Marianna (23 page)

Up until now the disguise of Hilda’s clothes had been a godsend, but in facing the pawnbroker it proved a disadvantage. Seeing a poor girl with so much jewellery, he naturally assumed that it had been stolen. He was by no means averse to accepting it, however, though he offered Marianna so little that she knew she was being vilely cheated. But no matter, no matter! She accepted the meagre handful of sovereigns and hurried back to the cab, directing the driver to Clerkenwell.

It was a narrow back street, dimly lit, but the house seemed clean and respectable. The landlady, summoned from her supper in the basement kitchen — rabbit pie, by the smell of it — gestured Marianna to the second floor front when she inquired for Mr Teixeiro.

‘But whether he’s in or not, dearie, I can’t rightly be sure. Who did you say you were?’

‘I... I’m a friend of his sister’s.’

The beady eyes were knowing. ‘If you tell me so!’

Jacinto
was
in. She sobbed with relief when he opened the door to her knock.

‘Marianna!’ His first amazement quickly changed to joy. ‘You have come after all! Oh, praise God for that, my darling.’ He drew her into the room and into the clasp of his arms before noticing what she was wearing. ‘These clothes ... why are you dressed in such a way?’

Marianna did not answer that but stammered out her warning to him, scarcely taking in the small, dingy room that was furnished with little more than bare essentials.

‘You must go away at once, Jacinto, leave here — leave England. You were seen yesterday on the bridge by Ralph, through a telescope. He must have seen me, too, though he said only you. But the police will be searching now for a man answering your description — a foreign-looking man — and they will have little difficulty in tracking you down. So you must escape, my darling. I have brought you some money ... not very much, but it will suffice to get you safely away.’

Bewildered by her outpouring of words, Jacinto sat her down on the bed and himself beside her, taking her two hands in his. The mark of her husband’s cruel whip lash was an angry red weal across his cheek,.

‘Tell me again, more slowly. You say that Ralph, your husband’s son, saw me on the bridge through a telescope? Perhaps, though, he did
not
also see you.’

‘But that’s impossible, I was there first, and it’s where you and I met. He
must have seen us embrace.’

‘It could not, I suppose, have been when I left that he saw me,’ Jacinto said musingly. ‘It
would have been too dark by that time.’

‘Oh yes. Besides, it wouldn’t fit Ralph’s story to the police. It seems he told them that when he saw someone loitering on the bridge, it aroused his suspicion and he was about to investigate. But then his father arrived home unexpectedly and the matter went from his mind.’

Jacinto looked at her with deep concern. ‘If he saw you also, Marianna, why has he not said so?’

‘I cannot be sure. But he must know we are lovers, I’m convinced of that. I have little doubt that he informed his father he had seen us embracing on the bridge, which is why William came at once to search us out. With a riding whip! It was no mere chance that my husband surprised us together—we should have realized that at the time. His son having told him about us is the explanation.’

Jacinto nodded in slow, painful acceptance of this reasoning, and Marianna went on, ‘But as to why Ralph made no mention of this to the police inspector, I can only assume that he preferred not to point an accusing finger at his father’s wife. That he preferred not to be seen as the person responsible for the family scandal that would inevitably ensue. He would count on the fact that once you had been apprehended, our liaison would immediately come to light without the need for him to be involved.’

‘Oh, my darling, what trouble I have brought upon you! I should never have sought you out. I should never have intruded into your life.’

‘No, I will not allow you to say that. I would not have been denied the joy and fulfilment of these past weeks with you. But we are having to pay dearly for our stolen happiness, Jacinto. Our only safety now is for you to go away at once, leave England, so that our association can never be established.’

‘But
you
would not be safe,’ Jacinto protested, ‘if Ralph Penfold saw us embracing...’

‘Should the need arise, I would deny it. I would deny it most emphatically, and it would then be Ralph’s word against mine. Nothing could be
proved,
so long as you are not to be found.’ She fumbled in her draw-string purse. ‘Take this. It is so little, only twenty-two sovereigns, but all I could get together in the short time I had. You must take ship this very night to some far distant place. Not Madeira, for they would soon find you there. I’m sure you must know what vessels are sailing this evening from the London docks. Be on one of them, I beg you. There is no time to lose.’

