Фрэнсис-Элиза Ходжсон Бёрнетт
Таинственный сад / The secret garden

© Матвеев С. А.

© ООО «Издательство АСТ», 2021

Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Secret Garden

Chapter I
There is no one left

When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was a very disagreeable-looking child. It was true. She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow, and her face was yellow because she was born in India and was always ill.

Her father held a position under the English Government and was always busy and ill himself. Her mother was a great beauty who cared only to go to parties and amuse herself. She did not want a little girl at all[1]. When Mary was born she handed her over to the care of an Indian nurse. So when she was a sickly, fretful, ugly little baby she was kept out of the way[2]. And when she became a sickly, fretful, toddling girl she was kept out of the way also. She saw the dark faces of her nurse and the other native servants. They always obeyed her. So by the time the girl was six years old she was very tyrannical and selfish.

The young English governess who came to teach her to read and write disliked her so much that she left in three months. When other governesses came they always went away even sooner. So Mary learned letters herself.

One frightfully hot morning, when she was about nine years old, she awakened feeling very cross[3]. She became crosser when she saw that the servant who stood by her bedside was not her Ayah.

“Why did you come?” she said to the strange woman. “I will not let you stay. Send my Ayah to me.”

The woman looked frightened. She only stammered that the Ayah could not come. Mary kicked her. The servant looked only more frightened and repeated that it was not possible for the Ayah to come.

There was something mysterious in the air that morning. The servants hurried about with ashy and scared faces. But no one told the girl anything and her Ayah did not come. She was actually left alone. At last she wandered out into the garden and began to play by herself under a tree near the veranda. She was growing more and more angry. She was muttering to herself,

“Pig! Pig! Daughter of Pigs!” she said, because to call a native a pig is the worst insult of all.

She was grinding her teeth and saying this over and over again when she saw her mother. Her mother came out on the veranda with someone. She was with a fair young man and they stood talking together in low strange voices. Mary knew the fair young man who looked like a boy. He was a very young officer from England. The child stared at him, but she stared most at her mother. She always did this when she had a chance to see her. Her mother was a tall, slim, pretty person and wore lovely clothes. Her hair was like curly silk and she had a delicate little nose and large laughing eyes. All her clothes were thin and floating.

But this morning, her eyes were not laughing at all. They were large and scared and lifted imploringly to the fair boy officer’s face.

“Is it so very bad? Oh, is it?” she said.

“Awfully,” the young man answered in a trembling voice. “Awfully, Mrs. Lennox. Why didn’t you go to the hills?”

Mother wrung her hands.

“Oh, I know!” she cried. “I only stayed to go to that silly dinner party. What a fool I was!”

At that very moment a loud sound of wailing broke out from the servants’ quarters. The woman clutched the young man’s arm. The wailing grew wilder and wilder.

“What is it? What is it?” Mrs. Lennox gasped.

“Someone died,” answered the officer. “The epidemic broke out among your servants[4].”

“I did not know!” Mother cried. “Come with me! Come with me!” and she turned and ran into the house.

Soon Mary learned everything. The cholera has broken out and people were dying like flies. Her Ayah was ill, and then she died. That is why the servants were wailing. Before the next day three other servants were dead and others ran away in terror. There was panic on every side, and dying people in all the bungalows.

During the confusion and bewilderment of the second day Mary hid herself in the nursery. Everyone forgot her. Nobody thought of her, nobody came to her, and strange things happened of which she knew nothing. Mary cried and slept. She only knew that people were ill and that she heard mysterious and frightening sounds. Once she crept into the dining-room and found it empty. A partly finished meal was on the table. The child ate some fruit and biscuits. She was thirsty, so she drank a glass of wine. It was sweet, and she did not know how strong it was. Very soon it made her intensely drowsy. She went back to her nursery and shut herself in again. The wine made her sleepy. She lay down on her bed and knew nothing more for a long time.

Many things happened during the hours in which she slept so heavily, but she was not disturbed by the wails.

When she awakened she lay and stared at the wall. The house was perfectly still. She heard neither voices nor footsteps. Who will take care of her now? Ayah was dead. There will be a new nurse, and perhaps she will know some new stories. Mary was rather tired of the old ones. She did not cry because her nurse was dead. She was not an affectionate child and never cared much for anyone. The noise and wailing over the cholera frightened her, and she was angry because no one remembered that she was alive. Everyone was too panic-stricken to think of a little girl. No one loved her. When people have the cholera they remember nothing but themselves.

