She did not know what to say, so she did not say anything. He evidently did not expect an answer and the next moment he gave her a surprise.
“I am going to let you look at something,” he said. “Do you see that rose-colored silk curtain hanging on the wall over the mantel-piece?”
Mary had not noticed it before, but she looked up and saw it. It was a curtain of soft silk hanging over what seemed to be some picture.
“Yes,” she answered.
“There is a cord hanging from it,” said Colin. “Go and pull it.”
Mary got up, much mystified, and found the cord. When she pulled it the silk curtain ran back on rings and when it ran back it uncovered a picture. It was the picture of a girl with a laughing face. She had bright hair tied up with a blue ribbon and her gay, lovely eyes were exactly like Colin’s unhappy ones, agate gray and looking twice as big as they really were because of the black lashes all round them.
“She is my mother,” said Colin complainingly. “I don’t see why she died. Sometimes I hate her for doing it.”
“How queer!” said Mary.
“If she had lived I believe I should not have been ill always,” he grumbled. “I dare say I should have lived, too. And my father would not have hated to look at me. I dare say I should have had a strong back. Draw the curtain again.”
Mary did as she was told and returned to her footstool.
“She is much prettier than you,” she said, “but her eyes are just like yours—at least they are the same shape and color. Why is the curtain drawn over her?”
He moved uncomfortably.
“I made them do it,” he said. “Sometimes I don’t like to see her looking at me. She smiles too much when I am ill and miserable. Besides, she is mine and I don’t want everyone to see her.” There were a few moments of silence and then Mary spoke.
“What would Mrs. Medlock do if she found out that I had been here?” she inquired.
“She would do as I told her to do,” he answered. “And I should tell her that I wanted you to come here and talk to me every day. I am glad you came.”
“So am I,” said Mary. “I will come as often as I can, but"—she hesitated—"I shall have to look every day for the garden door.”
“Yes, you must,” said Colin, “and you can tell me about it afterward.”
He lay thinking a few minutes, as he had done before, and then he spoke again.
“I think you shall be a secret, too,” he said. “I will not tell them until they find out. I can always send the nurse out of the room and say that I want to be by myself. Do you know Martha?”
“Yes, I know her very well,” said Mary. “She waits on me.”
He nodded his head toward the outer corridor.
“She is the one who is asleep in the other room. The nurse went away yesterday to stay all night with her sister and she always makes Martha attend to me when she wants to go out. Martha shall tell you when to come here.”
Then Mary understood Martha’s troubled look when she had asked questions about the crying.
“Martha knew about you all the time?” she said.
“Yes; she often attends to me. The nurse likes to get away from me and then Martha comes.”
“I have been here a long time,” said Mary. “Shall I go away now? Your eyes look sleepy.”
“I wish I could go to sleep before you leave me,” he said rather shyly.
“Shut your eyes,” said Mary, drawing her footstool closer, “and I will do what my Ayah used to do in India. I will pat your hand and stroke it and sing something quite low.”
“I should like that perhaps,” he said drowsily.
Somehow she was sorry for him and did not want him to lie awake, so she leaned against the bed and began to stroke and pat his hand and sing a very low little chanting song in Hindustani.
“That is nice,” he said more drowsily still, and she went on chanting and stroking, but when she looked at him again his black lashes were lying close against his cheeks, for his eyes were shut and he was fast asleep. So she got up softly, took her candle and crept away without making a sound.
CHAPTER XIV.A YOUNG RAJAH
The moor was hidden in mist when the morning came, and the rain had not stopped pouring down. There could be no going out of doors. Martha was so busy that Mary had no opportunity of talking to her, but in the afternoon she asked her to come and sit with her in the nursery. She came bringing the stocking she was always knitting when she was doing nothing else.
“What’s the matter with thee?” she asked as soon as they sat down. “Tha’ looks as if tha’d somethin’ to say.”
“I have. I have found out what the crying was,” said Mary.
Martha let her knitting drop on her knee and gazed at her with startled eyes.
“Tha’ hasn’t!” she exclaimed. “Never!”
“I heard it in the night,” Mary went on. “And I got up and went to see where it came from. It was Colin. I found him.”
Martha’s face became red with fright.
“Eh! Miss Mary!” she said half crying. “Tha’ shouldn’t have done it—tha’ shouldn’t! Tha’ll get me in trouble. I never told thee nothin’ about him—but tha’ll get me in trouble. I shall lose my place and what’ll mother do!”
“You won’t lose your place,” said Mary. “He was glad I came. We talked and talked and he said he was glad I came.”
“Was he?” cried Martha. “Art tha’ sure? Tha’ doesn’t know what he’s like when anything vexes him. He’s a big lad to cry like a baby, but when he’s in a passion he’ll fair scream just to frighten us. He knows us daren’t call our souls our own.”
“He wasn’t vexed,” said Mary. “I asked him if I should go away and he made me stay. He asked me questions and I sat on a big footstool and talked to him about India and about the robin and gardens. He wouldn’t let me go. He let me see his mother’s picture. Before I left him I sang him to sleep.”
Martha fairly gasped with amazement.
