Marianna (36 page)

‘Yes, it was extremely unconventional. But no teacher could ever have had a pupil who was keener to learn.’ Marianna regarded her son questioningly. ‘How did you know who Jacinto really was, since I did not tell you?’

‘I guessed it — when I discovered that his name was Teixeiro. Everything fitted into place. When I arrived in England, you see, I soon came to realize that there was a mystery concerning the death of my ... of William Penfold. I didn’t want to ask questions about it, so I went along to the newspaper offices and looked up the old files. There I read about the man Jacinto Teixeiro from Madeira who had vanished and was wanted by the police for questioning.’ He looked at Marianna, holding her gaze. ‘I should like to know exactly what happened, mama. Will you tell me?’

She sighed. ‘It is such a long story, Dick. One day I promise I will tell you everything. For the present, let this suffice. My husband’s death was accidental. Jacinto was defending me against his violence and there was a fight in which he fell and struck his head.’

‘And afterwards, Dom Joao ... Dom Jacinto fled the country?’

‘I had to plead with him to go, Dick, but it was the only thing to be done. There was terrible danger for him, and for me too if any connection between us had been discovered. Our only chance of safety was to part and sever all links, no matter that it broke both our hearts.’

Dick bowed his head. ‘I said some horrible things to you, mama,’ he muttered remorsefully. ‘I’ve wished so often that I could unsay them.’

‘I understood, Dick. You were dreadfully upset.’

‘Yes, but even so...’ Then he asked, surprising her, ‘Have you ever heard anything about Lucia ... how she is?’

‘Once or twice I have received news, through Eduardo.’ Marianna hesitated a moment, but she had to say it. ‘Lucia is married now.’

‘Oh! Is she happy?’

‘I believe so.’

‘I’m glad. Poor girl...’

‘Yes, she suffered grievously. And you too, Dick. I shall never forgive myself for the pain I unwittingly brought upon you two young people.’

Marianna wanted to ask him if he still pined for Lucia, still loved her. She dared not, though, for fear of spoiling this new closeness between them. Then Dick answered the unspoken question by saying with youthful candour, ‘I think of Lucia sometimes, but I cannot remember her face very clearly. Isn’t that strange?’

They fell silent. Outside, a tug on the river hooted mournfully.

‘Will you do as Cedric suggests?’ Marianna asked at length. ‘Quit the Penfolds and go to Oxford?’

Dick’s mouth tightened. ‘And come back to you, cap in hand, for the wherewithal?’

‘Oh, what does that matter?’ she cried. ‘Whatever I have is yours, you know that.’

He nodded and was silent again. Then he burst out abruptly, ‘If I could just walk out of that house, mama ... if I could turn my back on Ralph and the Penfold Line, forget there was any connection between us, I’d do it — this very night!’

‘What prevents you, Dick?’

He said, with marked reluctance, ‘It was something I discovered quite recently, and ever since I’ve been tortured about what I ought to do. Ralph and I bear the same name and we may indeed be half-brothers by blood, as the world believes. Yet he is a swindler, there is no getting away from the fact. So should I expose him for the criminal he is?’

‘Come now, Dick, profiteering from the war may be very reprehensible, but that doesn’t make him a criminal in any accepted sense.’

Her son gestured impatiently. ‘I wouldn’t concern myself so much if that was all it was. But Ralph has deliberately swindled money from his father-in-law.’

Marianna gave him a startled glance. ‘But how?’

‘You heard Alicia mention this evening those Christmas comforts for the troops which were donated by her father. But they were never sent, mama, they were never even purchased — not so much as a pair of woollen socks or an ounce of tobacco or a slab of chocolate. The money for those things went straight into Ralph’s pocket.’

‘Are you sure of this, Dick?’

He nodded emphatically, his face pale. ‘When I was looking through the private ledgers at Leadenhall Street I stumbled upon a curious discrepancy. The two vessels which were supposed to have carried the Christmas comforts donated by Sir Percival Rockingham were recorded in the firm’s books — for the very same dates — as having sailed for the Cape with full cargoes of munitions and medical supplies. When I tackled Ralph about this he was evasive, trying to make out that I’d got it all wrong. And then he started blustering until he’d worked himself up into a thorough rage. I realized that he was definitely covering something up, so I started investigating more closely, and I’ve been able to piece together what actually happened. It began with Ralph persuading Sir Percival that it would be a noble and patriotic gesture to send some comforts to the fighting men in South Africa. He himself would provide the shipping space without charge, if Sir Percival would put up the money for the supplies. There was even a news story in
The Times
about it.’

