By the time the first light of dawn crept around the curtains of her bedroom, Mary was almost sick with hunger and she would’ve eaten kedgeree without complaint. She crept to the window and looked out. Ben Weatherstaff was on his way to work, a broom over his shoulder, whistling a tune, but even though she waved and knocked on the window he didn’t look up and see her, a tiny figure in a huge expanse of grey stone walls and glittering windows. Old Ben didn’t hear as well as once he did. Was he going to tend to the Secret Garden? If only she could escape her bedroom, that was what she would want to do. Even her plan to write to her uncle had been spoilt – if Martha had been dismissed who could she ask to post a letter now? She and Colin were truly prisoners.
She heard the robin before she saw him; a sharp piping call from close by.
‘Robin? Is that you?’ She spoke as if the bird could hear her, and maybe he could. She looked all round and spotted him at last, perched on the ivy beside the window, singing away to her. ‘It is you! I’m sorry, I can’t give you any crumbs to eat, for I have none myself,’ she told the little bird. ‘I can’t come to the garden with you. I wish I could, more than anything, but I’m locked in.’
He hopped onto the window ledge beside her and tapped on the glass, almost as if he wanted her to open the window and climb out to him.
Open the window … and climb out to him!
She could do it. The robin was right. The ivy around her window was old, and the branches were thick. They would easily take the weight of a thin scrap of a girl like her. She could climb down and go to the Secret Garden, as long as she was back before anyone came to look for her. She should have a whole hour before the rest of the house was up and about. She opened the casement wide, and the cold wind almost took her breath away. A coat, she would need a coat! And shoes, too. Her green woollen coat would be the best one, she thought as she ran to her wardrobe and picked it out. It would make her harder to see. She found her old leather shoes, the ones upon which Miss Prosser had poured scorn. They might not suit a Christmas party but they were just right for a winter’s adventure.
She stood at the window and looked down. It was a long way to fall … but there was a cushion of lavender bushes below her window, and, she told herself firmly, she wasn’t going to fall. She sat on the windowsill and swung her legs out of the window. Taking a deep breath, she reached one foot down until she found a sturdy branch. She put her full weight on it, and the branch held. She tried another one, a few inches lower down, and from then on it was just like descending a ladder – a green, leafy ladder with a few spiders for company, but a ladder nonetheless. She could do it!
She reached the bottom without incident, and outside the house there was no-one to see her. Keeping to the hedge she ran towards the Secret Garden. There was the key, in its accustomed place behind the ivy, and she opened the door, closing it and locking it behind herself. If she was in the garden with the key, no-one else could get in, could they? She’d be safe there.
She wandered beside the dark fountain pool, the water still and iced around the edges, and she followed the path up through the rock garden where the little alpine flowers grew in the summer. It was empty of colour now. Under the trees, the boughs dripped with the mizzling rain that was falling. It was lovely to be outside but there wasn’t much gardening to be done right now. It felt like the garden was settling down for a long winter sleep and spring would be a long time coming. She found one of the last apples still hanging on the branches of the espaliered trees around the wall, and even though it had a few worm holes she ate it thankfully.
In the corner of the garden was a little stone summerhouse. Inside there were two benches, one down each wall, and two shuttered windows. She flung open the shutters so that she could sit inside in the dry and look out at the rain-sodden garden. For a long while she sat in silence, just drinking in the freedom of being back in her beloved garden, without Miss Crichton or Miss Prosser. There was a tiny fireplace at the far end of the summerhouse where they sometimes lit a fire to boil a kettle or heat some soup for their lunch. Perhaps if she came again she could bring some coal and get a little fire going.
And that’s when she had the idea.
The ivy that clad the East Wing of Misselthwaite Manor also grew outside Colin’s room, and if she could climb out of the window, so could he. They could leave at night, when everyone believed they were asleep in their beds and they could hide away here. If the garden was locked, nobody would know they were there – nobody except perhaps old Ben, and he’d never betray them. Now she knew she could get out of her room, first thing tomorrow she could run to the Sowerby’s cottage with a letter to her uncle and ask them to post it in the village for her. She could be there and back before anybody missed her if she was awake early enough. Then as soon as he read the letter and heard what was going on in his absence, her uncle would come home.
She and Colin could live in the Secret Garden until he came.
Liz Taylorson 