The Humming Room

by Ellen Potter

  “The great scientific discoveries I am going to make,” he went on, “will be about Magic. Magic is a great thing and scarcely anyone knows anything about it except a few people in old books—and Mary a little, because she was born in India where there are fakirs. I believe Dickon knows some Magic, but perhaps he doesn’t know he knows it. He charms animals and people. I would never have let him come to see me if he had not been an animal charmer—which is a boy charmer, too, because a boy is an animal. I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not sense enough to get hold of it and make it do things for us—like electricity and horses and steam.”

  This sounded so imposing that Ben Weatherstaff became quite excited and really could not keep still.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” he said, and he began to stand up quite straight.

  “When Mary found this garden it looked quite dead,” the orator proceeded. “Then something began pushing things up out of the soil and making things out of nothing. One day things weren’t there and another they were. I had never watched things before and it made me feel very curious. Scientific people are always curious and I am going to be scientific. I keep saying to myself: ‘What is it? What is it?’ It’s something. It can’t be nothing! I don’t know its name so I call it Magic. I have never seen the sun rise but Mary and Dickon have and from what they tell me I am sure that is Magic too. Something pushes it up and draws it. Sometimes since I’ve been in the garden I’ve looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something were pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden—in all the places. The Magic in this garden has made me stand up and know I am going to live to be a man. I am going to make the scientific experiment of trying to get some and put it in myself and make it push and draw me and make me strong. I don’t know how to do it but I think that if you keep thinking about it and calling it perhaps it will come. Perhaps that is the first baby way to get it. When I was going to try to stand that first time Mary kept saying to herself as fast as she could, ‘You can do it! You can do it!’ and I did. I had to try myself at the same time, of course, but her Magic helped me—and so did Dickon’s. Every morning and evening and as often in the daytime as I can remember I am going to say, ‘Magic is in me! Magic is making me well! I am going to be as strong as Dickon, as strong as Dickon!’ And you must all do it, too. That is my experiment. Will you help, Ben Weatherstaff?”

  “Aye, aye, sir!” said Ben Weatherstaff. “Aye, aye!”

  “If you keep doing it every day as regularly as soldiers go through drill we shall see what will happen and find out if the experiment succeeds. You learn things by saying them over and over and thinking about them until they stay in your mind for ever and I think it will be the same with Magic. If you keep calling it to come to you and help you it will get to be part of you and it will stay and do things.”

  “I once heard an officer in India tell my mother that there were fakirs who said words over and over thousands of times,” said Mary.

  “I’ve heard Jem Fettleworth’s wife say th’ same thing over thousands o’ times—callin’ Jem a drunken brute,” said Ben Weatherstaff dryly. “Summat allus come o’ that, sure enough. He gave her a good hidin’ an’ went to th’ ‘Blue Lion’ an’ got as drunk as a lord.”

  Colin drew his brows together and thought a few minutes. Then he cheered up.

  “Well,” he said, “you see something did come of it. She used the wrong Magic until she made him beat her. If she’d used the right Magic and had said something nice perhaps he wouldn’t have got as drunk as a lord and perhaps—perhaps he might have bought her a new bonnet.”

  Ben Weatherstaff chuckled and there was shrewd admiration in his little old eyes.

  “Tha‘rt a clever lad as well as a straight-legged one, Mester Colin,” he said. “Next time I see Bess Fettleworth I’ll give her a bit of a hint o’ what Magic will do for her. She’d be rare an’ pleased if th’ sinetifik ‘speriment worked—an’ so ’ud Jem.”

  Dickon had stood listening to the lecture, his round eyes shining with curious delight. Nut and Shell were on his shoulders and he held a long-eared white rabbit in his arm and stroked and stroked it softly while it laid its ears along its back and enjoyed itself.

  “Do you think the experiment will work?” Colin asked him, wondering what he was thinking. He so often wondered what Dickon was thinking when he saw him looking at him or at one of his “creatures” with his happy wide smile.

  He smiled now and his smile was wider than usual.

  “Aye,” he answered, “that I do. It’ll work same as th’ seeds do when th’ sun shines on ’em. It’ll work for sure. Shall us begin it now?”

