Marianna (29 page)

She said, ‘Your wife wants me to persuade you to invest money in Dalby Wines. She told me that she believes you could be happy settling in Madeira when ... when she is no longer here.’ Jacinto seemed surprised, and she added, ‘Catarina loves you very much, you know.’

‘Yes,’ he said slowly,
‘
I have always been aware of that. I have tried to repay her love in every way that was open to me. But I was unable to give her my own love in return, for that belonged to you, Marianna.’

She felt deeply moved. Not looking at Jacinto, she said, ‘It is strange — Catarina is your wife, my rival in a sense, yet I feel only warmth for her. I should like to be her friend for the short time she has left.’

‘She feels warmly for you too,
querida.
You must not think that we are cheating Catarina. I have performed my duty to her, the duty her father entrusted to me, and I will continue to do so until the end. I would never willingly do anything to hurt her. But beyond that, the love that you and I feel for one another is not to be denied.’

The two of them were entrapped in a spell of silence in which the tiniest sounds seemed magnified a hundredfold. Their own rapid breathing, the ticking of the wall clock, old Roderigo beyond the door, grumbling to himself over his columns of figures; and outside in the courtyard, the sound of barrels being trundled across the cobbles and the distant chuck-chuck of an adze chipping oak in the cooper’s shop. It was a fragment of time which seemed to last an infinity. Then suddenly they came together, reaching for one another, clasping, clinging. As they kissed, the years between were swept away for Marianna. Her small, shadowed office seemed all at once filled with radiance, and the pain in her heart was the pain of ecstasy.

The visit to the
quinta
was arranged at short notice on the pretext that Lucia and her father would thereby see the tail-end of the vintage, the fifth and final picking over of the vines.

In the week before the appointed day, Marianna saw Jacinto three times. Once alone, when he came to her office ostensibly for a business discussion (an unhappy occasion when they were both too much on edge to be natural with each other), and twice with the two young people.

The four of them made an excursion on horseback to Camacha to see the basketworkers. Marianna herself purchased a long wicker chair and arranged for it to be delivered to the
quinta
at Monte, thinking that on the warmest days Catarina might care to sit out in the open air in the fragrant shade of the folhado tree. Dick bought two identical straw boaters and presented one to Lucia with a low bow, suggesting that she remove her bonnet and put it on to match his. She blushed prettily as she did so, and looked, Marianna thought, endearingly young.

The day fixed for their second outing, this time to the Curral das Freiras deep in the mountains, was by no means so promising, the loftiest peaks being quite obscured by cloud. But arrangements had been made to meet Jacinto and Lucia on the road, so it was not easy to make a last-minute change of plan. She and Dick had hired saddle horses for the day from the livery stables in the Rua do Bispo, and the
burriqueiro
accompanying them assured Marianna with an energetic nodding of his head that all the clouds would clear away and it would be much beautiful.

Jacinto and his daughter were first at the rendezvous, a little wayside shrine beyond the church of Santo Antonio.

‘We are promised an improvement in the weather,’ Marianna called apologetically.

‘I do not mind. Dona Marianna, even if there is not,’ said Lucia. ‘This is quite an adventure in the mist. Everything looks so mysterious.’

As they continued, the hedges of fuchsia and wild rose gave way to groves of chestnut and laurel, and then to a region of heath and bilberry. They climbed ever higher on the tortuous, boulder-strewn road through the mountain passes, and Lucia kept exclaiming at the wild savage grandeur of it all; so different, she said, from anything she had seen in Guiana. At one point where their way was hardly more than a narrow shelf cut into a vertical wall of rock, overhung with ferns and mosses, Marianna was forced to close her eyes and put her faith in her horse and the
burriqueiro
clinging to its tail. But Lucia seemed as fearless as her father had always been, and was clearly loving every minute.

Dick, following just behind her, said boastfully, ‘This is nothing special, Lucia. I’ll show you a
levada
path near the Quinta dos Alecrirns that’ll make your hair stand on end.’

‘Oh no you won’t, young man,’ Marianna called back over her shoulder. ‘These sheer drops make
me
giddy, and I’m used to them.’

‘But I’d never put Lucia to any risk,’ he scoffed. ‘As if I would.’

