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For the next few days, Mary’s room was never without a visitor during her forced rehabilitation. Mrs. Edmonds sat by Mary’s bed and told her stories about Miss Edmonds’ childhood, and London, and many, many things, especially gardening. Mary became quite fond of Mrs. Edmonds, looking forward to their talks and listening intently to her advice. In turn, Mrs. Edmonds found great joy in taking care of a young girl again, and she marveled at Mary’s past and how she came to Misselthwaite Manor.
Colin brought his kitten, now named Pesty, to play with Mary’s kitten, Hetty. Colin thought Hetty was a poor name for a cat, and Mary insisted that Pesty, although fitting, was a silly name.
After the first day, the evenings were spent in Mary’s room, as Colin, Miss Edmonds, and Lord Craven gathered around the bed as Miss Edmonds finished reading Robinson Crusoe. On the fourth night of Mary’s recuperation, they finished the book and everyone smiled and sighed in contentment.
“We must pick another book now!” Colin declared.
“Indeed,” Miss Edmonds agreed as Lord Craven and Mary nodded. “What do you suggest?”
They all pondered a moment in silence.
“I know!” Mary exclaimed. “I shall fetch a book from the Forgotten Room!”
Miss Edmonds and Lord Craven looked at each other.
“I shall summon the doctor in the morning and if he agrees, you may get out of bed and spend a bit of time walking around the house,” Lord Craven decided. “With assistance, of course. Just in case.”
“I will assist her!” Colin volunteered, then realized what Mary had said. “What’s the ‘Forgotten Room’?”
Mary hesitated a moment, unsure if she really wanted Colin to see the Forgotten Room. Then she remembered how much more fun the Secret Garden was after she had told Dickon and then Colin about it. Mary smiled at her cousin.
“I’ll show you when the doctor says I can. It’s a surprise, like the Secret Garden was.”
Colin’s face lit up and he bounced with excitement. “When will the doctor be here tomorrow? Early?”
“He will be here as soon as he can,” Lord Craven chuckled. “Now off to bed with you. Mary must be rested and looking her best for the doctor tomorrow.”
The next morning, Colin waited anxiously as the doctor nodded and harrumphed, and nodded some more. Finally he sat back and smiled.
“Mary is looking better than I could have expected. She can get up for short periods for the next few days, and then longer periods as time progresses and if her recovery continues this well.”
Picking up his instrument case, the doctor smiled at everyone in the room and left. Colin began tugging on Mary’s sleeve.
“Will you show me the Secret Room now? Please?” he asked plaintively.
With a laugh, Mary got out of bed and looked around.
“I have to get stockings and shoes on first.”
“I have just the thing,” Mrs. Edmonds said from what had become her customary spot in a chair between the bed and the window. “I knitted them over the last two days, when I knew you would be needing something to get about the house in and keep the chill away.”
With gentle efficiency, Mrs. Edmonds slipped Mary’s feet into thick, soft booties that reached up to her knees. They were like heavy socks with extra padding on the toes and bottoms.
Mary wiggled her toes and smiled broadly at the older woman. “Thank you! They are wonderful!”
Mrs. Edmonds patted Mary’s head as the girl padded to the door, with Colin close at her elbow, watching her protectively. Mary smiled at him.
“Are you ready?”
“Me?” Colin asked surprised. “I’ve been ready for ages! I’ve just been waiting on you!”
The adults watched as the children whisked out of the room, laughter trailing behind them.
It was not long before Mary stopped before the tapestry hiding the door to the Forgotten Room. With a secretive smile, Mary pulled the cloth back and Colin clapped as the door appeared. Mary opened the door and stepped back to let Colin enter first.
Silently, Colin stepped slowly into the room and sighed.
“It’s so sad, so lonely,” Colin whispered.
“Not anymore,” Mary said.
After a tour, Colin and Mary spent the afternoon in the Forgotten Room, and picked a book for Miss Edmonds to read.
“Oh!” Colin exclaimed. “We have to get you back to your bed in time for the evening meal or it will be nothing but trouble for us!”
The children hurried back to Mary’s room and had her tucked into bed just in time for Martha to enter with a tray of tea and food.
“I brought enough for the both o’ you,” Martha said, setting out the dishes. “Thought as tha’ would want to eat together.”
“Thank you, Martha!” Mary and Colin said together, and sat down to eat.
After the meal, Mary was quite tired, unused to exertion after her long illness. Colin made sure she was snug in bed and was just leaving as Miss Edmonds and Mrs. Edmonds appeared through the door.
Mrs. Edmonds made her way across the room to Mary’s bedside, her cane tapping her approach.
