Marianna Read online

  Jacinto halted and stood looking down at her, anxious and uncertain. ‘Are you much hurt?’

  Sitting up, she pulled back her skirts to reveal a graze from which blood was already oozing. The sight made her feel a little sick, although people of Jacinto’s class would simply wipe the blood away and promptly forget it as a trivial, everyday occurrence.

  ‘I don’t think it’s very bad,’ she said, with brave honesty.

  Jacinto knelt down and studied her knee gravely, trying to decide the proper thing to do.

  ‘Perhaps I had better cut into the tree and get some Dragon’s Blood,’ he suggested.

  ‘Oh no, you’re not putting that horrid messy stuff on my knee! It’s just a superstition that sap from the Dragon Tree will cure things.’

  ‘Then we will cover the wound up to stop it bleeding,’ he said, for once not arguing with her. ‘Have you one of those kerchief things in your pocket?’

  She produced a square of snowy cambric daintily edged with lace. Jacinto, whose strong brown hands could whittle odd pieces of orange and lemon wood with such delicate precision, was all at once clumsy and inept. With jerky movements he folded the handkerchief diagonally, then wrapped it round her knee and tied a knot at the back. This done, he remained crouched down and gazed at Marianna with intent eyes. After a moment, hesitantly, he let his fingertips brush down the length of her calf, leaving a tingling trail that made her heart beat abnormally fast.

  ‘Your skin, it is so soft,’ he whispered. ‘Like the ears of a new-born puppy dog.’

  ‘Jacinto, you shouldn’t...’ she protested. But he shook his head impatiently and the hand which now encompassed her bare foot was warm and reverent. Obscurely, uncertainly, Marianna knew that this was wrong. In a voice that trembled, she murmured, ‘Jacinto, please don’t.’

  He released her foot, but his dark eyes were still fixed upon her face in a strange look. Then, moving with swift stealth, Jacinto leaned forward and rested his lips lightly against hers. They were cool and sweet-tasting, like the nectar of a dewy flower. Marianna closed her eyes and uttered a soundless sigh. She could feel tiny quivers of excitement from deep within her body flowing out along her limbs. She wanted this delightful experience, this lovely floating dream to last for ever. But the dream ended with frightening abruptness when Jacinto snatched her clumsily into his arms, his lips now hard and urgent and searching.

  ‘What ... what do you think you’re doing?’ Marianna gasped, as she wrenched herself away from him.

  He stared sullenly at the ground, his mouth taut. With a vicious movement he broke off the head of a belladonna lily and tore the fleshy pink petals apart, tossing them aside.

  ‘I was just kissing you,’ he jerked out at last. ‘Is that such a dreadful thing?’

  ‘You had no right!’

  His eyes blazed as anger surged through him. ‘I forgot that you are Menina Marianna, the noble fidalgo’s daughter. I should have kissed the dust at your feet instead, I suppose.’

  Marianna felt scared of the disturbing new emotions that had suddenly been awakened within her — this strange breathlessness, this trembling awareness of her body, this wild thudding of her heart. She gave free rein to her indignation.

  ‘You’re a hateful, horrible boy and you ought to be punished.’

  They eyed one another warily, and there was a throb to the silence. At long last Jacinto glanced away and asked, ‘Are you going to tell your father?’

  ‘I will, if ever you dare to behave like that again.’ This didn’t sound nearly severe enough, so she added haughtily, ‘Not that you’ll get the chance to. I shan’t be giving you any more lessons after this.’

  She saw temper flare in his eyes, but he kept it under tight control and said with typical humility, ‘You don’t really mean that. Please say you don’t.’

  So this, Marianna thought furiously, was all their friendship really meant to Jacinto — an opportunity to reap the benefits of the schooling she received at the small academy for the daughters of English gentlemen, which was run by a pair of maiden-lady sisters in a gloomy sixteenth-century merchant’s house at the top of Bela Vista Street, above the English church. During the hot weeks of summer, when she should have been free of all that, he expected her to turn teacher ... with a pupil, she had to admit to herself, who was so quick to learn that she was sometimes hard-taxed to keep ahead of him.

