The Secret Garden

by Linda Chapman

  There was a silence. Mary waited, wondering what he was going to say, and suddenly the door opened. Her eyes widened in shock. Colin had got out of bed and opened the door himself. He was hanging on to it, standing up but looking shaky.

  “I need to read those letters,” he said. Then his legs shook, and he collapsed on the floor with a cry. Mary tried to catch him, but she wasn’t strong enough and she ended up crashing down with him.

  “Ow!” she gasped as they both hit the floor.

  He pushed himself off her. “Sorry.”

  “You walked, Colin!” Mary exclaimed, not caring about her bruises. “You got out of bed and walked!”

  He looked at his legs in confusion. “I did, didn’t I?”

  Mary beamed. “Now will you believe in the magic?”

  She helped Colin into his chair and showed him the letters. “Here. Read them,” she said, pushing them onto his lap.

  He nodded. “I will but not here. In the garden.”

  They set off. When they reached the garden, they found Dickon trimming the hedges near the statues in the sun. They explained why they had come and then sat down together in the flower-filled clearing by the swing. Colin and Mary read through the letters while Dickon sat nearby, stroking Hector.

  “Listen to this, Mary!” said Colin, reading out a passage. “She’s bold, slightly dangerous, and she has a spirit that nothing can quench. I am so very proud of her.”

  “Who’s she talking about?” said Mary, puzzled.

  Dickon chuckled.

  “You, you idiot!” Colin grinned. “She’s telling my mother about you. She loved you, Mary.”

  Mary frowned. She’d skipped over the passages that weren’t about Colin and his mother and father. “That can’t be right,” she said uncertainly. Despite the night before, it was hard to change the thinking of a lifetime. “My mother didn’t want me anywhere near her. She certainly wasn’t proud of me.” But for the first time, the words sounded slightly automatic—as if they were words she was repeating because they were what she always said, rather than words she meant.

  She changed the subject. It was Colin who was important. “Look, here’s a bit about you. I’m so pleased Colin is making you laugh so. A whole day pretending to be a dog. What a delight he is! Archie sounds as if he loves him dearly. I’m just as besotted with Mary.” Her voice slowed as she realized what she had just read out.

  “My father doesn’t love me,” said Colin, shaking his head. “If he loved me, he wouldn’t give me medicine I don’t need, and keep me shut in my room, and he would come and see me.”

  Dickon shrugged. “Folk act in strange ways when they’re hurting. Just like animals.”

  Mary thought about when Hector had been injured and had snapped at her because he had been in such incredible pain.

  “Loss changes people,” Dickon went on. “Why, even your mother, Mary. It’s clear from those letters she loved you, even if you think different.”

  “You don’t know what my mother was like,” Mary said.

  “No.” Dickon paused. “But I know what it’s like to lose someone.”

  They were all silent for a few minutes. Colin broke the silence by reading out another passage. “Listen to this: She reminds me so much of you in the way she looks and the way she acts, Grace. She makes stories up all the time and loves to put on puppet shows. She did one for me the night before last all about an Indian myth. It was a very elaborate affair indeed. Poor Ayah had to make some silk curtains for it! I love to watch her and listen to her tales.”

  Mary could hardly believe it. “She wrote she liked my plays?”

  Colin nodded. “So are you sure your mother hated you, Mary? Quite sure?” he said, handing her the letter.

  Mary reread the words, and as she did so, a light seemed to come on in her head. Memories flashed in front of her eyes, the past twisted and rearranged itself, and suddenly she began to see her childhood in a new way, to tell a different story about her past—the mother who had hated her daughter so much she didn’t want to look at her became a mother whose daughter reminded her so much of her dead sister that she couldn’t bear to look at her. She was a mother whose grief for her twin sister was so overwhelming that she had shut herself off from the world—a wounded animal, chasing away anyone who tried to come near, even her own child.

  She did love me, Mary thought.

  “Maybe neither of us know our parents as well as we think,” said Colin.

