What happens in Chapter 5 of The Secret Garden?
Chapter Five begins with Mary Lennox wide awake at Misselthwaite Manor, troubled by the wind howling across the moors. She can't shake off a sound—a thin, distant crying that seems to weave through the walls of the grand house. When she asks Martha about it the next morning, the housemaid brushes it off, claiming it was just the wind. Mary, observant and stubborn even in her solitude, refuses to buy that explanation. Later that night, the crying starts again, and this time Mary decides to follow it. She quietly leaves her room and navigates the dark, tapestry-lined corridors, letting the sound guide her until she opens a door and finds a boy lying in a beautifully carved bed—Archibald Craven's son, Colin. He looks pale and irritable, convinced he will die young. The two children eye each other with mutual suspicion and a hint of startled recognition: both are lonely and have been treated more like problems than people. By the end of the chapter, they find themselves talking—hesitantly and cautiously—and the encounter feels not so much like a meeting as a collision of two isolated worlds.
Analysis
Burnett crafts this chapter as a Gothic revelation that she then subtly unravels. The dim corridor, the ornate walls, the mysterious crying—all the elements of a ghost story come together, only to reveal that the "ghost" is actually a living child, just as neglected and melodramatic as Mary. The structural parallel is clear: just as Mary was portrayed in the opening chapters as unpleasant and ignored, Colin is introduced with the same language of inconvenience. Burnett uses this reflection to imply that cruelty stems from systemic issues rather than individual actions; both children are shaped by the absence of adults in their lives.
The theme of the hidden room resonates with the novel's key symbol—the locked garden—and Burnett makes this connection clear through their shared isolation. Colin's bedroom, much like the garden, has been shut off from everyday life, turning it into a space of stunted growth. His belief that he will develop a hump and die young isn't just hypochondria; it logically follows from being implicitly told that he is a burden.
In terms of tone, Burnett shifts gears mid-chapter: the Gothic suspense transitions to a drier, almost humorous exchange as the two children air their grievances. The dialogue is sharp, competitive, and strangely tender. Mary's straightforwardness—her defining characteristic—serves as an unintended act of kindness; she interacts with Colin as if he is just another person, which, the text suggests, is something almost no one else does. The chapter concludes not with a resolution but with the delicate, tentative decision of two individuals to trust each other, even if only temporarily.
Key quotes from Chapter 5
“"I heard someone crying—there is someone crying in this house."”
Mary confronts Martha the morning after first hearing the sound, refusing the housekeeper's evasion about the wind.
“"I am Colin Craven. Who are you?"”
Colin's first words to Mary when she pushes open the door of his hidden room, establishing the mutual strangeness of the encounter.
“"Nobody thought I would live, but I am going to die. Ever since I remember anything I have heard people say I should not live."”
Colin explains his self-conception to Mary, revealing how thoroughly the adults around him have shaped his sense of his own body as a site of doom.
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