It was two days since Mary had been allowed to see her cousin, while Miss Prosser gave her lessons in deportment in the Long Gallery. It wasn’t going well.

‘Stand still! Straight back! Pointed toes! And glide … glide … No, not like that!’ wailed Miss Prosser.

The Long Gallery ran along the whole of the central wing of Misselthwaite Manor, above the castellated front door which was firmly closed against the December wind besieging the Manor. It roared down the chimneys, blasted out of the huge marble fireplaces, and loosed a scattering of sharp raindrops against the window panes. 

Inside the Long Gallery was hung with a phalanx of family portraits, all of them seeming to glare at Mary as she paraded up and down. They constantly upbraided her for her lack of elegance. Stand still! commanded the bearded Cavalier gentleman above the fireplace as she passed him. Straight back! muttered his wife from her gilded frame opposite. Pointed toes! tutted a rather plain-faced lady in a voluminous pink silk skirt, beneath which peeped the neatest, most beautifully pointed, pink-satin-slippered feet Mary had ever seen. Glide … glide … glide … whispered a ballerina in acres of tulle at the far end of the gallery between the windows. But Mary had done enough gliding for one day, and she stomped instead.

‘I want to see Colin!’ she demanded.

‘That’s no way for a lady to speak. You need better manners. When you can ask nicely, then you can see your cousin. He’s terribly busy today. Miss Crichton is working on his deportment, as it seems he has never been taught proper posture. Shocking.’

‘He was an invalid for years,’ Mary said. ‘It’s a miracle he has any posture at all. Until I came, all he could do was lie in bed and moan like a ghost. It’s only thanks to the garden – and the Magic – that he can do anything at all!’

‘Magic? Aren’t you too old for fairy tales?’ Miss Prosser sneered.

‘Never!’ Mary protested, fervently. ‘I’ll never be too old. The Magic isn’t something for children, it’s something for everyone who needs it. It’s ancient and deep and it thrives in the fresh air and the dark soil. It comes with the spring breezes and the daffy-down-dillies. It comes with the robins and the blossom on the apple boughs. It brought the garden back to life – and Colin, too.’

‘Well, don’t you have some imagination!’ Miss Prosser looked at her strangely. Her voice wasn’t quite so cross any more.

Mary took her opportunity. ‘Miss Prosser, please would you be so kind as to let me see my cousin today?’

‘Well …’ Miss Prosser looked at her with a kinder gaze than usual. ‘Seeing as you asked so nicely, I’ll see what I can do. My goodness, magic that comes with the robins and the blossoms. Whatever next!’

---

Miss Crichton stood guard outside Colin’s door, the brass buttons on her bodice gleaming like a soldier’s coat in the light of the gas lamp that lit the corridor on the darkest of winter afternoons. ‘I thought our agreement was that they should be kept apart, Etheldreda?’

Mary tried not to giggle at the unexpected revelation of Miss Prosser’s first name.

‘She asked so nicely, Marina. I thought it would make a nice reward for good behaviour.’

‘Oh, you did, did you?’ Miss Crichton towered over Miss Prosser, who seemed to diminish and quiver before the taller figure of the governess.

‘I thought … as she had tried so hard …’

‘You thought? What business have you to be thinking of anything at all? You’re just a lady’s maid, it is not your position to think!’

‘Mary? Mary is that you?’ She heard Colin’s voice from inside the room, and while the two women continued to argue, Mary slipped unnoticed into Colin’s room. A dreadful sight met her eyes. Colin, with a pale, pinched face, was seated in a wooden chair with a tiny seat and a high upright back. It had two straight arms, and Colin’s wrists were bound with leather straps so that he couldn’t move, but his eyes brightened at the sight of his cousin and he shook the restraints until the whole chair rattled.

‘What’s this?’ Mary demanded in a whisper. ‘What is she doing to you?’

‘Correcting my posture. It’s to make me sit up straight. But Mary, my back hurts so much …’ he winced as he spoke, and Mary felt anger, like a fountain, bubbling up inside her.

‘She can’t do this! She’ll make you ill again. This is wrong. Your father will be home soon. There are only ten days until Christmas Eve and he’ll be back then and we can tell him –’

She didn’t get time to finish, for Miss Crichton stormed into the room, trailing Miss Prosser in her wake. 

