Marianna (17 page)

‘I ... I don’t understand, William. Why should you need pictures to remind you of me, when I am here?’

‘Who is it now stands before me in this room?’ he demanded sorrowfully. ‘Not the sweet little innocent so touchingly portrayed here. Alas, alas, she is gone from me now, gone for ever. My precious angel child is tarnished beyond redemption.’

‘Tarnished?’ protested Marianna, her resolution to be cautious deserting her. ‘Just because I ordered a dressmaker from the house?’

He made an angry dismissal with his hand. ‘That was mere willfulness, which I have corrected. No, Marianna, I am speaking of the temptress you played last night. Ah yes, you held out the apple and made me eat of it. You ... the beloved little virgin I held in such reverence. How
could
you?’

She stared at him, too bemused to feel truly indignant.

‘William, you came to my bed — you forced yourself upon me.’

‘I am a man, Marianna, and a man’s flesh is weak. You used the shameless wiles of a woman, when you should have been content to remain an innocent child.’

‘I
am
a woman!’ she cried, and despite herself she felt a stir of pride. ‘I... I expect to bear your children.’

He turned a heavy glance upon her, as if she had offended him afresh. ‘Do you not mourn, Marianna, for what you have lost?’

‘I fail to see why I should.’

For long moments he looked at her with reproach so deep it was akin to repugnance. Then he heaved a sigh that seemed to shudder through his entire frame. ‘You had better go away and search your heart. Endeavour to feel a sense of repentance.’

‘You are a vile hypocrite to say that,’ she flashed. ‘If either one of us should feel repentance, William, it is you.’

At the blaze in his eyes, Marianna wished to heaven that she had restrained her tongue. But it was too late for regrets. Her husband snatched up the heavy boxwood ruler on the desk.

‘By God, I gave you fair warning, you wicked, willful child! If a thrashing is the only way to make you heed me, then so be it.’

Although Marianna twisted and turned to escape the grip of his hands, he held her without effort. Flinging her across the back of the armchair, he dragged her clothing aside and brought down the ruler on her exposed buttocks with vicious force. And then again, and again.

‘Please, William,’ she begged him, ‘please don’t.’

But the thrashing continued without mercy. Before her husband had done, Marianna was sobbing helplessly — from both the pain and the terrible humiliation. Never before in her life had she been beaten.

‘Now, get up and go to your room!’ he commanded, when at last it was over.

She rose slowly, shakily, and straightened her disordered skirts. Her thighs were so bruised that she could scarcely stand. William had turned away from her and stood with a hand on the mantelpiece, staring down into the fire. He was breathing heavily, and there were beads of perspiration on his brow. In her fury and outrage, Marianna wanted to scream at him, to berate him with bitter scorn, to express her contempt for a man who could so misuse his superior strength. But she was too afraid of provoking a fresh storm of violence. So she left the room without speaking a word. Painfully, on trembling legs, she climbed the staircase to the sanctuary of her bedroom.

Much later, as Marianna lay sleepless in the dark, William came to her. He crossed the room quietly and stood at the bedside. Her whole body went cold and she was filled with dread. Was there no end to the humiliation she had to suffer?

Then, astonishingly, he was slipping gently into her bed, enfolding her tenderly in his arms, drawing her close and touching his lips to her hair, his voice a husky whisper.

‘Ah, my little darling ... my own pettikins! William had to reproach you, he had to be stern. But all that is done with now, and I find it in my heart to forgive you. Alas, alas, my Marianna is no longer a beautiful, unsullied little angel, but I love her still. Yes, I forgive you, my treasure, I forgive you. William cannot be so cruel as to remain cross with his sweet precious. There ... a kiss for my beloved, and another. How your little heart flutters against my hand. You are overjoyed, are you not, that your Billykins has forgiven you?’

Marianna lay rigid and unresponsive as his hands caressed her body and stroked her hair. Then slowly, gradually, from a sense of utter despair, she softened and allowed herself to be moulded more pliantly against him. She must cling to her husband’s love, on whatever terms it was offered. There was nothing else for her now.

