When Marnie Was There

by Joan G. Robinson

  Anna turned over in her mind which of many questions to ask. Should she ask Marnie about her dress? No, she had probably been to some sort of grown-up dinner party. Or about her family? No, they were only grown-ups after all. But she was still intrigued by Marnie’s confession that she was frightened of her own dog. She said, at last, “Does anything else frighten you – apart from obvious things like earthquakes, I mean?”

  Marnie thought seriously. “Thunderstorms, a little – if they’re bad. And—” She turned and looked behind her across the fields to where the windmill stood like a solitary sentinel, dark against the sky. “That does sometimes,” she said quickly, with a shiver.

  “The windmill! But why?”

  “Too late! You’ll have to save that for next time,” said Marnie, laughing again. Then she added, more seriously, “I don’t think it’s a very good game after all. You seemed to ask all the wrong questions. I don’t usually think of gloomy things like that old windmill. And I asked a wrong question, too. You couldn’t even answer it, and frightened me by running away instead.”

  “I wish I knew what you meant about that,” said Anna, still worrying over it. “Honestly, I never moved.”

  “Oh, but you did!” Marnie’s eyes were round. “How can you say such a thing? I waited and waited for you to answer, and then when I looked up you just weren’t there. That’s why I jumped out.”

  “No, it was you!” said Anna indignantly.

  Marnie sighed. “You think it was me, and I think it was you. Don’t let’s quarrel about it. Perhaps it was both of us.”

  “Or neither of us,” said Anna, her anger slipping away. After all what did it matter? The last thing she wanted to do was quarrel with Marnie. She changed the subject quickly. “You are lucky to have a boat like this all of your own.”

  “I know I am. It’s what I always wanted, and this year I had it for my birthday. You’re the first person who’s ever been in it, apart from me. Are you glad about that?” Anna was.

  They drew in to the shore. “I’ll drop you here,” said Marnie. “Can you paddle now or is it too deep?”

  Anna put a foot over the side. The water came up to just below her knee. “It’s all right. For me, that is,” she said, thinking of Marnie’s dress.

  “What do you mean, ‘for you’!” said Marnie with mock indignation. “I’m as tall as you are.” She laughed suddenly. “Oh, you mean my evening gown! And poor old you in your boys’ clothes! Do you wish you were dressed the same as me?”

  She’s getting at me, thought Anna, and made no reply. But Marnie had turned the boat and was already rowing away, still chuckling.

  “Goodbye!” called Anna in a small, forlorn voice – quickly before it was too late.

  “Goodbye!” called Marnie, still laughing. She went on chuckling until the darkness had almost swallowed her up, then, just as she disappeared out of sight, Anna heard her call quietly, but quite distinctly, over the water.

  “Silly, it’s my nightie!”

  Chapter Twelve

  MRS PEGG BREAKS HER TEAPOT

  MRS PEGG WAS shaking the rag mat in the yard with unnecessary violence, and talking to Anna between shakes.

  “I’d have thought the least you could do – was keep a civil tongue in your head – after I’d specially asked you to look friendly —” shake – shake – “I’m that riled with you, I—” she choked and flung the mat over the dustbin, then wiped her eyes on the corner of her apron. For one awful moment Anna thought she was crying, then realised that her own eyes were pricking. The tiny yard was full of dust.

  Mrs Pegg turned on her, red in the face. “Why did you do that, lass? What come over you, for goodness sake?”

  “She called me names first,” Anna mumbled.

  “Oh, she did, did she? What sort of names?” Mrs Pegg looked hopeful for an instant but Anna closed her mouth obstinately. Mrs Pegg pressed her. “Not that I’m one to listen to other’s tiffs generally speaking,” she said, “and what’s done can’t be undone, but you’d better tell me now.”

  “She said I looked like – just-what-I-was,” said Anna, the words tumbling out all together in a sullen mumble.

  “Like what?”

  “Just-what-I-was,” Anna repeated.

  “Well, lordsakes, and what’s wrong with that!” Mrs Pegg flung up her hands in despair and lumbered angrily indoors. From the kitchen Anna could hear Sam’s voice protesting mildly that it was a small thing to get so put out about, and Mrs Pegg retorting angrily that it was all very well for him to talk, but if he’d kindly cast his mind back he might remember how she’d said all along it wouldn’t do to fall out with Mrs Stubbs, not till after the fête.

