Marianna

by Nancy Buckingham

‘Be off with you, Carlos,’ she said again.

  He still lingered. ‘I shall see you down in Funchal in a day or so?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘I will call upon you the moment I hear that you have arrived at Rua das Murças. You will not be so cruel as to send me away then?’

  ‘That remains to be seen. Now go! I see Linguareira coming, and she doesn’t approve of you at all. Adeus, Carlos.’

  ‘Até à vista,’ he said. ‘And may it be very soon.’

  The passing years had not been kind to Marianna’s old aia. Linguareira’s bulk had enlarged and her breath had diminished. Setting down the wickerwork basket with a sigh of relief, she carefully lowered herself on to a slab-topped boulder, grunting and puffing and wheezing. Then she pulled out a yellow kerchief to mop her sweating face.

  ‘That wretched Senhor Dom Carlos,’ she grumbled. ‘I saw him here! You have no business encouraging him, menina, him and the other one. They buzz around you like wasps round a basket of ripe grapes—’

  ‘Hold your tongue,’ Marianna told her, but without any hint of rancour. ‘The juice is running well this year, Linguareira. It will be another fine, abundant vintage.’

  ‘And that’s no more than you deserve, the hard work you put in.’ She somehow made it a complaint. ‘Where is that boy Dick? Doesn’t he know that I’ve brought the food?’

  All around them the pickers were breaking off their labours and flopping down in the shade beside the levada to eat a frugal midday meal. The treaders came out to join their womenfolk from the dimness of the lagar hut, blinking in the sunlight, stained head to foot with grape juice and somewhat unsteady on their legs from a liberal ration of aguardente, the coarse brandy distilled from sugar cane.

  Linguareira spread a square of checked calico beside her on the boulder and laid out their own simple fare — crusty bread and creamy goat’s milk cheese, a flagon of rough red wine and a clutch of the small, sharp-flavoured silver bananas. Dick appeared from somewhere and tossed down his empty basket. From the dark glance he cast at Marianna, she knew that he too had noticed her in conversation with Carlos Rapazotte. She returned her son’s look coolly, daring him to utter a word on the vexed subject. Luckily, though, Dick’s mind was more concerned with eating than with his mother’s friendships with men.

  ‘It’s about time some sustenance appeared,’ he remarked to the air. ‘I’m absolutely starving.’ He threw himself down and reached for the loaf, but before he could break off a chunk Linguareira caught him a stinging cuff on the ear with the back of her hand.

  ‘Wash yourself first, savage. Go on, be quick about it.’

  Dick’s blue eyes flashed, but with resigned good-humour. Marianna caught her breath. She was stabbingly reminded of Jacinto a dozen times a day, despite her son’s fair colouring. Crouched down by the levada now, barefoot, his white cotton blouse and trousers grubby and stained with the sweat of hard toil... oh God, how her heart turned over!

  It was only a short break, for there was much to be done and the hours of daylight were precious. When work resumed, Marianna walked over for a word with her feitor. She found him checking off a line of borracheiros, the men detailed to carry the newly-pressed mosto on the long trudge down to her wine lodge in Funchal. Each man held a tall staff in his right hand and draped around his shoulders, bloated like a fat pig, was a goatskin containing ten gallons or more, held in position by a broad leather strap across the forehead.

  ‘It is going well, Eduardo?’ she asked.

  ‘Sim, Dona Marianna. There will be plenty good wine this year to be matured in your soleras.’

  A greater closeness existed between Marianna and her feitor than there had ever been in her father’s day, despite the fact that Eduardo Teixeiro was no longer a tenant of the Dalby estate. He was no longer a caseiro, bound by law to give up half his produce as rent to the landowning fidalgo. One by one Eduardo had bought from her the tiny terraced plots that formed his fazenda, until he now owned them all. His ability to do so had filled Marianna with joy, because the purchase price gave evidence that Jacinto was still alive. Still alive and prospering.

  She had known just one thing about Jacinto’s fate before she left England, even before her son was born — that he had been successful in making his escape. One cold February morning, ten weeks after his hasty departure, Hilda had brought a postcard on her breakfast tray. A glance at the handwriting sufficed. Her heart pounding wildly, Marianna scanned the carefully penned lines, puzzling over the Bristol postmark, until she realized that Jacinto must have entrusted some seaman to bring it with him to England and post it on arrival, as a means of concealing the true place of origin.

