Marianna (31 page)

‘You can talk until you’re blue in the face,’ he said sulkily. ‘It won’t make the slightest difference, mama. I’ve proposed to Lucia and it’s all settled!’

It was Jacinto’s habit, lingering from harsh necessity in childhood, to rise at daybreak. “Marianna, sleepless herself all night, was waiting and watching for him from the first flush of dawn. When he started down the staircase he looked surprised to see her standing at its foot.

‘Why are you up so early?’ he inquired with a smile.

‘I have to speak to you urgently, Jacinto. Something has happened. We had better walk together while I tell you.’

‘It might be better for you to sit down,’ he suggested, frowning a little. ‘You look rather pale.’

‘No, come outside. This must be private.’

The sun had not yet risen above the mountains and the valley below them was submerged in a sea of white mist from which the tree tops thrust up like a scattering of small islands. The air was fresh and sweet, and the mingled scents of blossoms was very strong. Marianna walked briskly along the pebbled pathway by the rosemary hedge, and not until they were out of view of the house did she turn and face Jacinto.

‘Dick came to my room last night,’ she said, ‘and told me that he and Lucia are in love and wish to marry.’

‘Good heavens!’ Undeniably Jacinto was startled, then a slow smile curved his lips. ‘Who would ever have thought it? And right under our noses, too. I had not the least suspicion that this was going on, had you?’

‘Of course not, or I’d have put a stop to it at once. The idea is preposterous. Unthinkable.’

His smile vanished in an instant. ‘Why so?’

The long night of agonizing had still not readied her for this moment. She said uneasily, ‘They are both far too young for marriage.’

‘How can you say that, Marianna, when you yourself were married at Lucia’s age?’ He met her look sadly, reproachfully. ‘And Catarina was scarcely any older when she married me. When I was Dick’s age, I wanted nothing more than to marry you...’

‘The circumstances in this case are completely different. It is out of the question that my Dick should marry your Lucia.’

‘Are you suggesting that my daughter isn’t good enough for him?’

‘Oh, don’t be stupid!’

‘Perhaps I cannot help being stupid. Perhaps my peasant blood makes me so. Is that what you fear will emerge in Lucia, or her children?’

Marianna felt as if the wraithing mist were choking her lungs. Somehow she forced her tense throat to work, her lips to move. ‘Dick and Lucia can never marry, because ... because it is perfectly possible that they share the same father.’

The fragment of a second it took Jacinto to grasp her meaning seemed an eternity. Then he gripped her two wrists fiercely.

‘You are saying that I might be Dick’s father? But how could it be?’

‘You ask me that!’

‘But... but he was born too soon.’

‘Dick was a premature child,’ she said. ‘I carried him for only eight months.’

Jacinto shook his head slowly in bafflement. ‘There was no mention of that...’

‘Would you expect there to be, in a newspaper report? Besides, nobody else realized that he was premature. The doctor may perhaps have suspected it, but he said nothing. From the moment I discovered I was with child, I longed for the baby to be yours. And yet I lived in dread that he might look like you, might have your colouring. Ralph, as you can imagine, was deeply suspicious, but when Dick was born he was a full month premature and he possessed fair hair like William, and blue eyes. To me, it seemed like a benevolent act of God.’

‘Nevertheless, you still think that Dick might be my son?’

Marianna drew a deep, steadying breath. ‘In the three years of my marriage I endured my husband’s brutish passion — I even welcomed it, even
sought
it — in the constant hope that I would conceive. But that never happened, and I was beginning to despair of ever bearing a child.’ She took another quick breath. ‘There was just one single occasion, the night before William sailed for Canada, when he could have fathered Dick. Is it not more probable, Jacinto, that my son sprang from the loving which you and I shared? Dick’s colouring is not an infallible guide. Don’t forget that your brother Afonso and your sister Amalia both have fair hair. Besides, a dozen times a day I think I can see signs of you in Dick.’

‘It is true,’ Jacinto said wonderingly. ‘I myself have felt an affinity with the boy.’ His hands went up to cover his face. ‘Oh God, if only I’d realized ... if I’d had the smallest inkling when I read of his birth.’

‘Perhaps it was for the best that you did not know.’

