Searching for Shona (11 page)

Marjorie turned to another page in the diary, which was written in June. “Becky and Danny are going to be married so she won’t work here any more. I wish I were old enough to get married and move away from here. Mrs. Johnstone was angry today because I tore my white dress — the one with the lace on the bodice and pink flowers — and she locked me in the playroom with no supper.”

Anna had climbed onto the window seat and was looking out. Suddenly she stiffened, and when she turned around her face was white and her eyes were huge.

“There’s soldiers down there! Soldiers with guns! They’re coming to look for us!”

Marjorie jumped up beside her and saw that Anna was right. There were soldiers — everywhere. Several army lorries were parked in the driveway, and dozens of soldiers were jumping out the backs of them and throwing out rifles and duffle bags. Some of them were already approaching the front door.

Anna and Marjorie, confused by the sudden appearance of the soldiers, imagined that somehow the dreaded German army had come. All the awful things they had heard about the Germans, whispered from child to child in the school playground and then pushed to the backs of their minds, suddenly confronted them. Dropping the diary, Marjorie wrenched open the door and hurtled down the spiral staircase with Anna behind her.

Soldiers were already swarming through the front door into the main hall. Great big men in khaki uniforms with rifles and huge boots — the giants the house had been waiting for.

“The back stairs,” Marjorie said breathlessly. “We can get down the back stairs to the kitchen without them seeing us.”

Anna ran after her. There was so much noise in the front hall that no one heard the two girls clattering down the uncarpeted stairs. They darted through the door into the darkness of the coal cellar like frightened rabbits diving into a burrow. Marjorie peered out the open hatch. Seeing no one around the back of the house, she heaved herself up, out through the hatch, and then turned and dragged Anna out.

They ran across the cobbled courtyard and made for the shrubbery. There, under the cover of the thick bushes, they crept toward the gate. Underfoot grew wild garlic, its smell so pungent that Marjorie was afraid it would attract the attention of the soldiers. For a long time afterwards, the smell of wild garlic always brought back something of the panic she had experienced that day.

They managed to duck out the open gate unnoticed, and were walking along the road when Anna asked in small voice, “Were they looking for us? Would they have shot us?”

Marjorie, calmer now that they had reached the safety of the road, said in a rather superior voice, “Of course not! They were British soldiers, you know. They might have been angry with us for being there, but they wouldn’t have shot us.”

“What are they doing in the house?”

“Maybe the Miss Campbells will know,” Marjorie suggested. “We’ll ask them, but don’t
you
say anything. Let
me
do the talking.”

Chapter 11

Jane’s Story

After the table had been cleared, the Miss Campbells and Marjorie and Anna sat around the fire, each with their knitting. Marjorie was making a scarf and she wished for the hundredth time that soldiers didn’t have to wear that awful khaki color. She was sure her knitting would go faster in some other color. Why not patriotic scarves of red, white, and blue?

Anna was still knitting squares for the blanket, except that they were never quite square, because if she stopped in the middle of a row she couldn’t figure out which direction she should be going. Even without stopping, she sometimes managed to change direction.

“We were down near Clairmont House today, and there were a lot of soldiers,” Marjorie said, trying to sound casual.

“Hush! I’m counting stitches,” Miss Agnes said.

Marjorie waited until she was finished and then tried again.

“What would all those soldiers be doing at Clairmont House?”

“The army requisitioned it. I’m just surprised it stood empty so long,” Miss Morag said.

“What does that mean?” Anna asked.

“They’ve taken it over. The army can do that during the war—take over empty houses for soldiers to live in. I expect the officers from the army camp will make their headquarters there.”

“Who did they take it over from?” Marjorie asked.

“Old Mr. Carruthers.”

“But I thought he died last spring. Didn’t he leave it to somebody?”

“The house was up for sale, but I never heard that anyone bought it. The money from the furniture mostly went to pay his debts and taxes. We all thought he had some money hidden away, but it turned out there wasn’t so much after all. What he had mostly went on keeping up the place. Too proud to let anyone know he was down.”

“Pride ruined that man’s life,” Agnes chimed in.

