Marianna

by Nancy Buckingham

  ‘Unfortunately not. I thought it unwise to press him too soon, but I am hoping the problem will emerge in due course. It was clear to me from his last letter that something was amiss, and this was what brought me hastening to England. You must have guessed, I think, that Dick and I did not part on the best of terms when he left Madeira, and I pray that this will be the opportunity for us to reach a reconciliation.’

  There was a great deal of respect in the smile Cedric gave her. ‘You are a truly remarkable woman, Marianna. Who would ever imagine that behind your delightfully charming and feminine exterior there is concealed an astute brain and an inner core of self-sufficiency?’

  ‘Do you not mean hardness?’ she suggested ruefully.

  ‘Not at all! I shall never believe you to be a hard woman, my dear.’ His face tightened. ‘When I think of you as I saw you that very first time, how my blood boils! You looked so bewildered, so vulnerable, so very, very young — even for the age I knew you to be. But of course, that was precisely why —’

  ‘Why William Penfold had chosen to marry me,’ she finished for him. ‘You need not avoid saying it, Cedric, for we both of us know it to be the plain and simple truth.’

  He inclined his head and paid her the compliment of being equally direct.

  ‘You were ideal for him — a lovely, innocent child, with no relatives to interfere beyond a father who was far off in Madeira. I suspect, though, that you proved to have less timidity and a lot more grit than my father-in-law had ever bargained for.’

  ‘I had no idea that you’d grasped the situation so well,’ she said quietly. ‘It was very perceptive of you.’

  ‘Not as perceptive as you suppose. Even before I met you, I already knew enough about my future father-in-law to realize that I had to get Eunice away from his influence. He was neither a stern nor doting parent, but a most unhealthy mixture of the two. From the time his daughter left infancy behind he subjected her to an extreme form of possessive adoration. Eunice was pampered and petted in every way, bar one. Were she to show the slightest independence, give the smallest hint that she was escaping from his absolute dominance, he would be cruel and ruthless in his anger. When she and I fell in love at first sight — it was at a subscription ball in Winchester — her father was enraged. He tried everything in his power to poison her mind against me, but to no avail. He loathed me, that goes without saying, but still he could think of no convincing reason for refusing a match between us. I do not say this from conceit, but simply as a point of fact ... with my family background and my army career, I was eminently suitable as a husband for his daughter. So, reluctantly, he gave his consent to our betrothal—knowing, I suppose, that Eunice was already lost to him. In retaliation, however, he hit upon a way of punishing her — by taking a girl even younger than herself as her replacement. This, I am convinced, is the explanation of his marrying you, my dear Marianna. I am sorry to be so blunt.’

  ‘Eunice’s replacement, you call me,’ she murmured with an involuntary shudder. ‘But he could never have used any daughter as he used me.’

  Cedric cast her a swift, testing look. ‘The man’s mind was diseased, you must have come to realize that only too well. Unhappily there are other men like him — pillars of respectability to the outside world, who stoop to the most unspeakable acts of depravity. In William Penfold’s case it was an appetite for despoiling young virgins — unripe fruit, as the nauseating euphemism has it — innocent young girls who could be petted and fondled, and then brutally deflowered.’

  Marianna swallowed down the acid taste of disgust in her throat and whispered faintly, ‘I always suspected ... always knew in my heart that William had a hidden life, that he went elsewhere even after we were married — though I closed my mind to the thought.’

  ‘Alas, there are vice houses in London which cater for all manner of such vile practices — at a price!’

  ‘How ... how did you come to know these things about my husband, Cedric?’

  He made a gesture of distaste with his hands. ‘Suspecting that his unhealthy attitude towards his daughter could only spring from a warped mind, I made some discreet inquiries about the man. What I learned filled me with horror. It determined me to marry Eunice with all speed and remove her completely from her father’s influence. That was why I requested an early posting to India. Believe me, my dear Marianna, I pitied William Penfold’s young bride beyond measure, but...’ He lifted his shoulders in helpless apology. ‘But what was I to do?’

