Chapter XVI. "I Won't!" said Mary

The Secret Garden

by Francis Hodgson Burnett

They found a great deal to do that morning and Mary was late in
returning to the house and was also in such a hurry to get back to
her work that she quite forgot Colin until the last moment.

"Tell Colin that I can't come and see him yet," she said to
Martha. "I'm very busy in the garden."

Martha looked rather frightened.

"Eh! Miss Mary," she said, "it may put him all out of humor when
I tell him that."

But Mary was not as afraid of him as other people were and she
was not a self-sacrificing person.

"I can't stay," she answered. "Dickon's waiting for me;" and
she ran away.

The afternoon was even lovelier and busier than the morning had
been. Already nearly all the weeds were cleared out of the garden
and most of the roses and trees had been pruned or dug about. Dickon
had brought a spade of his own and he had taught Mary to use all her
tools, so that by this time it was plain that though the lovely wild
place was not likely to become a "gardener's garden" it would be a
wilderness of growing things before the springtime was over.

"There'll be apple blossoms an' cherry blossoms overhead,"
Dickon said, working away with all his might. "An' there'll be peach
an' plum trees in bloom against th' walls, an' th' grass'll be a
carpet o' flowers."

The little fox and the rook were as happy and busy as they were,
and the robin and his mate flew backward and forward like tiny
streaks of lightning. Sometimes the rook flapped his black wings and
soared away over the tree-tops in the park. Each time he came back
and perched near Dickon and cawed several times as if he were
relating his adventures, and Dickon talked to him just as he had
talked to the robin. Once when Dickon was so busy that he did not
answer him at first, Soot flew on to his shoulders and gently tweaked
his ear with his large beak. When Mary wanted to rest a little
Dickon sat down with her under a tree and once he took his pipe out
of his pocket and played the soft strange little notes and two
squirrels appeared on the wall and looked and listened.

"Tha's a good bit stronger than tha' was," Dickon said, looking
at her as she was digging. "Tha's beginning to look different, for
sure."

Mary was glowing with exercise and good spirits.

"I'm getting fatter and fatter every day," she said quite
exultantly. "Mrs. Medlock will have to get me some bigger dresses.
Martha says my hair is growing thicker. It isn't so flat and
stringy."

The sun was beginning to set and sending deep gold-colored rays
slanting under the trees when they parted.

"It'll be fine tomorrow," said Dickon. "I'll be at work by
sunrise."

"So will I," said Mary.

She ran back to the house as quickly as her feet would carry
her. She wanted to tell Colin about Dickon's fox cub and the rook
and about what the springtime had been doing. She felt sure he would
like to hear. So it was not very pleasant when she opened the door
of her room, to see Martha standing waiting for her with a doleful
face.

"What is the matter?" she asked. "What did Colin say when you
told him I couldn't come?"

"Eh!" said Martha, "I wish tha'd gone. He was nigh goin' into
one o' his tantrums. There's been a nice to do all afternoon to keep
him quiet. He would watch the clock all th' time."

Mary's lips pinched themselves together. She was no more used
to considering other people than Colin was and she saw no reason why
an ill-tempered boy should interfere with the thing she liked best.
She knew nothing about the pitifulness of people who had been ill and
nervous and who did not know that they could control their tempers
and need not make other people ill and nervous, too. When she had had
a headache in India she had done her best to see that everybody else
also had a headache or something quite as bad. And she felt she was
quite right; but of course now she felt that Colin was quite
wrong.

He was not on his sofa when she went into his room. He was lying
flat on his back in bed and he did not turn his head toward her as
she came in. This was a bad beginning and Mary marched up to him
with her stiff manner.

"Why didn't you get up?" she said.

"I did get up this morning when I thought you were coming," he
answered, without looking at her. "I made them put me back in bed
this afternoon. My back ached and my head ached and I was tired.
Why didn't you come?" "I was working in the garden with Dickon," said
Mary.

Colin frowned and condescended to look at her.

"I won't let that boy come here if you go and stay with him
instead of coming to talk to me," he said.

Mary flew into a fine passion. She could fly into a passion
without making a noise. She just grew sour and obstinate and did not
care what happened.

"If you send Dickon away, I'll never come into this room again!"
she retorted.

"You'll have to if I want you," said Colin.

"I won't!" said Mary.

"I'll make you," said Colin. "They shall drag you in."

"Shall they, Mr. Rajah!" said Mary fiercely. "They may drag me
in but they can't make me talk when they get me here. I'll sit and
clench my teeth and never tell you one thing. I won't even look at
you. I'll stare at the floor!"

They were a nice agreeable pair as they glared at each other. If
they had been two little street boys they would have sprung at each
other and had a rough-and-tumble fight. As it was, they did the next
thing to it.

"You are a selfish thing!" cried Colin.

"What are you?" said Mary. "Selfish people always say that. Any
one is selfish who doesn't do what they want. You're more selfish
than I am. You're the most selfish boy I ever saw."

"I'm not!" snapped Colin. "I'm not as selfish as your fine
Dickon is! He keeps you playing in the dirt when he knows I am all by
myself. He's selfish, if you like!"

Mary's eyes flashed fire.

"He's nicer than any other boy that ever lived!" she said.
"He's--he's like an angel!" It might sound rather silly to say that
but she did not care.

"A nice angel!" Colin sneered ferociously. "He's a common
cottage boy off the moor!"