No one came. She lay waiting and the house was growing more and more silent. She heard something on the matting. When she looked down she saw a little snake. The snake was watching her with eyes like jewels. She was not frightened, because it was a harmless little thing. The snake slipped under the door as she watched it.

“How queer and quiet it is,” she said. “Is there anyone in the bungalow?”

Almost the next minute she heard footsteps in the compound, and then on the veranda. They were men’s footsteps, and the men entered the bungalow and talked in low voices. No one went to meet or speak to them. They opened doors and looked into rooms.

“What desolation!” she heard one voice say. “That pretty, pretty woman! I suppose the child, too. I heard there was a child, though no one ever saw her.”

Mary was standing in the middle of the nursery when they opened the door a few minutes later. She was frowning because she was hungry. The first man who came in was a large officer. He looked tired and troubled. When he saw her he was startled.

“Barney!” he cried out. “There is a child here! A child alone! In a place like this!”

“I am Mary Lennox,” the little girl said. She thought the man was very rude to call her father’s bungalow “a place like this”. “I fell asleep when everyone had the cholera. I have just wakened up. Why does nobody come?”

“It is the child no one ever saw!” exclaimed the man, turning to his companions.

“Why does nobody come?” Mary asked.

The young man whose name was Barney looked at her very sadly.

“Poor little kid!” he said. “There is nobody here.”

Mary found out that she had neither father nor mother left. They died in the night, and the servants left the house quickly. That was why the place was so quiet. It was true that there was no one in the bungalow but herself and the little snake.

Chapter II
Mistress Mary quite contrary

Mary knew very little of her mother. She did not miss her at all, in fact, she was a self-absorbed child.

They took her to the English clergyman’s house. She knew that she was not going to stay there long. She did not want to stay. The English clergyman was poor and he had five children. They wore shabby clothes and were always quarreling and snatching toys from each other. Mary hated their untidy bungalow and was very disagreeable to them. Nobody wanted to play with her.

Basil was a little boy with impudent blue eyes and a turned-up nose and Mary hated him. She was playing by herself under a tree. She was making heaps of earth and paths for a garden and Basil came and stood near to watch her. Suddenly he made a suggestion.

“Why don’t you put a heap of stones there?” he said. “There in the middle,” and he leaned over her to point.

“Go away!” cried Mary. “Go away!”

For a moment Basil looked angry, and then he began to tease. He was always teasing his sisters. He danced round and round her and made faces[5] and sang and laughed:

“Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And marigolds all in a row.”

He sang it until the other children heard and laughed, and sang “Mistress Mary, quite contrary”. After that they called her “Mistress Mary Quite Contrary” when they spoke of her to each other, and often when they spoke to her.

“They will send you home,” Basil said to her, “at the end of the week. And we’re glad of it.”

“I am glad of it, too,” answered Mary. “Where is home?”

“She doesn’t know where home is!” said Basil, with scorn. “It’s England, of course. Our grandmama lives there and our sister Mabel came to her last year. You are not going to your grandmama. You have none. You are going to your uncle. His name is Mr. Archibald Craven.”

“I don’t know anything about him,” snapped Mary.

“I know you don’t,” Basil answered. “You don’t know anything. Girls never do. I heard father and mother talking about him. He lives in a great, big, desolate old house in the country and no one goes near him. He’s a hunchback, and he’s horrid.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Mary; and she turned her back and stuck her fingers in her ears, because she did not want to listen any more.

Mrs. Crawford told her that night that she was going to sail away to England in a few days and go to her uncle, Mr. Archibald Craven, who lived at Misselthwaite Manor. Mary looked so stony and stubbornly uninterested that they did not know what to think about her. They tried to be kind to her, but she only turned her face away when Mrs. Crawford attempted to kiss her.

“She is such a plain child,” Mrs. Crawford said pityingly, afterward. “And her mother was such a pretty creature. She had a very pretty manner, too, and Mary has the most unattractive ways I ever saw in a child. The children call her ‘Mistress Mary Quite Contrary’. Though it’s naughty of them, I can understand it. Her mother scarcely ever looked at her. When her Ayah was dead, no one thought about the girl. The servants ran away and left her all alone in that deserted bungalow. Colonel McGrew said he was very surprised when he opened the door and found her in the middle of the room.”