  ‘I can understand,’ she said. ‘Naturally, your fiancée had to be your first concern. And I could see that you were deeply in love with Eunice, as she was with you. How I envied you both in your happiness!’ Marianna looked at him and smiled wistfully. ‘Do you know, Cedric, you were the only person who showed me any kindness or sympathy. Everyone else resented me, resented my very existence. To be quite honest, I was relieved when you took Eunice away, and her aunt with her... I was spared their hatred, which only added to my problems.’

  Cedric ran a hand across his greying hair. “Try not to blame them too much for their treatment of you. Harriet Fielding, poor woman, was herself badly dealt with by William Penfold. Were you aware that at one time, very briefly just after his first wife died, she was his mistress?’

  ‘Yes, I did know that. I overheard the two of them arguing, the day I first arrived at Highmount. In a curious way I felt sorry for Harriet, even though she rejected every attempt I made to be friends with her.’

  ‘In India, she and I conversed together a great deal. During her final illness she seemed to have a need to talk about the past. Harriet had come to change her opinion of you, Marianna, and she expressed remorse for having shown you such bitterness.’

  ‘And Eunice?’

  ‘She does not know the full depths of her father’s moral depravity,’ said Cedric. ‘Although my wife and I are very close, I have felt it my duty to spare her the pain such knowledge would inevitably bring. However, she understands enough to regard you now in a very different light, as someone who has suffered grievously. What I said on the telephone is quite true, my dear. Eunice will make you very welcome if you consent to visit us in Sussex whilst you are here.’

  ‘I shall have to see how my plans work out.’ Marianna raised her head and met Cedric’s eyes. ‘So you have talked to my son about my husband ... the sort of man he was?’

  ‘I judged it to be in the boy’s best interest. And yours.’

  ‘All the same,’ she said unhappily, ‘I wish such things could have been left unspecified.’

  Cedric would not accept that. ‘As long as Dick held his dead father’s memory in such falsely high esteem, he could never do justice in his heart to his mother. As you surmised, I had realized there must have been some kind of quarrel between you and Dick, and I felt obliged to reveal to him something of what you suffered at William Penfold’s hands. How greatly you were to be admired for the courage and spirit you had always shown. And there is no one else, I venture to suggest, who is in a position to tell your son of these matters.’

  Marianna gave a long, deep sigh, ‘I fear that you would not hold me in such high esteem, Cedric, if you knew the whole truth. There are things of which even you are unaware.’

  He laid his hand on her sleeve. ‘Perhaps I know — or guess — more than you imagine, my dear. Soon after my return to England, Ralph made some scathing reference to you one evening, and I spoke up in your defence. He was far gone in drink at the time and he then blurted out more than he realized.’

  Marianna felt a flurry of panic, despite the fact that Cedric’s hand still lay upon her arm in a reassuring gesture.

  ‘Will you believe me,’ she said, ‘when I tell you that nothing of what happened ... nothing concerning the circumstances of William’s death gives me cause for remorse or repentance? On that score, I shall meet my God with a quiet conscience.’

  ‘On every score, Marianna, I am certain.’ Cedric stood up and proffered his arm. ‘Shall we go through t
o the restaurant now?’

  Chapter 19

  Snowflakes were blowing in a bitter easterly wind as their hansom turned from Sloane Street into Cadogan Place, whirling past the incandescent haloes of the street lamps and whitening the winter-bare branches of the plane trees in the central gardens.

  Marianna remained seated for a moment or two when the cab had come to a stop, looking up at the house. She needed courage to get through the evening ahead. Afterwards, she determined, when Dick escorted her back to the hotel—however late that might be — she would have a heart-to-heart talk with him about his future.

  ‘Well, out you get, mama.’ Having jumped down and paid off the driver, he stood holding out his hand to help her alight.

  She mounted the six stone steps to the front door on her son’s arm. The last time she had trodden these steps it had been carrying him down them as a tiny baby. This evening there was no immediate welcome for them, no servant came running to open the door, so Dick used his latchkey.

  In the hall, now decorated in a regally ornate style that was in complete contrast to the clean, lines she had herself introduced, a young footman made a belated appearance. He bowed perfunctorily and took Marianna’s fur wrap and Dick’s silk hat and evening cape.

