Marianna (11 page)

They turned through an arched gateway into a walled orchard, with peaches, plums and apricots neatly trained on wires. William led her to an old apple tree, laden with red-flushed fruit, where a swing seat was suspended from a bough.

‘Here is something you will enjoy, my sweet- that is, if the ropes are not rotted. Eunice used to be vastly fond of this swing. She would beg me not to stop pushing her until her poor papa’s arms were aching intolerably.’ He gave the two ropes a few sharp tugs and pronounced them safe. ‘Amply strong enough, my angel, to bear your featherweight burden.’ Shaking out a large silk handkerchief, he spread it on the seat for her. ‘There now, come and try. I shall push you.’

Marianna hoped that she would like the experience and not feel giddy. In fact she found the sensation of floating through space quite exhilarating.

‘It’s lovely, isn’t it?’ she laughed, diverted for the moment from her sombre thoughts. ‘I never had a swing, William.’

‘If my little sweetheart likes it, I shall have a brand new one made for her,’ he promised. ‘Ah, what a charming picture you make, sitting there so demurely under your pretty sunshade. You should wear your hair down, my lovely, all streaming out in the breeze and garlanded with flowers.’

Marianna glanced at him uncertainly. ‘But it would scarcely be fitting to have a swing made for me.’

‘Whyever not, precious?’

‘Swings are for children.’

‘And my Marianna is so grown-up and solemn and serious, I suppose?’

William assisted her out of the seat, his fingers almost girdling her small waist. He stood looking at her for a moment, bending to touch his lips to her hair, and Marianna could feel his entire body trembling. Then he stepped back with a breathless little laugh.

‘Now I have another surprise, beloved. Come with me.’

They left the orchard, skirted a shrubbery of massed rhododendrons and descended a curving flight of weather-worn steps to a small belvedere. There were a couple of carved stone seats here, and between them stood a telescope upon a raised dais. William removed its leather cover and lowered the stand, then bent and peered through the lens, making adjustments.

‘There, that should be about right for you, my pet.’ He drew Marianna forward to look, putting his arm about her slender shoulders. ‘Now then, you have to turn this brass knob until the focus is right, and you swivel the telescope like this to point it in the direction you want. Can you see the sea glinting in the sunshine? That is near Southampton, where we docked this morning. And those hills in the distance are on the Isle of Wight. The Queen’s favourite residence is on the Isle of Wight — Osborne House. I daresay Her Majesty is there at this very moment.’

In awe, Marianna gazed at the outline of distant hills, which the telescope brought so vividly near. She could almost imagine that if she were to call out, the Queen would surely hear her.

‘Which way is Madeira, William?’ she asked, after a moment.

‘Oh, you wouldn’t see Madeira from here, little one, even looking through the most magnifying telescope in the whole world. It’s fifteen hundred miles away.’

His words brought a chill to Marianna, accentuating her home-sickness, her sense of isolation from everything she knew and loved. But she rebuked herself sternly. Trying to match her husband’s own brand of playful humour, she said,
‘
I
just thought that if I knew the right direction I could give a wave to papa and ... and all the other people there, and ... and pretend that they could see me.’

He chuckled. ‘Yes, well then, Madeira is in much the same direction you are looking at present. So give everyone a wave, my treasure. But come now, there is still a lot more that I want to show you.’

They took a downward path that led them through a small piece of woodland to the river. Quite unlike the rushing, rocky streams of Madeira which often dried up completely in the summer, this was a wide stretch of limpid water flowing so gently that as Marianna leaned against the rail of a little rustic bridge, she could watch individual twigs and leaves drifting slowly nearer and disappearing beneath her feet. When she had the opportunity she would come here with her sketch book. The river with the little boathouse on its bank would make a charming subject for her pencil, like so much else she had seen today at Highmount. How very fortunate she was that, having left Madeira, she had come to live in another such lovely place.

William said abruptly, in the way he had of taking her by surprise, ‘On Monday I have to go to London.’

Marianna turned quickly to look at him, uncertain as to his meaning.

‘Are you saying ... without me?’