  As Mary nodded slowly, she heard the faint sound of laughter and saw the ghostly figures of her mother and aunt, and Colin and herself when they were both little, skipping between the statues, holding each other’s hands in a chain. The adults’ eyes shone with love as they looked down at their children. Then they danced on toward the temple and dissolved into light.

  Mary couldn’t stop thinking about the letters for the rest of the day. Not just the passages about her, but the passages about her uncle too. Her aunt made it sound like he had loved Colin very much. So why did Uncle never visit Colin now? And why had he forced Colin to take medicine and let him believe he had a hump? Was Colin’s illness really only a result of his father projecting his own fears onto him, just as Aunt Grace had worried he would?

  She was settling Colin back in his room later that day, when Martha came hurrying in. “Miss! It’s Mrs. Medlock. She’s looking for you. She mustn’t find you here!”

  Mary raced away. She ran down the corridors and emerged on the main staircase to see her uncle come in through the front door. Mary was about to disappear to her room when Mrs. Medlock came out from the ballroom. “There you are, girl. I’ve been searching high and low.”

  “I was outside,” said Mary, glad she was still wearing her outdoor clothes as proof.

  Mrs. Medlock smiled, reminding Mary of a cat that had just seen a bowl of cream. She looked extremely satisfied with herself. Mary felt a shiver of foreboding run down her spine.

  “Well, we’ve had quite the surprise today,” Mrs. Medlock said. “We’ve just had word from Miss Clawson’s Seminary for Young Ladies.” Her smile grew even broader. “And they’re ready to take you.”

  “To take me?” echoed Mary, her heart filling with fear.

  “Yes.” Mrs. Medlock’s smile widened triumphantly. “You’re to go to school, girl. We’ve already packed your possessions. The car will be here to collect you tomorrow afternoon!”

  20

  A Way Out

  Mary stared at Mrs. Medlock in horror. “School! No, I’m not ready! I can’t go!”

  “You have no say in it, child,” Mrs. Medlock said, her eyes glinting victoriously. “It’s all arranged. It’s a school that is full of the right sort of people—and the right sort of discipline.”

  Mary saw her uncle walk by below. She flew down the stairs. “Uncle. No!” she appealed.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” gasped Mrs. Medlock, hastening after her. “You leave your uncle alone!”

  “Uncle . . . Mr. Craven . . . sir! Please don’t send me away. Please! I need to be here!” Mary begged.

  Her uncle carried on walking without even looking at her. Fury burst through Mary. Blinded by rage, she grabbed his arm. “Colin doesn’t have a hump!” she shouted. “Why do you keep saying he does?”

  “What are you talking about now?” her uncle snapped, shaking her off.

  “Colin! He doesn’t have a hump and you know it!” She took in the astonishment on his face and suddenly realized something. “But of course,” she breathed. “You haven’t seen his back, have you? You don’t visit him enough to know what it’s actually like.”

  “When Colin was younger, the physician said that he believed that he would develop a hump like mine unless Colin had medicine and followed his orders,” Mr. Craven said stiffly. “I have done as he recommended. I do not want my son to suffer as I have suffered. His body is weak.”

  “But not because he has a hump!” Mary exclaimed. Suddenly she saw the chance to make things better for Colin. “It’s
only because he’s shut up and made to believe he’s an invalid and never gets to use his legs. You can change that,” Mary said passionately. “He isn’t dying. Please! You’ve got to believe me!”

  A puffing Mrs. Medlock had now reached Mary and tried to pull her away. “Stop with your talking or this will get much worse.”

  But Mary fought her off. She had to make her uncle understand. “This isn’t what Aunt Grace would have wanted for Colin,” she cried passionately. “Don’t you see, Uncle? This isn’t what she would have wanted for either of you!”

  Mr. Craven erupted. “Silence, child. You know nothing of my wife.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” Mrs. Medlock gasped. “I shall see that she’s punished.”

  Mary stamped her foot, desperate to make them understand. “I know that she wouldn’t have stood outside his door while he cried at night! I know she loved the outdoors and wouldn’t have wanted Colin to be shut up inside and told he has a hump on his back when he has none! Can’t you see what you’re doing? This house has become a prison—for both of you!”