  Have arrived safely, the message ran, though this climate does not agree with me. I look forward to seeing you again, dear Marianna, perhaps when your sad period of mourning is over? Until then, with deepest affection. He had signed it with a meaningless, Sarah.

  ‘Oh, Hilda!’ she cried on a dizzying wave of thankfulness. ‘All is well! He is safe, he is safe!’

  ‘That’s right good news, ma’am. I’m ever so glad for you.’ But then, warningly, ‘Mr Ralph ... he read that card. I saw it in his hand when I went to collect your post from the salver in the hall.’

  ‘Then I shall mention over luncheon that I’ve heard from a friend of my schooldays in Madeira, who has come to England. Don’t you see, Hilda, he cleverly wrote it in a way that I could give some such explanation, if need be.’

  ‘Yes’m,’ she agreed doubtfully. ‘Only be sure what you says sounds kind of casual, or Mr Ralph will get suspicious. You know what he’s like, always watching you, always on the lookout to trap you.’

  There had been no further news of Jacinto. As the long waiting months of her pregnancy dragged on she prayed for another message, but none came.

  Marianna had rejoiced when she realized that she was carrying a child, and yet there was a desperate fear in her that the baby might have Jacinto’s dark eyes and curly black hair — a fear that was at one and the same time an ache of longing.

  She had to hope against hope that the child would be accepted without question as William’s. For there to be doubts cast over its paternity would make life intolerable for both mother and child.

  In the event, her son was born less than eight months after her husband’s death. The baby had the same clear blue eyes as her own, and his hair when it grew was fair and silky. Apart from Ralph and the faithful Hilda, no one except Marianna herself had any cause to suspect that young Richard might be other than the posthumous child of William Penfold.

  Once she had come to Madeira, though, there had been no concealing her private doubts from Linguareira, and no wish to conceal them. Marianna found a comforting cushion in the rough, understanding affection of her old aia.

  And soon there was yet another woman who knew her doubts about Dick’s paternity. Jacinto’s mother.

  Immediately on her arrival in Funchal, Marianna learned that exhaustive inquiries had been made on the island about Jacinto Teixeiro. This man, it was said, who had vanished without trace from his lodgings and employment in London, answered the description of a person wanted for questioning by the British police in connection with the violent death of Mr William Penfold. Marianna had felt compelled to reassure the anxious Rosaria that her son had safely escaped to some land across the sea. There had been little else said between the two women, little explained but a very great deal was understood.

  Several months later, in the warm and fragrant dusk of a December afternoon, Marianna had been sitting on the veranda with young Dick in her lap, by then a lusty seventeen-month-old infant, when she had caught a stealthy movement among the hibiscus bushes.

  ‘Rosaria!’ she called. ‘Is that you?’

  The feitor’s wife had come forward and humbly prostrated herself, clutching her arms about Marianna’s knees in the old manner. But Marianna could not tolerate such obeisance from Jacinto’s mother.

  ‘Please don’t do that, Rosaria. Si
t down beside me and tell me what you’ve come to say.’

  ‘Dona Marianna ... menina, I have news,’ she began in a hoarse whisper, perching on the very edge of a wicker chair. Rosaria spoke in Portuguese for she could manage little English; nor could she read or write. She dropped her voice still lower, glancing anxiously about her. ‘It is he ... our Jacinto. He has sent us money.5

  Marianna became very still, numbed with shock. Instinctively she found herself clutching her child the more tightly.

  ‘From where, Rosaria?’ she managed after a moment. ‘How did the money reach you?’

  ‘It was the senhor pároco, menina. This morning, when I was at confession, Father Baptisto said that my husband and I were to come to his house. He told us that there is money arrived for us ... from a foreign land. If the good father knows any more than that, he would not say. But it must be our Jacinto. Who else?’

  Yes, who else? It was the time-honoured tradition for Madeiran emigres to send home money to parents or wives, and the Teixeiros had no other family abroad. But Jacinto had sent his donation secretly, aware that there might still be danger in revealing his whereabouts.

