Marianna (21 page)

Ralph threw back his head and gave a callous laugh. ‘Well, he won’t be turning to anyone for affection now, will he? Come on, Monty.’

The incident set the final seal on their mutual hatred. Marianna’s loathing for Ralph was now quite as intense as his for her. Heartsick, she could not face the morning service; instead, she went straight to her room and did not appear to bid the two men goodbye. And when, later on, she met Jacinto down at the bridge, he could tell at once that something had upset her.

‘What is it,
cara?’
he asked with concern. ‘What has happened?’

Marianna had not intended to speak of this personal sadness in the precious time they had together, but the story came tumbling out. Jacinto’s face grew dark as he listened.

‘My poor darling! You have enough to bear without a wanton act of cruelty like this to add to your distress.’

The tenderness in his voice turned a key that unlocked her tongue. Marianna found herself pouring out all her unhappiness and the shameful secrets of her life as William Penfold’s wife. She was filled with a sudden need to tell Jacinto everything, to hold nothing back. With her face averted, she spoke of those first days of her marriage — the shocked discovery of her husband’s nature, which in her innocence she had not at first understood to be abnormal. The humiliating demands he made on his child bride; the reproaches he invariably heaped upon her, afterwards, for his own carnality.

Jacinto held her in his arms and she clung to him.

‘I knew that you were deeply unhappy, my dearest one,’ he said. “But not this! Thank God I have come to England. Thank God I am here now and can take you away.’

Hope soared in her, and died in the same instant. With shame she realized that she had revealed far too much; she had eased her tortured mind only by placing an unfair burden upon Jacinto’s shoulders.

‘I should not have told you these things,’ she said. ‘I cannot think why I did.’

‘You told me,
querida,
because you love me.’

She looked up and met the steady gaze of his dark eyes. In helpless resignation, she whispered, ‘Yes. Oh yes, I love you, Jacinto;’

It had started to rain, a fine penetrating drizzle that was becoming heavier. If they did not seek shelter they would soon be soaked to the skin. As Marianna led the way to the boat-house fifty yards along the river bank, she was under no illusion. This simple wooden hut would become their love bower. She knew that, and she rejoiced in the fact.

The moment the door was closed, Jacinto took her into his arms once more and they embraced with a passionate intensity, murmuring soft, sweet words. The passing of time had no meaning now; they were locked in an eternity of love and longing. Their couch was a slatted bench on which Jacinto spread his greatcoat, and Marianna accepted him as her lover joyously. She welcomed the thrust of him within her as an enrichment of her soul, instead of the defilement of her body that each and every union with her husband had been.

Afterwards, as they lay still, she had no thought for anything beyond the fulfilment of their love. Until Jacinto shattered the fragile moment by speaking about the future.

‘You must leave your husband at once,
querida,
and come to me. I cannot offer you the luxury to which you are accustomed, alas, but I will find somewhere clean and decent for us to live.’

‘No, no! There can be no question of that.’

‘You mean that you do not
want
to come to me?’ The note of hurt reproach in his voice betrayed Jacinto’s lack of self-confidence, his vulnerability.

‘You don’t understand,’ she said quickly. ‘Naturally I want to come to you. Above everything in the world I long to be with you. But it is impossible.’

‘Why is it impossible? You cannot feel bound by marriage vows to such a man as he.’

‘
No, it isn’t that. But William would never permit me to leave him. If I were to come to you, Jacinto, he would destroy you. I know my husband. He would destroy you utterly.’

‘Let him try!’

‘Believe me, he would succeed. Don’t forget that the law is always on the side of the husband.’

‘Then we will go back to Madeira. We shall be safe from him there, my darling.’

Marianna shook her head. The golden prospect he held out was a torment. ‘You do not appreciate the extent of William’s influence. He would leave no stone unturned to seek us out. There can be no escape for us.’

Jacinto protested angrily; he threatened that he would confront her husband, challenge him, demand that William release her. But Marianna was adamant, refusing to be persuaded by such wild impracticality. Though she hardly cared what happened to herself, she could not permit the man she loved to be the object of her husband’s vengeance. And at long last, Jacinto was forced to accept the brutal truth of her argument.

