When Marnie Was There (13 page)

“It’s funny,” Marnie said one day, “but sometimes I feel as if I’ve been waiting for you to come here for years and years.”

Anna looked up from the sand where, on hands and knees, she was diverting the course of a small stream. “I know,” she said. “I feel as if I’ve been waiting to come here for years and years too. Which way shall I run this stream?”

“Bring it over here,” said Marnie, patting the sides of a sandcastle she was building, “then it can go round our garden. This is going to be our house,” she said, half laughing, half serious. “I’m making it for us to live in, just you and me.”

They were on the far side of the marsh, where sea lavender and marsh weeds gave way to hard sand. Here, when the tide was out, they spent hours altering the course of streams, and making tiny villages out of mud and sand. Even before a house was completed Marnie would start making a garden for it, collecting sprigs of sea lavender to make bushes, and wild harebells to stick along the sides of each minute garden path. When, next day, they found the tide had washed it all away, she was undismayed and would start on another all over again. But Anna was always a little regretful for the lost houses.

“We’ll live here all by ourselves,” Marnie said, shaping the top to make a roof. “And we won’t have any maids either.”

“Tell me what Lily and Ettie are like,” Anna said.

Marnie sat back on her heels and made a face. “All right, I suppose. Lily’s quite nice. She makes chips and brings them to me in bed sometimes. But Ettie’s not so nice. She’s bad tempered, and she likes frightening people.”

She made a chimney pot out of wet sand and balanced it on the roof. Then she said with a sigh, “They used to be quite fun, but not now. Ettie’s got a friend in the army who
used to write to her – she was quite jolly then – but I think he’s stopped now. Secretly, I
believe
he writes to Lily instead, but I’m not sure. So now Ettie’s terribly cross and ugly. She and Lily had a fight one day in the kitchen, and when Nan came down she found them crying and Lily said Ettie’d pulled her hair out, and Ettie said Lily’d stolen her boyfriend. It was quite frightful.” She looked at Anna with wide eyes, then picked up her trowel again.

“Go on,” said Anna. “What happened then?”

“Well, they were screeching at each other, and Nan said if they didn’t shut up she’d see they got their notice – that meant she’d tell Mother when she came back and they’d have to go. But Nan doesn’t want Ettie to go because she tells good fortunes in the tea leaves. And I don’t want Lily to go because she tells me stories sometimes, when she brings me the chips in bed. So I said, ‘Oh, no, don’t make Lily go!’ and that was silly, because Nan found out I was listening – I was hiding on the stairs, you see—” She broke off and shivered.

“So what?” said Anna.

“She was terribly angry.” There was a pinched look on Marnie’s face that Anna had not seen before. She was curious.

“Why, what did she do?”

“What she always does. You won’t tell, will you? You mustn’t.” Anna shook her head. “She took hold of my arm, very tightly so it pinched and said I wasn’t to dare tell when
they came back, and she’d know if I did, and she made me promise. Then she took me upstairs and started brushing my hair. She always does that. She brushes terribly hard, and when she says, ‘You’re not to tell, do you understand?’ she bangs the brush hard on my head so that it really hurts. Sometimes she winds my hair round and round on it, so it
makes
tangles – then she can go on brushing them out. She does that so no-one can say she’s hurting me on purpose, you see? But I know. Sometimes it makes me cry like anything, it hurts so.”

Anna was horrified. “But surely she wasn’t doing that when I saw you?”

“Oh, no, there wasn’t any reason then. It’s only when she’s cross, or to make sure I don’t tell about anything.”

“And do you ever tell?”

Marnie shook her head. “Not now. I used to when I was little, by mistake, and then I wouldn’t remember what it was I was being punished for!” She laughed. “Come on, let’s get on.”

She jumped up and began planning the garden, talking all the while, but Anna was not attending. Marnie shook her by the shoulders. “Anna!
Please
, let’s make our garden. You can make the paths with these shells, and we’ll have a lawn and flower beds at the back instead of that dreary old sea—”

“What!” Anna was surprised. “Don’t you like the sea? I’ve always thought you were so lucky having it come right up to the house like that.”

“I’d rather have a garden,” said Marnie. “There’s one at the front, of course, but that’s different. It’s the drive, and Pluto’s there. I’d like a proper garden with grass and flowers.”

“The front?” Anna was puzzled. “Isn’t that the front that looks out on to the staithe?”

Marnie stopped drawing flower beds in the sand and looked round at her in surprise. “The front? How could it be, you goose? How do you suppose people could come when the tide’s up? Did you imagine everyone came like you did, in my little boat?”

She laughed, and Anna who had imagined just that, felt foolish. She realised now that of course it could not be so. She was surprised she had not thought of it before.

“They’ve changed my room to the back so I shan’t be disturbed,” Marnie went on. “At first it felt as if I was being shut away, but now I like it. After all, if I’d looked out on the front I’d never have seen you. Imagine it!”

“But tell me—” Anna was trying to work it out, “where does the front come out?”

“Along the main road, goosey. Beyond Pritchetts.” Pritchetts was the old village shop, now derelict and deserted.

Anna thought hard, trying to visualise that part of the road, then remembered the high brick wall that ran along one side, with the tall iron gates halfway along. She had looked through them one day and seen a dark drive, bordered with yew trees, curving away to the left.