  Marianna said fervently, ‘That is wonderful news, Rosaria, And thank you so much for telling me.’

  ‘Ai, I knew that you would want to know, menina.’

  On an impulse Marianna held out her baby and the other woman took him, cuddling Dick in her arms. She touched her lips to the little forehead and made a sign of the cross.

  ‘The blessing of our Lord in Heaven be upon you, poor fatherless boy.’

  Inside the house, Linguareira could be heard shouting abuse at one of the servants. A lamp was lit and its soft yellow light spilled out on to the veranda and lent a strangely gentle beauty to the careworn face of Jacinto’s mother. Tears glittered in her dark eyes as she glanced at Marianna, asking a silent question. Silently, Marianna answered, It is possible. I hope it is so, but I cannot be sure.

  Rosaria clutched the child to her breast, crooning tender words of endearment, her voice cracked with emotion. Then, abruptly, without a word, she handed Dick back into his mother’s arms and hurried away into the swiftly-gathering darkness.

  Behind Marianna a window was flung up and Linguareira stuck her head out.

  ‘What have you been saying, menina?’ she demanded in a breathy hiss. ‘I saw her holding little Dick as if he were her own kin.’

  ‘I said nothing, Linguareira. But Rosaria guesses. Perhaps,’ she added, ‘it is a calling of the blood.’

  ‘You speak rubbish, child! Rosaria hopes, that is all, because she yearns in her heart for her lost Clever One.’

  Marianna stood up and stepped nearer to the window.

  ‘He is safe, Linguareira,’ she whispered. ‘Jacinto is safe. They have received some money, through the senhor pároco. But you must not say anything, you understand — nothing to anyone.’

  ‘As if I would!’ Then, anxiously, ‘You’ll not try to get in touch with him?’

  ‘Of course, if I can. I shall go to see Father Baptisto.’

  ‘But menina...’

  ‘I must. If the priest knows anything, I shall make him tell me.’ She thrust young Dick at Linguareira through the open window. ‘I’m going now, this instant.’

  ‘You cannot go as you are,’ Linguareira objected. ‘There’s a chill coming down.’

  ‘I have this shawl, it is enough.’

  Marianna was suddenly filled with a wild impatience, as if every second was vital. It was quite dark by now and moonless, so she had only starlight to guide her in finding her way down the stony, zigzag path that plunged deeper into the valley. All around her in the scented night was the whispering of leaves, the chirping of crickets, the croaking of frogs. And from somewhere, faintly, came the wistful lilting strains of a tune played on a machete.

  After several minutes half-running, half-walking, she saw the pale outline of the little whitewashed church on its knoll, and a glimmer of candlelight in the priest’s thatched cottage close by. When, panting for breath, she knocked upon the door, it was opened at once. Father Baptisto, who had been parish priest ever since Marianna could remember, who knew everyone in the locality and everything that went on (even perhaps the secrets not brought to the confessional), lifted his candlestick to peer shortsightedly at her face. He did not look at all surprised to see who it was.

  ‘Dona Marianna ... enter if you please.’

  She stepped directly into his one small room, its drab wallpaper enlivened by highly-coloured prints of the saints. On the table, which was draped with a fringed chenille cloth, stood a bottle of banana liqueur and two glasses.

  ‘Be seated, I beg you.’ Father Baptisto indicated the best chair, of carved til wood. ‘Can I persuade you to take a little refreshment?’

  ‘Thank you. It ... it is almost as if you expected me,’ Marianna said nervously.

  He poured a measure into each glass and carefully recorked the bottle. ‘I knew, senhora, that you would have to come.’

  ‘Then you know why. You know what it is that I want you to tell me.’

  The priest sat down on a rush-seated chair, placing his black biretta on the table. Bareheaded, his hair sparse on top, he became more like any other man. The folds of his long soutane had lifted a little to reveal, incongruously, a pair of shabby red carpet slippers.

  ‘I have nothing to tell you, Dona Marianna.’

  ‘But you must have. I want to know where the money came from, how it reached you.’

  His glance gently reproached her for her imperious tone as he repeated, ‘I have nothing to tell you, senhora.’’