He frowned. ‘You cannot expect me to spend my entire time with you, child. I have business matters to attend to.’ Then, seeing her dismayed expression, he added teasingly, ‘Where do you think the money would come from to buy my little Marianna lots of pretty things, if I did not go off and earn it? I shall only be away for a day or two, though.’

Marianna was desolate at the thought of being left alone with her husband’s son and daughter, and Harriet Fielding—at their mercy, so it seemed to her.

‘Could you not take me with you, William?’

He shook his head. ‘Not this time.’

Even more than her desire not to be left alone at Highmount, Marianna was surprised at her keen disappointment that she was not to see the metropolis.

‘Please William, I wouldn’t be any trouble to you, truly I wouldn’t. I am so longing to see London.’

‘I said no,’ he repeated and the look of stern displeasure on his face held her silent, resigned to her husband’s ruling. But then his expression softened and he smiled. ‘Another time, dearest one. Quite soon, I promise, I will take my little sweetheart to London and show her all the wonderful sights.’

They dined, the five of them, at a long table beneath a chandelier that blazed with the light of twenty candles. Marianna scarcely noticed what she ate beyond the fact that it was lavish fare. Throughout the meal the conversation was stiff and artificial. William was falsely jovial, Harriet barely polite, while Eunice sulked and Ralph grew increasingly tipsy. To mark his wife’s first evening at Highmount, William announced that he and his son would forgo their port and withdraw with the ladies.

But it was no better in the drawing room, where Harriet presided over the tea tray, afterwards having her octagonal work-box brought forward and settling down to the embroidery of an antimacassar. William talked shipping matters to Ralph, who made no attempt to conceal his boredom. Eunice, after twenty minutes at the solitaire board, inquired coolly if Marianna played the piano. She confessed apologetically that her playing left a great deal to be desired. At which Eunice went to the instrument and proceeded to give a dazzling performance of some Chopin mazurkas. Marianna was genuinely admiring and expressed warm compliments, as did Harriet. William, though, made no comment at all. He had shown a total lack of interest in his daughter’s playing, reaching for a copy of the
Illustrated London News
and flicking through the pages rapidly.

As early as decency permitted, Eunice and Ralph and their aunt all found excuses to retreat.

‘Now, my dearest Marianna,
you
must play for me,’ William said fondly, the moment they were alone.

‘Oh, but I am very inexpert compared with Eunice,’ she demurred. ‘In any case, I am sadly out of practice. Sketching has always been my best accomplishment.’

‘Nevertheless, I want to hear something from you.’

Unhappily, Marianna stumbled her way to the end of a Schubert piece. She feared William’s displeasure, but to her surprise he smiled kindly.

‘You have a charming touch, my darling girl. We shall have to see about getting some tuition for you. I imagine that Eunice’s former teacher, old Professor Ridley, would be prepared to accept you as a pupil.’

‘But William, I have no wish to —’

He continued to smile. ‘Your wish is to please your husband, is that not so?’

‘Naturally, but —’

‘Then it is agreed.’ He came and stood behind her, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders. ‘You are enchanting, my dearest little love. You have utterly captured my heart. Are you tired, after such a long day?’

‘Not... not really.’

‘All the same, it is time you went to bed. Come along now.’

Though it still wanted five minutes to ten o’clock, Marianna was unsurprised that her husband was suggesting they should retire at such an early hour. During the voyage he had restrained himself from troubling her out of kindness and consideration, but now, on their first night together in his own home, it would be different. She was quite ready, she was fully prepared in her mind.

With William’s hand at her elbow, they ascended the staircase together, watched impassively by the busts of doubtless famous personages that had been set at intervals upon marble plinths. Reaching her boudoir, softly illumined by pink-globed lamps, they found Hilda busy hanging up some more of the dresses she had taken away for pressing.

William said curtly, ‘Make haste, girl, and be gone.’

‘Yessir.’

‘And tell Mr Jensen to bring whisky to my dressing room.’

‘Yessir. Will madam be wanting me ...?’ She caught his eye, hurriedly put away the last garment in the wardrobe and fled.

