The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett

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"You needn't expect to see him, because ten to one you won't,"
said Mrs. Medlock. "And you mustn't expect that there
will be people to talk to you. You'll have to play
about and look after yourself. You'll be told what rooms
you can go into and what rooms you're to keep out of.
There's gardens enough. But when you're in the house
don't go wandering and poking about. Mr. Craven won't
have it."

"I shall not want to go poking about," said sour little
Mary and just as suddenly as she had begun to be rather
sorry for Mr. Archibald Craven she began to cease to be
sorry and to think he was unpleasant enough to deserve
all that had happened to him.

And she turned her face toward the streaming panes of the
window of the railway carriage and gazed out at the gray
rain-storm which looked as if it would go on forever and ever.
She watched it so long and steadily that the grayness
grew heavier and heavier before her eyes and she fell asleep.

CHAPTER III

ACROSS THE MOOR

She slept a long time, and when she awakened Mrs. Medlock
had bought a lunchbasket at one of the stations and they
had some chicken and cold beef and bread and butter and
some hot tea. The rain seemed to be streaming down more
heavily than ever and everybody in the station wore wet
and glistening waterproofs. The guard lighted the lamps
in the carriage, and Mrs. Medlock cheered up very much
over her tea and chicken and beef. She ate a great deal
and afterward fell asleep herself, and Mary sat and stared
at her and watched her fine bonnet slip on one side until she
herself fell asleep once more in the corner of the carriage,
lulled by the splashing of the rain against the windows.
It was quite dark when she awakened again. The train
had stopped at a station and Mrs. Medlock was shaking her.

"You have had a sleep!" she said. "It's time to open
your eyes! We're at Thwaite Station and we've got a long
drive before us."

Mary stood up and tried to keep her eyes open while
Mrs. Medlock collected her parcels. The little
girl did not offer to help her, because in India
native servants always picked up or carried things
and it seemed quite proper that other people should wait on one.

The station was a small one and nobody but themselves
seemed to be getting out of the train. The station-master
spoke to Mrs. Medlock in a rough, good-natured way,
pronouncing his words in a queer broad fashion which Mary
found out afterward was Yorkshire.

"I see tha's got back," he said. "An' tha's browt th'
young 'un with thee."

"Aye, that's her," answered Mrs. Medlock, speaking with
a Yorkshire accent herself and jerking her head over
her shoulder toward Mary. "How's thy Missus?"

"Well enow. Th' carriage is waitin' outside for thee."

A brougham stood on the road before the little
outside platform. Mary saw that it was a smart carriage
and that it was a smart footman who helped her in.
His long waterproof coat and the waterproof covering of his
hat were shining and dripping with rain as everything was,
the burly station-master included.

When he shut the door, mounted the box with the coachman,
and they drove off, the little girlfound herself seated
in a comfortably cushioned corner, but she was not inclined
to go to sleep again. She sat and looked out of the window,
curious to see something of the road over which she
was being driven to the queer place Mrs. Medlock had
spoken of. She was not at all a timid child and she was
not exactly frightened, but she felt that there was no
knowing what might happen in a house with a hundred rooms
nearly all shut up--a house standing on the edge of a moor.

"What is a moor?" she said suddenly to Mrs. Medlock.

"Look out of the window in about ten minutes and you'll see,"
the woman answered. "We've got to drive five miles across
Missel Moor before we get to the Manor. You won't see
much because it's a dark night, but you can see something."

Mary asked no more questions but waited in the darkness
of her corner, keeping her eyes on the window. The carriage
lamps cast rays of light a little distance ahead of them
and she caught glimpses of the things they passed.
After they had left the station they had driven through a
tiny village and she had seen whitewashed cottages and the
lights of a public house. Then they had passed a church
and a vicarage and a little shop-window or so in a cottage
with toys and sweets and odd things set our for sale.
Then they were on the highroad and she saw hedges and trees.
After that there seemed nothing different for a long
time--or at least it seemed a long time to her.

At last the horses began to go more slowly, as if they
were climbing up-hill, and presently there seemed to be
no more hedges and no more trees. She could see nothing,
in fact, but a dense darkness on either side. She leaned
forward and pressed her face against the window just
as the carriage gave a big jolt.

"Eh! We're on the moor now sure enough," said Mrs. Medlock.