  ‘Because I am not of your faith?’ she flared at him.

  ‘What I may know, if anything, what I may conjecture is not to be disclosed. Beyond the fact that I have no means of making contact with the sender of this money, I can tell you nothing. Whether to one of my flock or not, it would make no difference. You should know that, honoured lady.’

  Marianna bowed her head. ‘Yes, Father, forgive me!’

  ‘Do not be resentful, my child. Instead, you should let your heart rejoice.’

  She made herself meet Father Baptisto’s eyes. He was a simple priest in a mountain backwater, as poor and humble as any of his parishioners, yet he possessed a depth of wisdom and tolerance in his tranquil faith.

  ‘As long as I know that he is alive,’ she faltered, ‘I must try to be content.’

  Father Baptisto laid his hand on Marianna’s — a hand that was hard and calloused from wielding an enchada, for the priest grew vegetables on his scrap of land to eke out the meagre stipend he received.

  ‘You are a good woman, Dona Marianna. You have brought prosperity back to this valley and your people love and respect you for it. That is a great blessing in this world. You also have a fine healthy son. Let those things be sufficient for your happiness.’

  ‘Perhaps I lack humility, Father. Perhaps I have no faith. Sometimes I feel a terrible anger towards God for what He has allowed to happen to me.’

  He smiled sadly, with compassion. ‘Oh, my poor child, never once to have railed against our Lord’s implacable will, never once to have raged against His supreme authority, is not to believe in Him. You have faced with courage what life has brought you. Continue with that same courage and may God in His infinite mercy give you peace of mind.’

  From that time on, the money had arrived regularly; and each year it was larger in amount. Father Baptisto had grown older and feebler, his thin hair turning white, and sometimes his mind would wander a little. But always he remained faithful in the performance of his trust. Each year in the weeks before Christmas, Rosaria would come to Marianna to whisper the news that her Clever One was still alive and well, still prospering. And straightway the peasant woman would fulfil the vow she had made to God in dutiful thanksgiving. At first flush of dawn next day, whatever the weather, she would mount the thirty-two hard, rocky steps to the church door on her bare knees, holding a long wax taper in each han
d. Marianna would gladly have made the painful climb with her, but that would raise too many questions in people’s minds. Instead she offered heartfelt thanks in her own way, swearing a bounden duty upon herself to see that none of her people should go in need.

  Year by year, too, Marianna had fought the encroaching wilderness that had been her inheritance when she arrived back in Madeira. With the vines all destroyed by the phylloxera., and no fidalgo to give a lead, the tenants had neglected their land, not troubling to maintain the terrace walls so that the winter storms had washed away the precious soil. They and their families had not starved, because they had still grown vegetables on the more easily cultivated plots. But there had been no surplus, and the rents traditionally due to the landlord in the form of half the produce had remained unpaid. No thought was spared for the future beyond the next harvest. Marianna had been faced with the task of coaxing and cajoling the reluctant caseiros to mend their terraces, manure the soil and then plant vines once again, using a new rootstock from America that seemed to be immune to phylloxera.

  They had been hard years, unbelievably hard at first, and she had been forced to cast aside her womanly gentleness and battle as ruthlessly as any man would battle. She had used men, too, without scruple — throwing feminine tactics into the balance in order to secure the expert advice and financial help she so desperately needed. And why should she not, Marianna had argued fiercely. Did men not make use of women?

  She had accepted by now the bitter truth that her father had virtually sold her into marriage to save himself from ruination, while William Penfold had purchased her as a child-bride to gratify the twisted nature of his sexuality. Even Jacinto, the man she loved — had he not made use of her? All these years he had been prospering somewhere, and never a word to her after that one message to announce that he was safe...

  Marianna dragged herself back from her long reverie to see the line of borracheiros disappearing down a steep, narrow path into the ravine. The picking was well under way again, the singing and laughter and chitchat a little subdued in the sleepy heat of the afternoon. Her feitor remained standing patiently at her side, though he had much work to do, almost as if he sensed her need of him at this moment. Eduardo Teixeiro was a simple man of few words, but there was a strength about him that Marianna could feel flowing through to her. And he was Jacinto’s father.