WHOSE FAULT WAS IT?
MRS LINDSAY JUMPED to her feet. “What a shame, Gillie, we’re keeping you up and you’re tired after your journey!” She made a move to collect the cups and saucers, but Gillie was almost out of her chair immediately
“No, no, no!” she cried. “I won’t go to bed yet. I’m not in the least tired. Nor are any of your young, by the looks of them. Sit down, there’s a dear thing. Don’t spoil a nice party just because a silly old woman starts reminiscing.”
The others joined in with shouts of “Sit down, Mummy.” “You go to bed.” “Don’t spoil everything!” and Mrs Lindsay sank quickly back in her chair. Gillie nodded approvingly.
“We want to hear more about Marnie,” said Scilla.
“Tell us what happened afterwards,” said Jane.
Gillie looked at Mrs Lindsay, who nodded back. “I’m as fascinated as they are,” she said, smiling. “If anyone’s bored they can always go away.” She leaned forward suddenly to look at Anna, who was sitting with her head bent forward, almost as if she was dozing. “Are you awake, my love? You’re supposed to be going back to the Peggs tonight, you know. Unless—” she broke off. “Andy, be a dear, run and ask Mrs Pegg if Anna can stay here for tonight. Tell her we’ve got everything she might want, and say I promise to send her back tomorrow. Will you?”
There were shouts of delight from the children, and Andrew leapt to his feet. Anna looked up with startled pleasure. “Can I? Really?”
Mrs Lindsay nodded. “Were you asleep?”
“No. I was wondering something—” Anna paused as the door closed behind Andrew, then said, looking across at Gillie, “I was thinking about when Marnie was in the mill. There wasn’t anyone else there with her, was there?”
“Before Edward came? Oh no, I’m sure not.”
“But suppose there had been – suppose someone else had been with her, would she have left them there?”
Gillie looked puzzled. “What an odd question, my dear. I don’t quite see what you mean.”
Anna insisted. “Suppose someone else had been with her, would she have gone away with Edward and left them alone up there – in the dark?” She kept her eyes fixed on Gillie, ignoring everyone else, only knowing that it was one of those questions that must have an answer, even if it sounded like nonsense.
Gillie saw that she was in earnest and thought seriously. Then she said, “If she had been conscious I’m sure she wouldn’t – though fear can make people do terrible things sometimes. But in this case there was no question of it. Marnie was alone, and she was quite unconscious when they found her. I remember being told she never woke up until after they got her home and into bed. Poor child, I should think she was exhausted with fear.” She gave Anna a steady, friendly gaze and said, “Does that answer your question?”
“Yes, I think so,” said Anna, smiling back; and knew that she felt satisfied.
Scilla was waiting impatiently to hear the rest of the story. “Funny old Anna,” she said, patting her foot affectionately, “don’t go asking any more questions till we’ve finished hearing what happened. Go on, Gillie, tell us about when she grew up.” She stopped, her eyes widening. “Where is Marnie now? If she was about the same age as you – I mean, you’re not that old—”
The grown-ups laughed and Gillie said she now felt half as young again. Then she said, more seriously, “No, I thought I’d told you, Marnie died several years ago. But I’d rather lost touch with her some years before that. There isn’t really much more I can tell you about her. She married Edward, and they had a baby daughter and went to live in Northumberland. I didn’t see her for some years after that, not until after Edward had died, when the war was over.”
They fell silent, disappointed and a little sad. Then Jane asked, “What happened to Marnie’s baby?”
That had been a sad story, Gillie said. She was only five or six when the Second World War came, and she’d been sent away to America to be safe from the bombing. When she came back she was nearly thirteen, and seemed like another child, her mother said – so grown-up, and wilful, and independent. And she always seemed to bear her mother a grudge for having sent her away, even though it was for her own safety.