"He's better than a common Rajah!" retorted Mary. "He's a
thousand times better!"

Because she was the stronger of the two she was beginning to get
the better of him. The truth was that he had never had a fight with
any one like himself in his life and, upon the whole, it was rather
good for him, though neither he nor Mary knew anything about that. He
turned his head on his pillow and shut his eyes and a big tear was
squeezed out and ran down his cheek. He was beginning to feel
pathetic and sorry for himself--not for any one else.

"I'm not as selfish as you, because I'm always ill, and I'm sure
there is a lump coming on my back," he said. "And I am going to die
besides."

"You're not!" contradicted Mary unsympathetically.

He opened his eyes quite wide with indignation. He had never
heard such a thing said before. He was at once furious and slightly
pleased, if a person could be both at one time.

"I'm not?" he cried. "I am! You know I am! Everybody says
so."

"I don't believe it!" said Mary sourly. "You just say that to
make people sorry. I believe you're proud of it. I don't believe it!
If you were a nice boy it might be true--but you're too nasty!"

In spite of his invalid back Colin sat up in bed in quite a
healthy rage.

"Get out of the room!" he shouted and he caught hold of his
pillow and threw it at her. He was not strong enough to throw it far
and it only fell at her feet, but Mary's face looked as pinched as a
nutcracker.

"I'm going," she said. "And I won't come back!" She walked to
the door and when she reached it she turned round and spoke again.

"I was going to tell you all sorts of nice things," she said.
"Dickon brought his fox and his rook and I was going to tell you all
about them. Now I won't tell you a single thing!"

She marched out of the door and closed it behind her, and there
to her great astonishment she found the trained nurse standing as if
she had been listening and, more amazing still--she was laughing.
She was a big handsome young woman who ought not to have been a
trained nurse at all, as she could not bear invalids and she was
always making excuses to leave Colin to Martha or any one else who
would take her place. Mary had never liked her, and she simply stood
and gazed up at her as she stood giggling into her handkerchief..

"What are you laughing at?" she asked her.

"At you two young ones," said the nurse. "It's the best thing
that could happen to the sickly pampered thing to have some one to
stand up to him that's as spoiled as himself;" and she laughed into
her handkerchief again. "If he'd had a young vixen of a sister to
fight with it would have been the saving of him."

"Is he going to die?"

"I don't know and I don't care," said the nurse. "Hysterics and
temper are half what ails him."

"What are hysterics?" asked Mary.

"You'll find out if you work him into a tantrum after this--but
at any rate you've given him something to have hysterics about, and
I'm glad of it."

Mary went back to her room not feeling at all as she had felt
when she had come in from the garden. She was cross and disappointed
but not at all sorry for Colin. She had looked forward to telling him
a great many things and she had meant to try to make up her mind
whether it would be safe to trust him with the great secret. She had
been beginning to think it would be, but now she had changed her mind
entirely. She would never tell him and he could stay in his room and
never get any fresh air and die if he liked! It would serve him
right! She felt so sour and unrelenting that for a few minutes she
almost forgot about Dickon and the green veil creeping over the world
and the soft wind blowing down from the moor.

Martha was waiting for her and the trouble in her face had been
temporarily replaced by interest and curiosity. There was a wooden
box on the table and its cover had been removed and revealed that it
was full of neat packages.

"Mr. Craven sent it to you," said Martha. "It looks as if it
had picture-books in it."

Mary remembered what he had asked her the day she had gone to
his room. "Do you want anything--dolls--toys --books?" She opened
the package wondering if he had sent a doll, and also wondering what
she should do with it if he had. But he had not sent one. There were
several beautiful books such as Colin had, and two of them were about
gardens and were full of pictures. There were two or three games and
there was a beautiful little writing-case with a gold monogram on it
and a gold pen and inkstand.

Everything was so nice that her pleasure began to crowd her
anger out of her mind. She had not expected him to remember her at
all and her hard little heart grew quite warm.

"I can write better than I can print," she said, "and the first
thing I shall write with that pen will be a letter to tell him I am
much obliged."

If she had been friends with Colin she would have run to show
him her presents at once, and they would have looked at the pictures
and read some of the gardening books and perhaps tried playing the
games, and he would have enjoyed himself so much he would never once
have thought he was going to die or have put his hand on his spine to
see if there was a lump coming. He had a way of doing that which she
could not bear. It gave her an uncomfortable frightened feeling
because he always looked so frightened himself. He said that if he
felt even quite a little lump some day he should know his hunch had
begun to grow. Something he had heard Mrs. Medlock whispering to the
nurse had given him the idea and he had thought over it in secret
until it was quite firmly fixed in his mind. Mrs. Medlock had said
his father's back had begun to show its crookedness in that way when
he was a child. He had never told any one but Mary that most of his
"tantrums" as they called them grew out of his hysterical hidden
fear. Mary had been sorry for him when he had told her.

"He always began to think about it when he was cross or tired,"
she said to herself. "And he has been cross today. Perhaps--perhaps
he has been thinking about it all afternoon."

She stood still, looking down at the carpet and thinking.

"I said I would never go back again--" she hesitated, knitting
her brows--"but perhaps, just perhaps, I will go and see--if he wants
me--in the morning. Perhaps he'll try to throw his pillow at me
again, but--I think--I'll go."