‘Then surely you must be mistaken, Dick. If the shipments had not arrived at the Cape, there would have been official questions asked and —’

He cut across her. ‘Things out there are in a state of complete chaos, mama, and Ralph was counting on the muddle to avoid being caught out. You’ll hardly be able to credit this, but when Sir Percival complained to an acquaintance of his in the War Department that he had never received any kind of thanks for his generous gift, a letter came within a day or two. It was signed by the Secretary of State in person, making profuse apologies for the oversight.’

‘But Dick, doesn’t that prove my point that you must be mistaken?’

‘No. All it proves is that the authorities will do anything to cover up their own inefficiency. They obviously thought the goods really had arrived in South Africa and just been lost — or stolen, more likely.’

Marianna was reduced to silence. She found herself able to believe almost any infamy of Ralph, but could this story of Dick’s possibly be true?

‘If Ralph is doing so well out of the war,’ she said at length, ‘why should he need to cheat his father-in-law for money?’

‘I don’t know for certain, but I’m jolly sure it’s something to do with his gambling. Ralph sometimes loses the most colossal sums at the gaming tables, and then he’s in a panic to cover his debts. It’s quite possible, I suppose, that he originally thought up this scheme just as a way of raising some ready cash, intending to square the matter later. And then he decided to leave things as they were when he realized that the bluff had worked, with no one any the wiser. Ralph has such a peculiar sense of humour, he probably thinks it a great joke to have swindled his own father-in-law.’

‘There is such a lot of supposition in all this,’ Marianna pointed out uneasily.

‘All the same, I know I am right. The question is, what should I do about it?’

‘What
can
you do?’

‘I could tell Alicia. Or her father. I could go to the War Department —’

‘No!’ said Marianna. It was an instinctive reaction, but surely she was right. The important thing was to get Dick away from Ralph Penfold. ‘Whatever you might think,’ she reasoned, ‘you cannot be absolutely certain of your facts. But even if everything you suspect is true, what would you gain by exposing this swindle? Who would thank you for it? Neither the authorities, who would be made to look extremely foolish, nor Sir Percival himself for having been hoodwinked by his son-in-law. You would only bring disgrace upon the name you bear, and give pain to Alicia and her children. No Dick, do nothing, and turn your back on the whole pack of them.’

He was very reluctant, unwilling to take the coward’s way out of a dilemma. But at last Marianna convinced him. He said, with all the bitter disillusionment of youth. ‘The world can be a foul, rotten place.’

‘But there is another side to life,’ she insisted. ‘Seek instead those things that are fine and noble and beautiful.’

‘Have you ever found such things, mama?’

‘Oh yes,’ she said without hesitation,  ‘Briefly, fleetingly. Sorrow was never far away, but I have found them, Dick.’

* * * *

It was an unpretentious little grocery shop in a narrow, twisted lane off Marylebone High Street, but it shone out from its neighbours on either side, a pork butcher’s and an ironmonger’s, by its sparkling cleanliness. A bell jangled on a spring as Marianna entered. The plump woman behind the counter looked up to greet her with a friendly smile. ‘Nice morning, ma’am. What can I get you?’ Marianna smiled back, but did not for the moment answer. Then she said, ‘Well, Hilda, do you not recognize me?’

The round freckled face lit up in delight and disbelief.

‘No, it can’t be! Ooh ma’am, it really is you, isn’t it? Well I never did in all my life!’ She came ducking under the flap of the counter and flung her arms about Marianna in a joyous embrace. ‘Ooh ma’am, I never thought to set eyes on you ever again.’

‘Nor I you, Hilda. But being in London, I had to come and see you at the very first opportunity.’

‘Right glad I am you did, too! And how’s your little son, ma’am? Have you brought him with you?’

‘Little
son, Hilda! Dick is a fine, strong young man now, quite a lot taller than I am.’