Gillie shook her head sadly. “They could never get on together after that, and yet Marnie had looked forward so much to having her back. Esmé used to say, ‘How can I help it if I don’t love you? I can’t love you just because you’re my mother. Anyway, you’ve never been a mother to me.’ Oh, yes, she was terribly cruel, but in a way it was true. You see, Marnie tried to be a good mother to her – she wanted to be – but I don’t think she knew how; her own childhood had been so lonely and wretched… And yet she’d always promised herself that her own child should have everything she’d never had herself. As it turned out – what with being sent away for six years during the war, and her father being killed, she never had the one thing she needed most – her own parents to love her.”
She stopped suddenly and glanced towards Anna, then hurried on. “Anyway, she ran away and got married as soon as she was old enough. Without even telling her mother. That was why I said it was a sad story.”
“Whose fault was it, then?” asked Jane, frowning at the carpet.
“How can one say?” said Gillie. “When you grow as old as I am you can’t any longer say this was someone’s fault, and that was someone else’s. It isn’t so clear when you take a long view. Blame seems to lie everywhere. Or nowhere. Who can say where unhappiness begins?”
“You mean,” said Jane, “that because Marnie wasn’t loved when she was little, she wasn’t able to be a loving mother herself, when her turn came?”
“Something like that,” said Gillie. “Being loved, oddly enough, is one of the things that helps us to grow up. And in a way Marnie never grew up.”
Jane turned to her mother. “According to that, Roly-poly ought to be quite an old man by now, oughtn’t he, Mummy?”
They all laughed at that. Then Scilla said, “What happened to Esmé after that?”
She had married, Gillie said. He was a handsome fellow, black-haired and dark-eyed, but far too young and irresponsible. It hadn’t been a happy marriage – though they’d had a baby, and Marnie’d hoped that might make the difference – but after a very short while it had ended in a divorce. But then Esmé had married again not long after and it had looked as if things might turn out happily after all.
“And didn’t they?” asked Mrs Lindsay.
Gillie shook her head. “It was tragic, they were killed in a car crash on their honeymoon.”
Anna felt Mrs Lindsay’s knees stiffen behind her. She turned round. “That’s funny,” she whispered, “my mother was killed in a car crash too.”
“I know,” Mrs Lindsay whispered back, “your auntie told me.” She pulled Anna gently back against her knees, then, speaking over her head, she said in a very quiet voice, “Gillie, what was the name of Esmé’s baby?”
“She was called Marianna,” Gillie said, “after her great-grandmother. Marnie was so pleased about that! And of course it is a lovely name. It had a Spanish sound about it too, which pleased the father.”
Anna turned round to smile at Mrs Lindsay, as if to say, well, that couldn’t have been me! But Mrs Lindsay was not looking at her this time. She was staring at Gillie, who was still talking to Jane and Scilla.
“Marnie adored that baby!” Gillie was saying. “You see, she had the looking after of her, right from when the first marriage broke up, so she was almost more hers than Esmé’s. I think Marnie thought of the baby as her second chance. She was determined to make a good job of bringing her up.”
“And did she?” asked Jane and Scilla eagerly.
“She didn’t have her second chance after all,” Gillie said quietly. “She never got over the shock of Esmé and her husband being killed. She was very ill after that, and she died later the same year. I was abroad when it happened so I’d lost touch. I wrote to the Northumberland address but never had a reply.
And when I came back to Barnham I asked around, but of course nobody knew anything about the family by then, they’d left so long ago. There were strangers living in this house—” she broke off. Scilla sniffed. “Don’t be too sad about it, my dears. It all happened a long time ago.”
“How long?” asked Mrs Lindsay quickly.
“Six or seven years, I suppose,” said Gillie, counting on her fingers.
“But what happened to the poor little girl?” asked Jane. “I hate a story without a proper ending.”
There was a sudden movement behind Anna. She turned and saw Mrs Lindsay sitting bolt upright in her chair. Her eyes were shining and she was actually smiling.
“Let me finish the story,” she said, her voice quite shaking with excitement. “Yes, I can, though I didn’t know I could until just now!” And she laughed at the surprised faces turned suddenly towards her.
