第 十三 章 · I AM COLIN

. I AM COLIN

"

Mary took the picture back to the house when she went to her supper and

she showed it to Martha.

"Eh!" said Martha with great pride. "I never knew our Dickon was as

clever as that. That there's a picture of a missel thrush on her nest,

as large as life an' twice as natural."

Then Mary knew Dickon had meant the picture to be a message. He had

meant that she might be sure he would keep her secret. Her garden was

her nest and she was like a missel thrush. Oh, how she did like that

queer, common boy!

She hoped he would come back the very next day and she fell asleep

looking forward to the morning.

But you never know what the weather will do in Yorkshire, particularly

in the springtime. She was awakened in the night by the sound of rain

beating with heavy drops against her window. It was pouring down in

torrents and the wind was "wuthering" round the corners and in the

chimneys of the huge old house. Mary sat up in bed and felt miserable

and angry.

"The rain is as contrary as I ever was," she said. "It came because it

knew I did not want it."

She threw herself back on her pillow and buried her face. She did not

cry, but she lay and hated the sound of the heavily beating rain, she

hated the wind and its "wuthering." She could not go to sleep again. The

mournful sound kept her awake because she felt mournful herself. If she

had felt happy it would probably have lulled her to sleep. How it

"wuthered" and how the big rain-drops poured down and beat against the

pane!

"It sounds just like a person lost on the moor and wandering on and on

crying," she said.

* * * * *

She had been lying awake turning from side to side for about an hour,

when suddenly something made her sit up in bed and turn her head toward

the door listening. She listened and she listened.

"It isn't the wind now," she said in a loud whisper. "That isn't the

wind. It is different. It is that crying I heard before."

The door of her room was ajar and the sound came down the corridor, a

far-off faint sound of fretful crying. She listened for a few minutes

and each minute she became more and more sure. She felt as if she must

find out what it was. It seemed even stranger than the secret garden and

the buried key. Perhaps the fact that she was in a rebellious mood made

her bold. She put her foot out of bed and stood on the floor.

"I am going to find out what it is," she said. "Everybody is in bed and

I don't care about Mrs. Medlock--I don't care!"

There was a candle by her bedside and she took it up and went softly out

of the room. The corridor looked very long and dark, but she was too

excited to mind that. She thought she remembered the corners she must

turn to find the short corridor with the door covered with tapestry--the

one Mrs. Medlock had come through the day she lost herself. The sound

had come up that passage. So she went on with her dim light, almost

feeling her way, her heart beating so loud that she fancied she could

hear it. The far-off faint crying went on and led her. Sometimes it

stopped for a moment or so and then began again. Was this the right

corner to turn? She stopped and thought. Yes it was. Down this passage

and then to the left, and then up two broad steps, and then to the right

again. Yes, there was the tapestry door.

She pushed it open very gently and closed it behind her, and she stood

in the corridor and could hear the crying quite plainly, though it was

not loud. It was on the other side of the wall at her left and a few

yards farther on there was a door. She could see a glimmer of light

coming from beneath it. The Someone was crying in that room, and it was

quite a young Someone.

So she walked to the door and pushed it open, and there she was standing

in the room!

It was a big room with ancient, handsome furniture in it. There was a

low fire glowing faintly on the hearth and a night light burning by the

side of a carved four-posted bed hung with brocade, and on the bed was

lying a boy, crying fretfully.

Mary wondered if she was in a real place or if she had fallen asleep

again and was dreaming without knowing it.

The boy had a sharp, delicate face the color of ivory and he seemed to

have eyes too big for it. He had also a lot of hair which tumbled over

his forehead in heavy locks and made his thin face seem smaller. He

looked like a boy who had been ill, but he was crying more as if he were

tired and cross than as if he were in pain.

Mary stood near the door with her candle in her hand, holding her

breath. Then she crept across the room, and as she drew nearer the

light attracted the boy's attention and he turned his head on his pillow

and stared at her, his gray eyes opening so wide that they seemed

immense.

[Illustration: "'WHO ARE YOU?--ARE YOU A GHOST?'"--_Page 157_]

"Who are you?" he said at last in a half-frightened whisper. "Are you a

ghost?"

"No, I am not," Mary answered, her own whisper sounding half frightened.

"Are you one?"

He stared and stared and stared. Mary could not help noticing what

strange eyes he had. They were agate gray and they looked too big for

his face because they had black lashes all round them.

"No," he replied after waiting a moment or so. "I am Colin."

"Who is Colin?" she faltered.

"I am Colin Craven. Who are you?"

"I am Mary Lennox. Mr. Craven is my uncle."

"He is my father," said the boy.

"Your father!" gasped Mary. "No one ever told me he had a boy! Why

didn't they?"

"Come here," he said, still keeping his strange eyes fixed on her with

an anxious expression.

She came close to the bed and he put out his hand and touched her.

"You are real, aren't you?" he said. "I have such real dreams very

often. You might be one of them."

Mary had slipped on a woolen wrapper before she left her room and she

put a piece of it between his fingers.