The carriage lamps shed a yellow light on a rough-looking
road which seemed to be cut through bushes and low-growing
things which ended in the great expanse of dark apparently
spread out before and around them. A wind was rising
and making a singular, wild, low, rushing sound.

"It's--it's not the sea, is it?" said Mary, looking round
at her companion.

"No, not it," answered Mrs. Medlock. "Nor it isn't fields
nor mountains, it's just miles and miles and miles of wild
land that nothing grows on but heather and gorse and broom,
and nothing lives on but wild ponies and sheep."

"I feel as if it might be the sea, if there were water
on it," said Mary. "It sounds like the sea just now."

"That's the wind blowing through the bushes," Mrs. Medlock said.
"It's a wild, dreary enough place to my mind, though there's
plenty that likes it--particularly when the heather's in bloom."

On and on they drove through the darkness, and though
the rain stopped, the wind rushed by and whistled and made
strange sounds. The road went up and down, and several
times the carriage passed over a little bridge beneath
which water rushed very fast with a great deal of noise.
Mary felt as if the drive would never come to an end
and that the wide, bleak moor was a wide expanse of black
ocean through which she was passing on a strip of dry land.

"I don't like it," she said to herself. "I don't like it,"
and she pinched her thin lips more tightly together.

The horses were climbing up a hilly piece of road
when she first caught sight of a light. Mrs. Medlock
saw it as soon as she did and drew a long sigh of relief.

"Eh, I am glad to see that bit o' light twinkling,"
she exclaimed. "It's the light in the lodge window.
We shall get a good cup of tea after a bit, at all events."

It was "after a bit," as she said, for when the carriage
passed through the park gates there was still two miles
of avenue to drive through and the trees (which nearly
met overhead) made it seem as if they were driving
through a long dark vault.

They drove out of the vault into a clear space
and stopped before an immensely long but low-built
house which seemed to ramble round a stone court.
At first Mary thought that there were no lights at all
in the windows, but as she got out of the carriage
she saw that one room in a corner upstairs showed a dull glow.

The entrance door was a huge one made of massive, curiously
shaped panels of oak studded with big iron nails and bound
with great iron bars. It opened into an enormous hall,
which was so dimly lighted that the faces in the portraits
on the walls and the figures in the suits of armor
made Mary feel that she did not want to look at them.
As she stood on the stone floor she looked a very small,
odd little black figure, and she felt as small and lost
and odd as she looked.

A neat, thin old man stood near the manservant who opened
the door for them.

"You are to take her to her room," he said in a husky voice.
"He doesn't want to see her. He's going to London
in the morning."

"Very well, Mr. Pitcher," Mrs. Medlock answered.
"So long as I know what's expected of me, I can manage."

"What's expected of you, Mrs. Medlock," Mr. Pitcher said,
"is that you make sure that he's not disturbed and that he
doesn't see what he doesn't want to see."

And then Mary Lennox was led up a broad staircase
and down a long corridor and up a short flight
of steps and through another corridor and another,
until a door opened in a wall and she found herself
in a room with a fire in it and a supper on a table.

Mrs. Medlock said unceremoniously:

"Well, here you are! This room and the next are where you'll
live--and you must keep to them. Don't you forget that!"

It was in this way Mistress Mary arrived at Misselthwaite
Manor and she had perhaps never felt quite so contrary
in all her life.

CHAPTER IV

MARTHA

When she opened her eyes in the morning it was because
a young housemaid had come into her room to light
the fire and was kneeling on the hearth-rug raking
out the cinders noisily. Mary lay and watched her for
a few moments and then began to look about the room.
She had never seen a room at all like it and thought it
curious and gloomy. The walls were covered with tapestry
with a forest scene embroidered on it. There were
fantastically dressed people under the trees and in the
distance there was a glimpse of the turrets of a castle.
There were hunters and horses and dogs and ladies.
Mary felt as if she were in the forest with them.
Out of a deep window she could see a great climbing
stretch of land which seemed to have no trees on it,
and to look rather like an endless, dull, purplish sea.

"What is that?" she said, pointing out of the window.

Martha, the young housemaid, who had just risen to her feet,
looked and pointed also. "That there?" she said.

"Yes."

"That's th' moor," with a good-natured grin. "Does tha'
like it?"

"No," answered Mary. "I hate it."

"That's because tha'rt not used to it," Martha said,
going back to her hearth. "Tha' thinks it's too big an'
bare now. But tha' will like it."

"Do you?" inquired Mary.