  ‘The master and mistress are in the drawing room, sir.’

  Ralph came out to greet them at the head of the staircase. Since she had last seen him, over a year ago, he had put on more weight and his complexion had become more florid. It was obvious that he had not stinted his intake of alcohol this evening, and his voice was loud and hearty, booming with false affability.

  ‘Well, well, well! So here you are, Marianna. What does it feel like to be back in the old country, eh — and in filthy weather like this? That’s one thing to be said for Madeira, at least it’s never cold there. Dick, my boy, fetch your mother something warming — if she drinks anything but those Madeira wines she’s so inordinately proud of.’

  Alicia had come forward from her chair by the fire and the two women exchanged dutiful kisses. Marianna remembered meeting her once or twice as a plump, unpretty child who giggled a lot. She was still plump and far from pretty, and the years had added a discontented twist to her mouth.

  They sat for a while exchanging stilted conversation. Yes, the children were both well and blooming ... such a pity it was too late for Marianna to see them this evening, but they were already in bed. A suggestion was vaguely made and vaguely accepted about some other time. Alicia evinced no interest whatever in Madeira, merely making token inquiries about the voyage and the hotel.

  ‘Fancy putting up at an hotel!’ remonstrated Ralph in his over-jolly voice. ‘We’ve room enough and to spare for you here — as who knows better than yourself?’

  Marianna inclined her head. ‘I thought it would be more convenient all round, Ralph.’

  ‘Or could it be,’ he suggested with an unpleasant chuckle, ‘that you were afraid I’d be calling you stepmama all the time? But you needn’t worry, my dear Marianna, I am perfectly well aware how much you dislike having to remember that you were my father’s wife.’

  Marianna saw her son’s flush of anger and the resentful look he shot at Ralph. Hurriedly, she began to speak of the many changes she had found in London; the electric lighting, which she was interested to see they’d had installed here — so wonderfully clean and convenient; all the grand new buildings; the oddness of seeing men in knickerbocker suits pedalling along the streets on bicycles. The telephone... She almost confessed to having used the instrument herself, but veered away quickly to her day out with Dick yesterday and the new electric tube trains they had ridden on.

  Ralph guffawed. ‘My word, Marianna, you sound as excited about it all as if you were a young girl. Speaking of which,’ he went on in a drawl, ‘I came across an album of photos of you the other day. A charming little collection! They must have been taken, I imagine, soon after you and the pater were married.’

  His tone of voice was entirely benevolent, so that nobody else would have suspected his malicious intent. Marianna felt her heart go cold. She had realized, of course, that Ralph must have come across those shameful photographs, kept as they were in a locked drawer of his father’s desk. But since he had never once referred to them in all this time, she had imagined that they had long ago been destroyed.

  ‘Oh really?’ she responded coolly, and turned to Alicia with an inquiry about her parents. Ralph, though, was bent on extracting an embarrassed reaction from her.

  ‘I’d give those photos to you now, Marianna, but offhand I cannot just remember where I put them. I’ll tell you what, though, I’ll send them to you via Dick sometime. How would that be?’

  ‘As you please,’ she said evenly, ‘but I don’t really want them, Ralph.’ Surely he would never carry out that threat? She was painfully aware that if Ralph had a fancy to let her son see them, there was nothing whatever she could do to prevent him; yet any display of anxiety on her part would only render it the more likely.

  Dinner was a stodgy, unimaginative meal — although Marianna was in no mood to enjoy the fare, however excellent it might have been. Ralph drank steadily, expounding with gusto on the new reign and all the long-overdue changes which the King was inaugurating. When, inevitably, the conversation turned to the war in South Africa, he remarked in a jaunty voice, ‘Take it from me, it’s far from over yet.’

  ‘You needn’t sound so jolly pleased about it,’ Dick protested.

  Ralph awarded him a bloodshot glare. ‘Whatever else I might be, young fellow, I’m not a damned hypocrite. Unlike a lot of men in the City who are doing very-nicely-thank-you out of the war, but shed plenty of crocodile tears about it. My revered father-in-law, to name but one.’