  ‘If you want me to continue with your lessons,’ she declared, rather enjoying the feeling of power he had given her, ‘you must make a solemn promise to me that you’ll never, ever, behave like that again.’

  ‘Of course I promise.’ But he said it too quickly, too readily.

  ‘Cross your heart and hope to die?’

  Jacinto’s humbleness could only be pressed so far. His chin raised defiantly, he muttered, ‘You make such a big fuss. It was nothing.’

  Nothing! How dare he suggest that a kiss which had left such a tumult in its wake was nothing.

  ‘It was an insult to me,’ she insisted. ‘You know that very well.’

  ‘I beg to be forgiven for the insult.’

  ‘I suppose you imagine, just because people call you Clever One, that you may do exactly as you please?’

  ‘I have begged to be forgiven — isn’t that enough for you? Of course,’ he added bitterly, ‘it would be different if I were a young senhor.’

  ‘Well, you aren’t,’ Marianna flashed back. ‘Now, go and wait by the levada while I put on my shoes and stockings.’

  He stood there, unmoving, staring at her morosely,

  ‘Do as I say!’ she ordered. Not for the world, now, would she draw on her stockings in front of him, though she had done so dozens of times before with casual innocence. For Marianna Dalby, the world had suddenly changed; and the change was deeply disturbing. She felt bewildered, to a degree fearful. But she was also conscious of a warm delight that suffused her whole body.

  Jacinto fought her with his eyes and then, defeated, swung away. She watched him stride off down the slope and take up a position beside the watercourse with his arms akimbo, his back turned to her in silent resentment.

  * * * *

  Jacinto came part of the way with Marianna, unspeaking and moody, but left her to clamber down to the ribeiro in the hope of finding one or two eels lurking beneath the boulders, to take home as a placatory offering. His mother was intensely proud of her intelligent son, but he would need more than maternal pride to shield him from his father’s wrath when it was discovered that the yams had not been dug.

  As Marianna sauntered on alone, her thoughts were as shapeless and intangible as the smoky wraiths of cloud that hovered around the highest mountain peaks. A peasant woman came towards her with a huge bundle of rich grasses and fragrant herbs, as fodder for the family cow. This she carried on her head, long trails of it drooping about her shoulders. She called a polite God’s blessing upon Marianna and looked surprised and hurt when the fidalgo’s daughter barely responded.

  The Quinta dos Alecrims stood at the head of the ravine and together with its gardens it occupied the only comparatively level piece of ground in the neighbourhood, nearly a whole acre in extent. The residence was built in a solid colonial style with green-shuttered windows and wide verandas that were overhung with bougainvillea.

  Behind the quinta, a sheer wall of rock rose in sombre grandeur, its dark-veined face a background to the two curiously-shaped pinnacles of paler rock known locally as the Devil’s Horns. These were the object of much superstition: any pregnant woman who looked upon the Devil’s Horns by the light of the full moon was fated to give birth to a monster, a child of Satan himself.

  In front of the quinta and on either side were the vine terraces belonging exclusively to her father, those not tenanted by caseiros. The lagar house, where the ripe grapes were trodden, lay half hidden in a small hollow to the left.

  How curious it was, Marianna had sometimes thought, that in other parts of the world a great deal of the land was flat, or almo
st so, and one could travel for miles and miles without ever coming to a mountain. And in elegant carriages with wheels, too, drawn by horses, not the clumsy old sleds that were drawn by plodding oxen up the steep pebbled streets of Funchal. What fun it must be to go bowling along in a carriage at a spanking pace, or even faster in a train drawn by a huge steam engine. That was how people travelled in England, where her father had gone to Oxford University, and one of these days she would go to England too and see it all for herself,

  Nevertheless, she loved the mountains of Madeira, with their craggy peaks and deep mysterious ravines. And she loved the summers here at the quinta far more than the winter months spent in the house adjoining the wine lodge down in Funchal. The gardens were a lovely wild tangle of roses and jessamine and heliotrope and the rosemary that gave the place its name, with trees bearing all kinds of delicious fruits.

