Marianna (24 page)

Although William Penfold, in revising his will at the time of their marriage, had made financial provision for her — as also for any children she might bear him — Ralph remained the principal beneficiary. He had inherited both Highmount and the London house, so that Marianna was no longer mistress of her own homes, but little more than an ill-tolerated guest. And since Ralph was also his father’s sole executor, he effectively controlled every aspect of her life.

Marianna knew that Ralph harboured strong suspicions that Dick was not his father’s child. More than once she had caught him standing over the baby’s crib, staring in puzzled fury at her son’s fair colouring. Ralph was unaware, of course, that there was fair hair in Jacinto’s family — his brother Afonso and his sister Amalia; a not unusual variant in people of such mixed ancestry .as the Madeirense. He did not know, either, that Dick was an eight-month baby. She had been at great pains to conceal that fact. It narrowed the possible times of his conception down to that last night before her husband had sailed for Canada — and the three occasions when she and Jacinto had loved.

No, Ralph could know nothing for sure, could
prove
nothing.

Nevertheless her stepson had made life unbearable for her in England. So when Dick was six months old, she had returned to Madeira. Her father’s property, which mercifully remained her own under the terms of the marriage contract, had beckoned her as a sanctuary — despite the fact of its extreme dilapidation. The task of rebuilding, the fight against incredible odds, was a challenge that she welcomed.

She granted Carlos Rapazotte a bright smile. ‘You ask where I found the courage? But I could never have managed without good friends to help and advise me. One in particular!’

‘If only you would let me do more for you,
cara.’
He allowed his fingers to rest on Marianna’s arm, but she stepped away from him with a reproving glance. ‘I was hoping,’ he went on, stroking his upper lip with finger and thumb, ‘for an invitation to stay for luncheon.’

‘You won’t get one today, I’m afraid. Linguareira is bringing food for an
alfresco
meal. I like to eat out here with my people at vintage time. You get off home, Carlos, to your wife.’

He looked sulky. ‘Always you spurn me,
cara.
Do you say no, I wonder, to Augusto da Silva?’

‘What I say to Augusto is none of your business, Carlos. Really, you two men behave like a pair of jealous adolescents.’

There was a satisfied gleam in the dark brown eyes. ‘So! That vain fool is jealous of me — huh?’

Marianna laughed softly, possessed of all the assurance a beautiful woman might feel when bejewelled and ravishing in a velvet evening gown. Yet today she wore an old cotton shift, stained with grape juice, her fair hair was escaping from its pins under her straw bonnet, and her face was unfashion-ably burned by the sun. This wealth of self-confidence was hers, Marianna knew, because she was a free woman. She was dependent on no man, and no man had the power to stir her.

‘Be off with you, Carlos,’ she said again.

He still lingered. ‘I shall see you down in Funchal in a day or so?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘I will call upon you the moment I hear that you have arrived at Rua das Murças. You will not be so cruel as to send me away then?’

‘That remains to be seen. Now go! I see Linguareira coming, and she doesn’t approve of you at all.
Adeus,
Carlos.’

‘Até à vista,’
he said. ‘And may it be very soon.’

The passing years had not been kind to Marianna’s old
aia.
Linguareira’s bulk had enlarged and her breath had diminished. Setting down the wickerwork basket with a sigh of relief, she carefully lowered herself on to a slab-topped boulder, grunting and puffing and wheezing. Then she pulled out a yellow kerchief to mop her sweating face.

‘That wretched Senhor Dom Carlos,’ she grumbled. ‘I saw him here! You have no business encouraging him,
menina,
him and the other one. They buzz around you like wasps round a basket of ripe grapes—’

‘Hold your tongue,’ Marianna told her, but without any hint of rancour. ‘The juice is running well this year, Linguareira. It will be another fine, abundant vintage.’

‘And that’s no more than you deserve, the hard work you put in.’ She somehow made it a complaint. ‘Where is that boy Dick? Doesn’t he know that I’ve brought the food?’

