Marianna (26 page)

‘But all that time I was in an agony to discover how you were faring,’ he said. ‘I learned that the Royal Agricultural and Commercial Society in the city possessed a reading room, and with the help of my employer I was allowed access. As often as I could, I went along to scour the English newspapers — they were always several weeks behindhand, of course — and I read about the search for the unknown assailant of Mr William Penfold. And soon my name appeared in the reports as a man the police wanted to question. But never any hint that you were under suspicion, Marianna. Eventually, I read that you had given birth to a child, eight months after your husband’s tragic death. I knew then,
querida,
that it would be wrong of me to expect you to come and share the insecurity of my life in exile, wicked of me to risk bringing disaster down upon you and your baby son. I had to abandon all hope that we should ever be together again.’

Marianna asked quickly, her hands clenched together, ‘How much has your mother told you about me? What of my son ... what did she say about him?’

‘That he is a fine, strong lad, a credit to your upbringing in the difficult circumstances with which you’ve had to contend.’ Jacinto smiled at her sadly. ‘The child must have been a great consolation to you, my dearest.’

Searching his dark eyes, Marianna could see no trace of a question there, no hint of any realization that Dick might be
his
son. So his mother had kept her beliefs to herself. Perhaps Rosaria no longer wanted any claim to Dick for a grandson now that Jacinto himself was back.

‘Yes, Dick is a fine boy,’ she agreed huskily.

Jacinto’s glance flickered away from her before he spoke again, giving Marianna forewarning that what he was about to impart would distress her. Yet even so, she was totally unprepared for the shock of his announcement.

‘I have a daughter,’ he said. ‘Lucia. She is just sixteen.’

It felt like utter betrayal! As Marianna stared at him, speechless, he continued, ‘My wife is here with me, and Lucia, too.’ Then he read in her face the pain she could not keep hidden, and hurried on, ‘Let me explain, Marianna.’

‘There is nothing to explain. You were free to marry, if you wished.’

‘But it was not for love,’ he insisted.

She said coldly, ‘It is dishonourable to speak thus of your wife to ... to another woman.’

‘To me you are not another woman,
querida,
you know that. You are a part of me, a part of my heart and soul. You are the only woman I have ever loved or ever could love.’

‘And so you married someone else! If not for love, then for what, I wonder? Her money?’ She threw the bitter words at him wildly, intending to hurt. That she had succeeded in this was shown by the angry spark in his eyes and the defiant thrust of his chin.

‘You’re a fine one to talk!’ he flung back at her.

Marianna’s arrogance crumpled in an instant, and shaming tears filled her eyes.

‘Forgive me,
querida,
I did not mean to say that.’ He came to stand beside her, laying a hand on her sleeve. ‘Let me tell you about Catarina, so that you will understand.’

Marianna nodded wordlessly, and Jacinto began, ‘She was the daughter of the man for whom I worked. Senhor Almeida liked to talk to me sometimes, because I spoke Portuguese and he himself was of Portuguese descent, from Brazil. Soon he made me an overseer, and then, because his health was failing and I was quick with figures, he asked me to keep his account books and pay out the men’s wages for him.’

As she listened to Jacinto, a picture took shape in her mind of the harsh conditions on the sugar plantations, the brutally hard labour of cane cutting in steamy tropical heat. There had been a tiny office, just a rough wooden shack, and he had been permitted to sleep there on a palliasse, a luxury to him after the overcrowded dormitory hutment where the other men, flotsam of a dozen different races, would swig crude rum and brawl for half the night. A friendship had developed between Jacinto and his middle-aged, widowed employer, quickly blossoming into mutual trust. Jacinto found himself confiding something of his story, and it fell on sympathetic ears. Before long, Senhor Almeida was telling Jacinto of his fears regarding the future of his one and only child, a gentle, convent-educated girl of barely seventeen.

‘He knew, you see, that he was a dying man. He had been given at most another year to live. What would be his daughter’s fate when he was dead and gone? The plantation was only just paying its way by then against the competition of the cheaper beet sugar grown in Europe, and would hardly bring her an adequate income. The girl was so young and knew so little of the harsh world that she would be easy prey to any determined adventurer.’

