Marianna by Nancy Buckingham Read Free Book Online Page B

life.
    The reality, though, had been so horribly different.
    A thought sprang unbidden into her mind. I hate Jacinto Teixeiro ...I hate him, I hate him. I’m vastly thankful that I’ll be leaving this valley tomorrow and need never set eyes on him again.
    Abruptly, Marianna jumped up from her seat on the stone boulder. Petticoats flying, she ran like a mountain hare along the narrow rocky path, all the way back to the quinta.
    * * * *
    From her chair by an upstairs window, Linguareira saw her coming, running as if demented. So she’d seen the lad, and the parting hadn’t been happy! They’d quarrelled, more than likely, the poor menina not realizing that she was halfway to being in love with him. And Jacinto ... what were his feelings? As an intelligent young fellow he would understand — thank the Blessed Virgin! — that the fidalgo’s daughter was not for the likes of him. Otherwise, she would long ago have put a stop to them meeting, never mind how much the menina threw tantrums about it.
    Senhor Dalby had not cared about his daughter teaching a peasant lad his letters, chuckling that you never knew when an educated tenant might come in useful. But the fidalgo didn’t understand the half of it. He was far too wrapped up in himself and his own affairs to keep an eye on the menina and make sure the arrangement didn’t lead to any trouble. He surely couldn’t have guessed how close the two young people would become? Every single blessed day it had been, this summer, with Jacinto stealing time when he should have been busy about his tasks.
    Ah well, it was a problem that had solved itself now, with the menina to be married.
    Married — that poor child! It didn’t bear thinking about. What sort of bargain had been struck, wondered Linguareira, with a rush of anger. Far from paying out any dowry, how much money was the fidalgo to receive in exchange for his young daughter’s hand? The master had been far gone on the road to ruination, everybody knew that. At present, all the gentlemen engaged in the wine trade — English and Portuguese alike — were suffering because of this dreadful pest that was destroying the vines. But none more so than Senhor Dom James Dalby! It was common knowledge that he was up to his nostrils in debt. He had already sold off most of the wines in his soleras for gold in his pocket, giving no thought to conserving stocks like most of the other wine shippers, so he was near upon finished and done for. The small quantity of wine the senhor hadn’t parted with was fast disappearing down his own gullet, in an effort to drown his sorrows.
    Had the poor menina any suspicion that the papa she loved so uncritically was selling her? For wasn’t that the plain, brutal truth of the matter? Little Marianna had caught the fancy of his old amigo, that English shipowner, and the two men had come to a bargain. It was a thought to make one’s stomach retch. But alas, what else was there for the child? She could never be expected to earn her own living, not a young lady of gentle birth. For Miss Marianna Dalby, marriage was the only possible future, and the way things were going for her papa these days, the sooner she was wed the better. At least as wife to a rich man, she would never face poverty and hunger. Linguareira could only hope and pray that the menina wouldn’t have to face more than her fair shareof heartache and sorrow in other ways. For heartache and sorrow were a woman’s lot in this world, she knew that well enough. It was said that the Good Lord in his wisdom had arranged it thus, the belter to prepare women for their heavenly reward.
    And now the task had befallen her of instructing the poor menina in those matters she’d been carefully shielded from knowing about whilst her good mother was alive. Senhora Dona Grace had always been most insistent that her young daughter’s mind was to be kept pure, as she’d put it, with the result that the child’s natural curiosity had been left