"Aye, that I do," answered Martha, cheerfully polishing
away at the grate. "I just love it. It's none bare.
It's covered wi' growin' things as smells sweet.
It's fair lovely in spring an' summer when th' gorse an'
broom an' heather's in flower. It smells o' honey an'
there's such a lot o' fresh air--an' th' sky looks
so high an' th' bees an' skylarks makes such a nice
noise hummin' an' singin'. Eh! I wouldn't live away from th'
moor for anythin'."

Mary listened to her with a grave, puzzled expression.
The native servants she had been used to in India
were not in the least like this. They were obsequious
and servile and did not presume to talk to their masters
as if they were their equals. They made salaams and called
them "protector of the poor" and names of that sort.
Indian servants were commanded to do things, not asked.
It was not the custom to say "please" and "thank you"
and Mary had always slapped her Ayah in the face when she
was angry. She wondered a little what this girl would
do if one slapped her in the face. She was a round,
rosy, good-natured-looking creature, but she had a sturdy
way which made Mistress Mary wonder if she might not
even slap back--if the person who slapped her was only a
little girl.

"You are a strange servant," she said from her pillows,
rather haughtily.

Martha sat up on her heels, with her blackingbrush in her hand,
and laughed, without seeming the least out of temper.

"Eh! I know that," she said. "If there was a grand Missus
at Misselthwaite I should never have been even one of th'
under house-maids. I might have been let to be scullerymaid
but I'd never have been let upstairs. I'm too common an'
I talk too much Yorkshire. But this is a funny house for
all it's so grand. Seems like there's neither Master nor
Mistress except Mr. Pitcher an' Mrs. Medlock. Mr. Craven,
he won't be troubled about anythin' when he's here, an'
he's nearly always away. Mrs. Medlock gave me th'
place out o' kindness. She told me she could never have
done it if Misselthwaite had been like other big houses."
"Are you going to be my servant?" Mary asked, still in her
imperious little Indian way.

Martha began to rub her grate again.

"I'm Mrs. Medlock's servant," she said stoutly.
"An' she's Mr. Craven's--but I'm to do the housemaid's
work up here an' wait on you a bit. But you won't need
much waitin' on."

"Who is going to dress me?" demanded Mary.

Martha sat up on her heels again and stared. She spoke
in broad Yorkshire in her amazement.

"Canna' tha' dress thysen!" she said.

"What do you mean? I don't understand your language,"
said Mary.

"Eh! I forgot," Martha said. "Mrs. Medlock told me I'd
have to be careful or you wouldn't know what I was sayin'.
I mean can't you put on your own clothes?"

"No," answered Mary, quite indignantly. "I never did
in my life. My Ayah dressed me, of course."

"Well," said Martha, evidently not in the least aware
that she was impudent, "it's time tha' should learn.
Tha' cannot begin younger. It'll do thee good to wait
on thysen a bit. My mother always said she couldn't
see why grand people's children didn't turn out fair
fools--what with nurses an' bein' washed an' dressed an'
took out to walk as if they was puppies!"

"It is different in India," said Mistress Mary disdainfully.
She could scarcely stand this.

But Martha was not at all crushed.

"Eh! I can see it's different," she answered almost
sympathetically. "I dare say it's because there's such
a lot o' blacks there instead o' respectable white people.
When I heard you was comin' from India I thought you was a black too."

Mary sat up in bed furious.

"What!" she said. "What! You thought I was a native.
You--you daughter of a pig!"

Martha stared and looked hot.

"Who are you callin' names?" she said. "You needn't be
so vexed. That's not th' way for a young lady to talk.
I've nothin' against th' blacks. When you read about 'em
in tracts they're always very religious. You always read
as a black's a man an' a brother. I've never seen a black an'
I was fair pleased to think I was goin' to see one close.
When I come in to light your fire this mornin' I crep'
up to your bed an' pulled th' cover back careful to look
at you. An' there you was," disappointedly, "no more black
than me--for all you're so yeller."

Mary did not even try to control her rage and humiliation.
"You thought I was a native! You dared! You don't know
anything about natives! They are not people--they're servants
who must salaam to you. You know nothing about India.
You know nothing about anything!"

She was in such a rage and felt so helpless before the girl's
simple stare, and somehow she suddenly felt so horribly
lonely and far away from everything she understood
and which understood her, that she threw herself face
downward on the pillows and burst into passionate sobbing.
She sobbed so unrestrainedly that good-natured Yorkshire
Martha was a little frightened and quite sorry for her.
She went to the bed and bent over her.