Mary made the long voyage to England under the care of an officer’s wife, who was taking her children to leave them in a boarding-school[6]. She was rather glad to hand the child over to the woman whom Mr. Archibald Craven sent to meet her, in London. The woman was his housekeeper at Misselthwaite Manor, and her name was Mrs. Medlock. She was a stout woman, with very red cheeks and sharp black eyes. She wore a very purple dress, a black silk mantle and a black bonnet with purple velvet flowers which trembled when she moved her head. Mary did not like her at all, but as she very seldom liked people there was nothing remarkable in that.

“My God!” Mrs. Medlock said. “And we heard that her mother was a beauty.”

“Perhaps she will improve as she grows older,” the officer’s wife said. “Children alter so much.”

Mary was watching the passing buses and cabs, and people. She was very curious about her uncle and the place he lived in. What sort of a place was it, and what is he like? Why is he a hunchback?

Mary began to feel lonely and to think queer thoughts which were new to her. She wondered why she never belonged to anyone even when her father and mother were alive. Other children belonged to their fathers and mothers. She had servants, and food and clothes, but no one took any notice of her. She did not know that this was because she was a disagreeable child. But, of course, she did not know she was disagreeable. She often thought that other people were, but she did not know that she was so herself.

Mrs. Medlock had a comfortable, well paid place as housekeeper at Misselthwaite Manor. She never dared to ask a question.

“Captain Lennox and his wife died of the cholera,” Mr. Craven said. “Captain Lennox was my wife’s brother and I am their daughter’s guardian[7]. The child will be here. You must go to London and bring her here.”

So she packed her small trunk and made the journey.

Mary sat in her corner of the railway carriage and looked plain and fretful. She had nothing to read or to look at. She folded her thin little hands in her lap.

“I suppose I may tell you something about where you are going to,” Mrs. Medlock said. “Do you know anything about your uncle?”

“No,” said Mary.

“Never heard your father and mother talk about him?”

“No,” said Mary frowning. Her father and mother never talked to her about anything.

“Humph,” muttered Mrs. Medlock.

She did not say any more for a few moments and then she began again.

“I suppose I can tell you something-to prepare you. You are going to a queer place.”

Mary said nothing at all.

“It’s a grand big gloomy place, and Mr. Craven is proud of it. The house is six hundred years old. It’s on the edge of the moor. There are many rooms in it, though many rooms are locked. There are many pictures and fine old furniture and things in the manor. There is a big park round it and gardens and trees.” She paused. “But there is nothing else,” she ended suddenly.

Mary listened to her. It was so unlike India.

“Well,” said Mrs. Medlock. “What do you think of it?”

“Nothing,” the girl answered. “I know nothing about such places.”

Mrs. Medlock laughed.

“Eh!” she said, “you are like an old woman. Don’t you care?[8]”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Mary, “whether I care or not.”

“You are right,” said Mrs. Medlock. “It doesn’t. Why will he keep you at Misselthwaite Manor? I don’t know. He’s not going to trouble himself about you, that’s certain.”

She paused.

“He’s got a crooked back,” she said. “He was a sour young man[9]. But then he was married.”

Mary’s eyes turned toward her. She was a little surprised. Mrs. Medlock saw this, and as she was a talkative woman she continued with more interest.

“She was a sweet, pretty girl. People said she married him for his money. But she didn’t-she didn’t. “When she died…”

“Oh! did she die!” Mary exclaimed. She remembered a French fairy story. It was about a poor hunchback and a beautiful princess.

“Yes, she died,” Mrs. Medlock answered. “And it made him queerer than ever. He cares about nobody. He doesn’t want to see people. Most of the time he goes away, and when he is at Misselthwaite he shuts himself up in the West Wing. Only Pitcher sees him. Pitcher is an old man, but he took care of him when he was a child and he knows him very well.”

It did not make Mary feel cheerful. A house with a hundred rooms, with their doors locked-a house on the edge of a moor-sounded dreary. A man with a crooked back who shut himself up also! She stared out of the window with her lips pinched together.