He said, stubbornly, ‘If I go, you must come with me.’

‘No, no, it is not possible. If we were both to disappear it would be an open admission of our liaison, our guilt. And then the hue and cry would be tremendous. In any case, I would only be a dangerous liability to you my darling. A man alone can travel more easily, pass unnoticed.’

Jacinto’s lean face was stark in the guttering light of the single gas jet. ‘I cannot bear to leave you like this and go off to some far distant place.’

‘Do you imagine it is any easier for me?’ she cried with passion. ‘I love you with all my heart, and it is agony to send you away.’

‘For how long must we be parted?’ he said wretchedly. ‘Will you come to me when it is safe?’

‘Yes, yes — if that time ever arrives. But the danger is immediate, and you must leave at once. Here, take the money and pack your belongings. We must make haste.’

‘How will you return to Hampshire?’ he asked, not moving.

‘The last train leaves just after ten o’clock, arriving at midnight. I must be on it, or my absence will be discovered.’

‘Perhaps it has already been discovered. You would do better to come with me, beloved, and we will take our chance together.’

For just one moment Marianna was tempted, then she shook her head with finality. ‘No, I am bound to return, or poor Hilda would be blamed for helping me.’

‘Hilda?’

‘My maid. It is her clothes which I am wearing now. She has been wonderful, Jacinto. But for her, I should never have had the chance to come and warn you. I cannot repay her loyalty by failing to return to Highmount.’ She became brisk. ‘Quickly, where is your valise?’

Jacinto produced a large carpet bag from beneath the bed and Marianna helped him to throw into it the contents of his drawers, the few books on a small deal table.

‘Have you decided where your destination shall be?’ she asked him.

‘It will have to be somewhere in Central America, I think. There is a barque taking the tide tonight. I know the bosun — he is Portuguese and he will smuggle me aboard as crew.’

‘Then hurry, hurry!’ She found a last sovereign in her purse and put it on the mantlepiece. ‘Will that pay the woman downstairs what you owe?’

‘It is more than enough.’

‘Good. Then she is not likely to make trouble. Come, my darling.’

Jacinto caught her to him in a final, desperate embrace. It was Marianna who broke away, frantic that he should get started on his escape. Together, hands tightly clasped, they crept down the stairs so as not to alert the landlady and slipped out into the dark, windswept street. They made for a cab rank by St Bartholomew’s Hospital, where Jacinto handed her into the first waiting hansom, But Marianna would not give the order to move until she had seen him enter the vehicle behind.

The two cabs moved off in procession, but at Old Bailey they took separate ways. Marianna craned her neck for a last glimpse of him, then sank back into the leather seat. Blinded by tears, she fumbled in her purse. There-was just a single florin beside her train ticket with which to pay the cabby.

* * * *

Highmount stood dark and silent against the mottled night sky as Marianna trudged the winding driveway through the park; except, she noted with relief as she drew nearer, for a faint glimmer through the curtains of her bedroom. The arrangements she had hurriedly made with Hilda worked without a hitch. The girl was going to slip downstairs after Jenson had locked up for the night and draw back the bolts of the side door nearest the back stairs. Marianna approached on tiptoe and the handle turned smoothly. Once inside, she silently slid the bolts across again and crept upstairs.

She barely had time to touch her fingertips to the bedroom door before it was pulled open, letting out a pale shaft of lamplight. As soon as she was in the room with the door closed again, Hilda whispered, ‘Ooh ma’am, I’m that glad to see you back safe and sound.’

‘Is all well?’ Marianna asked anxiously. ‘Has anyone noticed my absence?’

‘No’m, not a soul. Did everything go aright?’ ‘I think so, Hilda. I pray to God all will be well.’ They stood for a few moments gazing at each other, two frightened young women. Then, blindly, they reached out their arms and clung together in a fervent embrace of relief and thankfulness.