"Eh! you mustn't cry like that there!" she begged.
"You mustn't for sure. I didn't know you'd be vexed.
I don't know anythin' about anythin'--just like you said.
I beg your pardon, Miss. Do stop cryin'."

There was something comforting and really friendly in her
queer Yorkshire speech and sturdy way which had a good effect
on Mary. She gradually ceased crying and became quiet.
Martha looked relieved.

"It's time for thee to get up now," she said.
"Mrs. Medlock said I was to carry tha' breakfast an'
tea an' dinner into th' room next to this. It's been
made into a nursery for thee. I'll help thee on with thy
clothes if tha'll get out o' bed. If th' buttons are at th'
back tha' cannot button them up tha'self."

When Mary at last decided to get up, the clothes Martha
took from the wardrobe were not the ones she had worn
when she arrived the night before with Mrs. Medlock.

"Those are not mine," she said. "Mine are black."

She looked the thick white wool coat and dress over,
and added with cool approval:

"Those are nicer than mine."

"These are th' ones tha' must put on," Martha answered.
"Mr. Craven ordered Mrs. Medlock to get 'em in London.
He said `I won't have a child dressed in black wanderin'
about like a lost soul,' he said. `It'd make the place
sadder than it is. Put color on her.' Mother she said she
knew what he meant. Mother always knows what a body means.
She doesn't hold with black hersel'."

"I hate black things," said Mary.

The dressing process was one which taught them both something.
Martha had "buttoned up" her little sisters and brothers but she
had never seen a child who stood still and waited for another
person to do things for her as if she had neither hands nor feet of her own.

"Why doesn't tha' put on tha' own shoes?" she said
when Mary quietly held out her foot.

"My Ayah did it," answered Mary, staring. "It was the custom."

She said that very often--"It was the custom." The native
servants were always saying it. If one told them to do
a thing their ancestors had not done for a thousand years
they gazed at one mildly and said, "It is not the custom"
and one knew that was the end of the matter.

It had not been the custom that Mistress Mary should
do anything but stand and allow herself to be dressed
like a doll, but before she was ready for breakfast she
began to suspect that her life at Misselthwaite Manor
would end by teaching her a number of things quite
new to her--things such as putting on her own shoes
and stockings, and picking up things she let fall.
If Martha had been a well-trained fine young lady's maid
she would have been more subservient and respectful and
would have known that it was her business to brush hair,
and button boots, and pick things up and lay them away.
She was, however, only an untrained Yorkshire rustic
who had been brought up in a moorland cottage with a
swarm of little brothers and sisters who had never
dreamed of doing anything but waiting on themselves
and on the younger ones who were either babies in arms
or just learning to totter about and tumble over things.

If Mary Lennox had been a child who was ready to be amused
she would perhaps have laughed at Martha's readiness to talk,
but Mary only listened to her coldly and wondered at her
freedom of manner. At first she was not at all interested,
but gradually, as the girl rattled on in her good-tempered,
homely way, Mary began to notice what she was saying.

"Eh! you should see 'em all," she said. "There's twelve
of us an' my father only gets sixteen shilling a week. I can
tell you my mother's put to it to get porridge for 'em all.
They tumble about on th' moor an' play there all day an'
mother says th' air of th' moor fattens 'em. She says she
believes they eat th' grass same as th' wild ponies do.
Our Dickon, he's twelve years old and he's got a young pony
he calls his own."

"Where did he get it?" asked Mary.

"He found it on th' moor with its mother when it was
a little one an' he began to make friends with it an'
give it bits o' bread an' pluck young grass for it.
And it got to like him so it follows him about an'
it lets him get on its back. Dickon's a kind lad an'
animals likes him."

Mary had never possessed an animal pet of her own
and had always thought she should like one. So she
began to feel a slight interest in Dickon, and as she
had never before been interested in any one but herself,
it was the dawning of a healthy sentiment. When she went
into the room which had been made into a nursery for her,
she found that it was rather like the one she had slept in.
It was not a child's room, but a grown-up person's room,
with gloomy old pictures on the walls and heavy old
oak chairs. A table in the center was set with a good
substantial breakfast. But she had always had a very
small appetite, and she looked with something more than
indifference at the first plate Martha set before her.

"I don't want it," she said.

