When Marnie Was There (15 page)

There was a second’s silence, then a panic-stricken whisper came from just over her head. “Who is it? Oh,
who
is it?”

Anna went hot with relief, though her legs still felt as if they were made of paper. “
Marnie
!” she said. “What ever are you doing up there? Goodness, you did frighten me!”

She could see more clearly now. A ladder went up from the floor, through a trapdoor to the floor above. She climbed up shakily. At the top Marnie was crouching on all fours. She clutched at her wildly and Anna scrambled up and over, on to the floor beside her.

“Marnie! What’s the matter? What are you doing up here?”

Marnie’s teeth were chattering so that she could hardly speak. “Oh, Anna, I’m so frightened! I heard someone tramping about outside and I thought I’d die of fright – then you came—” she began sobbing helplessly.

“But why are you here? Why did you come?”

Marnie gave a shuddering little sigh. “I hardly know now – I think I thought I’d be brave – Edward kept telling me I ought to be. Oh, Anna—!”

“Well, come on, let’s get down and go home.” Anna spoke briskly because she, too, was frightened. It was eerie up there and there was a horrible roaring noise. But Marnie made no attempt to move. “Do come!” Anna said again, urgently. “Oh, what is it – that terrible roaring noise?”

“It’s the wind, ’owling. Isn’t it ghastly!” Marnie said it perfectly seriously. Neither of them could possibly have felt like laughing.

Anna said, pulling at her, “Well, come on, let’s get down. I think you were jolly brave to come. But let’s get down now.”

Marnie whimpered. “I can’t, that’s the thing—”

“Why not?”

Marnie pointed to the hole in the floor. Anna peered down over the edge, and saw what she meant. The ladder, which had been so easy to climb up, seemed now too far away to reach. They would have to step down into that dark, gaping hole.

She stepped back, shaking. Marnie’s fear had gripped her, too.

“I’ve been here
ages
,” Marnie sobbed, “half an hour at least – I was just going to run up here quickly – so I could say I’d done it, and then run home again. But when I looked down, I couldn’t – I couldn’t!”

“Don’t
look
down, then,” Anna said sharply. She got up and walked a few steps over to the wall, following it round with her hand, deliberately not looking down, or behind her. She needed the time to get over her own panic. Marnie followed her, shuffling across the floor on hands and knees. “What are we going to do?” she whimpered.

Anna ignored her, trying to recover her nerve. Then she turned round, and on hands and knees, groped her way back. Keeping her head up and her eyes turned away, she felt for the edge of the square opening and ran her hand along it. Then, still trying not to look down, she leaned forward and put her hand over the edge, feeling for the ladder. Twice she ran her hand along
the full length of the side. Then she sat back on her heels, trembling.

“What is it?” asked Marnie. “What’s the matter?”

“I can’t find the ladder. It’s gone.”

“Oh,
no
!”

“It has. I’ve felt all along and it’s not there. It must have slipped or something.” Anna’s voice was shaking.

“What are we to
do
?” Marnie sobbed, clinging to her. “Tell me what we’re to do!”

“I don’t know. Wait a minute and let me think.” Anna shook her off. She had her own fear to deal with. But Marnie clawed at her, terrified. “Don’t keep grabbing at me like that,” Anna said gruffly, trying to keep her voice from trembling. “It makes it worse. I think we ought to try and be brave.”

“I like that! You said yourself it’s easy to be brave for other people. Now you’re doing it.”

“It isn’t, and I’m not,” Anna said. “I’m frightened, too. I’m only trying to think how not to be, so we can get down.”

If only there was something to hold on to, she thought, to hold fast – and the words
Hold fast that which is Good
came into her mind, like the words of a nursery rhyme learned long ago. Then she remembered – it was the sampler on her bedroom wall. But that had an anchor on it. An anchor would be no good here. The only thing that would be good to hold on to here would be the
ladder itself. But the ladder had gone. And Marnie was holding on to her!

She saw suddenly that she was all wrong. Of course the ladder was there – over on the other side. In her fear and confusion, she had moved round too far. She showed Marnie. There was nothing to be frightened of at all. They had only to hold on to the ladder and come down carefully, one at a time.

“Look, it’s quite safe,” she said. “You just hold fast on to the ladder and go down backwards. Shall I go first?”

“Oh, no! Don’t leave me!” Marnie gasped.

“All right. You go first, then.”

“But I can’t – I
can’t
! I told you.”

Anna tried to persuade her, but it was useless. Marnie was now in such a state of terror that she was beyond reason. And every minute it was growing darker.

“I’m so cold – so very cold,” Marnie kept saying, and her voice ended each time on a shuddering, shivering wail.

Anna tried everything. “Just leave go of me for a minute and
try
, Marnie. It’s the ladder you want, not me. I can’t do it for you. Please, please try. Or
shall
I go first?” But Marie would not hear of this.

It seemed hours later that Marnie gave a long drawn-out, shuddering sigh, and fell limply backwards. She had fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion. Anna gathered some loose straw from the floor and put it under her head.
Then she moved carefully over to the wall and sat with her back against it, watching her in case she should wake. Her head sank lower and lower, and in a moment she, too, was asleep.

T
HE ROARING NOISE
in Anna’s ears grew louder and louder, and she woke with a start.

There were movements, voices, and the sound of heavy footsteps. She heard Marnie’s voice whimpering faintly, “I thought you’d never come! Oh, Edward, I’ve been so frightened!” and opened her eyes. Then she remembered where she was.

She sat up, dazed and stiff with cold, and stared into the darkness. There was no-one there. The voices had receded,
and she could hear only the noise of the wind and the scream of a seagull flying past overhead.