Chapter Thirty-Six
THE END OF THE STORY
“THE END OF the story went like this,” said Mrs Lindsay. “When her granny couldn’t look after her any more, the little girl was sent away to a children’s home. She was about three then. And a few years later a couple found her there. The woman had always wanted a daughter, because she hadn’t one of her own, so they took Marianna back to their own home to live with them.”
“Oh, I’m so glad!” sighed Jane.
Mrs Lindsay went on quickly, as if she were afraid of being interrupted. “The woman loved her very much. She wanted her to call her ‘mother’, but for some reason Marianna never would. So she called her ‘auntie’ instead.” Anna looked up, suddenly holding her breath. “And because the woman wanted so much to feel that the little girl was her own, she changed her name. At least, she didn’t change it. She just used the last half.”
There was a moment’s silence, then Scilla burst out, “Anna! Mari-anna!”
“Do you mean it’s me?”Anna said. “Me?”
“Yes, you,” said Mrs Lindsay. “Are you pleased? Oh, Anna, I’m so glad! I think it’s the loveliest ending to a story I ever heard – although I told it myself!”
She kissed Anna on the back of her head, and whispered in her ear, “So you see, the anchor did belong to you after all!”
Anna, feeling quite dazed, buried her head in Mrs Lindsay’s lap for a moment. It was some minutes before they could all get over their surprise. Then everyone started asking questions at once. How had Mrs Lindsay known? And why hadn’t she said so before? Why hadn’t anyone told Anna that her granny used to live in The Marsh House? Didn’t that make it almost more her house than theirs?
Mrs Lindsay agreed that it did although, of course, it did now belong to the Lindsays since they had bought it. But it certainly belonged to Anna’s background more than to theirs.
Gradually the details came out. Mrs Lindsay had known no more than any of them, until that same afternoon when Mrs Preston had told her all she knew about Anna’s background. Even then she had no idea there could be any connection between Anna and the story of Marnie; not until Gillie had mentioned the car crash. After that it had all pieced together.
Mrs Preston had told her how she used to live near Little Overton herself, and how, years later, when she had been visiting the children’s home, she had learned that the grandmother of the little girl she was interested in, had once lived there too. It had only come out by chance because the matron of the home had found a picture postcard of Little Overton among the child’s possessions. It had been from her granny and had said on the back: This is a picture of the house where I used to live when I was a little girl.
Anna gave a little shiver of excitement. “I’m not saying anything your auntie didn’t want me to say, you know,” said Mrs Lindsay. “She asked me to tell you all this, and I was going to as soon as I had a chance.”
“I know, she told me. Where’s the postcard now?”
Mrs Lindsay explained that it had disappeared long since, even before Mr and Mrs Preston had come along. The matron had said the little Marianna wouldn’t be parted from it and so it had eventually fallen to pieces. Anna looked disappointed, and Scilla said “O-oh,” just as her mother had done earlier in the evening.
Mrs Preston had asked the Peggs once if they’d ever known a woman living on her own in the village with a three-year-old granddaughter, but they hadn’t been able to think of anyone. And after all, it had said “when I was a little girl” – so Mrs Preston had put it in the back of her mind and tried to forget about it.
Andrew, arriving back in the middle of all this, was as excited as any of them. “But we haven’t any proof,” he said. “We can’t be sure it was this house.”
But there was another thing, Mrs Lindsay said. When Mrs Preston had come into the drawing-room, she had been astonished at the view. She hadn’t realised the house was so near the water – having come by the road. Then later, when she was talking about the postcard, she said the matron had mentioned it was a big house by a lake. It hadn’t struck Mrs Lindsay at the time that it could have been The Marsh House, photographed from the other side of the creek. She had thought she meant a big house somewhere inland, standing in its own grounds with a park. But just as Mrs Preston was leaving, she’d asked Mrs Lindsay whether she thought people ever had sailing boats on their own lakes. Mrs Lindsay had thought it rather a strange question, and asked why. Then Mrs Preston said the matron had mentioned a sailing boat in the picture as well. And she said something like, “I suppose it might have been one of the houses along here, mightn’t it?”
“She had to hurry away then,” said Mrs Lindsay, “so we had no more time to talk about it. But—”
“But there aren’t any other houses along here,” said Andrew. “Only the cottages.”