“Don’t expect to see him, because you won’t,” said Mrs. Medlock. “And you mustn’t expect that there will be people to talk to you. You’ll play about and look after yourself. They will tell you what rooms you can go into and what rooms you can’t. There are gardens nearby. But when you’re in the house don’t go wandering. Mr. Craven doesn’t like it.”

“I don’t want to go wandering,” said sour little Mary.

And she turned her face toward the window. Soon she fell asleep.

Chapter III
Across the moor

She slept a long time, and when she awakened Mrs. Medlock bought a lunchbasket at one of the stations. They had some chicken and cold beef and bread and butter and some hot tea. The rain was streaming down heavily 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. Mary sat and stared at her until she fell asleep once more in the corner of the carriage.

It was quite dark when she awakened again. The train stopped at a station and Mrs. Medlock was shaking her.

“It’s time to open your eyes!” she said. “We’re at Thwaite Station and we’ve got a long drive before us.”

Mary stood up 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.

The station was small. The station-master spoke to Mrs. Medlock, pronouncing his words in a queer fashion which Mary found out afterward was Yorkshire,

“The carriage is waiting outside for you.”

A brougham stood on the road before the little platform. Mary saw that it was a smart carriage and that it was a smart footman.

When he shut the door, mounted the box with the coachman, and they drove off, the little girl sat and looked out of the window. She was not at all a timid child and she was not frightened.

“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’ll 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. They passed a church and a vicarage and a little shop. Then they were on the highroad and she saw hedges and trees. At last the horses began to go more slowly. She could see nothing, in fact, but a dense darkness on either side.

“It’s not the sea, is it?” said Mary, looking round.

“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.”

On and on they drove through the darkness. The road went up and down.

“I don’t like it,” Mary said to herself. “I don’t like it at all.”

They drove out of the vault into a clear space and stopped before an immensely long house. The entrance door was a huge one made of massive panels of oak. It opened into an enormous hall with the portraits on the walls and the figures in the suits of armor.

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

“You will 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.

Then Mary Lennox went up a broad staircase and down a long corridor 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 stay here. Don’t forget that!”

Chapter IV
Martha

When Mary opened her eyes in the morning it was because a young housemaid came into her room to light the fire. She was raking out the cinders[10] noisily. Mary lay and watched her for a few moments and then began to look about the room. The room was 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 castle. There were hunters and horses and dogs and ladies.

Out of a deep window Mary saw a great stretch of land which had no trees on it, and looked rather like an endless, dull, purplish sea.

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

Martha, the young housemaid, looked and said,

“That’s the moor. Do you like it?”

“No,” answered Mary. “I hate it.”

“That’s because it’s too big and bare now. But you will like it.”

“Do you?” inquired Mary.

“Yes, I do,” answered Martha. “I just love it. It’s lovely in spring and summer.”

Mary listened to her with a grave, puzzled expression. The native servants in India were not like Martha. They were obsequious and servile. They called their masters “protector of the poor”. It was not the custom to say “please” and “thank you” and Mary always slapped her Ayah in the face[11] when she was angry.

This girl was round, rosy and good-natured.

“You are a strange servant,” she said from her pillows.

Martha sat up on her heels.

“Eh! I know that,” she said. “Mrs. Medlock gave me the place out of kindness[12].”

“Are you going to be my servant?” Mary asked.

“I’m Mrs. Medlock’s servant,” she said stoutly. “And she’s Mr. Craven’s. I’ll do some housemaid’s work up here and help you a bit. But you won’t need much.”

“Who is going to dress me?” demanded Mary.

Martha sat up on her heels again and stared. She was amazed.

“Can’t you dress yourself?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” said Mary.

“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, “it’s time you must learn.”

“It is different in India,” said Mistress Mary disdainfully.

“Eh! I can see it’s different,” Martha answered almost sympathetically. “When I heard you were coming from India I thought you were black.”

Mary was furious.

“What!” she said. “What! You thought… You-you daughter of a pig!”

“Who are you talking about?” asked Martha. “You needn’t be so vexed.”

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 just servants. You know nothing about India. You know nothing about anything!”

She was in such a rage and felt so helpless, that she threw herself face downward on the pillows and burst into passionate sobbing. Martha went to the bed and bent over her.

“Eh! You mustn’t cry like that!” she begged. “Yes, I don’t know anything about anything-just like you said. I beg your pardon, Miss. Do stop crying.”