  ‘Ralph, what a horrible thing to say,’ Alicia burst out in protest. ‘I don’t know how you can make such unkind remarks about Papa, after all that he has done to help you. Think of the way he came to the rescue after your disaster with those gold mining shares.’

  Her husband shrugged irritably. ‘As things have turned out, it was a mighty shrewd investment on the old boy’s part, acquiring a financial interest in a shipping line. And don’t tell me he didn’t see the war was coming! Oh no, Sir Cunning Percival Rockingham has done as well as anyone in England out of this little bit of bother with the Boers, and you can’t deny it, old girl.’

  ‘But papa has always been so generous.’ Almost in tears, Alicia turned in appeal to Marianna. ‘Just this last Christmas my father sent two shiploads of comforts for the troops, paid for entirely out of his own pocket.’

  Ralph, quite unrepentant, gave a scornful laugh. ‘His pocket won’t have suffered. A man of his wealth would scarcely have missed the sum involved, and it was a painless way to show himself as the great philanthropist. And don’t forget my part — I provided the shipping completely free of charge.’ There was an outraged gasp from Dick, and Ralph swung round to fix him with another bloodshot glare. ‘And you needn’t be so damned sanctimonious. I haven’t noticed you objecting to the jingle of gold sovereigns in your pocket. If it wasn’t for the war, young Dick, your cash situation would have been very different, I can tell you.’

  ‘I hate this beastly war,’ the boy exclaimed fiercely. ‘I hate everything to do with it — all the cynical lying and cheating that goes on. If only it could be ended tomorrow...’

  ‘Well, it’s not going to be — unless we behave like a lot of snivelling cowards, as that damned radical Lloyd George would have us do. With your views, my boy, I’d keep my mouth well and truly shut! There’s a nasty name for people who favour the enemy.’

  ‘But I don’t...’ Dick protested.

  Ralph smiled complacently and emptied his glass of wine before reaching for the decanter. ‘Take my advice, Dicky, and be a patriot. It pays better!’

  By the end of the meal Ralph was in an advanced state of inebriation. Dick refused to sit with him and drink port, but accompanied the two women upstairs to the drawing room. As soon as their c
offee had been served, he said, ‘I know Alicia will forgive you, mama, if you suggest leaving very soon. You’ve had a tiring day and I think you should have an early night,’

  Alicia made no attempt to delay their departure and it was patently obvious that she was as relieved to see them go as Marianna was to be gone.

  As the cab moved off, Marianna refrained from commenting on the evening. Instead, she said in a decided voice, ‘I hope, Dick, that you will come up to my suite when we get back to the Savoy. I feel that we should have a serious talk.’

  ‘I think so too, mama.’

  There was no further exchange between them until they were in her sitting room, in easy chairs drawn up to the fire.

  ‘Well, mama, you’ve seen how things are between Ralph and me,’ said Dick, staring into the flickering flames. ‘But the question is, what am I going to do about it?’

  ‘Why do you not make a complete break with him?’ she suggested gently. ‘Leave Cadogan Place, leave the firm and go up to Oxford as originally planned.’

  He turned and looked at her. ‘That is what Cedric Kendall advised.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ Marianna could not prevaricate with her son. ‘I didn’t mention it to you earlier, but I have seen Cedric. We took luncheon together today at Claridge’s. We had a long conversation and he told me he had spoken to you of certain matters relating to ... to the Penfold family. I must admit, Dick, I was rather distressed that Cedric had seen fit to mention these things to you.’

  ‘I had already learned for myself,’ he said, ‘what a horrid man Ralph is. But why, mama, did you not tell me about my father? That is, about William Penfold.’

  ‘It was something I only wanted to forget. I had no desire to speak of it to anyone, least of all to my son. Surely you can understand that? Unfortunately, I did not realize that my silence would have such a tragic outcome.’

  Dick covered his face with his hands and remained without speaking for a long while.

  ‘When I came to England,’ he began at last, his voice unsteady, ‘I had built up an idealized picture of the man who had given me his name. It became terribly important to me. I wanted to see myself in his image, so he had to be the sort of man I would have respected and admired in every possible way. The alternative — that I was not William Penfold’s son at all — was intolerable to me.’