All around them the pickers were breaking off their labours and flopping down in the shade beside the
levada
to eat a frugal midday meal. The treaders came out to join their womenfolk from the dimness of the
lagar
hut
,
blinking in the sunlight, stained head to foot with grape juice and somewhat unsteady on their legs from a liberal ration of
aguardente,
the coarse brandy distilled from sugar cane.

Linguareira spread a square of checked calico beside her on the boulder and laid out their own simple fare — crusty bread and creamy goat’s milk cheese, a flagon of rough red wine and a clutch of the small, sharp-flavoured silver bananas. Dick appeared from somewhere and tossed down his empty basket. From the dark glance he cast at Marianna, she knew that he too had noticed her in conversation with Carlos Rapazotte. She returned her son’s look coolly, daring him to utter a word on the vexed subject. Luckily, though, Dick’s mind was more concerned with eating than with his mother’s friendships with men.

‘It’s about time some sustenance appeared,’ he remarked to the air. ‘I’m absolutely starving.’ He threw himself down and reached for the loaf, but before he could break off a chunk Linguareira caught him a stinging cuff on the ear with the back of her hand.

‘Wash yourself first, savage. Go on, be quick about it.’

Dick’s blue eyes flashed, but with resigned good-humour. Marianna caught her breath. She was stabbingly reminded of Jacinto a dozen times a day, despite her son’s fair colouring. Crouched down by the
levada
now, barefoot, his white cotton blouse and trousers grubby and stained with the sweat of hard toil... oh God, how her heart turned over!

It was only a short break, for there was much to be done and the hours of daylight were precious. When work resumed, Marianna walked over for a word with her
feitor.
She found him checking off a line of
borracheiros,
the men detailed to carry the newly-pressed
mosto
on the long trudge down to her wine lodge in Funchal. Each man held a tall staff in his right hand and draped around his shoulders, bloated like a fat pig, was a goatskin containing ten gallons or more, held in position by a broad leather strap across the forehead.

‘It is going well, Eduardo?’ she asked.

‘Sim
, Dona Marianna. There will be plenty good wine this year to be matured in your
soleras.
’

A greater closeness existed between Marianna and her
feitor
than there had ever been in her father’s day, despite the fact that Eduardo Teixeiro was no longer a tenant of the Dalby estate. He
was no longer a
caseiro,
bound by law to give up half his produce as rent to the landowning
fidalgo.
One by one Eduardo had bought from her the tiny terraced plots that formed his
fazenda,
until he now owned them all. His ability to do so had filled Marianna with joy, because the purchase price gave evidence that Jacinto was still alive. Still alive and prospering.

She had known just one thing about Jacinto’s fate before she left England, even before her son was born — that he had been successful in making his escape. One cold February morning, ten weeks after his hasty departure, Hilda had brought a postcard on her breakfast tray. A glance at the handwriting sufficed. Her heart pounding wildly, Marianna scanned the carefully penned lines, puzzling over the Bristol postmark, until she realized that Jacinto must have entrusted some seaman to bring it with him to England and post it on arrival, as a means of concealing the true place of origin.

Have arrived safely, the message ran, though this climate does not agree with me. I look forward to seeing you again, dear Marianna, perhaps when your sad period of mourning is over? Until then, with deepest affection. He had signed it with a meaningless, Sarah.

‘Oh, Hilda!’ she cried on a dizzying wave of thankfulness. ‘All is well! He is safe, he is safe!’

‘That’s right good news, ma’am. I’m ever so glad for you.’ But then, warningly, ‘Mr Ralph ... he read that card. I saw it in his hand when I went to collect your post from the salver in the hall.’

‘Then I shall mention over luncheon that I’ve heard from a friend of my schooldays in Madeira, who has come to England. Don’t you see, Hilda, he cleverly wrote it in a way that I could give some such explanation, if need be.’

‘Yes’m,’ she agreed doubtfully. ‘Only be sure what you says sounds kind of casual, or Mr Ralph will get suspicious. You know what he’s like, always watching you, always on the lookout to trap you.’

There had been no further news of Jacinto. As the long waiting months of her pregnancy dragged on she prayed for another message, but none came.