There was something comforting and really friendly in her queer Yorkshire speech. Mary gradually ceased crying and became quiet. Martha looked relieved.

“It’s time for you to get up now,” she said. “Mrs. Medlock said to carry your breakfast and tea and dinner into the room next to this. I’ll help you with your clothes.”

When Mary at last decided to get up, the clothes Martha took from the wardrobe were not hers.

“Those are not mine,” she said. “Mine are black.”

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

“Those are nicer than mine.”

“Mr. Craven ordered Mrs. Medlock to get in London for you,” Martha answered. “He said he did not like black clothes.”

“I hate black things, too,” said Mary.

Martha helped to dress her little sisters and brothers but she never saw a child who stood still and waited for another person to do things for her.

“Why don’t you put on your own shoes?” she said when Mary quietly held out her foot.

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

“Eh! You did not see my family,” Martha said. “We are twelve, and my father only gets sixteen shilling a week. My mother cooks porridge for them all. They tumble about on the moor and play there all day. Our Dickon is twelve years old and he’s got a young pony.”

“Where did he get it?” asked Mary.

“He found it on the moor and he began to make friends with it and give it bits of bread and some grass. And it follows him everywhere. Dickon is a kind lad, animals like him.”

Mary did not have an animal pet of her own. So she began to feel a slight interest in Dickon. When she went into the next room, she found that it was a grown-up person’s room, with gloomy old pictures on the walls and heavy old oak chairs. There was a good substantial breakfast on the table in the center. But she always had a very small appetite.

“I don’t want it,” Mary said.

“You don’t want your porridge!” Martha exclaimed incredulously.

“No.”

“You don’t know how good it is.”

“I don’t want it,” repeated Mary.

“Eh!” said Martha. “If our children were at this table!”

“Why?” said Mary coldly.

“Why!” echoed Martha. “Because they are hungry as young hawks and foxes.”

“I don’t know what it is to be hungry,” said Mary.

Martha looked indignant.

“Well, try it.”

“Why don’t you take that to your brothers?” suggested Mary.

“It’s not mine,” answered Martha stoutly.

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

“Put on warm clothes and play outside,” said Martha. “It’ll do you good.”

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

“Who will go with me?” she inquired.

Martha stared.

“You’ll go alone,” she answered. “You’ll learn to play like other children do when they haven’t got sisters and brothers. Our Dickon goes off on the moor by himself and plays for hours. That’s how he made friends with the pony. He’s got sheep on the moor that knows him, and birds.”

Mary decided to go out.

“If you go round that way you’ll come to the gardens,” Martha said, pointing to a gate in a wall of shrubbery. “There are a lot of flowers in summer-time in that place. But one of the gardens is locked up. No one goes there.”

“Why?” asked Mary.

“Mr. Craven shut it when his wife died so suddenly. He didn’t let anyone go inside. It was her garden. He locked the door and dug a hole and buried the key. Oh! There’s Mrs. Medlock’s bell ringing-I must run.”

After she was gone Mary turned down the walk[13] which led to the door in the shrubbery. She was thinking about the secret garden. She wondered what it looked like and whether there were any flowers still alive in it. When she passed through the shrubbery gate she found herself in great gardens, with wide lawns and winding walks with borders. There were trees, and flower-beds, and evergreens, 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.

She went toward the wall and found that there was a green door in the ivy. This was not the closed garden, evidently. 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. She saw another open green door, revealing bushes and pathways. The place was bare and ugly enough, Mary thought.

Presently an old man with a spade over his shoulder walked through the door leading from the second garden. He saw Mary, and then touched his cap. He had a surly old face. She was displeased with his garden.

“What is this place?” she asked.

“One of the kitchen-gardens,” he answered.

“What is that?” said Mary, pointing through the other green door.

“Another of them. There’s another on the other side of the wall and there is the orchard the other side of that.”

“Can I go in them?” asked Mary.

“If you like. But there is nothing to see there.”

Mary made no response. She went down the path and through the second green door. There she found more walls and winter vegetables and glass frames, but in the second wall there was another green door and it was not open. Perhaps it led into the secret garden. Mary went to the green door and turned the handle. The door opened quite easily and she walked through it and found herself in an orchard. She saw a bird with a bright red breast sitting on the branch. Suddenly the bird sang its winter song.

