Then, suddenly, as she stood there straining her eyes up to the house, she felt the shock of cold water swirling over her feet. She turned quickly and saw that the tide had come in behind her – a great mass of choppy, grey water, spreading wider and wider. Already the marsh was nearly covered.
She turned again to the window. Marnie’s face had disappeared completely, blotted out by the blinding rain. But she waved wildly, trying to smile a goodbye, and pointing along the narrow strip of shore, which would soon be covered. And suddenly, as she looked, it seemed to her that the house was empty after all. That there was no-one behind any of those blank, staring windows. It looked like a house that had been empty a long time…
Sobbing, she turned away and plunged along towards the end of the bank where the road began. Already the strip of shore had disappeared and the water was pulling at her legs. The tide must have come in extraordinarily quickly, and it was still rising. She could feel the stones and sharp pebbles, and bits of sea wrack that lined the edge of the staithe, cutting into the soles of her feet. She tried to grasp the long grass on the bank, hoping to scramble up but it was too slippery to hold and she fell back again.
Gasping and sobbing, she plunged on, her legs heavy as lead as they pushed their way through the weight of the water. Already it was over her knees. Rain and tears poured down her cheeks, her clothes clung to her, limp and sodden, and her hair slapped across her face like bands of seaweed. She was icy cold and soaked through. Only her throat was parched and burning.
It came to her that she might be drowned if she could not reach the bank in time. The water was now rising up her thighs, and she was only halfway there. But she would not be drowned. People could do what they liked to her, but nobody could make her be drowned if she didn’t want to be. She must reach the corner.
Her mind leapt ahead. In her imagination she saw herself hobbling home dripping, and creeping upstairs to her own room. She had been nearly drowned, but nobody should know. Nobody had ever known anything that was important to her. Not how she had felt about being paid for, about being treated as if she was different, about people not knowing what they were going to do with her. Not even about Marnie, her first, very own best friend. And now she had gone! She sobbed at the thought, stumbled, and fell, choking, into the grey swirling water.
Chapter Twenty-Two
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE HOUSE
ANNA HAD NEARLY been drowned, and somebody did know about it. Wuntermenny coming up the creek in his boat, saw her fall just as he rounded the bend, and, thinking more quickly than he had ever thought in his life before, he steered straight towards her. In a moment he was up to his waist in water, had caught her up in his arms, and was wading towards the shore.
Mrs Pegg said afterwards that never would she forget the shock of it, when Wuntermenny came tramping through the scullery just as she was unloading her shopping bag. She’d turned round and there they both were, pouring half the creek over her clean kitchen floor without so much as a by-your-leave.
More than that – Wuntermenny had then made the longest speech anyone had ever heard come out of his mouth. “Little lass were near drownded,” he had said. “Lucky that were blowing up nasty, so I come back and see’d her blundering about in water. Tide’s flooding uncommon fast.” Then he had laid her down on the sofa and said, “Heaviest catch I ever made, I reckon,” just as if the poor little lass were a cod fish, and stumped out again before ever Mrs Pegg could draw breath.
But that was later. For many days Mrs Pegg had neither time nor inclination to talk about it at all. And it was not until long after that she took to telling the tale as if it had been wonderfully exciting, almost funny, instead of quite terrible.
Anna was ill for a long time. She had feverish nightmares and woke screaming, and every bone in her body ached. But always there was someone there to break the terrible dream, and soothe her, or give her a drink. Once, to her surprise, it was Mrs Preston who was bending over her in a dressing-gown, holding a glass of water to her cracked dry lips.
“Auntie,” she croaked, and tried to smile.
Mrs Preston patted her hand and laid her gently back on the pillow. “Go to sleep, my pet,” she murmured.
Even in her half-delirium Anna thought, can she mean me? How strange. She had never heard her use such a term of endearment before. Then she did as she was told and fell into a dreamless sleep.
Gradually she grew better and was able to get up a little. Mrs Preston, who had been staying at the cottage helping Mrs Pegg, began to talk of going home again. “Uncle” needed her, she said. But the doctor thought Anna should stay on if possible, as the air here was so good for her.
“I’m wondering how you feel about it, dear?” Mrs Preston, perched on the edge of Anna’s bed, was casting anxious, sideways glances at her. “Would you rather come home with me?” Anna did not know what to say. “You have been happy here, haven’t you?” Mrs Preston went on. “Mrs Pegg says you have, and she and Sam want you to stay on. But of course I should hate to leave you here if you weren’t. What would you like to do?”
“Did Mrs Pegg say she wanted me to stay?” Anna asked incredulously.
“Yes, she did. She said they both liked having you about the place. But I wanted you to choose.”
Anna sensed a certain anxiety in the way Mrs Preston waited for her answer. “I’ll stay, then,” she said.
Mrs Preston got up at once and said brightly, “That’s settled then. I’ll go and tell them.”
Considering how relieved she must have been at her choosing to stay, Anna thought it odd that Mrs Preston looked so suddenly upset when they parted. Just for a moment she held her tightly in her arms and mumbled something that sounded almost like, “wish you were coming – never mind, perhaps some day we’ll—” Then, without finishing the sentence, she let go and pretended to be buttoning up Anna’s cardigan, which was buttoned already.