  “You know very well I never was one to listen to tittle-tattle and squabbles, but what with Mrs S being so put out, and her running the cake stall what I’m put down to help with—” There was a sudden crash, then Mrs Pegg’s voice, shaky now, “There! Me big teapot! If that ain’t the last straw—” followed by an unmistakable sob.

  Anna did not wait to hear any more.

  She went down to the beach, walking all the way along the dyke. There was no sign of Wuntermenny, and in any case she felt that even his company would be an interruption. She did not want to think about anyone or anything, not even Marnie. It would have been all right if only Mrs Pegg had gone on being angry, but when she had dropped that teapot… hastily Anna put the memory out of her mind. She walked hard, thinking about nothing and seeing nothing, until she came at last to the sand dunes.

  Here was the one place where she could be sure of meeting no-one. Even if anyone should happen to be wandering along the beach, she could see them while they were still no more than a speck in the distance, and lie low until they had passed. Already she had spent many afternoons here, lying in a sandy hollow, hearing only the wind rustling the tops of the grasses, the distant crying of the gulls, and the soft soughing of the sea. It was like being at the very edge of the world. Sometimes the gulls came nearer, screaming noisily as they quarrelled over small fish in the pools, and sometimes they cried mournfully far away along the beach. Then Anna felt like crying too – not actually, but quietly – inside. They made a sad, and beautiful, and long-ago sound that seemed to remind her of something lovely she had once known – and lost, and never found again. But she did not know what it was.

  So, this morning, she spent several hours in the sand dunes, not thinking about Mrs Pegg, and not thinking about Sandra or Mrs Stubbs, and only thinking about Marnie when she had emptied her mind of everything else. And it was then that she realised the tide would not be high until even later that night. It would be after eleven o’clock. How was she going to see Marnie?

  Walking home again at dinner-time, she thought of the obvious answer. If Marnie could go out in a nightdress, so could she! She would go to bed early tonight, before the Peggs, and slip out later. And this afternoon, when the tide was out, she would pick a bunch of sea lavender for Marnie.

  A letter from Mrs Preston was waiting for her at the cottage when she got back. It told her all sorts of news about people she did not know, whom she supposed must be neighbours at home. But when she tried to visualise home it seemed so unreal and far away that she found it difficult to imagine Mrs Preston still living there. A postscript at the bottom said, Do write again soon. You didn’t tell us much except that you went to the beach. And you didn’t say anything about the smell either, dear. Can you describe it?

  Anna was surprised. The smell… what smell? Or perhaps the word was “shell”? She examined it closely and saw that it was not. A stamped addressed card had been included this time so she decided to reply at once before she forgot again, and while Mrs Pegg laid the table around her, she wrote, “The beach doesn’t smell.” This was untrue, of course. The beach had a wonderful smell, but “Can you describe it?” reminded Anna of Miss Davison’s English exercises at school, and her resistance was aroused. In any case, how could you describe the smell of the beach? It just smelled of the sea, or s
eaweed – though occasionally, if the wind were in the wrong direction, and nature had done her worst – of a dead seal. But who wanted to hear about the smell of a dead seal on a postcard? Instead, she gave an accurate account of the weather and (since this was uppermost in her mind) the state of the tides during the last few days.

  After dinner she went out again, waited until the tide was low enough, then paddled across to the marsh to pick her sea lavender.

  Mrs Pegg, seeing Anna’s postcard still on the mantelpiece, stamped and ready for posting, clicked her tongue. Really, the child would forget her head one of these days! She had specially reminded her to post it when she went out. She picked it up and looked at it curiously, with her eyes screwed up, turning it in all directions.

  “Well, I don’t know!” she said. “I never were no scholar, but – here, you read that.” She handed it to Sam. “What does that say?”

  Sam read aloud, laboriously, “The – beach – doesn’t – smell.”

  “There!” said Mrs Pegg triumphantly. “That’s what I thought it said!”

  “Well, that don’t smell, do it?”