Not for anything in the world was Marianna prepared to miss the start of the vintage at the Quinta dos Alecrims. Down at the wine lodge in Funchal they would be busy, too, receiving the flood of freshly-pressed
mosto
that was beginning to arrive from the scattered terrace vineyards of a hundred independent growers. But they would have to manage for a day or two without the organizing presence of the Senhora Vintner herself. This was Marianna’s own personal vintage. The grapes being picked and trodden now, filling the air with a heavy, sweet aroma, had been grown on her own precious land. It was a time for primeval rejoicing, of giving thanks for the good Lord’s bounty.

In these last few years, as each September came round, Marianna was swept back to her childhood — the days before the arrival of the devastating
phylloxera
plague when harvests had always been abundant. It was the custom for everyone on the Dalby estate to muster for the vintage – the women and children picking on the sunny terraces, the men treading the juice in the dimness of the
casa do lagar,
performing frenzied dances in the great wooden trough and chanting Bacchanalian verses, the gist of which Marianna had never properly understood as a child. Which was just as well, perhaps, for the vintage was a time when normal restraints were thrown to the four winds.

She stood watching the animated scene with a warm glow of pride. All around her, barefoot women in their homespun, red-striped petticoats and white kerchiefs were reaching up among the trellised vines to gather the luscious ripe bunches and pile them into large wicker baskets. Even wizened old Josepha, who had had her shroud ready these forty years now and grumbled that Death had forgotten her, insisted on lending a hand, sitting stiffly on a wooden stool and occasionally stretching out to pluck a few grapes within reach of her shaky fingers. The very tiniest children contributed as well, and Marianna smiled as she noticed a tottering. infant of hardly more than two solemnly lay a squashed fistful of grapes on to one of the filled baskets. The fair-haired youth who was about to bear it off to the
lagar
paused a moment, amused; then he bent and hoisted the weighty
cesto de vendima,
swinging it smoothly to lodge on his shoulder as though it contained nothing but feathers.

The child’s mother gave a loud, admiring chuckle and called for the benefit of everyone to hear, ‘Ai, Senhor Strong One, you have fine big muscles to be proud of. I wonder what else the good Lord gave you that would please a woman even more?’

There was an immediate burst of laughter, and a chorus of pointed remarks from the women. Young Dick grinned, but his face was scarlet as he hurried off. Well, at seventeen Marianna’s son did not need to have his ears stopped; he did not need his mother rushing to shield him from a bit of good-natured lewdness. All the same, Marianna was glad to see that the boy had blushed. She was proud of the way Dick readily lent a hand at vintage time, taking it for granted that he should work alongside the peasants, donning their garb of cotton blouse and trousers and accepting instructions from the
feitor
just like everybody else.

Could the possessor of such natural charm and good humour be William Penfold’s son? And what about that other side of Dick’s character, a quick, angry pride — had William fathered that? It was the unanswerable question that forever taunted and tormented her. Was he William’s son, or Jacinto’s?

‘Bom dia, cara.
Day-dreaming?’

The voice was soft, caressing. Marianna swung round in surprise, raising her hand against the fierce sunlight as she looked up at the man on horseback. In her absorption with Dick, she had not heard his approach. He swung down from the saddle of his chestnut colt to stand beside her, lean and good-looking, tall for a Portuguese.

‘What brings you here, Carlos?’ she inquired.

‘Do I need a reason?’ He smiled deep into her eyes. ‘My own picking has not yet commenced, so I decided I would ride over and wish my Marianna good vintage.’

With a little frown at his possessive use of her name, she said, ‘It
will
be a good vintage this year. Not like those first few years when I came back from England, eh Carlos? I had some disastrous harvests then.’

‘We all thought you were entirely mad.’

‘Because I was a woman?’

‘Of course,’ he said in smiling acknowledgement. ‘But it would have been a formidable task for a man, also — to be faced as you were with devastated vineyards, your peasants grown independent and slothful, the
quinta
falling to pieces from neglect. And the wine lodge — I shudder to think! An abandoned wreck swarming with rats. I’ll never know where you found the courage, my dear.’

Had it been true courage, Marianna wondered, or the ruthless determination of despair? In England, she had been a widow with a baby son, in what was to her still a strange and alien land, her days made even more wretched by her stepson who was triumphant in his newly-awarded mastery over her.