Marianna by Nancy Buckingham Read Free Book Online Page A

married.’
    ‘You are not Amalia. You are different.’
    ‘Oh? How am I different?’
    Jacinto lowered the heavy basket to the ground, the muscles of his bronzed forearms bunching with the effort. He picked out one of the custard apples that had a brown patch on its scaly skin and hurled it savagely far out into the abyss.
    ‘Amalia is already grown into a woman,’ he muttered.
    ‘And am I not?’
    He did not look at Marianna as he asked, ‘Do you feel that you are?’
    It was a question she had been putting to herself these past days since her betrothal, and still she had not found the answer.
    ‘Mr Penfold must think I am,’ she said, ‘or he would not have asked me to be his wife. ’ A reckless impulse prompted her to add, ‘The trouble with you is that you’re jealous.’
    ‘Jealous?’ he echoed scornfully. ‘Why should I be jealous?’
    ‘You cannot endure knowing that I am to be married, that’s why.’
    Jacinto threw back his head and gave a loud, mirthless laugh.
    ‘Oh yes, I am jealous because I expected to win you for myself, I suppose. How happy the fidalgo would be! He would think in his head, my feitor’s son will make a fine husband for my only daughter. He would say to me, “Marry her, good Jacinto, and I will buy you elegant clothes, and Marianna shall teach you how to behave like a grand gentleman, and you can take your place in my household as my much-esteemed son-in-law.” Or do you think that the fidalgo would rather you came to live with me in a peasant’s hut as one of his feitor’s large family? Oh yes, Marianna, that is a likely thing, I must say. A very likely thing.’
    She was shocked by the bitterness of his outburst, even more shocked to see a glint of tears in his dark eyes as he bent to retrieve the laden basket. Never before had she seen the proud Jacinto near to crying. She longed to say something to bring him comfort, to find the right words to express her affection for him and restore the closeness between them. But she felt helpless, inadequate and on the verge of tears herself.
    ‘Please, Jacinto,’ she beseeched him, ‘can’t we say goodbye properly? Won’t you wish me well?’
    ‘What do you care whether I wish you well or tell you to be off to St Peter?’
    ‘But I do care! It matters to me very much.’
    ‘You have had your father’s blessing, isn’t that enough? You will have to make do without mine.’
    He strode off briskly with the weighty basket on his shoulder, and a turn in the path soon took him from Marianna’s view behind a rock. The drowsy hush of afternoon returned. There was the soft droning of bees seeking nectar among the wild flowers that flanked the path; from a terrace farther down the hillside came the steady chop-chop of an enchada as a man hoed his vegetables, and far below in the valley she could hear the laughter and chatter of village women as they washed their clothes in the ribeiro. Feeling desolate and suddenly without purpose, she let herself sink down on to a sun-warmed boulder and laid her head on her folded arms.
    In all the busy whirl of wedding preparations, Marianna had begged her father to let her return to the quinta for a few days before she left Madeira to go and live in England. With Mr Penfold continuing on to the Brazils in the SS Apollo and not due back for a fortnight, there was surely no reason why not, she had argued persuasively. She wanted a last chance to see the countryside she loved so dearly, to bid farewell to the people she had known all her life. But Marianna’s real reason was that she wanted to see Jacinto and make her peace with him. She had pictured a tender parting scene between them. She meant to advise him, most earnestly, to continue with his studies so far as it was possible — to take every opportunity to improve himself. And Jacinto would tell her sadly that he would never forget her, however long he lived — the girl who had befriended him and set him on the road to a better