She stopped and listened to the bird and somehow its cheerful, friendly little whistle gave her a pleased feeling. Even a disagreeable little girl may be lonely. She was desolate, and the bright-breasted little bird looked into her sour little face which was almost a smile. She listened to it until it flew away. It was not like an Indian bird and she liked it. Perhaps it lived in the mysterious garden and knew all about it.

Mary was curious about it and wanted to see what it was like. Why did Mr. Archibald Craven bury the key? If he liked his wife so much why does he hate her garden?

“People never like me and I never like people,” she thought. “And I can never talk as the Crawford children can. They are always talking and laughing and making noises.”

She walked back into the first kitchen-garden and found the old man digging there. She went and stood beside him and watched him.

“I visited the other gardens,” she said.

“So what?” he asked crustily.

“I went into the orchard.”

“There was no dog at the door to bite you,” he answered.

“There was no door there into the other garden,” said Mary.

“What garden?” he said in a rough voice.

“The one on the other side of the wall,” answered Mistress Mary. “There are trees there-I saw the tops of them. A bird with a red breast was sitting on one of them and singing.”

To her surprise the surly face actually changed its expression. A slow smile spread over it and the gardener looked quite different. It was curious how much nicer a person looked when he smiled.

He began to whistle. Almost the next moment a wonderful thing happened. The bird with the red breast flew to them, and alighted near to the gardener’s foot.

Mary went a step nearer to the robin and looked at it.

“I’m lonely,” she said.

The old gardener stared at her.

“Are you that little wench from India?” he asked.

Mary nodded.

He began to dig again.

“What is your name?” Mary inquired.

“Ben Weatherstaff,” he answered, and then he added with a surly chuckle, “I’m lonely myself except when he’s with me,” and he jerked his thumb toward the robin. “He’s the only friend I’ve got.”

“I have no friends at all,” said Mary. “I never had. My Ayah didn’t like me and I never played with anyone.”

Suddenly a little sound broke out near her and she turned round. The bird was singing.

“Will you make friends with me?” Mary said to the robin. “Will you?”

“Why,” Ben Weatherstaff cried out, “you are a real child instead of a sharp old woman. You talk like Dickon talks to his animals on the moor.”

“Do you know Dickon?” Mary asked.

“Everybody knows him. Dickon is wandering about everywhere. Blackberries and heather-bells know him. Foxes shows him where their cubs lie, skylarks don’t hide their nests from him.”

Chapter V
The cry in the corridor

Each day which passed by for Mary Lennox was exactly like the others. Every morning she awoke in her room and found Martha. Every morning she ate her breakfast in the nursery. After each breakfast she gazed out of the window across to the huge moor. Then she went out. She began to walk quickly or even run along the paths.

One day she woke up and was hungry. When she sat down to her breakfast she did not glance disdainfully at her porridge and push it away, but took up her spoon and began to eat it.

Then she went out. There was nothing else to do. She walked round and round the gardens and wandered about the paths in the park.

One place she went to oftener than to any other. It was the long walk outside the gardens with the walls round them. There were bare flower-beds on either side of it and against the walls ivy grew thickly. There was one part of the wall where the creeping dark green leaves were more bushy than elsewhere.

“Where is that secret garden?” she said to herself.

She ran up the walk to the green door. Then she ran down the path through the other door and then into the orchard.

She walked round and looked closely at the side of the orchard wall, but there was no door in it. Then she ran through the kitchen-gardens again and out into the walk outside the long ivy-covered wall. She walked to the end of it and looked at it, but there was no door; and then she walked to the other end, looking again, but there was no door.

“It’s very queer,” she said. “Ben Weatherstaff said there was no door and there is no door. But Mr. Craven buried the key.”

She stayed out of doors nearly all day, and when she sat down to her supper at night she felt hungry and drowsy and comfortable.

“Why did Mr. Craven hate the garden?” she asked Martha.

“Do you think about that garden?” said Martha.

“Why did he hate it?” Mary persisted.

“Mrs. Medlock says it’s not to be talked about[14]. There are lots of things in this place not to be talked over. That’s Mr. Craven’s order. Listen. It was Mrs. Craven’s garden and she loved it very much. They were planting flowers together. And nobody came into that garden. Mr. Craven and his wife shut the door and stayed there hours and hours, reading and talking. And there was an old tree with a branch. She liked to sit on that branch. But one day when she was sitting there, the branch broke and she fell on the ground and was hurt. Then she died. That’s why he hates it. No one goes there, and he doesn’t let anyone talk about it.”