“How did those stockings do for you?” she asked.
“Oh, they were perfect! I might never go back to shoes!” laughed Mary. “My feet were the warmest part of me.”
“Good!” nodded Mrs. Edmonds, in satisfaction. “I’ll set to work on some galoshes, then.” She winked at Mary and sat down in her usual place.
“I found a new book for us, Miss Edmonds,” Mary said, pointing to the table near the hearth where she had left it after Martha had taken away the dishes.
“Oh?” Miss Edmonds moved toward it, looking eager.
“Stop!” Mary ordered. “You can’t look at it until it’s time to read,” Mary ordered. “It’s a surprise for everyone, except Colin and me, since we chose it, of course.”
“I see,” Miss Edmonds replied. “Can you give me a hint, then?”
“I think you’ll like it. It has an enchanted castle, and fighting and treasure and lots of other things,” Mary replied, then yawned widely.
“I think it’s time we let our young lass here get some rest, Jane,” Mrs. Edmonds instructed, easing out of her chair and tapping her way to the door.
“Of course, Mother. She needs her rest,” Miss Edmonds agreed, winking at Mary behind her mother’s back as the women left.
As the weeks passed, Colin and Mary excelled at their lessons and watched their new pets grow. Pesty was often seen as an orange streak running down the hall with Colin in chase. Hetty grew into a stout, refined tabby cat. Mrs. Medlock said Colin deserved a naughty kitty after all those tantrums he had thrown as an ‘invalid.’ Every time Pesty would get into trouble, Mrs. Medlock would look annoyed yet smug at the same time. Mary, with the guidance of Miss Edmonds, taught Hetty to come when called and to sleep at night curled snugly by Mary’s legs.
“You just have to treat cats with respect,” Miss Edmonds instructed. “A cat has to feel important or it will simply ignore you.”
“Then what’s Pesty’s problem?” Mary asked with a giggle.
“I think I will leave that question be,” Miss Edmonds laughed. “Perhaps Mrs. Medlock is right and the universe is teaching young Master Colin a lesson in humility and patience.”
Summer came with bright promise and soft breezes. When not in lessons, the children, often with Miss Edmonds, her mother, and sometimes Lord Craven, spent many hours in the garden, watching the greens become greener, the flowers bloom brighter and then fade gently, and the birds and animals frolic and have families. Mary had not visited the Forgotten Room for quite some time when one morning she got up early to enjoy the early morning sunshine and found herself slipping behind the tapestry and into her special room. After reading a short while in the rocker, she was surprised by a knock at the door. As she got up and set the book in the seat, her uncle’s head appeared through the door.
“Uncle! Am I not supposed to be here?” Mary asked worriedly.
“You can be here any time you like,” he replied, entering the room. “I’m glad the room has company again.”
Mary sighed with relief.
“Miss Edmonds and I wanted to speak with you and Colin before lessons this morning.”
As they walked to the library, Mary noticed that her uncle did not stoop over quite as much as before. Mary hoped it was because things weighed less heavily on him than they did before.
“Colin told me about his mother’s diary,” Lord Craven said as they walked the halls toward the library.
“Are you angry with him? With us?” Mary asked, quietly.
“No,” Lord Craven responded, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I’m very pleased, in fact, that you told him to share it with me. That was very wise of you.”
“It took him a while. I guess he had to think about it and wanted to read it all by himself first,” Mary said, thoughtfully.
“He did it in his own time. That’s what he needed to do,” Lord Craven reassured her.
As Mary sat down next to Colin in the library, he leaned over and whispered, “Do you know what this is about?”
“No. Do you?” she whispered back.
“No,” he said, squirming anxiously in his seat.
The children noticed both Miss Edmonds and Lord Craven were nervous or worried about something. Perhaps they had not done well on their last exam and were to be scolded.
“Miss Edmonds and I wanted to speak to you both about something very important,” Lord Craven finally began, sitting stiffly at the edge of a chair, his fingers fiddling with the gold head of his cane.
“We wanted to tell you before anyone else,” he continued, taking a deep breath and pausing.
“What is it!” the children exclaimed together.
Lord Craven cleared his throat.
“Miss Edmonds and I are going to be married.”
Both children sat perfectly still for at least ten seconds, which for someone of their age is a very long time to sit without moving at all. Colin blinked rapidly, stunned. Mary almost forgot to breathe, then sucked in her breath all at once, letting it out in a long whoosh. Miss Edmonds anxiously watched the children for their reactions, worrying her hands in her skirts. Were they going to be angry? Would they be glad? They were certainly surprised, but that was to be expected.