Marnie had gone, and she was alone in the mill!

Marnie had left her.
She could think of nothing else but this one stark fact. She climbed stiffly down the ladder and ran out of that gloomy windmill, out into the wet, windy darkness, with this one thought hammering in her brain; that Marnie had left her. She had gone without her, and left her there alone. It was cruel, unforgivable.

She was too angry even to cry. She ran, gasping, along the road and through the fields, hardly noticing where she was going, the long wet grass whipping at her bare legs. Then she tripped, tried to save herself, and fell headlong into a ditch.

She pulled herself out again on hands and knees and lay sobbing weakly in the grass. Her foot was hurting. Each time she tried to move it, a hot stabbing pain ran across it. She lay still, thinking she would rest for a moment before trying to get up again. And knew no more.

Hours later Anna awoke. She was in her own bed. She turned her head and saw that a tray had been put down on the chair beside her. It held a boiled egg, a small brown teapot, and two slices of bread and butter. Mrs Pegg was pulling back the curtains. She turned and saw that Anna’s eyes were open, and came over to the bed.

“There now, that’s better. You had a nice sleep, didn’t you? Now you sit up and eat your breakfast in bed like a
good maid. And don’t you worry your head about nothing – not till you’ve eaten that nice brown egg.”

Anna moved, then winced with pain. She was stiff all over. Mrs Pegg clicked her tongue. “There now, you’ve caught a cold I shouldn’t wonder.
And
hurt your ankle by the looks of it. It looked all red and swollen to me when they brought you in. That’s what comes of staying out so late and lying in the wet grass, you silly child,” – but her voice was gentle. “Don’t you remember what happened?”

Anna did remember. Gradually it was coming back to her. The windmill – Marnie in the windmill – and that terrible roaring, moaning wind, going on and on. She looked up at Mrs Pegg uncertainly. “You tell me,” she said. “I’m not sure.”

“Well, you was in the fields, wasn’t you? And you must’ve got tired and laid down and gone clean off. We was that worried Sam and me, not knowing where you was, and it were blowing up real nasty. Then along come Mr Pearce knocking on the door, saying he’d been going by in his car and just happened to see you in the headlights as he turned the corner. So he brought you right back to the door.” Anna had a faint memory of someone lifting her up and carrying her, and the hum of a car engine, but nothing more.

Mrs Pegg stood looking down at her thoughtfully. “That were a silly thing to do, my duck. I can’t think what come over you. But there – what’s done’s done.” She poured out a
cup of tea and pushed the tray a little nearer to the bed. “Now you eat your breakfast and just lay quiet, while I go and get dinner on. I thought we’d have a nice brown stew, seeing it’s like it is.” She glanced out of the window as a gust of wind tore round the house, rattling the frames. “One thing, you ain’t missing nothing today. Sam’s right, weather’s broke and no mistake.”

When Mrs Pegg had gone Anna allowed all the details of the night before to come flooding into her mind. Like a heavy weight, the memory of what Marnie had done descended on her. She felt sick at heart. Marnie had left her alone in the mill. Alone and frightened, in the dark. And Anna had thought she was her best friend!

At first it seemed as though Edward – or whoever it was had rescued Marnie – had left her behind on purpose. But then she remembered how she had been sitting, with her back against the wall, and realised he had probably never seen her. No-one would have expected her to be there. But how could Marnie have gone without even a word? Anna could never forgive her for that. And she would never trust anyone again.

The hurt inside her hardened. She pushed away the tray and lay down again. Then, turning her face to the wall, she closed her mind to everything.

Down in the scullery Mrs Pegg put on the onions to fry for the “nice brown stew” and turned them, sizzling, in the pan. Like Mrs Preston, she believed there was no hurt in the
world that could not be cured by a good square meal. Soon the cottage was filled with the familiar, homely smell of frying onions. It escaped from the scullery, crept through the kitchen, sniffed along the bottom of the closed front-room door and wound its way stealthily up the crooked staircase, even under the door into Anna’s bedroom. But even this – the most delicious, hungry-making smell in the world – was unable to rouse her. Anna slept on.

For two long days the wind roared round the house, and Anna stayed in bed. Her foot was not broken and, though still bruised and swollen, was getting better, but she had a heavy cold. She was better off where she was, Mrs Pegg said.

Anna could not have cared where she was. Nothing seemed to matter any more. Marnie, her only friend, was her friend no more.

On the third day she got up, pale and solemn, and Mrs Pegg, having settled her comfortably in an easy chair in the kitchen, left her to go shopping. Sam was asleep in his big armchair in the corner.

Anna looked out of the window with dull, heavy eyes. For the moment the wind had eased. It was raining still, but the sky looked brighter, and she could hear the gulls crying down by the creek. It seemed ages since she had been down there. Ages since Marnie had left her in the mill. Those two days in bed had seemed more like a hundred years, she thought bleakly.

Not that she wanted to see Marnie. There was no question of that. She had decided while she was in bed that
she would never speak to her again. But she wanted Marnie to see her. She wanted her to look out of her window and see her down there on the staithe, and remember the mean, cruel thing she had done. If they met, Anna would not even look at her. But Marnie should not be allowed to forget her. You could not do things like that to people and then forget all about them, she told herself.

She would go down there now. She had been thinking about it long enough. She got up quietly, throwing aside the woollen shawl Mrs Pegg had laid over her legs, and crept out past Sam into the scullery, and out of the back door.

Outside the light seemed unusually bright, and the sudden freshness of the air almost took her breath away. She clung on to the railing for a moment. Then, feeling oddly shaky and unreal, she limped down the lane and turned towards the creek.