  Colin was delighted and so was Mary. Fired by recollections of fakirs and devotees in illustrations, Colin suggested that they should all sit cross-legged under the tree, which made a canopy.

  “It will be like sitting in a sort of temple,” said Colin. “I’m rather tired and I want to sit down.”

  “Eh!” said Dickon, “tha’ mustn’t begin by sayin’ tha‘rt tired. Tha’ might spoil th’ Magic.”

  Colin turned and looked at him—into his innocent round eyes.

  “That’s true,” he said slowly. “I must only think of the Magic.”

  It all seemed most majestic and mysterious when they sat down in their circle. Ben Weatherstaff felt as if he had somehow been led into appearing at a prayer-meeting. Ordinarily he was very fixed in being what he called “agen’ prayer-meetin’s” but this being the rajah’s affair, he did not resent it and was, indeed, inclined to be gratified at being called upon to assist. Mistress Mary felt solemnly enraptured. Dickon held his rabbit in his arm, and perhaps he made some charmer’s signal no one heard, for when he sat down, cross-legged like the rest, the crow, the fox, the squirrels and the lamb slowly drew near and made part of the circle, settling each into a place of rest as if of their own desire.

  “The ‘creatures’ have come,” said Colin gravely. “They want to help us.”

  Colin really looked quite beautiful, Mary thought. He held his head high as if he felt like a sort of priest and his strange eyes had a wonderful look in them. The light shone on him through the tree canopy.

  “Now we will begin,” he said. “Shall we sway backward and forward, Mary, as if we were dervishes?”

  “I canna’ do no swayin’ back‘ard and for’ard,” said Ben Weatherstaff. “I’ve got th’ rheumatics.”

  “The Magic will take them away,” said Colin in a High Priest tone, “but we won’t sway until it has done it. We will only chant.”

  “I canna’ do no chantin’,” said Ben Weatherstaff a trifle testily. “They turned me out o’ th’ church choir th’ only time I ever tried it.”

  No one smiled. They were all too much in earnest. Colin’s face was not even crossed by a shadow. He was thinking only of the Magic.

  “Then I will chant,” he said. And he began, looking like a strange boy spirit. “The sun is shining—the sun is shining. That is the Magic. The flowers are growing—the roots are stirring. That is the Magic. Being alive is the Magic—being strong is the Magic. The Magic is in me—the Magic is in me. It is in me—it is in me. It’s in every one of us. It’s in Ben Weatherstaff’s back. Magic! Magic! Come and help!”

  He said it a great many times—not a thousand times but quite a goodly number. Mary listened entranced. She felt as if it were at once queer and beautiful and she wanted him to go on and on. Ben Weatherstaff began to feel soothed into a sort of dream which was quite agreeable. The humming of the bees in the blossoms mingled with the chanting voice and drowsily melted into a doze. Dickon sat cross-legged with his rabbit asleep on his arm and a hand resting on the lamb’s back. Soot had pushed away a squirrel and huddled close to him on hi
s shoulder, the grey film dropped over his eyes. At last Colin stopped.

  “Now I am going to walk round the garden,” he announced.

  Ben Weatherstaff’s head had just dropped forward and he lifted it with a jerk.

  “You have been asleep,” said Colin.

  “Nowt o’ th’ sort,” mumbled Ben. “Th’ sermon was good enow—but I’m bound to get out afore th’ collection.”

  He was not quite awake yet.

  “You’re not in church,” said Colin.

  “Not me,” said Ben, straightening himself. “Who said I were? I heard every bit of it. You said th’ Magic was in my back. Th’ doctor calls it rheumatics.”

  The rajah waved his hand.

  “That was the wrong Magic,” he said. “You will get better. You have my permission to go to your work. But come back tomorrow.”

  “I’d like to see thee walk round the garden,” grunted Ben.

  It was not an unfriendly grunt, but it was a grunt. In fact, being a stubborn old party and not having entire faith in Magic, he had made up his mind that if he were sent away he would climb his ladder and look over the wall so that he might be ready to hobble back if there were any stumbling.