Lord Craven waited, his breath caught, hoping the children would say something before he turned blue.
“Does that mean I’ll have a mother again?” Colin asked quietly.
“Yes!” Miss Edmonds responded with a rush of hope. “I would be delighted if you called me ‘Mother.’”
The next second Colin jumped up, flinging his arms around her.
“A mother!” he cried joyously. “A real mother who can tuck me in at night and go places with me and read to me, and everything!”
After releasing Miss Edmonds, Colin hugged his father who was blinking rapidly and smiling.
Suddenly, Miss Edmonds realized Mary had not spoken or moved, nor was she smiling.
“Are you all right, Mary?” Miss Edmonds asked.
“I. . . ,” Mary said, trying to find the right words.
“What is it, Mary? Go ahead, it’s all right,” Lord Craven encouraged in a soothing voice with Colin now draped happily over him, wondering what the issue was.
“I. . . I want a mother, too,” Mary said, nearly choking on the last word.
With a sob, Mary rushed from the room.
“Oh, dear!” Miss Edmonds whispered.
“The poor girl,” Archibald Craven sighed. “She always seems so strong, it’s easy to forget the wounds she must have.”
“But Mary will be part of our family, too, won’t she?” Colin asked, teetering from blissful joy to crushing worry. “She’s my family and my friend, and I won’t have any of it if she won’t be included,” Colin declared, slipping off his father’s lap.
“Of course!” Miss Edmonds agreed.
“Colin, she is more than your cousin,” Lord Craven said, holding his son’s hand tightly, “She is the girl who gave my son back to me and life back to Misselthwaite Manor.
“What should I do?” Miss Edmonds said, worrying her hands together.
“Go talk to her,” suggested a voice from the doorway.
Mrs. Edmonds tapped her way into the room and kindly observed her daughter. “If it is a mother you want to be, then be one,” she stated simply. “Go talk to her. Go hold her. Go and give her what she needs.”
“Yes,” Miss Edmonds said, nodding. “Yes, that is just what I should and will do.”
Quickly leaving the library, Miss Edmonds went to Mary’s room and knocked softly on the door. When no response was forthcoming, she knocked louder and cracked the door open to peek in.
Mary was lying on her bed, face buried in her pillow.
Mary? I need to speak with you,” Miss Edmonds said softly, slipping into the room. Hetty sat by Mary, blinking accusing yellow eyes as Miss Edmonds sat down on the edge of the bed.
“It’s not fair!” Mary cried into her pillow. “Colin had a mother who loved him and a father! I had parents who didn’t care if I lived or died. She didn’t even check on me when everyone was dying of the cholera. I could have died and no one would have cared, or even known. I should have died, because now I’ll have to go away, just when I love it here.”
Concerned, Hetty touched her arm with her paw. Miss Edmonds patted the cat and then smoothed Mary’s hair back from her face, which Mary buried deeper into her pillow.
“Why do you think you will have to leave?”
“Because now that Uncle and you are getting married, you will be a family with Colin, and I’ll just be in the way.”
“Nonsense,” Miss Edmonds replied. “It seems to me you are a very important part of this family and would be told so had you only asked.”
“I am?” Mary said, lifting her head and wiping her eyes with the back of a hand.
“You are. In fact, it seems to me you and Colin are as much like brother and sister than any I have seen, as close as you are,” Miss Edmonds stated.
“Who should I ask if I can stay?” Mary asked in a small voice.
“You don’t have to ask, Mary,” Colin said, stepping into the room from where he and his father had been listening with worry and concern in the hall. “You never have to ask if you can stay. I order it to be so!” he said in his best Rajah voice.
Mary blinked in surprise.
“You are very important to us, Mary,” Lord Craven added. “We are better for your arrival here and will be better still, I imagine, for your staying.”
“Can I call you Jane?” Mary asked, turning again to Miss Edmonds.
“Of course! You can call me ‘Mother’ if you like.”
Mary thought a moment. The only one she had ever called ‘mother’ had been a poor one, and the word held bad feelings for her, she discovered.
“I think I would like to call you Jane. I like that name and it suits you.”
“That works fine,” Colin interjected. “Then when I call her ‘Mother,’ she won’t be confused.”
Miss Edmonds and Lord Craven snickered and Mary smiled through a sniffle.
“What will I call your mother?” Mary asked, still a little confused with this instant family.
“You can ask her,” Miss Edmonds laughed.
“Grandmartha!” exclaimed a cheerful voice from the hall. “Like grandmother but better!”
“Oh, Mother!” Miss Edmonds said between chuckles.