Mary did not ask any more questions. She looked at the red fire and listened to the wind. But as she was listening to the wind she began to listen to something else. It was a curious sound-a child was crying somewhere. But Mary was sure this sound was inside the house, not outside it. It was far away, but it was inside. She turned round and looked at Martha.

“Do you hear anyone crying?” she said.

Martha suddenly looked confused.

“No,” she answered. “It’s the wind.”

“But listen,” said Mary. “It’s in the house-down one of those long corridors. It is someone crying-and it isn’t a grown-up person.”

Martha ran and shut the door and turned the key.

“It was the wind,” said Martha stubbornly. “Or it was little Betty Butterworth, the scullery-maid[15]. She’s had the toothache all day.”

But Mary did not believe she was speaking the truth.

Chapter VI
“There was someone crying – there was!”

The next day the rain poured down in torrents.

“What do you do in your cottage when it rains like this?” she asked Martha.

“Eh! The biggest ones go out in the cow-shed and play there,” Martha answered. “Dickon doesn’t mind the wet. He goes out just the same[16]. He once found a little fox cub half drowned in its hole and he brought it home to keep it warm. He found a half-drowned young crow another time and he brought it home, too, and tamed it. Its name is Soot because it’s black.”

“I want to have a raven or a fox cub to with it,” said Mary. “But I have nothing.”

Martha looked perplexed.

“Can you knit?” she asked.

“No,” answered Mary.

“Can you sew?”

“No.”

“Can you read?”

“Yes. But I have no books,” said Mary. “Those I had were left in India.”

“That’s a pity,” said Martha. “Ask Mrs. Medlock to go into the library, there are thousands of books there.”

Mary did not ask where the library was, because she was suddenly inspired by a new idea. She decided to go and find it herself. She was not troubled about Mrs. Medlock. Mrs. Medlock was always in her comfortable housekeeper’s sitting-room downstairs. In this queer place one scarcely ever saw anyone at all.

Mrs. Medlock came and looked at her every day, but no one inquired what she did or told her what to do. She supposed that perhaps this was the English custom. In India, her Ayah followed her all the time. Mary was often tired of her company. Now she nobody followed her.

Mary stood at the window for about ten minutes this morning after her breakfast. She was thinking over the new idea. She did not care very much about the library itself, because she read very few books. But the hundred rooms with closed doors! She wondered if they were all really locked. Were there a hundred really? How many doors can she count?

She opened the door of the room and went into the corridor. It was a long corridor and it branched into other corridors and it led her up short flights of steps which mounted to others again. There were doors and doors, and there were pictures on the walls. Sometimes they were pictures of dark, curious landscapes, sometimes they were portraits of men and women in queer, grand costumes. She found herself in one long gallery whose walls were covered with these portraits. She walked slowly down this place and stared at the faces. Some were pictures of children-little girls in thick satin frocks and boys with puffed sleeves and lace collars and long hair, or with big ruffs around their necks.

Suddenly she heard a cry. It was a short one, a fretful, childish whine.

“It’s near,” said Mary.

She put her hand accidentally upon the tapestry near her, and then sprang back. The tapestry was the covering of a door. Suddenly Mrs. Medlock came up with her bunch of keys in her hand and a very cross look on her face.

“What are you doing here?” she said, and she took Mary by the arm and pulled her away. “What did I tell you?”

“I turned round the wrong corner,” explained Mary. “I didn’t know which way to go and I heard someone crying.”

“You didn’t hear anything!” said the housekeeper. “Come back to your own nursery!”

And she took her by the arm and pushed, pulled her up one passage and down another until she pushed her in at the door of her own room.

“Now,” she said, “you stay here. The master will get you a governess to look after you.”

She went out of the room and slammed the door after her. Mary went and sat on the hearth-rug, pale with rage.

“There was someone crying-there was-there was!” she said to herself.

Chapter VII
The key of the garden

Two days after this, when Mary opened her eyes she sat upright in bed immediately, and called to Martha.

“Look at the moor! Look at the moor!”

A brilliant, deep blue sky arched high over the moorland. In India skies were hot and blazing. The world of the moor looked softly blue instead of gloomy purple-black or awful dreary gray.