  As Marianna wandered through the knot garden and skirted the fountain’s marble basin, the shapeless figure of her old aia appeared on the balcony. She was beckoning frantically.

  ‘Make haste, menina, make haste.’

  ‘Am I late for luncheon again?’ Marianna called back. ‘I forgot the time.’

  Linguareira gave a disapproving snort. ‘That Clever One, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes, I was giving Jacinto a lesson and...’

  ‘I wonder that your father permits it! Hurry up now and get you changed into decent clothes. Then it’s a morsel to eat and down to Funchal with us.’

  “To Funchal? What are you talking about, Linguareira?’

  ‘Nuno arrived an hour since with orders from the master for you to go there at once. So make haste, I tell you.’

  ‘Papa hasn’t been taken ill?’ Marianna asked anxiously.

  ‘There is no cause to think so.’

  ‘Then why does he want me?’

  A shrug. ‘That is not for me to know, miss. Now come on!’

  Wondering, Marianna entered the house and went upstairs to her bedroom. A change of clothes was laid out on the bed in readiness, and Linguareira fussed around, chivvying her to hurry up. Marianna paid little heed, never doubting the affection lying behind the acid tongue.

  Originally, Marianna knew, the Madeiran woman had been brought into the Dalby household as her wet nurse. But she had stayed on in an undefined capacity that changed with changing needs until she was now quite indispensable. Since the death of Marianna’s mother four years ago, their relationship had inevitably grown even closer, and her papa seemed more than content to leave his daughter in her care.

  Papa had taken the death of his wife badly. Marianna was unhappily aware of the change in him, his growing dependence on the fine wines he produced and his constant need for convivial company. These days he rarely made the journey to the quinta but remained the whole summer at the house in Funchal, pleading pressure of work at the wine lodge.

  ‘Keep still, can’t you, miss,’ Linguareira grumbled. ‘How can I undo these hooks if you keep wriggling? There, you can step out now. You’ve got the hem of your dress wet, I see. Whatever have you been up to?’

  Marianna made no answer and none seemed expected. As she changed into a fresh shift, she took care not to let Linguareira catch sight of her grazed knee.

  ‘Are you certain that papa didn’t explain why he wants me?’ she demanded.

  ‘How many more times must I say it? Now go and wash your face, for the good Lord’s sake!’ Relenting a little, she added, ‘It might be something to do with the English gentleman having come — the one who owns all those ships.’

  ‘Mr Penfold, you mean? He’s here? Oh, goody!’

  Relieved to have some sort of explanation, Marianna submitted to having her face vigorously dried. Then, in a dark brown holland skirt and white muslin blouse, she followed Linguareira downstairs to the sala de jantar for a meal of cold pork and chicken, with a custard tart and some juicy passion fruit. She liked Mr Penfold — or Uncle William, as she was allowed to call him. He was always kind and jolly and brought her little gifts from England, making her search his pockets until she found them.

  Afterwards, as she and Linguareira set off on horseback in the heat of early afternoon, the groom Nuno trotting along behind them on the rocky track and as often as not hanging on to the animals’ tails, Marianna’s thoughts turned again to Uncle William. She wondered what her life would be like if she were the daughter of such a wealthy man, living in England, instead of the daughter of a Madeira-born Englishman who was having a struggle to make ends meet. A few months ago, during one of his brief visits to Madeira, Uncle William had produced some photographs of his two children. Eunice, whom he obviously adored, was a year older than herself and extremely beautiful. Marianna had felt immensely flattered when Uncle William had remarked on a resemblance between them.

  ‘You remind me of Eunice In several respects,’ he said, chucking her amusedly under the chin. ‘You have the same pretty golden hair and lovely big blue eyes.’ In his impulsively generous way, he had added, ‘I have a capital notion. Whilst I am here, we’ll go along to a photographer’s and have your likeness taken, too. Would you like that, little Marianna?’

  ‘Oh, yes please, Uncle William.’

  True to his word, he had borne her off the very next morning to Senhor Vicente in Rua da Carreira where she was photographed in various poses, with an aspidistra in the background. Uncle William had ordered two sets of prints to be made from the plates, one for her to keep and the other for him to take back with him to England.