His dark eyes flashed, burning into hers with reproach. ‘How can it be best for a man to be denied the knowledge that he has a son?’

‘There can be no certainty about it.’

Jacinto brushed that aside as irrelevant. ‘Why did you not tell me when I first arrived back in Madeira?’

‘Would it have served any purpose?’

‘But I had a
right
to know.’

Marianna would have stormed at him, but to what avail? Instead, she said, ‘There is no use our discussing what is behind us, Jacinto. We have to decide what is to be done now.’

Her resolve to be strictly practical crumpled, and she had to fight back the tears that came pressing against her eyelids.

‘I feel so dreadfully to blame for what has occurred. Right from the start I encouraged Dick and Lucia to be friends because I thought it would ease the way for
us
to meet. I regarded them as mere children, and was delighted that they seemed to be getting on so well together — like a brother and sister should — never for one moment thinking that they were old enough to imagine themselves in love. How could I have been so foolish, so wickedly unobservant? I should have taken warning from Dick’s change of attitude towards you. He was very hostile that first day, you must have felt it.’

‘He was suspicious of me,
querida,
but that was unsurprising. A lad of his age, on the brink of manhood, naturally feels protective towards his mother.’ The smile touched Jacinto’s lips once more. ‘Dick is a fine young man.’

‘He is an infatuated boy! This wild idea of marriage must be stopped at once.’

‘Of course it must. But what are we to tell them?’

‘That they are too young. That we both of us refuse our permission.’

Jacinto bent his head, deeply thoughtful, as if only now giving his whole mind to the problem. ‘Poor Lucia! To have just lost her mother, and then this! But she is an obedient girl and she will accept her father’s ruling. I imagine, though, that Dick will prove less tractable. Would you like me to speak to him?’

‘No, it is my task,’ Marianna said with a sigh. ‘Last night he and I parted after bitter words, with nothing settled. Today, as soon as possible, I must talk to him again.’

Jacinto half turned from her and gazed out across the mist-shrouded valley. ‘And what of us, Marianna? We forbid our children to marry, and then we ourselves...’

‘That is a hurdle for the future,’ she said. ‘This thing now must be nipped in the bud instantly.’

‘Yes, you are right.’

Marianna said slowly, ‘We can hardly all remain here at the
quinta
for another week, as we planned, with those two young people thrown together every minute.’

‘No, Lucia and I will return to Monte today. We will set out before luncheon.’

‘Very well. And as for breakfast, I will have something sent up to your rooms.’ She laid a hand upon his arm. ‘Oh, my love, this was to have been such a happy time.’

Jacinto did not reply, but reached out his arms and drew her to him. She rested against his lean strength, burying her face into his shoulder, clinging to the moment, delaying the inevitable. Then at last she drew away and walked with him back towards the house.

* * * *

She had Dick summoned from his room and was obliged to wait, pacing the carpet of the small parlour, while he finished dressing.

‘Well?’ he demanded in a sulky, defiant voice, when at length he appeared.

‘You might bid your mother good morning.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He came and gave her a perfunctory kiss on the cheek. ‘But I warn you, mama, there is no point in your trying to persuade me to change my mind.’

‘Sit down,’ she said, ‘and let us discuss this matter calmly.’

Dick remained stubbornly on his feet. ‘There is nothing to discuss.’

‘There is a great deal to discuss! I have been speaking to Lucia’s father and he agrees with me that a marriage between you is out of the question.’

The boy’s face flushed with anger. ‘Why did you have to interfere? Dom Joao likes me, I know he does. And now you’ve poisoned his mind against me ...’

‘That is not true, Dick. He still likes you very much. But that doesn’t alter the fact that you and Lucia are both far too young.’

‘But you yourself married papa on your sixteenth birthday, mama, and Lucia is nearly seventeen. So that argument just doesn’t hold water.’

‘It is not a matter for you to decide, Dick. It is for us, the two parents.’ Too late Marianna realized her mistake in throwing down such a challenge to the son she had always brought up to think for himself.

‘That be hanged for a tale,’ he retorted. ‘Lucia and I are the ones who are in love, and we know our own minds.’

‘Whatever you say,’ Marianna persisted wearily, ‘we do not intend to give our consent.’