When at last they reached the viewing point to the Curral at Eira do Serrado, they were hemmed in on every side by dense, blanketing cloud. There was nothing whatever to be seen, and Marianna felt a bitter disappointment. Then in one of Madeira’s sudden miracles, the clouds began to roll away and within moments they were afforded a breathtaking view into the mighty chasm of the extinct volcano. All around them the mountain walls rose in rugged masses and jagged crags, terraced for cultivation on every ledge wherever it was possible for a man to climb. And two thousand feet below them lay the sunlit village, with its tiny straw-thatched houses and the little church in its midst.

Looking down, Marianna felt a wave of dizziness; the rustic barrier seemed far too flimsy so she stepped back from the edge.

‘Why is it called the Nun’s Fold?’ asked Lucia, craning her neck eagerly.

‘Because,’ said Dick, ‘it’s where the Sisters from the Convent of Santa Clara in Funchal took refuge three hundred years ago, when some French privateers landed and went on the rampage.’

‘You mean the nuns were afraid of being murdered in their beds?’

Dick’s face turned red with embarrassment, and Marianna went to her son’s aid.

‘Keep very quiet, Lucia, and listen hard,’ she suggested. ‘Sound carries so extraordinarily well in this place that you can almost hear if someone drops a pin down in the village.’

Not quite a pin, perhaps. But they heard a woman calling to her child, the tinkle of a goat’s bell, the soft gurgle of the
ribeiro.

Then, as quickly as the clouds dispersed, they came rolling back and the vision was lost. The four of them made their way down the irregular stone steps to where the
burriqueiros
waited with the horses. Finding a sheltered spot, they spread out the picnic meal which Marianna had brought — rolled slices of thinly-cut beef, cold partridge, tunny fish pate, stuffed eggs, and various kinds of tarts and sweetmeats. After they had finished eating, and the weather still looked disappointing, Marianna thought that Lucia might be interested to hear the famous legend about the pair of ill-starred lovers who were supposed to have come to the wooded isle of Madeira even before the accredited discoverer, Zarco, in the year fourteen nineteen.

‘The story starts in England at the time of King Edward the Third,’ she began. ‘That is, the late thirteen hundreds. A young man, Robert Machim, who was the son of a humble squire, fell deeply in love with Ana d’Arfet, the daughter of a nobleman, and she with him. But Ana’s father was enraged, and he forced the girl to marry a much older man of her own rank. So Robert contrived to carry off his beloved, with the intention of escaping across the sea to Brittany. However, their ship was driven by the most terrible gales for thirteen long days and nights, and then finally it made landfall at some unknown and uninhabited island. Sadly, though, poor Ana had suffered so grievously from her privations that she died within a few hours of being carried ashore. Robert was brokenhearted and tortured by remorse, and he survived her by only five days. The two lovers were buried by the ship’s crew side by side on the beach, in the place that was later to be known as Machico. And according to some people, the ancient chapel there was originally built to mark their grave.’

‘
I suppose you realize it’s all a lot of tommyrot,’ Dick broke in scornfully. ‘Just a silly old romantic legend.’

‘Well, you men can scoff if you wish,’ said his mother. ‘But I think Lucia will agree with me that it’s a very beautiful story, and we would like to believe that it’s a true one.’

‘Oh yes,’ agreed the girl, her eyes shining.

Briefly, Jacinto’s glance met Marianna’s, then he said with an easy laugh, ‘I do not scoff at love stories, like Dick.’

‘So there,’ she said to her son. ‘You are quite outvoted, as you deserve to be.’

A sudden heavy squall obliged them to gather up the remains of the picnic and seek shelter. Not far away they found a small cave cut into the rock for roadmenders, where they could just about stand up. Ten minutes later the rain stopped as abruptly as it had started, and they emerged into bright sunshine. The air was sparkling fresh and filled with fragrance. Above them, arching across the sky, was a magnificent double rainbow, its spectrum colours glowing vividly.

As they stood watching in awed admiration, Jacinto began, ‘I remember how —’ He checked himself sharply, and Marianna caught her breath. It was so natural to speak of a recollection from his childhood, yet so dangerous.

‘You remember what, papa?’ asked Lucia.