* * * *

Travelling back in the train to Hampshire, after a mortifying interview in which the dressmaker had taken no pains to conceal her triumph, Marianna turned her thoughts to the letter she would write to her father enlarging upon-the few hastily-penned lines that had announced her safe arrival in England. Such a lot would have to be omitted, for it would be unfair to burden papa with her misery. She must try to give an impression of being happy, and in truth there was much she could write about favourably — the charm of the English countryside, the grandeur of Highmount, the many wonders of London. And she could say, too, how she yearned to see him again, how eagerly she looked forward to her first visit home. Home! It would always be how she thought of Madeira. She would beseech her father to write to her at length, telling her of everything that had happened since her departure, giving the fullest news of everyone she knew.

Madeira seemed so infinitely far away and beyond her reach. If only, she thought with a throb of longing, a telescope could really be powerful enough to bridge such a vast distance, so that she could see again the island’s mist-wreathed mountains, its sunny terraced slopes, could look once more upon the faces of the people she loved.

The landau, its hood raised against the drizzling rain, was waiting for them at the station. Marianna was grateful that few people were abroad to be acknowledged; the elderly vicar, riding by, gave them a bow from the saddle. At Highmount, the park looked bleak and windswept.

Jenson, holding a large umbrella, was already at the foot of the steps as the carriage drew up. He carried a silver salver, which he held out to William.

‘This telegraph has just arrived, sir. I thought you should have it at once.’

William slit the envelope and withdrew the flimsy sheet. He studied it briefly, eyebrows raised. Then he said, ‘It’s from my agent in Madeira. Come with me to my study, Marianna, I have something to tell you.’

Harriet appeared as they crossed the staircase hall—Marianna walking stiffly from the thrashing she had received — but William waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. Marianna had a brief glimpse of his sister-in-law’s affronted expression, and then they were in the study with the door

‘Sit down, my dearest.’ He poured a small measure from a decanter and held the glass out to her. ‘Take a sip of brandy, it will help to brace you.’

She sipped obediently as she stared up at him, pierced through with anxiety. ‘What is it, William? News from home? Is it something to do with papa?’

‘I’m afraid so. My child, you must be very brave.’

‘Is papa ill? Then I must go to him ... I must set out immediately.’ She sprang to her feet, but her husband pressed her back into the chair.

‘It is too late for that,’ he said sombrely.

‘Too late?’

‘Your papa has passed away. A stroke.’ Marianna scarcely heard the rest above the thudding of her pulses, the sound of her anguished sobbing. ‘Try to comfort yourself with the knowledge that he did not suffer ... quite instantaneous ... did not linger ... no pain.’

William held her close against him, stroking her hair, gently patting her shoulder while his voice continued, soothing, trying to console. It was minutes on end before Marianna could utter a word through the thickness of tears that choked her throat. Then it was a cry from the heart.

‘Oh, what am I to do, what am I to do? How shall I bear it?’

Her husband eased her back from him and tilted her chin to look into her face. His expression held reproach.

‘My sweet darling girl, what are you saying? Your father’s death is very tragic, a grievous loss for us both, for he was a dear friend of mine. But we have each other, my beloved, for ever and always. You must look to your William for everything, little one. I shall be your whole life now.’

Marianna, in a softly-draped gown of apricot silk, surveyed the guests around her dinner table with a measure of satisfaction. She took pride in the knowledge that, despite her youth, she had come to be regarded as an accomplished hostess. The fact that the guests invited to Cadogan Place were never her personal choice but associated with her husband’s business affairs made it all the more a challenge to her skill. And she had desperately needed such a challenge these past three years, to give some kind, of meaning to her otherwise empty, sterile life.

If only she had been blessed with children, things would have been so different. She would have found happiness as a mother, to set against her misery as a wife. But there had never been any sign of her becoming pregnant. Whether her husband truly cared about this, Marianna was undecided. Certainly he pretended to care, lamenting the fact loudly and often, but she could not avoid suspecting that it was merely a weapon at hand with which to exact his revenge. Patently the fault must lie with her, he insisted, since he had fathered Ralph and Eunice by his first wife.