Moved by compassion, Jacinto had promised to do whatever lay within his power to see that Catarina was not imposed upon and that the sugar plantation continued to earn her a sufficiency. But that was not what Senhor Almeida had in mind.

‘He told me,’ Jacinto went on, ‘that Catarina looked upon me with favour, and that if I were to ask for her hand in marriage it would be granted with his blessing. He trusted me, he said, and he would die happy if Catarina were in my care.’ Jacinto’s eyes were grave as he met Marianna’s. ‘I reminded the
senhor
that he knew enough of my background to understand that I would never abandon hope of being reunited with you,
querida.
But as the weeks went by he constantly returned to the subject, pressing me to reconsider my decision. Then came the day when I read in the London
Morning Post
of the birth of your child, and I knew that I must keep out of your life forever. It was that which decided me to agree to Senhor Almeida’s proposition. Catarina accepted my hand, and her father was overjoyed. He died two months after we were married.’

Marianna said huskily, ‘And your wife, does she know the circumstances that took you to Guiana?’

‘No, her father begged me not to tell her. He said it would only distress poor Catarina to no purpose. And now, of course, it is unthinkable to cause her even greater suffering than she already has to endure.’

‘Suffering?’

His fingers went to the scar on his temple in the gesture Marianna remembered so well. ‘Catarina is desperately ill,’ he said. ‘This wretched consumption.’

‘I see! And you have brought her to Madeira in the hope that the climate here will effect a cure?’

‘Alas, the disease is too far advanced for any possibility of that. But I am hoping there will be a certain easement for her. On the doctor’s advice I took her to live on the Demarara coast where the climate is less extreme, but even there the heat becomes oppressive in August and September. I could not bear to see the suffering it caused her, so I appointed my overseer to take temporary charge and brought her to Madeira.’

‘Does she realize that this was your birthplace?’

‘No, she thinks I am from the Portuguese mainland. That was my original story, you see, before I confided in her father.’

‘So you plan to return to Guiana when the weather there improves?’

‘Catarina will never go back,
5
he said sombrely. ‘I believe she herself appreciates that she will end her days in Madeira.’

Marianna was silent for a moment. ‘And you, Jacinto?’

He spread his hands in a helpless gesture. ‘It was my intention to return, I have the plantation there, and for my daughter it is home. But now that I find you here in Madeira,
querida,
I am uncertain if I can bring myself to leave.’

‘It is not seemly to talk in this way,’ she protested unhappily, ‘not when your wife is lying so ill.’

Jacinto’s eyes flashed in reproach. ‘But to speak in any other way would be dishonest. A cheap evasion! I love you, Marianna, as deeply as I have always loved you. And you love me.’

Her throat was tensed. ‘You ... you take a lot for granted.’

‘But it is true. Why pretend with one another, my dearest, when we both know that it is true?’

The silence pulsing between them was broken by a commotion outside the room, hurrying footsteps and a cheery shout. The office door burst open and Dick came bounding in. He stopped short when he saw that someone was with his mother, Jacinto had moved back from her hastily, but not before Dick had noted their proximity.

‘Excuse me,’ he remarked with cold politeness. ‘I did not know that you were engaged, mama.’

Marianna said breathlessly, ‘This is my son, Dick, Senhor...’ She had to glance furtively at the visiting card still clutched in her fingers, for she had forgotten Jacinto’s assumed name. ‘... Senhor Carreiro.’

‘Good afternoon, young man. I am delighted to meet you,’ said Jacinto, holding out his hand. Half-fearfully, half-hopefully, Marianna watched his face for a sign of recognition, for the sudden dawning in his mind that this boy he was meeting for the first time could be the fruit of his loins. But there was nothing.

‘Dom Joao is from Guiana, Dick,’ she went on uneasily. ‘He has come to see me about... on a matter of business.’

‘I see!’ Moodily, Dick slung the wicker satchel he carried on to a chair. He showed no inclination to leave.

Making conversation, Marianna explained to Jacinto that, in preparation for going to Oxford University in a couple of years’ time, her son was receiving tuition from a former Oxford professor of English who had settled in Madeira on account of his health. ‘Professor Melhuish instructs a group of half a dozen lads at his own house. It works very well.’

‘I’m sure that it does. My own education, Dick, was of a rather less formal nature.’