‘But one day,’ he vowed, ‘one day I shall be as powerful as William Penfold. Then I shall take you away.’

With a flurry of panic Marianna realized that the early winter dusk had crept upon them unawares. Hilda would be concerned by her long absence, perhaps even now was sending menservants to look for her mistress in case any harm had befallen her.

‘I had no idea it was so late,’ she said, getting quickly to her feet. ‘I must return to the house with all speed.’

Jacinto nodded sombrely and rose too. He picked up his greatcoat from the bench and put it on. In the doorway, he caught Marianna to him in a final passionate embrace; then releasing her, he whispered, ‘Next week, beloved?’

She did not hesitate an instant. ‘Yes. Yes, next week.’

Marianna sorely missed the soft padding of old Cato’s footsteps following her everywhere around the house. On this Sunday morning, the last day before William was due home from Canada, the last time that she and Jacinto could be together in the boathouse for a brief hour of happiness, she found herself strolling in the corner of the grounds where the old mastiffs body had been buried.

A bent old man was standing beside the mound of brown earth, and Marianna saw that it was Dawson, Hilda’s grandfather. He pulled off his Sunday best cap as she approached,

‘I were just a’thinking, missus, come springtime and I’ll plant a little laurel tree here. To mark the spot, like. I’ve got some nice cuttings coming on.’

‘That’s a happy thought, Dawson. Old Cato used to love lying in the shade of the laurel bush by the end of the terrace, didn’t he?’

‘Young Hilda telled me how upset you was about the dog, missus. A crying shame, it were! But Master Ralph, he ain’t got no time for old uns, eh? Reckon he’ud put me down too if the fancy took his mind.’ When Marianna made no protest at this, Dawson went on, “He were allus the same, even as a small lad. Born with a cruel streak in him, you might say. I come across him once — would you believe it, he’d pricked out the eyes of a little sparrow he’d caught, and he were laughing at the poor creature flitting about all blinded and knocking into things. And another time he’d tied a cat up by its tail and he were poking it with a red hot stick from the bonfire, and—’

‘Please!’ Marianna protested, sickened, and the old man cocked a rheumy glance at her, afraid he had gone too far in criticizing a member of the family. She managed a faint smile and hurried on her way.

It was a morning of crisp winter sunshine, the air so crystal clear that a clump of beech trees on a distant hill was sharply silhouetted against the soft blue sky. But this past couple of weeks Marianna had made it her habit to go walking or riding at least once every day, regardless of the weather. Otherwise, she feared that if it should prove to be inclement on one of those Sunday afternoons when she was meeting Jacinto, her outing might give rise to unwelcome curiosity.

‘I feel I must have fresh air,’ she had explained to a puzzled Hilda, ‘It does me good to get out of doors each day.’

Last Sunday had been a most anxious time for her, with a thick November fog closing in. She was afraid there would be delays on the railway and that Jacinto would be unable to reach their rendezvous. But to Marianna’s great joy he was there on time, having taken an earlier train from London as a precaution. Once they were safely united in the boathouse, the blanketing fog seemed only to add to their closeness. Their loving had not been overshadowed, as it would be today, by the pain of knowing that their last precious hour together was fleeting away.

This final afternoon, as she lay cradled in Jacinto’s arms, Marianna found she had a need to unburden her conscience.

There is something that I must tell you,’ she whispered. ‘I do not want to tell you, but I must. It’s about Tereza.’

“Tereza from home
,
you mean?’

‘Yes. She did not steal my locket, Jacinto. She was no thief. I took it to her room and hid it beneath her mattress, to get Tereza into trouble.’

‘But why? I do not understand.’

‘Because of you. I had seen you kissing her in the garden that evening and I was jealous. So I did what I did to get Tereza into trouble. It was a dreadfully cruel thing to do, and now that you know, you must despise me for it.’

After a considering pause, he said, ‘The blame is equally mine. I too was making use of Tereza to vent my jealousy. You see,
querida,
I knew you were watching from the veranda that evening and I kissed her quite deliberately to try and hurt you. I wanted to demonstrate that I cared not a sneeze that you were to marry William Penfold.’