  The rajah did not object to his staying and so the procession was formed. It really did look like a procession. Colin was at its head with Dickon on one side and Mary on the other. Ben Weatherstaff walked behind, and the “creatures” trailed after them, the lamb and the fox cub keeping close to Dickon, the white rabbit hopping along or stopping to nibble and Soot following with the solemnity of a person who felt himself in charge.

  It was a procession which moved slowly but with dignity. Every few yards it stopped to rest. Colin leaned on Dickon’s arm and privately Ben Weatherstaff kept a sharp lookout, but now and then Colin took his hand from its support and walked a few steps alone. His head was held up all the time and he looked very grand.

  “The Magic is in me!” he kept saying. “The Magic is making me strong! I can feel it! I can feel it!”

  It seemed very certain that something was upholding and uplifting him. He sat on the seats in the alcoves, and once or twice he sat down on the grass and several times he paused in the path and leaned on Dickon, but he would not give up until he had gone all round the garden. When he returned to the canopy tree his cheeks were flushed and he looked triumphant.

  “I did it! The Magic worked!” he cried. “That is my first scientific discovery.”

  “What will Dr. Craven say?” broke out Mary.

  “He won’t say anything,” Colin answered, “because he will not be told. This is to be the biggest secret of all. No one is to know anything about it until I have grown so strong that I can walk and run like any other boy. I shall come here every day in my chair and I shall be taken back in it. I won’t have people whispering and asking questions and I won’t let my father hear about it until the experiment has quite succeeded. Then some time when he comes back to Misselthwaite I shall just walk into his study and say, ‘Here I am; I am like any other boy. I am quite well and I shall live to be a man. It has been done by a scientific experiment.’”

  “He will think he is in a dream,” cried Mary. “He won’t believe his eyes.”

  Colin flushed triumphantly. He had made himself believe that he was going to get well, which was really more than half the battle, if he had been aware of it. And the thought which stimulated him more than any other was this imagining what his father would look like when he saw that he had a son who was as straight and strong as other fathers’ sons. One of his darkest miseries in the unhealthy morbid past days had been his hatred of being a sickly weak-backed boy whose father was afraid to look at him.

  “He’ll be obliged to believe them,” he said. “One of the things I am going to do, after the Magic works and before I begin to make scientific discoveries, is to be an athlete.”

  “We shall have thee takin’ to boxin’ in a week or so,” said Ben Weatherstaff. “Tha‘lt end wi’ winnin’ th’ Belt an’ bein’ champion prize-fighter of all England.”

  Colin fixed his eyes on him sternly.

  “Weatherstaff,” he said, “that is disrespectful. You must not take liberties because you are in the secret. However much the Magic works, I shall not be a prize-fighter. I shall be a Scientific Discoverer.”

  “Ax pardon—ax pardon, sir,” answered Ben, touching his forehead in salute. “I ought to have seed it wasn’t a jokin’ matter,” but his eyes twinkled and secretly he was immensely pleased. He really did not mind being snubbed since the snubbing meant that the lad was gaining strength and spirit.

  24

  “Let Them Laugh”

  THE SECRET GARDEN WAS NOT THE ONLY ONE DICKON WORKED in. Round the cottage on the moor there was a piece of ground enclosed by a low wall of rough stones. Early in the morning and late in the fading twilight and on all the days Colin and Mary did not see him, Dickon worked there planting or tending potatoes and cabbages, turnips and carrots and herbs for his mother. In the company of his “creatures” he did wonders there and was never tired of doing them, it seemed. While he dug or weeded he whistled or sang bits of Yorkshire moor songs or talked to Soot or Captain or the brothers and sisters he had taught to help him.

  “We’d never get on as comfortable as we do,” Mrs. Sowerby said, “if it wasn’t for Dickon’s garden. Anything’ ll grow for him. His ’taters and cabbages is twice th’ size of anyone else’s an’ they’ve got a flavour with ’em as nobody’s has.”

