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Never come sooner than Mary thought. In the middle of the night, she was awoken by Martha shaking her arm. ‘Miss Mary, Miss Mary, come quick!’ she begged.
‘What is it?’ Mary asked. She sat up and rubber her eyes.
‘It’s Master Colin. He’s behaving hysterics!’
‘What are hysterics?’
‘They’re like a paddy only twenty times worse! Like that when the gardener’s lad stared at him. Oh, come quick, Miss Mary. Nurse thinks you’re the only one who can get through to him. Even Mrs. Medlock thinks so! He’s set off one of his fevers otherwise and it might kill him!’
Now she was fully awake. Mary could hear Colin’s screaming. It was different from before – higher and louder and more urgent. The sound set her teeth on edge. She put her hands over her ears, but it didn’t stop the noise from getting through. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ she snapped, tugging on her shawl and following Martha down the cold corridor.
The nurse looked at Mary with pure relief when she arrived. ‘Oh, Miss Mary! Can you please talk to him? He’ll do himself harm if he keeps on like this’
Mary felt herself growing angrier and angrier. How dare this boy make everyone do what he wanted? Who did he think he was?
She strode up to the screaming boy and stamped her foot. ‘Colin Craven! Shut up this minute!’ she shouted.
Colin flung himself over so his face was buried in the pillow. He continued to wail and began banging his stick-like arms and legs.
‘Fine! Scream yourself to death for all I care!’ Mary fumed.
Behind her, someone gasped, but no one dared try and stop her.
‘You’re just a spoilt brat! There’s nothing wrong with you! Nothing!’
‘There is! I felt the lumps! I felt them!’
‘What lumps?’
‘On my back. I’m going to be a hunchback!’
‘Where?’ Mary asked. She climbed onto the bed and started prodding Colin’s back.
‘There!’ he said, and pointed to the back of his neck. ‘There are lumps all down there.’
Mary tutted out loud. ‘They’re not lumps, you silly thing! That’s just your backbone. Everybody’s got that. Yours just feels lumpy because you’re so thin!’
She got off the bed and Colin turned round. ‘Is that… is that true?’ he asked nurse.
‘Yes, Master Colin,’ the nurse nodded, ‘it is. I’m sorry. I… I didn’t know that’s what was bothering you. I would have said…’
‘Oh,’ he sniffed. He ran his fingers along the top of his back. ‘So I’m just like everyone else?’
‘Yes,’ the nurse agreed.
‘And will I live?’
‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t live to be as old as the hills,’ she told him.
The look of relief on the boy’s face was heartbreaking. ‘Oh,’ he said.
‘So can we all get some sleep now?’ Mary asked. Colin looked at her. He blinked the rest of his tears away. ‘Will you…will you stay a bit longer, Mary?’ He swallowed hard. ‘Please,’ he added.
Mary agreed. Her temper had gone now she saw that Colin had been really scared. ‘It’s all right,’ she said to Martha and the nurse and Mrs. Medlock, ‘you go. I’ll stay until he goes to sleep.’
The three of them shot her grateful looks and disappeared.
‘Tell me about the garden,’ Colin said. So Mary told him about the garden. About how it was turning from grey to green. About all the birds that felt it was a place so safe, they could build their nests there. About the buds beginning to show on the rose trees.
‘I can see it,’ Colin smiled, his voice sounding far way. ‘I can see it.’