‘What are you doing in here, you nasty girl! You did not have my permission.’

‘I’m glad I came in here. I have seen what you are doing to Colin, and when my Uncle comes home I shall tell him exactly what kind of monster you are!’

‘Monster?’ said Miss Crichton, taking a step towards Mary, and seizing her by the wrist, but Mary did not tremble, for she wasn’t scared, not at all, for she was so angry that nothing could scare her now.

‘Yes, monster,’ Mary shook off her hand. ‘Colin isn’t strong. For so many years, everyone thought he would never be able to walk. This is … this is …’ Mary was so incensed that she the words swirled around inside her and she was unable to find the right ones to express herself clearly. ‘This is inhuman,’ she said, stamping her foot, ‘and I shall tell my uncle what you have done when he returns to Misselthwaite.’

‘When your uncle returns? And when exactly do you think that will be?’  Miss Crichton’s eyes glinted like the military buttons on her bodice.

‘He promised he’d be home for Christmas,’ Mary said. ‘That’s ten days from now.’

‘He promised he’d try,’ Colin reminded her sadly, as the light in his eyes, which her arrival had kindled, faded away.

‘Well, I have news for you. Your uncle is more than happy for me to remain in charge, and he will not be returning to Misselthwaite for a while yet. Not until the New Year – or even later.’

‘I don’t believe you!’ Mary said, but she saw the look in Colin’s eye. 

‘Father never comes home for Christmas,’ he said, quietly. ‘He always says that he’s coming, but he never does. He can’t bear to be here, where everything reminds him of Mama.’

When she had stepped through the door, Colin had been straining at his straps and kicking at the chair, but now he seemed to have accepted his fate. If the posture chair had allowed them to, his shoulders would have slumped in defeat.

‘Now, Miss Mary, back to your room. You are not to come here again until you have my permission to do so.’ Miss Chrichton glared at Miss Prosser who quailed. ‘Until I feel you can be trusted not to wander, if you are not supervised you shall be locked in your room at all times. And we must alter your diet to cure that rebellious spirit of yours. No more red meat, no more cakes and sweet things, for they inflame the blood. Bread and broth and water to drink. That’s the way to curb a rebel. Solitude for reflection and a plain diet to calm the agitation of your spirit. That’s what the pair of you need until you can be subdued. Now take her away!’

‘You can’t –’ Mary began to protest, but Miss Prosser, surprisingly strong for one so insubstantial, had taken her by the arm, and was already manoeuvring her back down the corridor towards her own room in the far wing of the Manor. ‘Colin!’ she cried out. 

All the way down the corridor, she could hear him shouting, ‘No! Let her come back. I command you, Crichton, let her come back. I will be master of this house one day and I command you to –’

And then Mary heard a short, sharp, slap, and Colin was silent.

By Liz Taylorson

‘Oh my goodness! Stand up straight! Fold your hands carefully and don’t let them hang like that. You must be more genteel, not lumbering about like some loutish fool of a gardener. Deary me, deary me.’ Miss Prosser, the new ladies’ maid, was a short, wispy, lisping woman, who looked as though the first gust of winter wind would blow her clean away over the hills.

‘I have spoken to plenty of gardeners, and none of them have been loutish fools,’ Mary said. In the grate the fire sparked and crackled, and Mary’s voice did too.

‘You have been talking to the gardeners? Goodness me, it seems I have arrived not a moment too soon!’ Miss Prosser raised her hands and eyes to heaven, a picture of martyred womanhood, and Mary frowned. She was not fond of her new maid; she found her silly.

Miss Crichton was very fond of Miss Prosser; the two of them were constantly whispering in corners, casting spiteful glances over their shoulders towards Mary and Colin, and then out would come another set of instructions and strictures that well-mannered young ladies and gentlemen should always obey. The implication, which Mary could not fail to miss, was that she was not well mannered. Well, she didn’t want to be. Her Mama and Papa had been thought well-mannered, with their white gloves and always the correct knives and forks for dinner, but behind those manners they were hollow, and had left her alone in that fine, genteel bungalow in the heat of India. Martha and Dickon’s mother, Mrs. Sowerby, would not be considered well-mannered, because she lived in a cottage, baked her own bread and swept her own floors, but she was the pleasantest woman of Mary’s acquaintance, and she cared about everyone. So, as far as she was concerned, being ‘well mannered’ was nothing to be proud of. 