“I can scarcely believe thee!” she protested. “It’s as if tha’d walked straight into a lion’s den. If he’d been like he is most times he’d have throwed himself into one of his tantrums and roused th’ house. He won’t let strangers look at him.”
“He let me look at him. I looked at him all the time and he looked at me. We stared!” said Mary.
“I don’t know what to do!” cried agitated Martha. “If Mrs. Medlock finds out, she’ll think I broke orders and told thee and I shall be packed back to mother.”
“He is not going to tell Mrs. Medlock anything about it yet. It’s to be a sort of secret just at first,” said Mary firmly. “And he says everybody is obliged to do as he pleases.”
“Aye, that’s true enough—th’ bad lad!” sighed Martha, wiping her forehead with her apron.
“He says Mrs. Medlock must. And he wants me to come and talk to him every day. And you are to tell me when he wants me.”
“Me!” said Martha; “I shall lose my place—I shall for sure!”
“You can’t if you are doing what he wants you to do and everybody is ordered to obey him,” Mary argued.
“Does tha’ mean to say,” cried Martha with wide open eyes, “that he was nice to thee!”
“I think he almost liked me,” Mary answered.
“Then tha’ must have bewitched him!” decided Martha, drawing a long breath.
“Do you mean Magic?” inquired Mary. “I’ve heard about Magic in India, but I can’t make it. I just went into his room and I was so surprised to see him I stood and stared. And then he turned round and stared at me. And he thought I was a ghost or a dream and I thought perhaps he was. And it was so queer being there alone together in the middle of the night and not knowing about each other. And we began to ask each other questions. And when I asked him if I must go away he said I mu
st not.”
“Th’ world’s comin’ to a end!” gasped Martha.
“What is the matter with him?” asked Mary.
“Nobody knows for sure and certain,” said Martha. “Mr. Craven went off his head like when he was born. Th’ doctors thought he’d have to be put in a ‘sylum. It was because Mrs. Craven died like I told you. He wouldn’t set eyes on th’ baby. He just raved and said it’d be another hunchback like him and it’d better die.”
“Is Colin a hunchback?” Mary asked. “He didn’t look like one.”
“He isn’t yet,” said Martha. “But he began all wrong. Mother said that there was enough trouble and raging in th’ house to set any child wrong. They was afraid his back was weak an’ they’ve always been takin’ care of it—keepin’ him lyin’ down and not lettin’ him walk. Once they made him wear a brace but he fretted so he was downright ill. Then a big doctor came to see him an’ made them take it off. He talked to th’ other doctor quite rough—in a polite way. He said there’d been too much medicine and too much lettin’ him have his own way.”
“I think he’s a very spoiled boy,” said Mary.
“He’s th’ worst young nowt as ever was!” said Martha. “I won’t say as he hasn’t been ill a good bit. He’s had coughs an’ colds that’s nearly killed him two or three times. Once he had rheumatic fever an’ once he had typhoid. Eh! Mrs. Medlock did get a fright then. He’d been out of his head an’ she was talkin’ to th’ nurse, thinkin’ he didn’t know nothin’, an’ she said, ‘He’ll die this time sure enough, an’ best thing for him an’ for everybody.’ An’ she looked at him an’ there he was with his big eyes open, starin’ at her as sensible as she was herself. She didn’t know wha’d happen but he just stared at her an’ says, ‘You give me some water an’ stop talkin’.’”
“Do you think he will die?” asked Mary.
“Mother says there’s no reason why any child should live that gets no fresh air an’ doesn’t do nothin’ but lie on his back an’ read picture-books an’ take medicine. He’s weak and hates th’ trouble o’ bein’ taken out o’ doors, an’ he gets cold so easy he says it makes him ill.”
Mary sat and looked at the fire. “I wonder,” she said slowly, “if it would not do him good to go out into a garden and watch things growing. It did me good.”
“One of th’ worst fits he ever had,” said Martha, “was one time they took him out where the roses is by the fountain. He’d been readin’ in a paper about people gettin’ somethin’ he called ‘rose cold’ an’ he began to sneeze an’ said he’d got it an’ then a new gardener as didn’t know th’ rules passed by an’ looked at him curious. He threw himself into a passion an’ he said he’d looked at him because he was going to be a hunchback. He cried himself into a fever an’ was ill all night.”
“If he ever gets angry at me, I’ll never go and see him again,” said Mary.
“He’ll have thee if he wants thee,” said Martha. “Tha’ may as well know that at th’ start.”
Very soon afterward a bell rang and she rolled up her knitting.
“I dare say th’ nurse wants me to stay with him a bit,” she said. “I hope he’s in a good temper.”
She was out of the room about ten minutes and then she came back with a puzzled expression.
“Well, tha’ has bewitched him,” she said. “He’s up on his sofa with his picture-books. He’s told the nurse to stay away until six o’clock. I’m to wait in the next room. Th’ minute she was gone he called me to him an’ says, ‘I want Mary Lennox to come and talk to me, and remember you’re not to tell any one.’ You’d better go as quick as you can.”