“But what about his children?” Marjorie asked.

“There was a son who was killed in 1916 in the war, and then there was a daughter who was much younger,” Miss Agnes said.

“Losing his son in the war, and then his wife dying immediately afterwards seemed to sour the poor man,” Miss Morag added. “Then he lost some money in the depression, but by that time it didn’t matter so much. There was no one to leave it to.”

“What about the daughter?” asked Marjorie.

“She had run away by then. What a scandal and gossip that caused around here! There were some that sided with him, but I felt sorry for her, poor girl,” Agnes said.

“Well, it’s all past and done now,” Miss Morag said and closed her mouth in a prim line.

“Was the daughter called Jane?” Marjorie asked in a low voice.

“Yes, she was called Jane. Jane Carruthers. So you’ve heard some gossip about her already. How these stories do linger.”

“Was she pretty?” Anna asked.

“She was …. beautiful,” Miss Morag answered. “And it might have worked out better for everyone if she hadn’t been quite so pretty. We used to see her walking up the road with her fine clothes and golden ringlets, all airs and graces. Much too fine for the likes of us, she was. She never spoke to us, although we were practically neighbors.”

The Miss Campbells resumed their knitting, and then Miss Morag took up the story again. “There was a young artist who stayed here one winter—the winter of ’27 was that? Nothing would do but what he would paint her, and he came to Clairmont House every day.”

“She fell in love with him,” Agnes broke in. “But her father, old Mr. Carruthers, was quite determined that Jane was going to marry money. He was beginning to worry about how he was going to keep up that big house even then, I suppose, and he wouldn’t hear of her throwing herself away on a penniless artist.”

“I don’t think that the artist—Robert someone or other—was really in love with Jane,” Morag said. I think he thought she was well off. He wasn’t making much of a living with his painting. And no wonder! Do you remember that painting of his we saw? Such a gloomy thing! Anyway, they eloped and Jane Carruthers was never seen around here again.”

“That’s not the end of the story,” Miss Agnes said.

“The rest is just straight gossip,” said Miss Morag, prim again.

Although Marjorie wanted to hear more, she didn’t know what to ask. But the Miss Campbells couldn’t keep themselves from telling the rest of the story.

It was Miss Agnes who spoke first. “They say the marriage didn’t work out.”

“If there was a marriage,” said Miss Morag. “I’ve heard that when he found out that her father wasn’t going to let her have any money, he just left her, and she, having inherited her father’s pride, never went back home.”

“But there was a baby,” Miss Agnes said. “Mrs. Gillespie, the chemist’s wife, was up in Edinburgh and saw Jane Carruthers and she had a baby with her. Mrs. Gillespie stopped to talk to her, but Jane just turned and walked away. Still stuck up, Mrs. Gillespie said, even though her grand clothes were shabby, and her hair was no longer in ringlets.”

“And not long after that, we heard she’d died, poor thing,” said Morag. “People here all felt that Mr. Carruthers should have tried to find the child, but they say he never did. His own grandchild and no one knows what became of it.”

“Was it a boy or a girl?” Marjorie asked, her knitting quite forgotten. “Do you think maybe the father looked after it?”

“They say the father left Jane before the baby was born. And as for a boy or a girl, no one seems to know. But this is just straight gossip and we shouldn’t be passing it on.”

Marjorie had so much to think about that she put away her knitting and said she wanted to go to bed early. The Miss Campbells both fussed, asking if she had a headache or was coming down with a cold.

Once in her bedroom, Marjorie pulled the painting out from under the bed and stared at it. In the corner, so obscure that it was no wonder she had overlooked it earlier, she made out the tiny letters, “R.M.”

Did the R stand for Robert and the M for McInnes? Had Jane Carruthers married her artist and become Jane McInnes, and then had a daughter whom she named Shona? Everything fit. First of all, the dates were right. And there was the picture and the fact that Shona said her mother came from Canonbie. There were things about Shona, herself, that fit. She didn’t care too much about consequences. She got that from her mother. And she could draw—both Anna and Matron had said she was a good artist.

