Searching for Shona (6 page)

At the back of the upstairs landing was another staircase. Marjorie guessed that, like the back stairs in her own house, this would lead from the servant’s attic bedrooms on the third floor directly down to the kitchen quarters.

“Come on up!” Anna said. She was obviously enjoying exploring the empty house.

“These would be the maid’s rooms,” Marjorie said, looking into one of the small, narrow rooms under the roof. She was trying to imagine which part of the house Shona was connected with. Had her mother, perhaps, been a servant here, sleeping in one of these little rooms, or had she belonged in the big, oversize front rooms? Somehow the emptiness and echoing stillness of all the rooms made it hard to imagine the people who had lived here. There were no clues at all to tell who they were.

“Can we go into the big bedrooms again?” Anna asked when they went back down to the landing. She opened a door that they hadn’t tried before and shouted, “There are more stairs behind this door! Come on!”

Even Marjorie forgot her uneasiness when she saw the narrow spiral staircase. It must wind up inside the turret they’d seen from the outside. When Anna reached another door at the top of the stairs, she gave a gasp of delight as she pushed it open and stepped into the tower room.

It was a little room, almost circular, and unlike the other rooms, this one was completely furnished. A window seat with dark red velvet cushions followed the curved contour of the wall. The windows above it reached almost to the ceiling, so that in spite of the heavy skies and beating rain the room seemed bright. The curtains were velvet, and the floor was covered with a richly patterned carpet. A couch with carved wooden arms and dark blue upholstery angled across in front of a small fireplace, tiled with blue and white Dutch tiles. On the mantelpiece above it were two stiff toy soldiers standing beside sentry boxes. There were dead ashes in the fireplace, as if the fire had only just gone out.

A child’s desk and a small chair stood near the door. Against the opposite wall was a cupboard with doors slightly ajar revealing worn books and old toys. A high, narrow pram with a canopy and a rocking cradle were arranged beside the cupboard, and there was also a small table set for tea.

Perhaps it was the child-sized furniture in contrast to the large scale of everything else in the house, or perhaps it was the added warmth of carpets and curtains, but this room contained a welcome the other rooms lacked.

“It’s Shona’s room,” Anna whispered. “Shona’s toys!”

“They’re not Shona’s,” Marjorie said, yet she couldn’t escape the feeling that somewhere a little girl was waiting to come back and play with the toys.

“Shona told me about the toys,” Anna said.

“What did she say about them?”

“When she showed me her painting, she said there was a room in the house filled with toys. She said someday she would take me to her house and let me play with her toys. She promised.”

Marjorie had a sudden picture of Shona and Anna in one of the drab rooms of the orphanage, looking at the painting of Shona’s house. Of course they would imagine that it contained wonderful things—a family, a room full of toys. But Shona would know that it was all just make-believe, while for Anna it was real.

Yet it
was
real—the house, the toys.

Anna tiptoed across the room to the little table already set for tea. Taking a bear and a rather stiff china doll from the pram, she was soon engrossed in a game of her own. Marjorie went over to the cupboard and looked at the books. They were mostly fairy tales and picture books, but then she found a copy of
What Katy Did
. She opened it and began to read.

At last, the fading light reminded Marjorie that it was time to go home. She jumped up saying, “The picture show will be over, and the Miss Campbells will be wondering where we are.”

“The picture show?” Anna asked, puzzled. In her excitement she had completely forgotten they were supposed to be at the pictures.

Reluctantly they replaced the books and toys and then ran down the spiral staircase and down the narrow stairs at the back of the house. They found themselves in what Marjorie guessed must be the butler’s pantry. On one wall were shiny brass bells, each labeled with a different room of the house. But the house stood empty. There was no one to ring the bells, no one to answer.

They left by the same route as they had entered. It was harder to scramble up out of the little hatch door than it had been to drop down inside. By the time they were back on the driveway, they were very dirty and disheveled. Marjorie spent a few minutes scrubbing a streak of soot from Anna’s face with her handkerchief. Then they set off home through the rain that was now falling steadily.