"Tha' doesn't want thy porridge!" Martha exclaimed incredulously.

"No."

"Tha' doesn't know how good it is. Put a bit o'
treacle on it or a bit o' sugar."

"I don't want it," repeated Mary.

"Eh!" said Martha. "I can't abide to see good victuals
go to waste. If our children was at this table they'd
clean it bare in five minutes."

"Why?" said Mary coldly. "Why!" echoed Martha. "Because they
scarce ever had their stomachs full in their lives.
They're as hungry as young hawks an' foxes."

"I don't know what it is to be hungry," said Mary,
with the indifference of ignorance.

Martha looked indignant.

"Well, it would do thee good to try it. I can see
that plain enough," she said outspokenly. "I've no
patience with folk as sits an' just stares at good
bread an' meat. My word! don't I wish Dickon and Phil an'
Jane an' th' rest of 'em had what's here under their pinafores."

"Why don't you take it to them?" suggested Mary.

"It's not mine," answered Martha stoutly. "An' this
isn't my day out. I get my day out once a month same
as th' rest. Then I go home an' clean up for mother an'
give her a day's rest."

Mary drank some tea and ate a little toast and some marmalade.

"You wrap up warm an' run out an' play you," said Martha.
"It'll do you good and give you some stomach for your meat."

Mary went to the window. There were gardens and paths
and big trees, but everything looked dull and wintry.

"Out? Why should I go out on a day like this?" "Well, if tha'
doesn't go out tha'lt have to stay in, an' what has tha'
got to do?"

Mary glanced about her. There was nothing to do.
When Mrs. Medlock had prepared the nursery she had not
thought of amusement. Perhaps it would be better to go
and see what the gardens were like.

"Who will go with me?" she inquired.

Martha stared.

"You'll go by yourself," she answered. "You'll have to
learn to play like other children does when they haven't
got sisters and brothers. Our Dickon goes off on th'
moor by himself an' plays for hours. That's how he made
friends with th' pony. He's got sheep on th' moor that
knows him, an' birds as comes an' eats out of his hand.
However little there is to eat, he always saves a bit o'
his bread to coax his pets."

It was really this mention of Dickon which made Mary decide
to go out, though she was not aware of it. There would be,
birds outside though there would not be ponies or sheep.
They would be different from the birds in India and it
might amuse her to look at them.

Martha found her coat and hat for her and a pair of stout
little boots and she showed her her way downstairs.

"If tha' goes round that way tha'll come to th' gardens,"
she said, pointing to a gate in a wall of shrubbery.
"There's lots o' flowers in summer-time, but there's
nothin' bloomin' now." She seemed to hesitate a second
before she added, "One of th' gardens is locked up.
No one has been in it for ten years."

"Why?" asked Mary in spite of herself. Here was another
locked door added to the hundred in the strange house.

"Mr. Craven had it shut when his wife died so sudden.
He won't let no one go inside. It was her garden.
He locked th' door an' dug a hole and buried th' key.
There's Mrs. Medlock's bell ringing--I must run."

After she was gone Mary turned down the walk which led
to the door in the shrubbery. She could not help thinking
about the garden which no one had been into for ten years.
She wondered what it would look like and whether there
were any flowers still alive in it. When she had passed
through the shrubbery gate she found herself in great gardens,
with wide lawns and winding walks with clipped borders.
There were trees, and flower-beds, and evergreens clipped
into strange shapes, and a large pool with an old gray
fountain in its midst. But the flower-beds were bare
and wintry and the fountain was not playing. This was not
the garden which was shut up. How could a garden be shut
up? You could always walk into a garden.

She was just thinking this when she saw that, at the end
of the path she was following, there seemed to be a
long wall, with ivy growing over it. She was not familiar
enough with England to know that she was coming upon the
kitchen-gardens where the vegetables and fruit were growing.
She went toward the wall and found that there was a green
door in the ivy, and that it stood open. This was
not the closed garden, evidently, and she could go into it.

She went through the door and found that it was a garden
with walls all round it and that it was only one of several
walled gardens which seemed to open into one another.
She saw another open green door, revealing bushes and
pathways between beds containing winter vegetables.
Fruit-trees were trained flat against the wall,
and over some of the beds there were glass frames.
The place was bare and ugly enough, Mary thought, as she
stood and stared about her. It might be nicer in summer
when things were green, but there was nothing pretty about
it now.

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