Anna had just time to give her a quick, unexpected hug before Sam shouted up the stairs that the station bus was coming round the corner. Then she was gone.
Before long Anna was out and about again, and life at the cottage had settled back into its old routine. But for Anna things were not the same.
Since her illness a shutter seemed to have come down between her and everything that had happened to her just before she was nearly drowned. It seemed now as if it had all happened a long time ago. Sometimes she almost felt as if she were seeing Little Overton for the first time. Then she would remember Marnie.
Marnie had gone. There was no doubt about it. As soon as she saw The Marsh House again, Anna knew for sure. She stood for a long while gazing at it, wondering what was different, and could find nothing specific. The house just looked empty. She was not surprised. She had known in her heart that she would never see Marnie again. But secretly she mourned for her.
Another thing that was different was that there were more people about. The first of the summer visitors were beginning to arrive; families with babies, and toddlers who splashed about almost naked in the shallow water on the sandy side of the creek. She helped two of them build a sandcastle one day, while their mother talked to a friend higher up the beach. She had never played with such little children before, and almost enjoyed it.
Coming across the marsh at low tide one afternoon, she found an old lady sitting on a camp stool, sketching. She stood behind her for a moment, quietly watching, and saw that she was painting the staithe and The Marsh House.
The lady turned and glanced up at her, and smiled. Instead of slinking away, as she would previously have done, Anna found herself smiling back. The lady was not so old after all – only about Mrs Pegg’s age.
“Do you think it’s like it?” she asked, pointing to the house in her picture.
Anna leaned forward, studying it carefully, and said yes, it was.
“I love that old house, don’t you?” said the woman.
“Yes,” Anna said.
The woman turned back to her painting. Anna wa
ited, wondering if she would turn round again, but she didn’t, so she crept quietly away. But she was pleased and felt as if she had made friends with someone just by not running away.
She went along the main road past Pritchett’s one morning, and coming to the front entrance of The Marsh House was surprised to find the iron gates wide open. She went in a little way and heard a sound of hammering, then following the bend in the drive she came in full view of the house, and stopped and stared.
She had never imagined it would look like this. It was just as attractive as the old house by the water. For some reason she had always thought of the front as if it were some quite different place. Now, for the first time, she realised what she must always have known really; they were two sides of the same house. And this side was, if anything, even more attractive. It had a warm, welcoming look which she had never expected.
More surprising still – all the windows were open. The frames had been newly painted, and the sound of hammering was coming from one of the upper rooms. Beside the front door, also half open, a crimson rose bush sprawled up the wall and hung in clusters over the porch.
As she stood there, staring, a workman came round the side of the house carrying a ladder over his shoulder. Before she had time to run, he had seen her and called out, “Who was you wanting to see? They ain’t here yet.”
Anna stood with her mouth open, unable to find an answer.
The man laid down the ladder and came nearer. “What is it, love?” he asked jokingly. “Ain’t you ever see’d a man with a ladder before?” He jerked his head back towards the house. “Cleaning up the old place a bit, that’s what we’re doing. Did you wonder what all the banging was? That’s the carpenter, that is, mending holes in the floorboards and suchlike.”
He paused and looked at her more closely. “Why, ain’t you the little-old-girl from up at Peggs’? My, but ain’t you growed! You’re twice the size you was when last I see’d you.”
“Yes,” said Anna. “I was in bed, and you always grow a lot then.”
“Oh, ah! Of course.” The man nodded his head slowly. “You was nearly drownded, wasn’t you?” He clicked his tongue sympathetically. “I heared about that. Well, maybe things’ll be a bit more lively for you soon, when the family comes down.”
“What family?” Anna faltered.
“The family what’s bought the old place. That’s why we’re doing it up. Nice people they are. A Mr Lindsay and his wife. They come down and looked at it Easter time. Said it was just the thing.”
Anna said, in a small, uncertain voice, “What – do you know what happened to the other family?”
The man looked blank. “Which family was that?”
“The one that used to be here?” Her voice had grown even more uncertain.
The man shook his head. “There wasn’t no other family that I ever heard of. Not since my time, any road. But I ain’t been in Overton all that long.”
“Oh.Thank you.”
The man moved back towards the house, and Anna walked slowly away. At the bend in the drive she looked back.
Two sides of the same house… One facing out on to the main road, the other looking back over the water… And so strongly had she been attracted to the backward-looking side that she had even, for a while, mistaken it for the front. She wondered how she could have been so silly. But then, the gates had always been closed before, so how could she have known?
She heard the sudden sound of a car turning in at the entrance, and darted in among the dark yew trees. An old packing case lay there, rotting on the ground, and she ducked down behind it until the car had passed. She heard the car draw up to the front door and the engine stop, then she slipped round the back of the packing case and out on to the drive.
She gave a quick backward glance as she ran towards the gates, and saw that it was not a packing case after all. It was an ancient dog kennel lying rotting on its side.
