shall come here again, next Sunday, at the same time.’

‘No, I cannot meet you — it is impossible. Goodbye, Jacinto.’

She turned and walked away from him, heading for the house. He made no attempt to follow her, but called, ‘You
must
come.’

‘I will not.’

‘I shall be here, waiting for you.’

* * * *

It would soon become gossip in the neighbourhood that young Mrs Penfold was turning into a recluse. During the ten days of her present stay in Hampshire, she had sent excuses by the servants whenever anyone called and she paid no visits herself. Her single appearance in public had been at church; otherwise, she went riding or walking alone, or stayed indoors sketching. She was in a state of turbulent indecision — one moment as certain in her mind that she would meet Jacinto again as the next moment she was resolved upon doing no such thing. It was impossible, unthinkable ... inevitable.

Early on Saturday evening she was sitting with a book in the drawing room, old Cato lying at her feet, when she heard the sound of carriage wheels. She went to the window and discreetly held aside the curtain. To her dismay it was Ralph, descending from the station fly with another man. By the light spilling from the open front door — for a servant had heard their approach — she saw the two men looking up at the house’s frontage, Ralph apparently pointing out its architectural features. Marianna did not recognize his companion. She judged him to be in his early thirties; slightly built, with a thin, aesthetic face, his clothes and bearing having the unmistakable stamp of high breeding. Then the two men ascended the steps to the front door.

Nervously Marianna resumed her seat and re-opened the novel, of which she had hardly read more than a page or two all day. What did this unannounced visit presage? Already her mind was leaping ahead. If the men intended to stay overnight, as surely they must ... if they were still here tomorrow afternoon, how would she dare to keep her assignation with Jacinto?

She could hear their voices, their laughter, but she had to wait several minutes, with growing agitation, before they entered the room. Both men were immaculate in evening dress. These days Ralph’s youthfully handsome face had gained in maturity, assisted by a small waxed moustache. His companion fell short of handsomeness in that the aristocratic features were almost too even, the bone structure too perfectly moulded.

‘So here you are, dearest stepmama,’ said Ralph, with insincere affability. ‘Allow me to introduce my very good friend, the Marquis of Amberly. Monty — Mrs Penfold, the pater’s wife.’

Marianna caught a waft of cologne as he bowed over her hand. ‘I am charmed to meet you, dear lady.’ There was an irony behind his extravagant manners and Marianna wondered what Ralph had told him about her, what coarse jokes they had shared at her expense.

‘I must arrange about dinner for you,’ she said. ‘I myself was merely going to have a tray brought to me in here. Or have you perhaps instructed Jenson already?’

‘What?’ Ralph guffawed. ‘Interfere in my stepmama’s sacred province? You ought to know that I wouldn’t dare to
tamper
with any of the servants.’

Marianna marvelled at his effrontery in referring to the incident, however obliquely. It had happened shortly after she had assumed control of the domestic arrangements, following Harriet’s departure to India with the newly-married couple. Late one evening at Cadogan Place, when William was away on business overnight, she had gone down to the library in search of a book. Entering quickly, she stumbled upon a scene that in the first startled moment bewildered her, then sickened her. She fled back to her bedroom, whence Ralph pursued her a few minutes later, his face scarlet.

‘Look ... hang it all!’ he stammered. ‘It was just a game, a bit of larking about. It’s not worth you getting in a tizzy over.’

‘I find you and two of the kitchen maids... like that … unclothed and you were touching them … and you dare to suggest that it’s nothing? You disgust me!’

‘I suppose a woman like you can’t be expected to understand.’

‘No, I don’t understand,’ she said with cold fury, ‘and I don’t wish to. Let me tell you this, Ralph, if
ever
such a thing occurs again in this house, I shall immediately inform your father.’

An empty threat? Could she have brought herself to tell William? And even if so, how would her husband react? He would probably find some way of blaming her for the incident. But mercifully the threat to Ralph sufficed, although his dislike of her became from that moment a fierce, burning hatred.

Marianna rose from her chair and rang for a servant. ‘You will want rooms, of course. How long are you intending to stay, Ralph?’

‘My, my! What a frightfully cordial welcome, stepmama. As it happens, Monty and I will be off again directly after breakfast. I just wanted to pop down and show him our country seat. Come on, dear chap, let’s have a look round the ancestral home before dinner — though I warn you, it’ll seem like a cottage after that damn great castle of yours in Yorkshire.’ At the door, Ralph paused and snapped his fingers at Cato. But the old mastiff did not stir, hardly even lifting his head. ‘Confound you, dog, come here!’

‘Why not leave him be?’ said Marianna. ‘He’s old now and he likes to stay by the fire.’

Ralph gave her an ugly look and repeated his command to the dog in a threatening tone. But still Cato did not respond, sinking into sleep again. The Marquis touched his arm. ‘Come along, Ralph, dear fellow. You and I don’t need canine company, what?’

Marianna’s anger at their unwelcome visit was as nothing compared with the singing joy of knowing that the two men would depart in the morning. She could surely endure Ralph and his aristocratic companion for a single evening — it was unlikely to amount to more than an hour spent over dinner and perhaps another hour in the drawing room afterwards. All that mattered was that tomorrow afternoon she could go in safety to meet Jacinto. Secure in that knowledge, she told herself that Ralph had no power to hurt her.

But Marianna was to be proved wrong. Next morning, as she went downstairs ready for church, she heard the report of a gun from somewhere near at hand. Glancing out of the staircase window, she saw Ralph and the Marquis emerging through the archway from the stableyard, and Ralph was carrying a shotgun under his arm. Fear stirred in her and she hurried out to meet them.

‘Why were you shooting, Ralph?’

His slow smile was triumphant. ‘I’ve put down that damned dog.’

‘Oh no!’

‘He was old and decrepit and past being any use.’

‘How could you be so cruel?’ Marianna’s voice trembled with anger. ‘Cato was quite happy; he wasn’t suffering.’

‘You may regard yourself as the mistress here, dear step-mama, but I’ll remind you that Cato was
my
dog. I don’t have to give you any explanations or excuses.’

‘You did it through jealousy, through spite,’ she accused him. ‘Just because the poor creature had turned to me for the affection he failed to get from you.’