"Rub that and see how thick and warm it is," she said. "I will pinch you

a little if you like, to show you how real I am. For a minute I thought

you might be a dream too."

"Where did you come from?" he asked.

"From my own room. The wind wuthered so I couldn't go to sleep and I

heard some one crying and wanted to find out who it was. What were you

crying for?"

"Because I couldn't go to sleep either and my head ached. Tell me your

name again."

"Mary Lennox. Did no one ever tell you I had come to live here?"

He was still fingering the fold of her wrapper, but he began to look a

little more as if he believed in her reality.

"No," he answered. "They daren't."

"Why?" asked Mary.

"Because I should have been afraid you would see me. I won't let people

see me and talk me over."

"Why?" Mary asked again, feeling more mystified every moment.

"Because I am like this always, ill and having to lie down. My father

won't let people talk me over either. The servants are not allowed to

speak about me. If I live I may be a hunchback, but I shan't live. My

father hates to think I may be like him."

"Oh, what a queer house this is!" Mary said. "What a queer house!

Everything is a kind of secret. Rooms are locked up and gardens are

locked up--and you! Have you been locked up?"

"No. I stay in this room because I don't want to be moved out of it. It

tires me too much."

"Does your father come and see you?" Mary ventured.

"Sometimes. Generally when I am asleep. He doesn't want to see me."

"Why?" Mary could not help asking again.

A sort of angry shadow passed over the boy's face.

"My mother died when I was born and it makes him wretched to look at me.

He thinks I don't know, but I've heard people talking. He almost hates

me."

"He hates the garden, because she died," said Mary half speaking to

herself.

"What garden?" the boy asked.

"Oh! just--just a garden she used to like," Mary stammered. "Have you

been here always?"

"Nearly always. Sometimes I have been taken to places at the seaside,

but I won't stay because people stare at me. I used to wear an iron

thing to keep my back straight, but a grand doctor came from London to

see me and said it was stupid. He told them to take it off and keep me

out in the fresh air. I hate fresh air and I don't want to go out."

"I didn't when first I came here," said Mary. "Why do you keep looking

at me like that?"

"Because of the dreams that are so real," he answered rather fretfully.

"Sometimes when I open my eyes I don't believe I'm awake."

"We're both awake," said Mary. She glanced round the room with its high

ceiling and shadowy corners and dim firelight. "It looks quite like a

dream, and it's the middle of the night, and everybody in the house is

asleep--everybody but us. We are wide awake."

"I don't want it to be a dream," the boy said restlessly.

Mary thought of something all at once.

"If you don't like people to see you," she began, "do you want me to go

away?"

He still held the fold of her wrapper and he gave it a little pull.

"No," he said. "I should be sure you were a dream if you went. If you

are real, sit down on that big footstool and talk. I want to hear about

you."

Mary put down her candle on the table near the bed and sat down on the

cushioned stool. She did not want to go away at all. She wanted to stay

in the mysterious hidden-away room and talk to the mysterious boy.

"What do you want me to tell you?" she said.

He wanted to know how long she had been at Misselthwaite; he wanted to

know which corridor her room was on; he wanted to know what she had been

doing; if she disliked the moor as he disliked it; where she had lived

before she came to Yorkshire. She answered all these questions and many

more and he lay back on his pillow and listened. He made her tell him a

great deal about India and about her voyage across the ocean. She found

out that because he had been an invalid he had not learned things as

other children had. One of his nurses had taught him to read when he was

quite little and he was always reading and looking at pictures in

splendid books.

Though his father rarely saw him when he was awake, he was given all

sorts of wonderful things to amuse himself with. He never seemed to have

been amused, however. He could have anything he asked for and was never

made to do anything he did not like to do.

"Every one is obliged to do what pleases me," he said indifferently. "It

makes me ill to be angry. No one believes I shall live to grow up."

He said it as if he was so accustomed to the idea that it had ceased to

matter to him at all. He seemed to like the sound of Mary's voice. As

she went on talking he listened in a drowsy, interested way. Once or

twice she wondered if he were not gradually falling into a doze. But at

last he asked a question which opened up a new subject.

"How old are you?" he asked.

"I am ten," answered Mary, forgetting herself for the moment, "and so

are you."

"How do you know that?" he demanded in a surprised voice.

"Because when you were born the garden door was locked and the key was

buried. And it has been locked for ten years."

Colin half sat up, turning toward her, leaning on his elbows.

"What garden door was locked? Who did it? Where was the key buried?" he

exclaimed as if he were suddenly very much interested.

"It--it was the garden Mr. Craven hates," said Mary nervously. "He

locked the door. No one--no one knew where he buried the key."

"What sort of a garden is it?" Colin persisted eagerly.

"No one has been allowed to go into it for ten years," was Mary's

careful answer.

But it was too late to be careful. He was too much like herself. He too

had had nothing to think about and the idea of a hidden garden attracted

him as it had attracted her. He asked question after question. Where was

it? Had she never looked for the door? Had she never asked the

gardeners?