‘Oh Jacinto! We can only thank heaven that poor Tereza did not suffer unduly for what we both did to her.’

Propped on one elbow, Marianna gazed pensively at his beloved face, the serious dark eyes, the black hair that tumbled about his brow. She touched the arrow-shaped white scar at his temple, tracing its outline with her fingertip.

‘You have had this as long as I can remember,’ she said, ‘but I never inquired how you came by it.’

Jacinto shrugged. ‘I was four or five years old. My brother Diogo and I were cutting grass for the cow on the cliffs above the
ribeiro.
There had been much rain and the ground was very slippery. We fell.’

‘Diogo? But you have no brother by that name.’

‘He was killed. I was lucky. I only cut my head open.’

Jacinto spoke with such cool matter-of-factness and she shuddered as she remembered the terrible risks that Madeiran peasants had to take, even the youngest children, in their daily struggle for a livelihood.

‘To think that you might have been killed too,’ she murmured, ‘and I would never have known you.’

They fell silent, holding one another lovingly, clinging to one another desperately. Through the window the last rays of the afternoon sun struck shimmering reflections from the river on to the rough pinewood walls of the boathouse, turning their simple retreat into a glowing, golden honeycomb. Marianna would gladly have fallen asleep at this moment, there in Jacinto’s arms, in the certain knowledge that she would never wake again.

His voice was muffled against her hair. ‘I cannot bear to let you go,
querida.
Surely there must be
some
way for us to go on seeing one another.’

‘No, it’s impossible.’ Even with her eyelids pressed together, Marianna could not prevent the tears from breaking loose and dampening her cheeks. ‘After William comes back tomorrow, there must never be any further meetings between us, Jacinto my darling. Though it will rend my heart in two.’

‘He will travel abroad again ...’

‘But each time our parting would be a thousandfold more painful. Today must mark the end. We agreed upon that, didn’t we?’

‘I wish the man dead,’ Jacinto burst out.

‘Hush, you must not say that.’

‘But he
will
die one day — he is an old man already — and then you will be free. However long it may take, I shall wait for you.’

In the poignancy of these last few minutes together neither of them was conscious of a shadow passing across the small window, of footsteps just outside. They were shocked into awareness when the door was kicked open and a man’s figure stood dark and menacing against the light. The raging voice told Marianna — unbelievably — that it was her husband.

‘You damned slut! You filthy whore!’

As Jacinto sprang to his feet to confront him, her husband struck out with the riding whip he carried. He caught Jacinto a vicious slash across the face which sent him reeling back in pain.

‘William! For pity’s sake!’ screamed Marianna in protest. She was answered by a second lash of the whip that cut agonizingly across her breasts,

‘Be silent, you fornicating bitch! I’ll deal with you after I’ve finished with this scum. By heaven, I’ll make you both wish that you’d never been born.’

Jacinto, beads of blood oozing from a long gash on his left cheek, flung himself at William and the two fell to the ground where they grappled together in the narrow space between the bench and the upturned dinghy. Her husband seemed to have the strength of a man demented. Screaming that he would kill them, kill them both, he drove his fist with sickening force into Jacinto’s face. This gave him a fractional advantage and his hands closed around Jacinto’s throat, squeezing without mercy. Marianna was shot through with fear, terror, that Jacinto would be strangled. She threw herself forward and clutched at William’s own throat with all the strength she could summon. Muttering a curse, her husband slackened his hold to hurl her away and the moment of respite was sufficient for Jacinto to gather up his legs in self-defence. When the murderous attack on his windpipe came again, he kicked out with such force, that his assailant was lifted into the air and flung backwards. William made wild threshing movements with his arms in an effort to regain his balance, but in vain. As he went staggering he stumbled against the dinghy and fell sideways, striking his head a violent blow on the steel-bound keel. Eerily, no sound came from him as he slid slowly to the ground and lay very still.

While Marianna shrank back, trembling., Jacinto heaved himself to his feet, and with his breath corning in painful, juddering rasps he lumbered forward to investigate.