William, at the head of the table, was holding forth at the moment about his ‘new baby’, a matter which interested him far more, Marianna felt certain, than any baby she might produce. Still on the drawing-board as yet it was ordained to be the pride of the Penfold fleet, a steel-hulled vessel with twin screws and triple expansion engines, a massive six thousand tons of her cutting through the water at a full twenty knots. There would be electric lighting in all the cabins and the very latest in luxury with which to tempt passengers.

‘Humph,’ declared Sir Percival Rockingham, seeming unimpressed by all this. ‘To my way of thinking, Penfold, it sounds much too revolutionary.’ The guest of honour was in his late forties, a thin, cadaverous-looking man with large ungainly hands and a permanently sour expression. He had little personal charm to commend him as a dinner guest, but something far more important. As a merchant banker, he could put up the money to finance William’s shipping project.

‘Rockingham always likes to play God,’ Marianna had overheard her husband remark to his son earlier, before the company arrived. ‘He’ll cough up in the end, though. He knows a good proposition when it’s laid before him. But I don’t want you blundering in and ruining everything, Ralph. You keep your mouth shut and leave me to do the talking.’

The talking, it appeared, was now about to commence in earnest, and it was time for the ladies to withdraw. Marianna discreetly collected eyes - Lady Rockingham, in amber velvet, seated on William’s right; Isabel Franklyn, whose husband was an underwriter at Lloyds, and their eighteen year old daughter Thelma — invited to pair with Ralph in the table seating. And the other two women, whose stockbroker husbands had been brought in as makeweights. All in all, it was a nicely balanced gathering for the evening’s purpose.

The drawing room upstairs had been completely refurbished during this past summer. Marianna had discovered an unexpected talent in this direction, and her choice of modern colours and styles came in for much admiration. If Lady Rockingham, as conservative as her husband, judged the room revolutionary, she managed to refrain from saying so. Despite the Rockingham riches, she was basically a homely woman, and after a few minutes she reverted to the subject — which had already been thoroughly aired at the dinner table — of Eunice and her recently born infant, a daughter to complement the year-old son and heir.

“You said a seven pound child, Mrs Penfold. Did your husband’s daughter not find the heat of the sub-continent very enervating while she was carrying?’

‘She
and her aunt went to the hills for the worst of the hot weather,’ Marianna commented.

‘And how is Miss Fielding? Does she like India?’

‘I believe so, but unfortunately Harriet’s health is giving considerable cause for anxiety. It seems that, despite appearances, she is not very strong.’

Isabel Franklyn, in a heliotrope gown with cascades of orris lace, leaned forward and sketched an interested smile.

‘I must confess,’ she said, ‘I was very surprised to learn that Harriet had gone off to India with Eunice and her husband. She seemed so thoroughly established in her brother-in-law’s household.’

‘Eunice and her aunt were always very close,’ said Marianna, by way of explanation.

‘Indeed, yes.’ Spreading open her black silk fan, Isabel Franklyn allowed her gaze to wander over its painted oriental design. ‘And of course, in a sense, it might be said that the whole
raison d’etre
of Harriet Fielding’s presence was removed by your arrival on the scene. Edgar and I have so often remarked how very providentially it turned out that poor dear William should have found himself a pretty young wife just at the very moment when he was about to lose his beloved daughter.’ She was looking up now, her eyes sharp and knowing, and Marianna was yet again made distressingly aware that her marriage was the subject of much unkind speculation.

Lady Rockingham, protected by her husband’s wealth from any possible charge of tactlessness, asked Marianna pointedly, ‘And when, my dear, can we hope that you will give Mr Penfold the joy of becoming a father once more?’

‘Soon, I hope.’

There was a noticeable quickening of interest, and one of the other women inquired, ‘You mean you are... ?’

‘No, I didn’t mean that at all.’ Marianna turned to Thelma Franklyn and improvised hastily, ‘I have been so much admiring your gown. It’s a charming shade of blue, and those pagoda sleeves are most becoming.’

Beatrice Rockingham, though, was not to be deflected so easily. Patting her ruby and diamond necklace, she continued, ‘It is a curious state of affairs, is it not, for a woman as young as yourself to be almost in the position of a grandmother?’