Mary was quite willing to go quickly. She did not want to see Colin as much as she wanted to see Dickon; but she wanted to see him very much.
There was a bright fire on the hearth when she entered his room, and in the daylight she saw it was a very beautiful room indeed. There were rich colors in the rugs and hangings and pictures and books on the walls which made it look glowing and comfortable even in spite of the gray sky and falling rain. Colin looked rather like a picture himself. He was wrapped in a velvet dressing-gown and sat against a big brocaded cushion. He had a red spot on each cheek.
“Come in,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about you all morning.”
“I’ve been thinking about you, too,” answered Mary. “You don’t know how frightened Martha is. She says Mrs. Medlock will think she told me about you and then she will be sent away.”
He frowned.
“Go and tell her to come here,” he said. “She is in the next room.”
Mary went and brought her back. Poor Martha was shaking in her shoes. Colin was still frowning.
“Have you to do what I please or have you not?” he demanded.
“I have to do what you please, sir,” Martha faltered, turning quite red.
“Has Medlock to do what I please?”
“Everybody has, sir,” said Martha.
“Well, then, if I order you to bring Miss Mary to me, how can Medlock send you away if she finds it out?”
“Please don’t let her, sir,” pleaded Martha.
“I’ll send her away if she dares to say a word about such a thing,” said Master Craven grandly. “She wouldn’t like that, I can tell you.”
“Thank you, sir,” bobbing a curtsy, “I want to do my duty, sir.”
“What I want is your duty” said Colin more grandly still. “I’ll take care of you. Now go away.”
When the door closed behind Martha, Colin found Mistress Mary gazing at him as if he had set her wondering.
“Why do you look at me like that?” he asked her. “What are you thinking about?”
“I am thinking about two things.”
“What are they? Sit down and tell me.”
“This is the first one,” said Mary, seating herself on the big stool. “Once in India I saw a boy who was a Rajah. He had rubies and emeralds and diamonds stuck all over him. He spoke to his people just as you spoke to Martha. Everybody had to do everything he told them—in a minute. I think they would have been killed if they hadn’t.”
“I shall make you tell me about Rajahs presently,” he said, “but first tell me what the second thing was.”
“I was thinking,” said Mary, “how different you are from Dickon.”
“Who is Dickon?” he said. “What a queer name!”
She might as well tell him, she thought she could talk about Dickon without mentioning the secret garden. She had liked to hear Martha talk about him. Besides, she longed to talk about him. It would seem to bring him nearer.
“He is Martha’s brother. He is twelve years old,” she explained. “He is not like any one else in the world. He can charm foxes and squirrels and birds just as the natives in India charm snakes. He plays a very soft tune on a pipe and they come and listen.”
There were some big books on a table at his side and he dragged one suddenly toward him. “There is a picture of a snake-charmer in this,” he exclaimed. “Come and look at it.”
The book was a beautiful one with superb colored illustrations and he turned to one of them.
“Can he do that?” he asked eagerly.
“He played on his pipe and they listened,” Mary explained. “But he doesn’t call it Magic. He says it’s because he lives on the moor so much and he knows their ways. He says he feels sometimes as if he was a bird or a rabbit himself, he likes them so. I think he asked the robin questions. It seemed as if they talked to each other in soft chirps.”
Colin lay back on his cushion and his eyes grew larger and larger and the spots on his cheeks burned.
“Tell me some more about him,” he said.
“He knows all about eggs and nests,” Mary went on. “And he knows where foxes and badgers and otters live. He keeps them secret so that other boys won’t find their holes
and frighten them. He knows about everything that grows or lives on the moor.”
“Does he like the moor?” said Colin. “How can he when it’s such a great, bare, dreary place?”
“It’s the most beautiful place,” protested Mary. “Thousands of lovely things grow on it and there are thousands of little creatures all busy building nests and making holes and burrows and chippering or singing or squeaking to each other. They are so busy and having such fun under the earth or in the trees or heather. It’s their world.”
“How do you know all that?” said Colin, turning on his elbow to look at her.
“I have never been there once, really,” said Mary suddenly remembering. “I only drove over it in the dark. I thought it was hideous. Martha told me about it first and then Dickon. When Dickon talks about it you feel as if you saw things and heard them and as if you were standing in the heather with the sun shining and the gorse smelling like honey—and all full of bees and butterflies.”
“You never see anything if you are ill,” said Colin restlessly. He looked like a person listening to a new sound in the distance and wondering what it was.
“You can’t if you stay in a room,” said Mary.
“I couldn’t go on the moor,” he said in a resentful tone.
Mary was silent for a minute and then she said something bold.
“You might—sometime.”
He moved as if he were startled.
“Go on the moor! How could I? I am going to die.” “How do you know?” said Mary unsympathetically. She didn’t like the way he had of talking about dying. She did not feel very sympathetic. She felt rather as if he almost boasted about it.
“Oh, I’ve heard it ever since I remember,” he answered crossly. “They are always whispering about it and thinking I don’t notice. They wish I would, too.”
Mistress Mary felt quite contrary. She pinched her lips together.
“If they wished I would,” she said, “I wouldn’t. Who wishes you would?”
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