“You’ve got to promise to keep all this secret from the Miss Campbells,” Marjorie cautioned Anna. “We can’t tell them about the house because they think we’ve been at the pictures.”

When they reached home, they hung up their wet coats. Miss Agnes had socks and slippers warming by the fire because she was sure their feet would be cold and wet after walking all the way from the picture house in that awful rain. Her kindly fussing made Marjorie feel guilty, but she pushed the feeling away with the thought of the Christmas presents they would buy.

“And what picture did you see, my dears?” she asked kindly.

Marjorie searched for something to say, but Anna immediately launched into a long and detailed account of some movie she had once seen. Marjorie wasn’t sure if Anna was trying to conceal the fact that they’d been at Clairmont House of if Miss Campbell’s question had merely reminded her of this movie. At any rate, the account was so long and so detailed, that Miss Campbell soon lost the thread of it and busied herself with making tea so that it would be ready when her sister came home from the shop. By the time Anna was finished, Marjorie was sure they were safe from any more questions about their afternoon at the pictures.

Chapter 6

Christmas Surprises

The following day was taken up with church and Sunday school. The Miss Campbells were very regular church goers, sitting together in a pew near the front, wearing their matching Sunday hats and tweed coats over matching silk dresses. That Sunday there was quite a delay when they found that Marjorie’s red coat (which seemed shorter and tighter each time she wore it) was streaked with dirt.

“Where have your been child?” Miss Morag asked crossly. “It looks for all the world as if you’ve been playing in a coal cellar.”

It was lucky that Anna chose that moment to fuss about a lost mitten and divert Miss Morag’s attention, or Miss Morag would surely have noticed Marjorie’s guilty look and questioned her further.

Dirty though the coat was, Marjorie had to wear it to church in the morning and Sunday school in the afternoon. Anna’s coat was navy blue, so if there were telltale smudges of coal on hers, they didn’t show.

All that next week Anna begged Marjorie to take her back to Clairmont House, but by the time they came home from school at four o’clock it was almost dark, so there was no chance. Marjorie knew that Anna only wanted to go back to the house so she could play with the toys in the turret room, and the thought of stealing through the coal cellar again made Marjorie feel uncomfortable. Besides, the visit to Clairmont House had left Marjorie feeling guilty all over again about having changed places with Shona.
She
should have been the one to come to Canonbie, the one to have found Clairmont House.

They looked at Shona’s picture but found they didn’t like it now. It was the same house, they were sure of that, but somehow the picture distorted the truth. It was almost as if the person who had painted it had not liked what he saw and had tried to destroy it in his picture. Marjorie shivered and pushed the picture far back under the bed.

But Anna still nagged.

“We’ll go next Saturday,” Marjorie finally promised.

However, Saturday turned out to be the day of the Sunday school party. Anna and Marjorie didn’t want to go, but the evacuee children were to be special guests. This was Canonbie’s way of making them feel at home at Christmas. So, well scrubbed and brushed, they were escorted by the Miss Campbells to the same church hall where they had been taken when they first arrived in Canonbie.

Today the hall was decorated with paper streamers and balloons and children ran shouting and sliding the length of it. Even Marjorie and Anna were drawn into the gaiety and rowdiness of the party. Tables sagged under the weight of sandwiches, biscuits, cakes and shivering jellies, which parents and teachers had provided, determined that, war or no war, this was to be a Christmas the children would enjoy.

A tall tree stood in one corner, and tied to the branches were presents, each labeled with a child’s name. Anna spent a long time studying the tree trying to spell out the names in an effort to make sure there were presents for her and Marjorie. After tea, Father Christmas, round and jovial in his red coat and big rubber boots, came striding into the hall and distributed the presents.

Both Anna and Marjorie received two packages each. One of Anna’s contained a hat and mittens, and the other a doll wearing a red dress and a green velvet coat and bonnet. The doll even had underwear, and socks and shoes that came off. Anna could hardly wait for the party to end so that she could get down to the serious business of playing with her new doll. She named it Elizabeth. Marjorie also got a hat and mittens, and her other present was a copy of
Anne of Green Gables
. Oddly enough, only the day before, Miss Dunlop asked her if she’d read it.