Marianna felt colour mount to her cheeks. She knew that she must terminate this interview as quickly as possible. But first she wanted to lay the foundation for another meeting with Jacinto.

She said nervously, ‘Dom Joao is here in Madeira with his wife and daughter, Dick. Unfortunately Senhora Carreiro is an invalid, but I wonder...’ She glanced at Jacinto, begging him to follow her lead. ‘Would it perhaps interest your daughter to have a conducted tour of the wine lodge?’

‘What a kind thought, Dona Marianna. I am sure that Lucia would be delighted.’

They fixed it for the very next afternoon, and Jacinto took his leave. The moment he had gone, Dick demanded, ‘What the devil did that fellow want with you, mama?’

‘I told you, it was a business matter.’

‘That may be so! But I saw the way the two of you were standing close together, gazing into each other’s eyes.’

‘How dare you speak to your mother like that,’ she blazed. Then, seeing his angry young face crumple, she added, still firmly but on a gentler note, ‘You misinterpreted the situation, Dick.’

‘And do I also misinterpret the situation regarding those other two men?’ he asked bitterly. ‘That Senhor Dom Carlos Rapazotte and Dottore da Silva?’

Marianna sighed. ‘I wonder if you have the smallest conception of what it has been like for me, a woman on her own, to rebuild your grandfather’s wine business from virtually nothing.’

‘You must have done it from choice, mama. You could have remained in England. You had a perfect right to continue living in my father’s houses.’

‘That is true,’ Marianna acknowledged quietly. ‘But it would not have been a happy life, Dick, for either of us.’

‘I don’t see why not. England must be a wonderful place to live. It’s the very heart of the British Empire.’

‘You’ll have your chance to go there in due course. But at the time of your birth ... well, let us say that I was not made to feel welcome by Ralph Penfold. In fact, I did not feel truly welcome in England at any time.’ Choosing her words with care, she went on, ‘It is often the case, you know, when a widower with children takes a second wife. And for me the situation was made especially difficult because I was even younger than my husband’s son and daughter by his first marriage. After ... after I became a widow, Ralph was responsible for administering my income, because he was his father’s heir. It meant that I was entirely dependent on Ralph’s goodwill — something which had always been markedly lacking. Believe me, Dick, Ralph himself was greatly relieved when I made the decision to leave England and return to Madeira. And for my own part, I have never once regretted it. But I couldn’t have succeeded here without the help of men in positions of influence like Senhor Rapazotte and Dottore da Silva. Their friendship has been invaluable to me.’

Dick was glaring at her rebelliously and Marianna knew that his quick temper might lead him into making an unforgivable retort. So she finished hastily, ‘It is the same with Senhor Carreiro.’

‘How can
he
be of use to you?’

Her mind spun for a convincing answer. To discuss buying Dalby wines? But their present agency arrangements in Guiana, though modest, were quite satisfactory and could hardly be bettered. ‘He is ... he is interested in the possibility of investing some money...’

‘Investing!’ Dick stared at her in astonishment. ‘But what do you want with that, mama? You have always taken pride in your independence.’

‘And I shall retain it,’ Marianna insisted, feeling that her control of the situation was slipping away. She now half-regretted her practice of taking her son into her confidence in all matters relating to the firm. ‘Dick, I am not prepared to discuss this with you any more. You can rest assured that any action I take will be given the most serious consideration, with your interests in mind quite as much as my own. So leave it there, if you please.’

* * * *

Dick made it his business to be present for the conducted tour, calmly claiming when he turned up at the wine lodge soon after midday that Professor Melhuish had sent them all home early. Marianna accepted this improbable explanation without demur, and in truth she was glad enough to have the boy there. She had already calculated that if he and Jacinto’s daughter could become friends, it would lessen Dick’s disapproval of Jacinto himself. Besides, there would be greater opportunity for her to speak privately with Jacinto,

The visitors arrived at three o’clock, having come down from the heights of Monte on the toboggan slide. Lucia’s cheeks were prettily flushed from the exhilarating experience of hurtling down the slippery pebbled track in a basket sledge, guided by swift-footed
carro
men grasping ropes. It was apparent, though, that she was a shy, retiring girl, and she responded timidly to Marianna’s welcome.