Jacinto answered, after a tiny pause, ‘I remember when I was a very little boy, I used to think that rainbows were painted across the sky by the angels.’

She and Dick rode up to the
quinta
early on the morning that their guests were due to arrive. Linguareira insisted on accompanying them, but she was too fat and breathless now for horseback riding and was obliged to resort to a hired hammock for such journeys. There were wheezes and gasps as she lowered herself into it, and on the route Dick kept giggling at the muttered quips of the two pole bearers to the effect that, the Holy Saints be praised, it was a pleasure to carry the weight of such a sylphlike creature.

The first thing Marianna did on their arrival was to go and see Rosaria, finding her sitting on the doorstep of their whitewashed
casa,
busy embroidering a scalloped linen collar.

‘The grape picking is almost finished,’ she explained, ‘and I am anxious to get this done. It is for her ... his daughter.’ She glanced from side to side, but no one was about. ‘For my grand-daughter,’ she amended with pride.

‘I am only sorry, Rosaria, that you cannot acknowledge her as such,’ Marianna said, bending to admire the delicate stitchery.

‘In my own heart I can, thanks be to God!’

Marianna knew that this simple, devout woman considered she had been amply rewarded for the annual performance of her sacred vow, for the bruised and bleeding knees she had suffered in mounting the hard stone steps to the church. God had answered by bringing back her son, even if not in a manner which could be openly acknowledged.

‘Lucia is a charming and beautiful girl,’ said Marianna.

‘Sim,
Jacinto told me this when he came. It was secretly, you know, one night. He promised then that he would look for a way to let us see our grandchild, and now you,
menina,
have made it possible. May the Holy Virgin heap blessings upon you for your goodness.’

Jacinto and Lucia arrived on horseback an hour later, having come direct from Monte. After a short tour of the
quinta —
which Jacinto was supposed to be seeing for the first time — they took their lunch at a table on the veranda, where all the scents of the garden drifted towards them on a light breeze. Linguareira refused to sit with them, insisting that she knew her place. They could hear her voice from inside the house, berating the servants for being lazy good-for-nothings, and Marianna knew it was the old woman’s way of relieving her anxiety. On seeing Jacinto for the first time in the Rua das Murças, she had swept him into a fierce, emotional embrace; after which she had treated him with neutral politeness.

It was an afternoon with racing trails of cloud, the sun and shadow patterns fleeting across the slopes of the ravine, lighting up the dark-veined rockface behind the
quinta
and lingering for a moment on the two paler pinnacles of the Devil’s Horns. The party wandered down through the fragrant garden, past the hibiscus bushes where hawk moths flitted, and came to the vineyard.

There was much less activity now, with the last-to-ripen bunches being picked and trodden. Hating the necessity for it, Marianna introduced Eduardo to Jacinto as though they were strangers, and father and son bowed gravely to one another. Eduardo, speaking as the humble
feitor,
presently announced that his wife would be greatly honoured if the
senhor
and Senhora Dona Marianna would partake of refreshment at their small house. Marianna caught Jacinto’s eye and smiled to convey that this met with her approval; that, in fact, it had been arranged by her in advance. So Eduardo led the way to the thatched cottage where Jacinto had spent his childhood.

It was dark inside, for the principal room, where in the old days all the family had gathered and several of the children had also slept, possessed only one small window. But it was spotless, the stone floor swept clean, the few small pieces of furniture rubbed to a high polish. On the table in the centre of the room bottles and glasses had been set out, and an array of sweetmeats —
bolo de mel,
cinnamon biscuits and little custard tarts flavoured with orange. Lucia went forward to admire the tablecloth of white linen embroidered with an intricate floral and bird design in several colours.

‘How very lovely!’ she exclaimed. ‘Did you make this, Senhora Teixeiro? You must be very clever,’

Rosaria’s seamed face broke into a wide smile. ‘You shall have it,
menina.
It will be my gift to you.’

‘Oh no, I couldn’t possibly.’

Marianna gave a quick shake of her head at Rosaria, indicating that such a gift was far too lavish. ‘But I’m sure,’ she said, ‘that Lucia would be delighted to be offered something smaller as an example of your embroidery.’