  Also very striking in appearance was his son, Ralph Penfold, whose features were of almost classical perfection. Three years senior to his sister, he wore a somewhat supercilious expression in each of the poses she had seen, as if he were bored with the whole performance of having his photograph taken.

  ‘When Ralph finishes at Oxford,’ Marianna had heard Uncle William telling her papa, ‘he’s coming into the firm with me. He protests that he doesn’t have any interest in shipping, but that young man will have to settle down and get his nose to the grindstone.’ There was a pause in which her father and Mr Penfold had exchanged glances. ‘He’s still very young for marriage, of course, but I’ll be a great deal happier when we’ve found a wife for him. I’ve told Ralph that I will set him up very nicely ... very nicely indeed.’

  It was another world, a world where wealth and high position were taken for granted. A world of dreams, as far as Marianna was concerned...

  ‘Sit up straight, miss!’ But Linguareira’s reproof was only a token of her authority, and was not pursued. She herself was slumped on the back of her small brown mare, a grotesque figure with enormous hips but narrow shoulders, her black hair drawn back tightly on either side into large coils which protruded from under her straw bonnet. ‘Stop that humming, oaf!’ she shouted at Nuno in Portuguese. Then, flicking away the flies with her horsehair twitch, she subsided into sleepy silence as they crested the ridge and began the descent into yet another valley.

  Chapter 2

  The Dalby residence in Funchal and, adjoining it, the honeycomb buildings of the wine lodge, were situated in Rua das Murças, conveniently near to the Custom House. Built two centuries previously by a Portuguese nobleman who was directly descended from Zarco, the discoverer of Madeira, his coat of arms still ornamented each window pediment and the handsome arched entrance.

  Hot and dusty from their two hour ride, Marianna and Linguareira passed in from the sunbaked street to the cool shadows of the pebbled courtyard. But the clatter of the horses’ hooves brought no one running. They were obliged to dismount with only Nuno’s assistance and they found the door at the head of the stone stairway securely bolted against them. Marianna felt only mild surprise, resigned to the slothful ways of the servants since her mother’s death, but Linguareira was furious. Bending her ponderous body with an effort, she picked up a loose stone and used it to hammer on the door panel.

  “You lazy good-for-nothing wretches!’ she screamed. ‘Make haste and open.’

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bsp; From within came a shuffle of feet and a hoarse voice called, ‘May the saints in heaven protect us, who’s there?’ A bolt was drawn back, a chain rattled. The door was dragged open by a slovenly man in grubby shirt and trousers, with two or three days’ growth of black stubble on his chin. Seeing who it was, he stood aside to let them enter, one hand twisted behind him to scratch the small of his back.

  ‘Where’s the master?’ Linguareira demanded. ‘Is he at home, Codface?’ Like most Madeiran nicknames, this was particularly apt, for the man had bulging eyes and a slack, wet mouth.

  ‘He’s playing billiards at the English Club. His excellency said to send round for him as soon as the menina arrives.’

  ‘Well, she’s here now. So go for him, numskull, and be quick about it. Come, miss, we’ll get you clean and tidy before your papa sees you.’

  They mounted four flights of echoing, gloomy stairs to the turret, which had been added to command a view after the house had been hemmed about with other buildings. Marianna’s bedroom was at the very top, a small but pleasant chamber with windows on two sides. In one direction could be seen the upper part of the town cradled in a vast amphitheatre of hills that soared up to the peaks of the high serra, with the twin-towered church of Nossa Senhora do Monte standing out whitely from deep chestnut woods. In the other direction was the whole majestic sweep of the bay, the Brazen Head promontory away to the left and the Deserta islands lying crouched on the misty horizon.

  The windows, though, had not been opened to ventilate the room which in consequence was hot and stuffy; and the bed, prettily draped in white muslin looped with pink rosettes, had clearly not been made up in readiness. Linguareira fumed about this as she bustled her charge into a hasty toilette. With the grime of the journey washed off, Marianna donned a candy-striped poplin frock and Linguareira brushed out her hair and tied it in two bunches.