Marianna protested mildly. ‘It would be easier for me, William, to have the maid’s assistance. This dress is rather…’

He laughed, a chuckle deep in his throat. ‘Have I been defeated yet, my little one? Come, give your Billykins a kiss, and then we shall explore the whys and wherefores of all those cunning hooks and eyes of yours.’

Why was it, Marianna wondered desolately as William sat her upon his knee and yet again went through the nightly ritual of undressing her and putting on her nightgown, that she felt a new and even keener sense of embarrassment? Why, she wondered later, when after tucking her up with a kiss and departing for a while to his dressing room, he returned and climbed into bed to caress her and whisper fond endearments — why was there this overwhelming feeling of humiliation? She lay stiff and trembling while her husband held her soft young body in his arms, just as on those four nights of the voyage — yet somehow, tonight, she felt defiled.

Walking the aisle on William’s arm to the boxed-in family pew at the front of the church, Marianna was aware that her presence caused a stir of interest in the congregation. The ancient Saxon building, with pale sunshine slanting through the stained glass windows, possessed an austere beauty that seemed strange after the warm and friendly rotunda of Funchal’s Anglican church. But the order of service was blessedly familiar, the hymns, the prayers, the responses. Even a long-winded sermon brought comfort, and with the text from the Philippians,
I
can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me,
she was inspired to make the very best of her new life.

The vicar was in the porch as everyone filed out. He was an elderly man and rather hard of hearing, a handicap he endeavoured to counter by an excess of affability. Marianna was introduced to a number of the village notables, who seemed uncertain in their attitude towards her, while they murmured vague pleasantries about paying a call quite soon.

After luncheon, another difficult meal, Marianna asked William to show her more of the house. There were a bewildering number of bedrooms, she discovered, and she inquired if many guests came to stay at Highmount.

William laughed shortly. ‘As few as I can get away with, my precious. Of course, there are the duty invitations to relatives.’

‘I wondered about that, William. You haven’t mentioned having any relatives before.’

‘Because they aren’t worth mentioning, that’s why. There’s a maiden aunt of mine still living, my mother’s youngest sister, who is turned eighty now and resides at Maidenhead. She expects an invitation to stay each June. And besides Aunt Mildred, I have a few cousins and second cousins dotted around the kingdom. But I see as little of them as possible.’

‘I suppose you entertain quite a lot — dinner parties and receptions?’

‘Here in the country we have to ask the local bigwigs a couple of times each year. That’s about all. In London there is more, of course, but most of the entertaining connected with business I do at my club.’     

William smiled at her and tickled her under the chin. ‘So you see, my little angel has nothing to fret about. In any event, Harriet attends to all that’s necessary. Your job is just to be here and look pretty for me — you should find that easy enough, eh?’

They went outside to the stables, William explaining that he wanted to pick out a mount for her use.

‘We’ll find you a nice, gentle little mare, my precious.’

‘But I am quite accustomed to riding,’ Marianna reminded him. ‘I like a pony with a certain amount of spirit.’

‘William knows best,’ he said firmly.

In the event, the mare he selected for her, after consulting with the head groom, was a beautiful creature called Pruella. William smiled indulgently as she stroked the velvet muzzle, murmuring soft endearments and promising that they would have lovely long rides together through the beautiful countryside all around them.

‘You make your poor husband quite jealous,’ he teased. Then, in a serious tone, ‘I’m not at all sure, though, that I should allow you to go riding alone.’

“Oh please, William! I don’t always want to have to take a groom with me. I’ll be extremely careful, truly I will. I promise — cross my heart!’

He chuckled delightedly at her use of the childish phrase.

‘How can I not come under your spell, you bewitching angel? Very well then, you may ride alone sometimes when I am not here — but only within the grounds. That must be clearly understood.’

‘Yes, William,’ she said, in meek resignation.

* * * *

Flurries of rain were spattering the window panes when Marianna awoke on Monday morning. A glance at the French clock on the night table showed the time as twenty past eight. William was due to catch the eight-thirty train to London, so he must have left the house some minutes ago — without coming to say goodbye to her.