‘I don’t care,’ she said, ‘about being elegant or a young lady. I’d rather be in the garden.’

‘Whatever will your uncle say?’ Miss Prosser said, whisking her hands in agitation like an overexcited fly against a window. ‘Miss Crichton has tasked me with making you presentable by the time he returns at Christmas! He won’t expect to come back and find you grubbing about outside in the soil.’

‘He will.’ Mary said, confidently. ‘He said I could have a piece of earth for myself. He wants me to learn about growing things. Not being presentable.’

‘But what about your Mama? Your dear, angel Mama in Heaven? What would she say to hear you talk like that?’ Miss Prosser’s voice quavered with melodrama, but Mary was having none of it today. Miss Prosser knew nothing of her mama.

‘She never went out of her way to talk to me when she was alive. Why should she care what I say or do now she’s dead?’ And Mary made the sourest expression possible, the one that she had learnt in India. Miss Prosser visibly flinched away from Mary. 

‘Well. Well, bless my soul, how … how disagreeable … But wouldn’t you like to look pretty for the Christmas festivities? You’ll need to know how to present yourself if you’re to catch a rich husband.’ 

‘I don’t want to catch any husband at all. I’m only eleven years old,’ said Mary.

‘It’s never too early to learn. That’s why I’m here, to curb your worst tendencies towards independence. Independent girls become bluestocking women, and nobody likes a clever woman! First, we need to curl that dreadful hair of yours so it hangs in pretty ringlets and –’

‘I like my hair straight,’ Mary interrupted her. ‘It’s more practical. Girls at my mother’s parties in India had ringlets and they looked like poodles.’ 

‘Well, nevertheless, I have my orders. Your hair shall be curled. Sit down, Miss Mary. Or shall I report you to Miss Crichton for bad behaviour?’

Mary thought of what other punishments Miss Crichton might choose to inflict upon herself – or Martha – if she didn’t do as she was told, and with a huge, heavy sigh, she sat down in the straight-backed wooden chair that Miss Prosser had pulled out for her to sit in. 

Curling her hair took a very long time, and involved heating metal curling tongs until the slightest touch from them burned her neck. It quickly taught her to sit still and not to fidget. Whether this was Miss Prosser’s intention or not, after the first few little accidents Mary sat rigid and unmoving. At the end of the process, her curled hair made her look and feel like a little china doll, not a girl at all, unable to move freely or turn her head for fear of disturbing her curls.

‘There! Pretty as a picture, just as your uncle would want. Won’t he be surprised to see how nice you can look when he comes home? And we shall find you some proper white kidskin boots, not those great clodhopping leather things, and some silk stockings instead of those woollen monstrosities that Medlock insists on you wearing. You can tell that she has never had cause to dress a young lady for a party season in town!’

‘But my clothes are comfortable. And they allow me to go outside! I don’t care about party seasons in town, only the seasons of nature in the Secret Garden.’

‘There’ll be no more of that! No gardens for you, secret or not. You’ll be a proper young lady by Christmas, not some dreadful hoyden from the moors, like Martha.’

‘I’d much rather be a hoyden from the moors, like Martha, than anything else on earth!’ Mary said.

By Liz Taylorson

The Secret Garden remained unvisited, and the robin wondered what had become of the children he used to see so often. The rain poured down. Mary looked sadly out of the stone mullioned window in her bedroom. Through the thick, watery diamonds of glass, the gardens lay spread out before her, the rainfall soaking the lawns and the paths so that puddles lay everywhere. Dickon reckoned there was magic in winter, but Mary couldn’t see it today.

She talked to her reflection in the window. There was no-one else to speak to – Martha was being kept hard at work and Colin was still getting dressed in his own room, for today was Sunday and they had to look their best for church. 

‘I don’t believe,’ Mary said to herself, ‘that things will ever be bright again. Even though it will be Christmas soon, Colin thinks his father will not come home. If only we could tell him about Miss Crichton he would come home and save us, I know he would.’ Her reflection was mute and answered never a word. ‘Or perhaps we shouldn’t wait to be saved. Perhaps we should save ourselves,’ she whispered to Mary-in-the-Window, and she thought she saw a spark of enthusiasm in the eyes of her reflection. 

