Read Marianne, the Matchbox, and the Malachite Mouse for Free Online Page B

separate inhabitant self – grew to feel that it did not really matter.
    Mr Thrumm, whether the current Mr Thrumm or a predecessor, had to have collected everything stored away in the drawers of Thrumm House. The current Mr Thrumm, however, passed his time looking for things he or his predecessors had hidden. In the evenings he would sit in a half-open drawer staring into the fire while he made lists of things he hoped to find on the following day. Then, on the morrow, he would look for these things, always finding others which were not on his list. Exclamations of interest and amusement followed these discoveries, though he never actually laughed, and the fact that he seldom if ever found what he sought did not dissuade him from making another interminable list on the following evening. He was not in the least disheartened. He would say to Buttercup, ‘Well, lass, try again, what? Got to be there somewhere, that’s what I say. Those memorabilia of the Great Grisl-Threepian War, for example. Couldn’t have been thrown away, could they? Keep looking, and eventually they’ll turn up.’
    Perhaps it was the constant repetition of these words, or perhaps it was that Mouse finally managed to get through to her, that caused Buttercup to hear a reverberation of his words in her own mind, an almost echo instructing her in a firm and not unfamiliar voice, ‘There’s something in this house that I need. Something I had with me when I left. It isn’t in here, where I am, so it must be out there, in the house. You’ll have to find it for me. Don’t forget it, now. It’s important.’
    Buttercup could not imagine what this something might be, but the reminder irritated her, causing her to lose sleep, making her lie awake in the closely shuttered dark wondering what might possibly be in any of the drawers that was important to her. Mouse saw this restlessness with satisfaction. She knew she had had the matchbox with her when she left … left wherever she had been. Where had she been? Sometimes it was almost on the tip of her tongue. She had been in … She had been on … Never mind. Wherever it had been, she knew it had not simply been ‘lost in transit.’ The matchbox could not be lost in that way. Intrinsic to its nature or structure was an inviolability of direction. If she, Mouse, had come here, then it, matchbox, had come here as well. It was nearby, and it was up to Buttercup to find it.
    In the course of time, Buttercup was weaned, toilet-trained, and taught proper speech and elementary deportment. She achieved her third birthday. It was time for Nursey to depart and for the tutor to arrive. Buttercup did not weep when Nursey went. There was a feeling almost of relief to smell the last of that thube-reeking, deep-uddered being. When night came, however, grief came with it bringing shuddering sobs which Buttercup could in no wise understand. It was as though the very foundation of her life had been torn away without her realizing it. That night she experienced a strong, almost imperative dream in which the unknown voice reminded her to search for something – something very important to her. She wakened from it half terrified.
    She sought no comfort from Mr Thrumm. Even in the midst of her grief, she was cognizant that Mr Thrumm would offer her no consolation, even if he had known how.
    The tutor was a tall, pale individual who wore tight trousers and short, many-pocketed jackets worked with scenes of forests and glades in tapestry stitch. He carried a slender cane with which he switched the heads off of grasses and wildflowers while on walks. His name was John Henry Sneeth. He confessed in an embarrassed whisper that he did not like the names John and Henry and would prefer to be called simply ‘Sneeth.’ Buttercup had had no intercourse with the outer world and therefore did not at the time think this a ridiculous request, though Mr Thrumm rolled his eyes and pinched his mouth as though to keep back laughter and