  “No. And the moon ain’t blue. And cows don’t dance. And some folks ain’t got the sense they was born with. You, for one, Sam Pegg. Don’t it strike you that’s a queer way for a child to start a letter?”

  “Oh, ah! Happen she’d other things on her mind,” said Sam.

  “Happen she had,” said Mrs Pegg, shaking her head in a vaguely bewildered way. “Happen she always has, if you ask me.” Then she went out, posted the card, and forgot about it.

  That evening, as soon as the Peggs had settled down to their evening television, Anna fetched a book and sat reading near them on a low stool. After a while she began yawning and let the book slip sideways. When she had sat there long enough for her boredom with the book and her weariness with the programme to be noticed by the Peggs – or so she hoped – she rose and yawned again. Then, to the accompaniment of massed brass bands from an agricultural hall somewhere in East Anglia, she tiptoed hurriedly, with ostentatious quietness, towards the stairs.

  Once in her own room, she undressed and put on her nightdress. Then she pulled on her shorts, tucking the nightdress inside, and put on her jersey on top. Now she was ready. She waited until she judged the tide would be well on the way up, then picking up the bunch of sea lavender, she opened her door and listened. Then, still under cover of the noise from the television, she crept downstairs and slipped out through the scullery door.

  The Peggs, sitting like two ancient monuments in the flickering blue light, had their backs towards her and never even turned round.

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE BEGGAR GIRL

  THE BOAT WAS waiting. Anna stepped in and cast off the rope. In a moment, almost before she had time to dip the oars, she was drifting steadily along in the direction of The Marsh House. She scarcely needed to row; the boat seemed to know its own way.

  She was nearly opposite the house when she was startled to see there were lights in all the windows. What could it mean? And the sound of music was coming over the water! She rested on the oars and held her breath. This was what she had dreamed of – a party going on in the old house! As the little boat drifted slowly past, she saw, through the windows, the great staircase ablaze with light, and the bright colours of the ladies’ dresses moving about inside. And in the dark water, just as she had imagined it, she saw it all reflected, the lights spearing down in trembling points almost to the very edge of the boat.

  Then she had passed the house. Turning, she saw, in the darkness behind her, a small white figure standing at the top of the projecting wall. It was Marnie, waiting for her.

  She threw the rope and Marnie caught it. Once more she was pulled gently in, alongside the steps. She clambered out and Marnie caught hold of her hand.

  “Oh, I’m so glad you’ve come!” she whispered. “Did you hear the music?”

  “Yes, and I saw the lights. It looked so lovely from the water I thought I must be dreaming it!”

  “They’re having a party,” Marnie whispered. “I was so hoping I’d see you! I’ve run out to look for you over and over again.”

  “I thought I mightn’t be able to come tonight, it’s so late,” said Anna. “But look…” she pulled her nightdress out from under her shorts, “I’ve done the same as you. I’ve got ready for bed first!”Then she saw that Marnie was wearing a real white party dress, with a full skirt and a ribbon sash.

  “I had to,” Marnie said apologetically. “It’s a grown-up party, really, but I had to be there. One or two of them are quite young – but years older than us.” She squeezed Anna’s hand and snuggled up to her. “I’m so glad you’re here. I wish you could come in, too…” she hesitated, looking at her thoughtfully, then suddenly she laughed. “I know! You shall come in. Nobody will know who you are.”

  “But I can’t,” Anna protested, “not in a nightie and sandshoes.” She glanced down and saw that her nightdress was now streaked with mud. “I can’t,” she repeated sadly. “Anyway, I’m all muddy.”

  “Yes, you can! The muddier the better. I’ve an idea. You only want a shawl over your head and you’ll look like a beggar girl.” Then she saw the bunch of sea lavender in Anna’s hands. “Oh, you darling, you’ve brought me some sea lavender! That’s just what we need. You’re a beggar girl, and you’ve come to sell sea lavender to the ladies and gentlemen – for luck. Will you? Wait, and I’ll fetch you a shawl!” Without waiting for an answer she ran in by a side door, leaving Anna standing alone on the wall.