Later that morning they were bustled into the coach for the drive over the moors to Thwaite church. They didn’t much want to go to church, but it did at least mean they were able to talk to each other without anyone overhearing. Colin had a plan.

‘I’ll pretend to be the ghost. I’ll hide in an empty bedroom, and I’ll cry. You knock on her door and tell her that you’ve heard something. She’ll be petrified! Women are easily scared by things like that. She’ll want to leave straight away.’ Colin grinned and rubbed his hands together like old Ben Weatherstaff did when he was pleased with himself.

‘I’m not so sure she’ll fall for it. Women aren’t as fragile as you seem to think, and she’s clever – and determined. What if she catches you?’ Mary said.

‘Then I’ll say I was sleepwalking.’

‘I don’t think it’s a good idea.’ Mary said. They were nearly at the church now, there wasn’t much time if she wanted to make him change his mind.

‘Then have you got a better one?’ He challenged her.

‘No.’ She shook her head. She didn’t yet, but she would have one if she thought hard.

---

‘Miss Crichton!’ Mary knocked on her governess’s door late that night. Miss Crichton didn’t sleep in the servants’ wing, she had a room to herself, one of the best bedrooms, no less. ‘Please wake up!’ Mary was small and pale in her billowing cotton nightgown. When she answered the door, Miss Crichton was wrapped in a grey woollen blanket, gaunt and stretched, her eyes blinking in the light from the guttering candle that Mary carried. 

‘Whatever is the matter!’ said the governess.

 ‘I heard something,’ said Mary. ‘Or someone. Someone crying.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Unless it’s your cousin, nobody is crying at this time of night. The servants are all in bed. It’s a cat, or an owl, perhaps, in the garden.’

‘It isn’t an owl or a cat,’ Mary protested. ‘I know what owls and cats sound like, and it can’t be Colin, for the sound is coming from entirely the other direction. It might be the ghost!’ She knew from the look on her face Miss Crichton wasn’t about to be fooled.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, child. There’s no such thing as a ghost. It’s your overactive imagination.’ 

‘It isn’t. Really, it isn’t!’ Mary protested. ‘Listen!’ She raised her candle, and in the silence that followed her words, sure enough, the sound of crying could be heard on the still night air. Mary saw several emotions flit across the face of her governess. Disbelief, followed by fear, followed by determination. 

‘Well, if there is a ghost, there’s only one thing to do. We must track it down!’  She spoke resolutely and pulled the blanket tightly around herself. She closed her bedroom door behind her, and set off down the corridor towards the sound. This wasn’t what they’d expected her to do. They’d hoped she’d lock herself in her room in fear.

Mary followed her down the corridor to the empty bedroom where Colin was hidden. Miss Crichton flung open the door. Inside, the only furniture was the frame of an old four-poster bed and there was nowhere for Colin to hide. Mary shot him a look which said I told you she wouldn’t be fooled, but she couldn’t speak to him.

‘There. You see? No ghosts. Just your naughty cousin. Now, Master Craven, pray tell me, what are you doing in an empty bedroom at midnight?’ Her voice was harsh.

Colin, who had been so bullish about the whole plan, trembled. 

‘I … I don’t know. I think I must have been … sleepwalking,’ he said.

She sniffed. ‘I see. Well, little boys who sleepwalk need to have their rooms secured at night. You’ve frightened your cousin and you’ve disturbed me. I think, from now on, we shall have to keep you locked in to stop something like this happening again. In fact, perhaps it would be for the best if both your bedroom doors were locked at night from now on. I shall speak to Medlock. Now back to bed, both of you!’

By Liz Taylorson

It was Saturday; the first Saturday in December, so there were to be no lessons today. Mary was woken by the sound of Martha drawing back the curtains. 

‘Martha?’ she asked, noticing the little table in the window where she would usually eat her breakfast was empty. ‘Where is my porridge?’

‘I’m to tell you,’ Martha turned to face her, ‘that when you’re up and doing, Miss, you’re to take breakfast in the dining room with Master Colin. I’m to wait on you there.’