Marianna had rejoiced when she realized that she was carrying a child, and yet there was a desperate fear in her that the baby might have Jacinto’s dark eyes and curly black hair — a fear that was at one and the same time an ache of longing.

She had to hope against hope that the child would be accepted without question as William’s. For there to be doubts cast over its paternity would make life intolerable for both mother and child.

In the event, her son was born less than eight months after her husband’s death. The baby had the same clear blue eyes as her own, and his hair when it grew was fair and silky. Apart from Ralph and the faithful Hilda, no one except Marianna herself had any cause to suspect that young Richard might be other than the posthumous child of William Penfold.

Once she had come to Madeira, though, there had been no concealing her private doubts from Linguareira, and no wish to conceal them. Marianna found a comforting cushion in the rough, understanding affection of her old
aia.

And soon there was yet another woman who knew her doubts about Dick’s paternity. Jacinto’s mother.

Immediately on her arrival in Funchal, Marianna learned that exhaustive inquiries had been made on the island about Jacinto Teixeiro. This man, it was said, who had vanished without trace from his lodgings and employment in London, answered the description of a person wanted for questioning by the British police in connection with the violent death of Mr William Penfold. Marianna had felt compelled to reassure the anxious Rosaria that her son had safely escaped to some land across the sea. There had been little else said between the two women, little explained but a very great deal was understood.

Several months later, in the warm and fragrant dusk of a December afternoon, Marianna had been sitting on the veranda with young Dick in her lap, by then a lusty seventeen-month-old infant, when she had caught a stealthy movement among the hibiscus bushes.

‘Rosaria!’ she called. ‘Is that you?’

The
feitor’s
wife had come forward and humbly prostrated herself, clutching her arms about Marianna’s knees in the old manner. But Marianna could not tolerate such obeisance from Jacinto’s mother.

‘Please don’t do that, Rosaria. Sit down beside me and tell me what you’ve come to say.’

‘Dona Marianna ...
menina,
I have news,’ she began in a hoarse whisper, perching on the very edge of a wicker chair. Rosaria spoke in Portuguese for she could manage little English; nor could she read or write. She dropped her voice still lower, glancing anxiously about her. ‘It is he ... our Jacinto. He has sent us money.
5

Marianna became very still, numbed with shock. Instinctively she found herself clutching her child the more tightly.

‘From where, Rosaria?’ she managed after a moment. ‘How did the money reach you?’

‘It was the
senhor pároco, menina.
This morning, when I was at confession, Father Baptisto said that my husband and I were to come to his house. He told us that there is money arrived for us ... from a foreign land. If the good father knows any more than that, he would not say. But it must be our Jacinto. Who else?’

Yes, who else? It was the time-honoured tradition for Madeiran emigres to send home   money to parents or wives, and the Teixeiros had no other family abroad. But Jacinto had sent his donation secretly, aware that there might still be danger in revealing his whereabouts.

Marianna said fervently, ‘That is wonderful news, Rosaria, And thank you so much for telling me.’

‘Ai,
I knew that you would want to know,
menina.’

On an impulse Marianna held out her baby and the other woman took him, cuddling Dick in her arms. She touched her lips to the little forehead and made a sign of the cross.

‘The blessing of our Lord in Heaven be upon you, poor fatherless boy.’

Inside the house, Linguareira could be heard shouting abuse at one of the servants. A lamp was lit and its soft yellow light spilled out on to the veranda and lent a strangely gentle beauty to the careworn face of Jacinto’s mother. Tears glittered in her dark eyes as she glanced at Marianna, asking a silent question. Silently, Marianna answered,
It is possible. I hope it is so, but I cannot be sure.

Rosaria clutched the child to her breast, crooning tender words of endearment, her voice cracked with emotion. Then, abruptly, without a word, she handed Dick back into his mother’s arms and hurried away into the swiftly-gathering darkness.

Behind Marianna a window was flung up and Linguareira stuck her head out.

‘What have you been saying,
menina?’
she demanded in a breathy hiss. ‘I saw her holding little Dick as if he were her own kin.’

‘I said nothing, Linguareira. But Rosaria guesses. Perhaps,’ she added, ‘it is a calling of the blood.’