Marjorie got into bed and lay for a long time lost in romantic thoughts about poor Jane who had married her artist to escape from the lonely life she’d known at Clairmont House. Then he had deserted her, leaving her with a baby and a picture of her old home. It was such a dreary picture of Clairmont House, much worse than it really was! Then Jane had died and the baby was sent to the orphanage with only the painting as a clue to her past.

Just then Anna came into the bedroom, and Marjorie said, as she’d been wanting to all evening, “Anna, do you realize that Jane could have been Shona’s mother?

“Your mother?” Anna asked.

“No, the real Shona’s mother.”

“I don’t see why you’re saying that.”

“It all fits, Anna,” Marjorie said. “Shona’s picture of Clairmont House was painted by the artist who married Jane.”

Marjorie wished Anna would share her excitement, but that was not Anna’s way. She pulled on her nightgown, and padded across the floor to turn out the light. Pretty soon her even breathing told Marjorie she’d fallen asleep, quite unconcerned about the mystery of Shona and the painting.

But Marjorie was still wide awake. She wished she had brought the diary with her when they ran from the turret room because she wanted to read it again. Jane Carruthers had been a lonely child with no real friends and a father who shut himself away and a paid housekeeper who didn’t love her. Jane was much like Marjorie herself had been in Edinburgh—a child surrounded by things, not people. How odd that she had escaped all that by changing places with Jane’s daughter!

She did, however, admit that Jane’s life sounded drearier than hers had been. Mrs. Kilpatrick had never locked her in her room or been cruel to her. But she’d never fussed over her like the Miss Campbells did. They made her feel cared for.

She continued to think about Jane—the Jane in diary and the Jane the Miss Campbells talked about. The lonely child and the vain, willful girl who had run away from home. If she had only heard the story from the Miss Campbells, then Shona’s mother would just have been a character in a sad, romantic story. But finding the diary and hearing about her from Mrs. Appleby made her a real person who had once been a lonely little girl She must go back and see Mrs. Appleby again, and she would ask about Becky, too.

Marjorie wondered how she could make Jane real to Shona when they met again. And what difference would it make to Shona to know? Marjorie realized the biggest part of the discovery was the experience of finding out, the excitement of seeing Clairmont House, and of uncovering Jane’s life. How could she ever give that to Shona?

She drifted off to sleep thinking about it.

Several hours later Marjorie awakened suddenly, her heart beating uncomfortably hard. The sound of wailing sirens filled the whole room. It must have been the direction of the wind that night, for Marjorie had never before heard the sirens sound so loud, so urgent.

Anna stirred in her sleep, and then began to cry.

“Soldiers are shooting! Soldiers are shooting us!” she shouted, sitting up in bed and pushing off the covers.

“Anna, you’re dreaming,” Marjorie said. “Wake up!” She tiptoed across the cold stretch of floor between the two beds and put an arm around poor, shivering Anna.

“Is that sirens?” Anna asked, shaking off the confusion of her dream, only to find the more frightening reality of an air raid.

It was during these night raids that the war seemed close. Ration books, sweetie coupons, and empty shelves in the grocer’s shop were an inconvenience, but that wasn’t war. Even gas masks were just a bother now. On the first Monday of each month the children had to remember to take their gas masks to school to be checked, and if they forgot them they were kept in. The news on the wireless was remote, and soldiers, lounging about in the town or hanging out of the back of army lorries never looked as if
they
worried about the war. But at night the war was real. The sound of the sirens, the throb of the planes, the smells of dust and polish in the broom closet….

Miss Agnes came bursting into the bedroom urging them to hurry down to the shelter. They had begun using it again. There were several troop camps in the area now, and the Canonbie people had lost their complacency when, one night, bombs had fallen only a few miles away. Billy Wallace had cycled over to see the crater. “A hole as big as a house,” he told Marjorie with some relish. “Right in the middle of a field of cows.”

Anna still didn’t like the shelter, but tonight she crowded in beside Miss Agnes.

“Will it last long?” she asked.

“Maybe an hour,” Miss Agnes answered.

“No, I mean the war,” Anna said.