  Anna was not frightened. She was hardly nervous. She had no very clear idea what was going to happen and, oddly enough, it never entered her head that she had any choice in the matter. She felt, as she always did with Marnie, that what ever they did was the only thing they could have done. It had all been decided already. Anna had only to wait and see what happened. So she waited now, standing in sandshoes, and a muddy nightdress over a pair of cotton shorts, listening to the sounds of music coming from the house behind her and beginning to feel quietly excited.

  Marnie came running back with an old brown shawl in her hand.

  “Here you are,” she cried, “the very thing!” and she flung it over Anna’s head, arranging it over the back of her hair and crossing the ends over her chest. Then she stood back and looked at her critically. “You look fine, but your nightie’s a tiny bit too long. It ought to come just below your knees.” She tucked it up round the top of Anna’s shorts and they giggled together.

  “Can I really?”

  “Yes, of course. Oh, isn’t this fun! Now your shoes —”

  Marnie bent down and pushed a sprig of sea lavender into the eyelet hole of each shoe, covering the laces, then she tucked another into Anna’s hair, just over one ear.

  “There – now you look exactly right!” she said, standing back to admire her. It was as if she had already seen a picture of the person Anna was to be, and was copying it in every detail. “Now listen to me. Don’t say anything but just do what I tell you. I’ll go in first and warn them. You stay just inside.

  “Now,” she said, and they stepped in through the side door. “Wait,” and she ran down the dark passage and flung open the door at the far end. At once there was a sudden blaze of light and colour. Men and women in dark uniforms and shining dresses were moving to and fro. Anna saw the sparkle of jewellery, the gleam of gold braid, light shining on wineglasses, on silver bowls of red and cream roses, and a background of crimson curtains. The passage was suddenly filled with the sound of voices and laughter and music.

  She saw Marnie, her white sash flying, running up to a tall man in uniform, who was standing in the centre of a group, with a wineglass in his hand, and pull at the gold braid on his sleeve. He bent down and she whispered something in his ear. For a moment he looked puzzled, then, laughing, he straightened his back and clapped his hands.

  “Listen, everybody!” he said. “Marnie tells me we have a visitor. There is a
gipsy girl at the door selling sea lavender. Who would like to buy some sea lavender for luck?” He moved towards the door, laughing indulgently, and peered down the passage, but Marnie ran ahead of him and seizing Anna by the hand, pulled her into the room.

  The lights were so bright and there were so many people that Anna was quite dazzled. She stood just inside the door, her dark hair hanging in wispy curls over her face, the brown shawl clutched together in one hand and the bunch of sea lavender in the other.

  “Come,” said the man kindly, “don’t be frightened. What is your name?”

  Anna opened her mouth to speak but no sound came out. She seemed to have been struck dumb, and she found that she had even forgotten her own name! She stared at the man, slowly shaking her head from side to side. Other people crowded round and asked her questions. Where had she come from? Who was she? How had she come? But to all of them Anna could only reply by shaking her head from side to side in the same dazed way.

  “She looks like a little witch!” exclaimed a young man. “Why don’t you speak, little witch? Who are you? Did you fly in on a broomstick?” They all laughed. A lady in a blue dress leaned over her. Anna saw her long, glittering necklace swinging only a few inches in front of her eyes.

  “Poor child,” she said, “she is dumb. Don’t torment her with questions.” And to Anna, gently, in a voice that was ever so slightly mocking, “Don’t mind them. May I have some of your sea lavender?”

  Anna nodded gravely, and handed her the bunch.

  “Oh, no, that is too much!” The lady threw up her hands in exaggerated dismay, “I only want a spray for luck. And you must be paid. Of course, you must be paid!” She looked round, spreading out her hands appealingly. “Who will pay for my flowers?”

  Immediately four or five young men dashed up with silver coins and tried to press them on Anna. But Anna shook her head, refusing to accept them.

  “No, I will pay,” said the tall man with the gold braid on his sleeves, and brushing them aside, he took a bunch of crimson roses from one of the silver bowls, and laid them in Anna’s lap. Again Anna shook her head, but the man had already turned away. Anna picked out one rose and laid the rest aside on a table. She tucked the rose in the knot of her shawl. It smelled very sweet.