‘But no-one takes meals in the dining room. It’s cold and Mr. Craven won’t eat in there.’

Martha shrugged miserably. ‘I only know what I’ve been told, Miss.’

The dining room was on the north side of the house and the sunlight didn’t often reach it, especially on a winter’s day like today when the sun would barely peep over the top of the moors. The floor-to-ceiling windows were grand but draughty, and the ice-blue walls decorated with ornate white plaster friezes made the room feel chilly even in summer. The long table was covered with a stiff white linen tablecloth, and at one end of the table was laid a place for Mary, at the other, one for Colin. 

‘We can’t even talk to each other. That won’t do! I shall sit at the head of the table, and I shall have Martha move your plates from the foot so that we can sit together.’ He turned to Martha who stood awkwardly inside the doorway. ‘Martha, move Miss Mary’s place so that it is beside mine. We wish to talk.’

Martha bobbed a curtsey and picked up the cutlery, just as Miss Crichton had swept into the room, and held up a hand to stop her.

‘What are you doing, Martha? It was my instruction that the table be laid properly, and so it will stay. The man at the head of the table, the woman at the foot. As it should be.’

Martha glanced at Colin, but she put the cutlery back in its place and stepped away from the table, giving a bob curtsey to Colin and another to Miss Crichton, as if she couldn’t decide who was deserving of greater respect – or whose anger she feared the most.

Miss Crichton turned to Colin and Mary. ‘Medlock tells me that you have a slovenly habit of eating meals in your bedrooms. From now on, all meals will be taken here in the dining room. Your father wishes you to be instructed like young gentlefolk, and young gentlemen and ladies do not eat from trays like invalids.’

Mary and Colin took their places, the huge expanse of starched, white linen between them like a snow-covered field.

‘What are we to eat?’ asked Mary. ‘Cook usually makes us porridge. My uncle says it is good for us, and builds us up.’

‘Your uncle is a man, and therefore knows little about such things,’ said Miss Crichton. ‘I have asked Cook to prepare you a breakfast of kedgeree today.’

‘Kedgeree?’ said Colin. ‘What’s that?’

Mary pulled a face. ‘It’s a nasty dish from India,’ she said. ‘My Ayah tried to make me eat it. It tastes of nothing but spices and salt. I despise it.’

‘Then I shall despise it too,’ Colin declared. ‘Martha, take away the kedgeree and bring us some porridge. It is what my father would want.’

‘Martha, you will do nothing of the kind!’ Miss Crichton snapped her fingers towards the poor, bemused servant who didn’t know whether to come or go, to fetch or carry. ‘You will eat the meals that I decree, and you will sit here in silence until you do.’

An hour and a half later, Mary and Colin were still sitting at the table, and Miss Crichton paced up and down along the length of the room. Poor Martha was still standing in her place, waiting for permission to leave that was not forthcoming.

‘We will not eat your breakfast,’ Colin said. ‘I think that much is clear. It is pointless to make Martha stand there any longer.’

‘Very well,’ Miss Crichton said. ‘Martha, clear away the food. You two may leave the table, but as you have refused a good breakfast, I don’t see why the servants should waste their time preparing more food that is not to be eaten. You shall go without luncheon.’

‘No lunch!’ Colin exclaimed. 

‘No lunch.’ Miss Crichton replied. ‘Now go!’

‘Come on Colin, let’s go outside for a walk around the garden,’ Mary suggested as they stood up from the high-backed rigid oak mahogany dining chairs and they stretched their cramped limbs. ‘I want to try and find the robin.’

‘Outside?’ Miss Crichton repeated. ‘I don’t think so. If you cannot obey a simple instruction to eat your breakfast, then I think some time to reflect on your behaviour is necessary. You will return to your rooms and the doors will be locked.’

‘But we have to go outside to our garden!’ Mary protested. ‘We’re supposed to have plenty of fresh air and exercise to keep us healthy.’

‘Fresh air? Exercise? I’ve never heard such nonsense. All that will happen if you go outside on such a dark, wet day is that the pair of you will catch colds and I will have a pair of ungrateful, ailing children on my hands. No, you shall go to your rooms, and there you will stay until I say otherwise. I shall tell Martha to lock both your doors.’

By Liz Taylorson