‘But that’s beastly unfair, mama. Do you want Lucia and me to hate you?’

Committed now to fighting Dick, she had to use every weapon at her command.

‘How would you live?’ she pleaded. Think of that. You have no means of your own.’

Dick caught his breath. ‘I would receive
nothing
from you, is that what you are saying? You would deny me my birthright?’

‘Yes, if it came to that.’

His eyes raged at her mutinously. ‘But there is money due to me from my father...’

‘That is true. Although he died before you were born, there is a condition in his will that makes provision for any child born of our marriage. But the money is in trust, Dick, and cannot be touched until you come of age. You know that.’

In his deepening anger her son looked even more poignantly like Jacinto. ‘Very well, mama, if that is how it has to be! But when Lucia and I both reach our majority we shall be free of our parents and then we can do as we choose.’

‘Dick, please be reasonable. I’m sure this is only a youthful infatuation.’

‘I
love
Lucia,’ he insisted. ‘And she loves me.’

‘Yes, yes, I know you believe that now. But at your age ...’ Oh God, what was she saying? Shame stirred in her as she finished,
… ‘at your age such emotions do not last.’

‘We shall see, mama, shan’t we? You may be able-to prevent Lucia and me from marrying for the present, but you cannot prevent us from making a solemn vow of betrothal before God.’ With that, he turned his back on his mother and strode to the door.

‘Stop!’ she cried. ‘There ... there is something else I have to tell you, Dick.’

He paused impatiently, his hand on the doorknob. ‘Well?’

‘You and Lucia ... she may possibly be ... your sister.’

For a moment her meaning did not register with him. Then Marianna saw the blood drain from his face to leave it deathly white. In a choking whisper, he asked, ‘What are you saying?’

She took a step towards a chair and grasped at its carved back for support.

‘I had not meant to tell you this, but you leave me no alternative. Dom Joao ... Lucia’s father may well be your father also.’

‘May well be?
Dick was bewildered, confused. ‘You and he ... years ago ... you knew one another?’

‘Yes.’

‘You were his mistress?’ Her son’s blanched face grew scarlet with embarrassment — and a bitter anger. ‘You were married at that time, you must have been, and you had a lover? In England!’ And then his anger changed again, to a terrible despair. ‘I am living as an impostor ... I am not William Penfold’s son at all.’

‘Hush!’ she said. ‘Yes, of course you are, Dick. Legally, there is no question.’

‘What do I care about legally? It’s what I
know
that matters. You tell me now that I am the son of this Portuguese man whose mistress you were all those years ago — a man you’ve been pretending to have just recently met.’

‘I said that it is a possibility.’

‘So you are not certain
who
fathered me!’ Dick cowered back from her as if she repelled him. ‘What are you, some kind of whore?’

Marianna flinched. ‘How dare you speak in that way to your mother.’

‘Why should I not?’ he demanded, and she saw the glitter of tears in his eyes. ‘Look at the way you have behaved with the men here, those two, Rapazotte and da Silva. I was a fool never to have doubted my parentage. It is clear to me now that my father might have been anyone, any of the men you happened to take into your bed.’

‘No!’ she cried. ‘There was only the one, apart ... apart from my husband.’

‘How reassuring for your son!’ he mocked. “‘There is a fifty-fifty chance, Dick, that you are not a bastard.”‘ Even his sarcasm lashed her in just the way Jacinto’s had so often done. Yet he stood there with the appearance of a lost and bewildered little boy, and Marianna longed to go to him and comfort him. She said in a low, beseeching voice, ‘You will not tell Lucia?’

‘What — and break her heart? Should I say to her, “It is your
brother
with whom you have fallen in love, isn’t that amusing? Your
brother
you wish to marry!” Oh God! Lucia ...’ He stopped and snatched a ragged breath. ‘Lucia is a girl that your sort of woman, mama, could never hope to understand. She is pure and good and undefiled. This knowledge ... it would destroy her utterly.’

He was really crying now, the tears flowing from his eyes. As he turned again to the door, she cried, ‘Dick, please — try to forgive me. With all my heart I am sorry that this dreadful situation has arisen, that I have brought down this distress upon you.’