  When she found a moment to spare she liked to go out and talk to him. After supper there was still a long clear twilight to work in and that was her quiet time. She could sit upon the low rough wall and look on and hear stories of the day. She loved this time. There were not only vegetables in this garden. Dickon had bought penny packages of flower seeds now and then and sown bright sweet-scented things among gooseberry bushes and even cabbages and he grew borders of mignonette and pinks and pansies and things whose seeds he could save year after year or whose roots would bloom each spring and spread in time into fine clumps. The low wall was one of the prettiest things in Yorkshire because he had tucked moorland foxglove and ferns and rock-cress and hedgerow flowers into every crevice until only here and there glimpses of the stones were to be seen.

  “All a chap’s got to do to make ‘em thrive, Mother,” he would say, “is to be friends with ’em for sure. They’re just like th’ ‘creatures.’ If they’re thirsty give ’em a drink, and if they’re hungry give ‘em a bit o’ food. They want to live same as we do. If they died I should feel as if I’d been a bad lad and somehow treated them heartless.”

  It was in these twilight hours that Mrs. Sowerby heard of all that happened at Misselthwaite Manor. At first she was only told that “Mester Colin” had taken a fancy to going out into the grounds with Miss Mary and that it was doing him good. But it was not long before it was agreed between the two children that Dickon’s mother might “come into the secret.” Somehow it was not doubted that she was “safe for sure.”

  So one beautiful still evening Dickon told the whole story, with all the thrilling details of the buried key and the robin and the grey haze which had seemed like deadness and the secret Mistress Mary had planned never to reveal. The coming of Dickon and how it had been told to him, the doubt of Mester Colin and the final drama of his introduction to the hidden domain, combined with the incident of Ben Weatherstaff’s angry face peering over the wall and Mester Colin’s sudden indignant strength, made Mrs. Sowerby’s nice-looking face quite change colour several times.

  “My word!” she said. “It was a good thing that little lass came to th’ Manor. It’s been th’ makin’ o’ her an’ th’ savin’ o’ him. Standin’ on his feet! An’ us all thinkin’ he was a poor half-witted lad with not a straight bone in him.”

  She asked a great many questions and her blue eyes were full of deep thinking.

  “What do they make of it at th’ Manor—him being so well an’ cheerful an’ never compla
inin’?” she inquired.

  “They don’t know what to make of it,” answered Dickon. “Every day as comes round his face looks different. It’s fillin’ out and doesn’t look so sharp an’ th’ waxy colour is goin’. But he has to do his bit o’ complainin’,” with a highly entertained grin.

  “What for, i’ Mercy’s name?” asked Mrs. Sowerby.

  Dickon chuckled.

  “He does it to keep them from guessin’ what’s happened. If the doctor knew he’d found out he could stand on his feet he’d likely write and tell Mester Craven. Mester Colin’s savin’ th’ secret to tell himself. He’s goin’ to practise his Magic on his legs every day till his father comes back an’ then he’s goin’ to march into his room an’ show him he’s as straight as other lads. But him an’ Miss Mary thinks it’s best plan to do a bit o’ groanin’ an’ frettin’ now an’ then to throw off th’ scent.”

  Mrs. Sowerby was laughing a low comfortable laugh long before he had finished his last sentence.

  “Eh!” she said, “that pair’s enjoyin’ theirselves, I’ll warrant. They’ll get a good bit o’ play actin’ out of it, an’ there’s nothin’ children likes as much as play actin’. Let’s hear what they do, Dickon, lad.”

  Dickon stopped weeding and sat up on his heels to tell her. His eyes were twinkling with fun.

  “Mester Colin is carried down to his chair every time he goes out,” he explained. “An’ he flies out at John, th’ footman, for not carryin’ him careful enough. He makes himself as helpless lookin’ as he can an’ never lifts his head until we’re out o’ sight o’ th’ house. An’ he grunts an’ frets a good bit when he’s bein’ settled into his chair. Him an’ Miss Mary’s both got to enjoyin’ it an’ when he groans an’ complains she’ll say, ‘Poor Colin! Does it hurt you so much? Are you so weak as that, poor Colin?‘—but th’ trouble is that sometimes they can scarce keep from burstin’ out laughin’. When we get safe into the garden they laugh till they’ve no breath left to laugh with. An’ they have to stuff their faces into Mester Colin’s cushions to keep the gardeners from hearin’, if any of ’em’s about.”