Chapter Twenty-Three
THE CHASE
ANNA STOOD IN the sandhills and stared. In the distance, on the stretch of sand that led across to the marsh, she was sure she had just seen five small, dark figures. They were running, jumping, separating, then joining together again, and growing smaller every minute.
She stood staring until the sun in her eyes forced her to look away for a moment. When she looked back they were gone.
She turned away. For a moment she had been quite startled. Those five small figures reminded her of the imaginary family she had once thought lived in The Marsh House. But that had been before she met Marnie. Now she knew better.
She lay down on her back in a hollow, feeling suddenly lonely, and wept for Marnie. The sad, long-ago sound of the gulls crying in the distance brought real tears now, and they fell from the corners of her eyes, trickling down the sides of her neck and wetting her hair before they sank into the sand.
But even as she wept, a new and delicious sadness was creeping over her. The sadness one feels for something enjoyed and now over, rather than for something lost and never found again. A sandpiper flew overhead calling, “Pity me!” but its cry was now like a little lament for Marnie rather than an empty pity for herself.
Comforted by her own tears, she lay there until the sun had dried them, then she rolled over and ate a ginger biscuit that had fallen from her pocket into the sand. She ruffled the back of her hair and let the sun dry that too.
Soon she heard children’s voices, and got up. Now, halfway through July, the beach was no longer her own. Small children came searching for crabs among the rocks, and scattered in the sandhills family parties sat picnicking, invisible until one stumbled upon them, but clearly audible when the wind was in the right direction. Lunch-time was over, soon more people would be coming down to the beach.
She climbed to the highest point of the dunes, and shading her eyes with her hand, looked again across the stretch of sand towards the marsh.
Yes, there they were again. It was quite extraordinary. Five small, dark figures – coming nearer this time – hopping, running, zig-zagging across the sands towards the sea. Five dark figures in navy blue jeans and jerseys. This was what she had been half expecting, half fearing to see.
They were not real. She knew that. No-one in the village had ever seen that imaginary family of hers. She had asked Mrs Pegg again, and Mrs Pegg had said no, even Miss Manders hadn’t seen them – she’d asked her specially – and Miss Manders knew everybody.
Anna stood looking for one more minute, then moved down into another hollow, and put them out of her mind. She was not going to be trapped into believing they were real just because she kept thinking she saw them. But a few moments later, hearing voices again, she peeped over the tops of the grasses and saw that they were coming nearer. They were winding their way through the sandhills straight towards her.
She leapt up and ran full tilt down the slope into a smaller, deeper hollow, and waited. When she lifted her head and looked round again, there was no sign of them anywhere.
But going home in the late afternoon, she saw them again. She was walking back along the bed of the creek, paddling through the shallows as the tide was low, when, looking over towards the marsh, she saw the five small, dark figures silhouetted against the sky, walking in single file along a raised bank. She stood and stared. And at that moment, the one at the end, lagging a little behind the others, turned and looked straight towards her, then stopped dead.
Anna ran, but not before she had time to see the same small figure turn sideways and start plunging at a right angle across the marsh, down towards the place where, only a moment ago, she herself had been standing. She hid under the bank at the edge of the marsh and worked her way backwards in a crouching position. Then, having rounded the bend in the creek, she sat down under the bank for at least ten minutes.
When she crept cautiously out again there was no-one to be seen.
Next day the same thing happened again. She saw them, ran from them, then saw them again. It was the same the day af
ter, and the day after that. It became like a game, seeing them without being seen, and gradually it developed into a chase.
They had seen her, she was sure. One in particular, a girl with long brown hair, neither the oldest nor the youngest, always seemed to catch sight of her even when the others did not. She would stop and look back, scanning the sandhills as if actually searching for her. And Anna, if she had grown bold too soon, would be caught out on hands and knees, looking over the top of her hollow, watching them go away. She always ducked down quickly, but she had an idea the brown-haired girl saw her every time.
She grew to know them by sight. There was a big boy of about fourteen, probably the oldest, then a fair-haired girl with plaits, then the long brown-haired girl. She looked a little younger than Anna. Then there was another boy, perhaps seven or eight, and a little one, almost a baby.
The girl with the plaits was often with the youngest, holding his hand or carrying him through the shallows. Then the two boys would be together and the brown-haired girl would be on her own. Or sometimes the two oldest would pair off and the two younger ones be together. But whichever way it was, the brown-haired one would, more often than not, be separated a little from the others, either trailing behind or dancing along on her own.
She is the one I would like best, thought Anna, although she’s younger than me. The older one looks too sensible and grown-up, though she’s awfully kind to the baby. Then she would shake herself, realising she was thinking of them as real people. And they could not be real. She herself had imagined them in the beginning, before she had even met Marnie, and no-one else had ever seen them.
But real or not, they continued to be there and, in spite of herself, Anna found it exciting. She took to skirting the edge of the dunes rather than crossing an empty stretch of beach, feeling that if she went out in the open, five pairs of eyes might be watching her from the sandhills. She went down to the beach earlier in the mornings and watched from the topmost point of the sandhills so that she could see them crossing the marsh. One day, to her horror, she found they had come by boat when she was not looking, and before she knew it they were almost upon her, coming up from behind.
When Marnie Was There Page 11