  Her uncle gazed at her for a long moment and then strode away.

  “I’m sorry, sir. She leaves tomorrow,” Mrs. Medlock called after him desperately.

  “Good!” Mr. Craven snapped, without glancing back.

  Mary was marched to her room by Mrs. Medlock and pushed roughly inside. Forgetting the vow she had made all those months ago to never cry again, she wore herself out with sobbing. She didn’t think she could bear to be sent away to school, to leave her friends and the secret garden.

  She cried herself to sleep and woke up in the middle of the night. As she opened her eyes, everything came flooding back and a steely determination filled her. They could try to send her away if they wanted, but they’d have to find her first!

  She left her bedroom and began to creep downstairs. Her uncle’s study door was open. There was a light shining out. Mary stole a quick look inside. Archibald was sitting in a leather chair at a table beside the window. On the table was a bottle of whiskey and in one hand he had a half-filled glass. In the other, he held a framed photograph. It was the one she had seen in his study before. Aunt Grace was in the front of the picture. She was sitting on the grass and Colin was looking over her shoulder, his little arms around her neck. They were both smiling at the person holding the camera.

  Mary saw her uncle dash his hand across his face. “What have I done?” he muttered. “Oh, Grace, what have I done?”

  She swallowed and was about to creep past when there was a fizzle and the lights suddenly went out. Mary froze and waited for her eyes to adjust. Using the light from the moon, her uncle fumbled with a candle and some matches. He burned his hand as he tried to light it and exclaimed angrily as the match went out. He tried again, striking another match and then throwing it down when it burned out. Desperately hoping she wouldn’t trip over anything or bump into anything, Mary hurried past and ran down the main staircase. She grabbed her warmest coat and boots from the cloakroom and then scurried out through the back door. As the cold night air hit her face, she felt both relieved and scared. She’d done it! She’d escaped!

  Mary slept that night in the secret temple with Hector beside her. She woke, feeling hungry, as the sun rose. Dickon came through the gate, whistling. He stopped in surprise when he saw her sitting on the steps with Hector, watching the early morning sunrise, its rays falling on the perfect sea of flowers that now bloomed around the temple and statues. The weeds had been conquered, and the flowers had opened to the sun. Clumps of white lily of the valley and nodding bluebells clustered in the shady areas with tall pink foxgloves behind them. Hydrangea bushes covered with enormous lilac and pink blooms that looked like pom-poms spilled from the borders, along with clouds of white orange blossom and yellow hypericum.

  “Mary? What are you doing here?” Dickon asked.

  “They are going to send me to school today,” she said glumly. “But I won’t go. I won’t, Dickon!”

  He nodded, understanding.

  “Colin will be wondering where I am,” Mary said anxiously. “Can you go to him? Get Martha to help you and bring him here?”

  She watched as he left the garden. What would everyone be doing in the house? They would have realized she had gone by now. What would they be saying? A feeling of satisfaction that she had outwitted Mrs. Medlock filled her, warming her up and making her forget about her cold fingers and toes. As the sun rose higher, she felt its warmth sinking into her skin, and she went to the stream to get some water to drink.

  When she came back, she saw Dickon pushing Colin in his chair. Both boys were looking excited and flushed. “We had such a near miss, Mary!” Colin called. “Mrs. Medlock almost caught Dickon in my room. He had to hide in my wardrobe. When she left, he had to push me as fast as he could. I thought he was going to bounce me clean out of my chair.” His eyes flew to her face. “What’s going on? Dickon said you’ve run away.”

  She ran over to him. “I have. I can’t go to school, Colin. I just can’t!” She looked around the garden. “And I don’t need to.” A plan had formed in her mind in the night. “I can stay here!” She saw his doubtful look and rushed on. “I’ll be happy. You can bring me food and clothes. Blankets too.”

  Colin shook his head. “I know you don’t want to go to school, and we don’t want you to go either. . . .” he said slowly.

  “He’s right, we don’t,” Dickon put in.

  Mary was grateful as she saw the warm friendship in their eyes.