“It looks so different,” she said slowly,” I never thought…”

But Marnie was not listening. “Just think if I’d gone on looking out at that dreary drive, and never known you were down on the staithe!” She spoke almost as if she were a prisoner.

“But you’d have come out,” said Anna.

“Perhaps.” Marnie sighed. “But I wouldn’t have watched out for you, the way I do now, because I wouldn’t have known you were there. I have to be up in my room a lot. I’ve lessons to do, for one thing.” She shook her shoulders impatiently and picked out some bright green seaweed from the pile they had collected. “Don’t let’s talk about such things! Look, this shall be for the grass. Come on, why are you so dull?”

Anna was turning over in her mind all she had heard. “What did you mean about not being disturbed?” she asked.

“Just that,” said Marnie. “They’ve put me away at the back of the house so I shan’t be disturbed. So I can sleep quietly.”

“Couldn’t you before?”

Marnie shook her head. “I used to wake up in the middle of the night, when they’d had a party and were all going home. And I used to hear Pluto barking. I told you about that, didn’t I?” She lowered her voice. “Sometimes he barks in the night, and I used to hear him and wake up frightened. I know it’s all right really. He’s got a chain on, so he can’t get loose, but…”

She threw some more shells over to Anna, as if she wanted to change the subject. “Here, you make a path with those, then I’ll plant the fruit trees, shall I? Come on, dreamy!”

They worked at the little house until the sun was quite low in the sky and there was an orange light reflected in the pools on the marsh. Anna was quiet on the way home. When Marnie asked her why, she said, “I’ve been thinking – you’re supposed to be lucky – I mean you
look
lucky, and you have everything anyone could want – but you’re not really, are you?”

“But of course I am!” Marnie was amazed. “I’m terribly lucky. What ever are you talking about?”

They had rounded the bend and come in sight of The Marsh House. “Oh, look! The lights are on. That means they’ve come!” Marnie pointed eagerly and Anna saw that the windows were all lit up.

“That’s only the reflection of the sunset,” she said.

“No, they’ve come! And Edward will be there.” Marnie broke into a run, leaping over the streams and running so lightly over the boggy patches that Anna was soon several yards behind.

“Who’s Edward?” she panted, struggling to keep up.

Marnie called back over her shoulder. “You know, the boy you saw – at the party. He’s sort of a cousin of mine, and he’s coming to stay.”

Anna dropped behind. It was no use trying to keep up and there seemed no point now. But at the next stream Marnie had stopped after all and was waiting for her.

“I forgot to tell you he was coming,” she said. “I’d even forgotten myself.” She leaned forward a little, as if she were talking to a much smaller child, and her voice became coaxing. “Darling Anna, you know I’d
much
rather be with you. But Edward
is
my cousin, and he’s quite nice. I must run now.” She put her cheek against Anna’s for a second, then ran on.

Anna had to be satisfied with that. Marnie loved her best, and would rather be with her. That was all she had wanted to hear. She paddled across the creek and saw that the windows of the house were in darkness after all. But that did not mean they had gone away; only that they were round the other side.

She thought of the dark drive and the forbidding front entrance on the main road. Edward, and all the other guests, were welcome to that, she thought happily. She and Marnie shared the side of the house that she liked best; the quiet, secret side that had seemed to recognise her when she first stood dreaming by the water, the side that looked as if it had been there for ever…

E
DWARD’S COMING MADE
very little difference. Marnie did seem to like being with Anna best. Only, sometimes, when they had been on the beach as usual, she would jump up and say, “I must go. Edward will be wondering where I am.” Then Anna would find it was time to go, too, and they would both turn back in the direction of the staithe.

Once Anna saw them walking together in the far distance along the beach, and for a moment she felt hurt. But a minute later Marnie came running up into the
sandhills, alone; so pleased to see her that they might have been the only two people in the world.

“How quickly you can run!” said Anna. “You were miles away on the beach just now.”

Marnie laughed. “That was
ages
ago, goosey. What a dreamy old thing you are! You must have been asleep.”

That was quite probable. The weather had turned hot and Anna often dozed off when she was alone these days. Only when she was with Marnie did she feel really wide awake.

“This strong air really do seem to have gone to your head!” Mrs Pegg said, when Anna came home one evening with her eyelids drooping, heavy with sleep and sunshine.

Anna yawned, too tired even to reply. She had been out all day. She had wandered along the beach, waited in the sandhills, and dawdled home across the marsh at sunset. But she had not once seen Marnie. And yet she had thought they were to meet in the same place as yesterday.

Next day she went back to the same place and Marnie was there.

“Where have you
been
?” Marnie said. “I’ve been waiting ages for you.”

“
I
waited ages for you yesterday,” Anna said.

“Don’t be silly, you couldn’t have.” Marnie pointed at the sand where some wild flowers lay scattered about. “Don’t you remember? We left those here yesterday.”

“That was the day before,” Anna said. “Or was it the day before that?” She was not sure herself now. But the flowers still seemed quite fresh. Perhaps Marnie was right.

“Does it matter what day it was?” said Marnie. “Yesterday’s gone, so has the day before. Don’t let’s waste today arguing about it.”

But it happened again. It was exasperating to wait for hours in the chosen place, only to have Marnie pop up on the way home. Surely she used not to do this? Anna could not remember, but it began to feel as if Marnie was playing hide and seek with her.