‘Oh,  o’course! I should have known, shouldn’t I, considering I’ve got five of me own now, and the eldest fifteen come March.’

‘How are they, Hilda?’

‘All well ma’am, though Daisy got the croup earlier on just before Christmas and we feared for her. But she’s better now. Come through to the back and see the new baby ... she’s the only one here just at present. There’s two of them at the Board School round the corner, and little Timmy, he’s the four-year-old and he’s out with his dad on the delivery cart. And Millie, she’s working now — in the needleroom at Liberty’s, and learning herself a nice useful trade.’

Marianna went through and admired the chubby baby in the wooden crib, freckle-faced like her mother, then handed over the gifts she had stopped on her way to purchase at the shops in Oxford Street; dolls and toys and clothing carefully chosen to suit each member of the family. For Hilda herself there was a fine cashmere shawl, for her husband, a pound of choice Virginia tobacco. She was profusely thanked and pressed to stay for a cup of tea. But she demurred, for Hilda had already been called away twice to serve at the counter.

‘But I will come again, if I may,’ she said. ‘Some time when the shop is closed, and I can see your husband and the children, too.’

‘And right welcome you’ll be, ma’am. Albert and me often talks about you, and how good you was to us.’

‘Oh no, Hilda, the debt is on my side. I shall never, ever forget how much I owe you.’

There was a moment’s hesitation, then Hilda asked, ‘How about ... well,
him,
ma’am? Did you ever hear anything more?’

What to say? How much to reveal? Marianna was saved an immediate decision by yet another tinkle of the shop bell.

‘We’ll talk about it when we meet again,’ she promised. ‘And now I will leave you to attend to your customers.’

Though Marianna still felt cold, as she always had done during the English winters, it was a fine bright morning. Last night’s sprinkling of snow had completely vanished and the pavements were dry underfoot. The air seemed pleasantly crisp, with a pale February sunshine shafting down between the crowded buildings. She decided not to hail a cab at once, but to stroll a while through the London streets. Her spirits were higher than for many a month, and on this lovely winter’s morning she felt she could start believing in the future once more.

At the corner, she paused by a pavement flower stall, the hothouse arums and belladonna lilies and camellias making a splash of colour in the street. They were but poor specimens, though, compared with the exotic blooms offered by the flower sellers in the Praça by the cathedral in Funchal. A little further on an old man with a club foot was grinding out the catchy war song
Goodbye Dolly Gray
on a barrel organ, while his wife, trying not to shiver in her thin cloth coat, banged in time on a tambourine. Marianna dipped into her purse and found a sixpence for their monkey’s tin. Then she spotted a ragged urchin with his nose pressed against the glass of a pastrycook’s, staring longingly at a mound of pink-iced buns, and she found a penny for him, too.

Crossing Marylebone High Street, she entered the district where London’s fashionable doctors had their consulting rooms. The pavements were less thronged here, but the thoroughfares were crowded with smart carriages, some waiting at the kerbside, the horses’ breath making little white clouds in the keen air.

As she turned into Wimpole Street, a footman ran down the steps of one of the gracious houses opposite and signalled for a hansom from the rank further down the street. Behind him came a gentleman wearing a velvet-collared overcoat and bowler hat. As the cab rattled to a stop he pressed a coin into the footman’s hand, then turned to mount the step. At that instant, Marianna had a clear view of his face.

For long startled seconds she could not move, could not use her voice. Then, galvanized by the terrifying thought that in a moment it would be too late, she stepped out into the roadway and ran forward, waving her hand in the air. A bicyclist swerved to avoid her, ringing his bell; a coachman reined his horses and swore an oath; passers-by paused to look. But she was heedless of any of them, aware of only one thing. The gentleman, now seated in the cab, had turned his head at the sudden commotion. He was looking straight at Marianna, but there seemed to be no sign of recognition in his eyes.

‘Jacinto?’ she cried desperately. ‘Don’t go, Jacinto! Do you not know me?’

‘Marianna! Can it really be you,
querida?’

Jacinto jumped down from the cab with a typically clumsy movements, and they stood on the pavement staring at one another in a daze of disbelief.

‘I just can’t believe it,’ she gasped, laughing and crying with joy at one and the same time. ‘How is it that you are here in London?’