“Exactly,” said Mrs Lindsay.
They talked about it for hours. Gillie said Anna’s grandmother must have told her many stories when she was little – “She was always a great talker!” she said – and she began wondering whether it was possible she could have told her the story about the beggar girl at some time; – it had been so odd Anna suddenly remembering about the sea lavender.
“But Anna was so little then,” Mrs Lindsay said, and Gillie agreed.
But when Anna – struggling to find the right words – told them what she had never told anyone before – how The Marsh House had looked so familiar, like an old friend, even when she had first seen it, Gillie said, “Yes. Yes, of course. It would.” If Anna had gazed at it long enough, (until it fell to pieces, in fact!) the picture would have remained in the back of her mind even after she had forgotten it. It was the same in painting, she said. You never forgot the places you painted out of doors, because you’d looked at them for so long that they seemed to become part of you.
And that reminded her… She had brought the painting she was doing on the marsh that day. It was really meant as a present for Mrs Lindsay, but she knew she wouldn’t mind if…
Mrs Lindsay said, “Oh, no, what a lovely idea!”
Then the painting was unpacked and given to Anna. It was The Marsh House, just as she had first seen it, with water coming right up to the foreground; the way it would look if you were standing with your feet in the water… Anna hardly knew how to say thank you, she was so pleased.
Then, when they were at last thinking of going to bed, Andrew suddenly said, “Oh, and I’ve got something for you too!” He produced a small parcel from his pocket and handed it to Anna with a bow.
“My lady Marianna, your toothbrush!”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
GOODBYE TO WUNTERMENNY
ANNA STOOD AT the window in The Marsh House, looking out on the staithe. It was nearly three weeks later, the weather was wet and windy, and most of the visitors had left. In two days’ time she and the Lindsays would be going home too.
The staithe was deserted except for one small figure. She wiped the mist from the window, and saw that it was Wuntermenny, in his oilskins, just pushing off from the landing stage. Who but Wuntermenny would be goi
ng down to the beach on a day like this! she thought. It would be dreary down there, the sand pock-marked with rain, the stinging marram grass bent flat by the wind. She could picture him trudging along the shore, eyes and nose running, peering at pieces of wood, old sauce bottles, lumps of tallow, and stooping now and then to pick up some sodden treasure washed up by the waves. Dear old Wuntermenny who had eaten the sherbet bag! She must say goodbye to him. She might not see him again.
She slipped out of the room, unnoticed, and ran out of the side door.
Wuntermenny had passed the house already. She slid down the grassy bank, cut across the staithe, and scrambled up on to the dyke. Then she ran along it until she was nearly abreast of him.
“Wuntermenny!”
He turned and saw her.
“I’m going away!” she shouted. “Goodbye!”
The boat was carrying him steadily away from her. She could not tell if he had heard or not, but he cocked his head slightly towards her. She waved, then put her fingers to her lips and waved again. “I’m going away on Friday. Goodbye!”
She saw him lift his chin, as if to say “Oh, ah!” Then he raised his arm, and with a single wave that was more like a solemn salute, he disappeared round the bend.
Anna stood looking after him. The seagulls wheeled and screamed overhead. The wind was whipping the water into small pointed waves, and the marsh, beyond the creek, looked grey and desolate. Now that Wuntermenny had gone, there was no single person in sight. In all the world there seemed to be no-one but Anna standing alone on the dyke under the huge, leaden sky.
She was glad she had said goodbye to him. He was the loneliest person she had ever known. And yet he had been one of eleven children! She had been lonely because she was one. And Marnie had been lonely because she was one.
It was raining harder now and she was beginning to get wet, but it did not matter. She was warm inside. She turned and began running back along the dyke, thinking how strange it was – about being ‘inside’ or ‘outside’. It was nothing to do with there being other people, or whether you were ‘an only’, or one of a large family – Scilla, and even Andrew, felt outside sometimes; she knew that now – it was something to do with how you were feeling inside yourself.
When Marnie Was There Page 17
