When Marnie Was There (25 page)

“Who were ‘they’?” asked Jane.

“The two maids, and her nurse. My mother used to say it was a shame the way she was always left to the maids. I don’t remember ever seeing them myself, but that nurse was a beastly woman from all accounts.”

“Tell us! Tell us!” said the children.

“Goodness me,” said Gillie, “how eager you all look to hear a tale of cruelty in the olden days! I’m afraid it’s not a very dramatic tale either. But I remember my mother telling me, when it all came out afterwards. Apparently the nurse had been treating Marnie very badly while her parents were away, and the maids had been frightening her with silly stories. In fact she was quite neglected, though you’d never have guessed it. Certainly I never did.”

“Why didn’t she tell?” asked Scilla.

“She daren’t. They’d threatened her with all sorts of silly things – one was that they’d shut her up in the windmill if she did. That’s why she was so afraid of it.” She pointed to the book lying open on her lap. “You see here, ‘Edward wants me to go to the windmill but
I’m not going.
’”

“Oh yes, tell us about Edward!” said Matthew. “Who was he?”

“He was a distant cousin of hers. I don’t think I ever met him in those days. But of course she married him later, so I did meet him then, once.”

Jane was delighted. “There you are!” she said with a triumphant smile at her mother, “I said I bet she married Edward when she grew up. Was he nice?”

“Oh yes, I think so. I’m sure he was very kind to her. Though perhaps he was a little – well, a little severe. You’ve seen here, in the diary, where she says ‘Edward says I ought to face up to things… I wish he’d stop teasing me’ and so on. I think perhaps even then he was a little hard on her, without meaning to be.”

She looked again at the last entry. “The windmill – that was the cause of all the trouble… Still, I suppose it was just as well, as it turned out.”

“What was just as well? What happened?” Scilla demanded eagerly.

Gillie wrinkled her forehead. “That’s the trouble, I don’t really know what happened. I don’t think anybody ever did, and I only heard the tale second-hand from my mother. But apparently Marnie was missing one night – when her parents were away – and the maids got into a panic and got some of the local men to make a search party. But it was Edward himself who found her; so then I think they wished they’d kept it to themselves! He said he’d found her lying on the floor at the top of the ladder in the mill, and he carried her down himself, and met the search party just
coming along. My mother heard that bit of the story from her maid, so it may have been just local gossip. But anyway it all came out after that.”

“What came out?” asked Anna.

“About her nurse bullying her, and not looking after her properly. But Marnie had never told a soul – that was the dreadful thing – so it didn’t come out straight away even then. They punished her by locking her up in her room. And her parents were told she’d been running away with Edward and staying all night in the mill. I suppose the nurse was frightened by then (since half the village knew the child had been lost), and was trying to save her own skin. But it didn’t work, I’m happy to say. Marnie was sent away to boarding school after that, almost immediately, and the nurse was sent packing. Wretched woman that she was.”

They were all silent for a moment. Then Jane said in a puzzled voice, “But why did she go to the mill if she was so afraid of it?”

“My mother always said it was just naughtiness,” said Gillie.

“But that doesn’t make sense,” said Jane. “You don’t go somewhere you’re frightened of just for the sake of being naughty.”

Scilla said thoughtfully, “It says in the diary about making sand houses, and making a little house in the dunes with a thatched roof. I wonder if she and Edward were going to make it into a secret house of their own – if she’d stopped
being frightened of it, perhaps—?”

Matthew interrupted. “
I
think she did it to give them all a scare. I hope she did, and serve them right.”

“No,” said Anna. “I think she went there just because she
was
frightened. To make herself not, I mean.”

Gillie looked at her with interest. “I believe you’re right, Anna. I never thought of it before, but it’s just the sort of thing she might have done – if she’d been driven to it. Marnie always said she couldn’t stand people going on and on at her about what she
ought
to do – that’s why she couldn’t bear Miss Quick. But with Edward it would have been different, she minded what he thought, and if he’d been teasing her…”

She sighed and leaned back in her chair, looking suddenly tired. “Poor Marnie,” she said, almost under her breath. “It was all so long ago. And it seems so sad – now, looking back.”

M
RS
L
INDSAY 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.”