  “But you can’t stay locked up in this garden,” Colin went on, pushing himself out of the chair and standing on shaky legs. “It’s as bad as me being locked up in my room. Life needs living.”

  “Says the boy who’s seen none of it!” retorted Mary.

  “Says the girl so determined that no one loves her that she’ll make it so!” Colin exclaimed.

  She scowled at him. “You don’t understand. If I go to school, they won’t like me like you do. I’ll go back to being alone as I used to be, and I don’t think I can bear that.” Her voice rose. “I like it here too much. I like this”—she swept her arm around—“and both of you.”

  Hector interrupted them by barking frantically. Mary frowned. What was he doing?

  They all turned. In the distance, from the direction of the house, they could see smoke rising into the sky. “That smoke,” said Colin, his expression turning to alarm. “Is that normal?”

  “No,” said Dickon anxiously.

  “It’s coming from the house! There must be a fire!” gasped Mary.

  “Father!” Colin cried.

  “Martha!” said Dickon, in fear.

  Mary didn’t hesitate. She sprinted toward the gate. Dickon followed. Colin took a few hobbling steps after them. Mary glanced back and saw the frustration and defeat in his face.

  “I can’t!” he shouted. “But you go . . . GO!”

  21

  The Fire

  Mary and Dickon raced toward the house. There were flames at every window and black smoke billowing up into the blue sky. The house was burning to the ground!

  As they reached the front door, Martha staggered out, coughing and spluttering. “Mary! Dickon! Stay away. The brigade’s been called. We can’t do anything more.”

  “Is everyone out?” demanded Mary.

  “Not the master,” said Martha, her eyes filling with tears. “We don’t know where he is. No one’s seen him since the blaze started.”

  Mary sprinted toward the door, leaping up the steps.

  “Mary!” Dickon shouted.

  “I know where he’ll be!” Mary yelled. She raced across the hall and up the stairs. The air was smotheringly hot, smoke billowing down the staircase, making her eyes stream. The house was filled with the crackling of fire and crashes of objects as the hungry flames devoured them. Mary ran up to the second floor and raced to Colin’s room. The door was open, and her uncle was standing inside, looking around helplessly as if he didn’t know what t
o do.

  “I knew you’d be here,” Mary gasped.

  Her uncle shook as he coughed. His face was smudged with dirt, his hair in disarray. “Colin, where’s Colin?” he gasped as the fire raged through the house.

  “Come on, please, come on,” Mary said, tugging his arm.

  “I will not leave without my son!” her uncle said, shaking his head. “I can’t desert him. Not again.”

  “Your son isn’t here, sir,” insisted Mary.

  Her uncle’s face creased with grief. “He is dead already?”

  “No! I was with him just five minutes ago. I give you my word on the soul of Grace Craven. Now please, come with me and I will show you where he is!” Mary knew she had to get him out quickly. She tugged his arm again, and this time he allowed her to pull him out of the room as the flames began to engulf it. His face was dazed.

  Mary pulled him down the smoke-filled corridor, but as they reached the stairs there was a crack overhead and part of the ceiling fell down, the plaster burning. Mary yelped and jumped back. The house was burning down around them. “We need to find another way.”

  She turned and led him past Colin’s room, but as they hurried through the smoke, the floor in front of them gave way, flames leaping up through it.

  We’re trapped, thought Mary in despair. We’re going to be burned alive. She turned to her uncle. “Uncle, you know the house best. How can we get out?”

  Coughing hard, her uncle collapsed on the floor.

  “No!” she cried in dismay. “Please don’t—I can’t lift you.” She tried to drag him back to his feet, but he shook his head.

  “Leave me. Please. Leave me here,” he said in despair.

  Mary shook her head stubbornly. “No. Colin needs you.”

  “I’ve ruined everything,” her uncle croaked.

  Mary heard footsteps. Looking up, she saw the ghostly figures of her mother and Aunt Grace appear in the corridor. Her eyes met theirs—pleading, begging. In an instant, Grace was beside her, her hands helping her uncle to his feet. Then she was gone again, running to join her sister by the door that led to the hidden room. They both looked straight at Mary.