"They won't talk about it," said Mary. "I think they have been told not

to answer questions."

"I would make them," said Colin.

"Could you?" Mary faltered, beginning to feel frightened. If he could

make people answer questions, who knew what might happen!

"Every one is obliged to please me. I told you that," he said. "If I

were to live, this place would sometime belong to me. They all know

that. I would make them tell me."

Mary had not known that she herself had been spoiled, but she could see

quite plainly that this mysterious boy had been. He thought that the

whole world belonged to him. How peculiar he was and how coolly he spoke

of not living.

"Do you think you won't live?" she asked, partly because she was

curious and partly in hope of making him forget the garden.

"I don't suppose I shall," he answered as indifferently as he had spoken

before. "Ever since I remember anything I have heard people say I

shan't. At first they thought I was too little to understand and now

they think I don't hear. But I do. My doctor is my father's cousin. He

is quite poor and if I die he will have all Misselthwaite when my father

is dead. I should think he wouldn't want me to live."

"Do you want to live?" inquired Mary.

"No," he answered, in a cross, tired fashion. "But I don't want to die.

When I feel ill I lie here and think about it until I cry and cry."

"I have heard you crying three times," Mary said, "but I did not know

who it was. Were you crying about that?" She did so want him to forget

the garden.

"I dare say," he answered. "Let us talk about something else. Talk about

that garden. Don't you want to see it?"

"Yes," answered Mary, in quite a low voice.

"I do," he went on persistently. "I don't think I ever really wanted to

see anything before, but I want to see that garden. I want the key dug

up. I want the door unlocked. I would let them take me there in my

chair. That would be getting fresh air. I am going to make them open

the door."

He had become quite excited and his strange eyes began to shine like

stars and looked more immense than ever.

"They have to please me," he said. "I will make them take me there and I

will let you go, too."

Mary's hands clutched each other. Everything would be

spoiled--everything! Dickon would never come back. She would never again

feel like a missel thrush with a safe-hidden nest.

"Oh, don't--don't--don't--don't do that!" she cried out.

He stared as if he thought she had gone crazy!

"Why?" he exclaimed. "You said you wanted to see it."

"I do," she answered almost with a sob in her throat, "but if you make

them open the door and take you in like that it will never be a secret

again."

He leaned still farther forward.

"A secret," he said. "What do you mean? Tell me."

Mary's words almost tumbled over one another.

"You see--you see," she panted, "if no one knows but ourselves--if there

was a door, hidden somewhere under the ivy--if there was--and we could

find it; and if we could slip through it together and shut it behind

us, and no one knew any one was inside and we called it our garden and

pretended that--that we were missel thrushes and it was our nest, and if

we played there almost every day and dug and planted seeds and made it

all come alive--"

"Is it dead?" he interrupted her.

"It soon will be if no one cares for it," she went on. "The bulbs will

live but the roses--"

He stopped her again as excited as she was herself.

"What are bulbs?" he put in quickly.

"They are daffodils and lilies and snowdrops. They are working in the

earth now--pushing up pale green points because the spring is coming."

"Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like? You don't see it in

rooms if you are ill."

"It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine,

and things pushing up and working under the earth," said Mary. "If the

garden was a secret and we could get into it we could watch the things

grow bigger every day, and see how many roses are alive. Don't you see?

Oh, don't you see how much nicer it would be if it was a secret?"

He dropped back on his pillow and lay there with an odd expression on

his face.

"I never had a secret," he said, "except that one about not living to

grow up. They don't know I know that, so it is a sort of secret. But I

like this kind better."

"If you won't make them take you to the garden," pleaded Mary,

"perhaps--I feel almost sure I can find out how to get in sometime. And

then--if the doctor wants you to go out in your chair, and if you can

always do what you want to do, perhaps--perhaps we might find some boy

who would push you, and we could go alone and it would always be a

secret garden."

"I should--like--that," he said very slowly, his eyes looking dreamy. "I

should like that. I should not mind fresh air in a secret garden."

Mary began to recover her breath and feel safer because the idea of

keeping the secret seemed to please him. She felt almost sure that if

she kept on talking and could make him see the garden in his mind as she

had seen it he would like it so much that he could not bear to think

that everybody might tramp into it when they chose.

"I'll tell you what I _think_ it would be like, if we could go into it,"

she said. "It has been shut up so long things have grown into a tangle

perhaps."

He lay quite still and listened while she went on talking about the

roses which _might_ have clambered from tree to tree and hung

down--about the many birds which _might_ have built their nests there

because it was so safe. And then she told him about the robin and Ben

Weatherstaff, and there was so much to tell about the robin and it was

so easy and safe to talk about it that she ceased to feel afraid. The

robin pleased him so much that he smiled until he looked almost

beautiful, and at first Mary had thought that he was even plainer than

herself, with his big eyes and heavy locks of hair.

"I did not know birds could be like that," he said. "But if you stay in

a room you never see things. What a lot of things you know. I feel as if

you had been inside that garden."

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 every one 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.