Then it was Christmas Eve. The girls spent a long time that day choosing gifts for the Miss Campbells. Anna wanted to get them matching presents, but Marjorie was determined that they should each have something different.

“That way they’ll know it’s their own, chosen just for them,” she insisted to Anna, and Anna finally gave in.

Miss Morag brought home a Christmas tree, much smaller than the one in the church hall, and Miss Agnes produced a box of delicate Christmas ornaments and allowed the girls to hang them on the branches. Under the tree were presents waiting to be opened. Marjorie could tell that the Miss Campbells were almost as excited as they were when they saw their names on packages wrapped by Marjorie and Anna.

The next morning the girls were awake long, long before it was light, feeling the lumpy packages in the woolen stockings that had hung limp and empty at the foot of their beds the night before.

Marjorie reached into her stocking and found an apple, an orange, and a little net bag of gold coins, which were made of chocolate. Then she pulled out three lengths of smooth, satin ribbon. She was delighted because her hair was beginning to grow again and now she could tie a bow in it. Meantime, Anna was arranging her treasures on her bed, her small, pale face alive with excitement. She, too, had an apple, an orange, and chocolate coins, and in addition, a flowered nightgown, just the right size for her doll Elizabeth.

After breakfast there were more packages to open. Anna had made each of the Miss Campbells a pen wiper—several circles of flannel held together with a button sewn through the middle. Marjorie had knitted a tiny scarf for Elizabeth and explained there would be a hat to match when she got it finished.

Then Miss Morag gave each of the girls a large square box. “I’m afraid these aren’t new,” she cautioned them. “They belonged to us when we were girls, and I hope you’ll get a chance to use them before the winter’s over.”

The boxes were heavy, and Marjorie began to open hers slowly, enjoying the moment of wondering what could be inside. But Anna ripped hers open and with a shout of delight pulled out ice skates. Then Marjorie had to hurry to make sure that she, too, had skates. And she did—shiny skates attached to high laced black boots.

Anna jumped up and hugged the Miss Campbells while Marjorie sat very still, running her fingers along the silver blades.

“I hope you don’t think they’re a bit old-fashioned,” Miss Agnes said.

“Oh, no!” Marjorie answered. “I like them better because they were yours. It makes us like a real family—you keeping them all that time and then giving them to us.” She wished that, like Anna, she could throw her arms around them both, but she was too shy. To hide her confusion, she ran over to the window, saying, “I do wish it would freeze!” But all she could see were heavy, dark rain clouds.

“It will,” Miss Agnes promised. “We mostly get a good freeze in January or February, and then you’ll see all the children going to Escrigg Pond. Those who don’t have skates just slide or take turns with those who have. And the old men will be there with their curling stones. Some winters I’ve seen them close the shops if they think the ice may not last, so they can finish their curling match before the thaw.”

Then Miss Agnes opened her present from the girls—a brightly patterned silk scarf. Marjorie saw Morag watching her sister as she knotted it around her neck, all the time fingering her package impatiently. From the feel of it she must know it wasn’t a scarf. She tore off the paper and gave a little cry of pleasure as she held out her present for her sister to see. It was a wooden egg-cup, shaped like a little man. He had a pointed felt hat to fit over the egg to keep it warm.

During the afternoon Marjorie saw Morag looking at Agnes’s bright scarf, and she hoped she wasn’t envious. But at teatime Morag said that as well as the sandwiches and Christmas cake they had planned, they would have boiled eggs. She looked pleased when she served their eggs in plain white cups and set the jaunty cap on her own little egg-cup man.

That evening, as Marjorie lay in bed, she began to wonder what Christmas had been like for Shona in Canada. It couldn’t possibly have been as cozy and friendly as their day had been. She thought back to her own past Christmases with Uncle Fergus. He usually took her to the pantomime, but he never seemed to enjoy it much. And he gave her lots of presents, but he never acted excited when she opened them. Then she remembered that she had never put much thought into his presents, either. Sometimes she even left it to Mrs. Kilpatrick to buy him something, but it had always been so difficult to find anything he would like or need. How much nicer this Christmas had been with all the secrets, the planning, and the surprises.