When Marnie Was There (26 page)

“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.

“T
HE 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!”

A
NNA 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 going 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.

In another two minutes she would be back in The Marsh House, sitting with all the others round the sweet-smelling, crackling wood fire, toasting her feet and having tea and toasted buns. But even then she could not be feeling more ‘inside’ than she was at this minute, running alone down the dyke, outside, in the wind and the rain.

The wind made a roaring noise in her ears as she ran, and she shouted and sang at the top of her voice. She
remembered once, some summer morning – when had it been? – running along a dyke in a wind like this, and feeling the same sort of happiness. Then she remembered. It was when she had been with Marnie, that first time they had gone mushrooming – that first time they had been real friends.

She slithered down on to the staithe – the grass bank was too slippery to climb up – and danced along by the edge of the creek. A white seagull’s feather came tossing and turning through the air and fluttered to her feet. She grabbed at it, before the wind should seize it again and carry it off – and looked up.