“I thought perhaps it always rained in England,” Mary said.

“Eh! no!” said Martha, sitting up on her heels.

“Can I ever get there?” asked Mary wistfully, looking through her window at the far-off blue. It was new and big and wonderful.

“I don’t know,” answered Martha. “Five miles, I think.”

“I want to see your cottage.”

Martha stared at her.

“I’ll ask my mother about it,” Martha said. “Mrs. Medlock likes my mother. Perhaps she can talk to her.”

“I like your mother, too” said Mary.

“Of course,” agreed Martha.

“And I like Dickon,” added Mary.

“Well,” said Martha stoutly, “all the birds like him and the rabbits and wild sheep and the ponies, and the foxes.”

“But he won’t like me,” said Mary. “No one does.”

“Do you like yourself?” Martha inquired.

Mary hesitated a moment.

“Not at all-really,” she answered.

Martha went away after the breakfast. She was going to walk five miles across the moor to the cottage, and she was going to help her mother.

Mary went out into the garden. She went into the first kitchen-garden and found Ben Weatherstaff working there with two other gardeners.

She began to like the garden and Ben Weatherstaff – like the robin and Dickon and Martha’s mother. She was beginning to like Martha, too. She went outside the long, ivy-covered wall over which she could see the tree-tops.

She looked at the bare flower-bed at her left side. The flower-bed was not quite bare. It was bare of flowers, but there were tall and low shrubs. The robin hopped about under them. He stopped on it to look for a worm. A dog scratched quite a deep hole there.

Mary looked at it and saw something in the soil. It was an old key!

Mary stood up and looked at it.

“Perhaps it is the key to the secret garden!” she said in a whisper.

Mary put the key in her pocket. She will always carry it with her when she goes out – to find the hidden door.

Chapter VIII
The Robin who showed the way

“I’ve brought you a present,” Martha said in the morning, with a cheerful grin.

“A present!” exclaimed Mary.

“Yes. It’s a skipping-rope.”

She brought it out from under her apron and exhibited it quite proudly. It was a strong, slender rope with a striped red and blue handle at each end. Mary gazed at it with a mystified expression.

“What is it for?” she asked curiously.

“Just watch me!” cried out Martha.

And she ran into the middle of the room and, taking a handle in each hand, began to skip, and skip, and skip.

“I could skip longer than that,” Martha said when she stopped. “But I’m fat now.”

Mary was excited.

“It looks nice,” she said. “Do you think I could ever skip like that?”

“You just try it,” urged Martha.

Mary’s arms and legs were weak, but she liked it so much that she did not want to stop. She opened the door to go out, and then suddenly thought of something and turned back rather slowly.

“Martha,” she said, “the money for this rope was your wages. Thank you.”

She said it stiffly and held out her hand[17] because she did not know what else to do.

Martha laughed. Mary felt a little awkward as she went out of the room.

The skipping-rope was a wonderful thing. She counted and skipped, and skipped and counted, until her cheeks were quite red. The sun was shining and a little wind was blowing. She skipped round the fountain garden, and up one walk and down another. She skipped at last into the kitchen-garden and saw Ben Weatherstaff digging and talking to his robin, which was hopping about him. She skipped down the walk toward him and he lifted his head and looked at her with a curious expression.

“Well!” he exclaimed. “Upon my word![18] You have child’s blood in your veins instead of sour buttermilk.”

“I never skipped before,” Mary said. “I’m just beginning.”

“Keep on,” said Ben.

Mary skipped round all the gardens and round the orchard. The robin followed her and greeted her with a chirp. The girl laughed.

“Yesterday you showed me the key,” she said. “Show me the door today!”

The robin flew to the top of the wall and sang a loud, lovely trill. One of the nice little gusts of wind rushed down the walk. It waved the branches of the trees. Mary stepped close to the robin, and suddenly the gust of wind swung aside some loose ivy trails. She saw a round knob which was covered by the leaves. It was the knob of a door.

She put her hands under the leaves and began to pull and push them aside. Mary’s heart began to thump and her hands to shake a little in her delight and excitement. What was this under her hands which was square and made of iron?

It was the lock of the door! She put her hand in her pocket, drew out the key and put the key in and turned it.

The door opened slowly. She slipped through it, and shut it behind her. She was standing inside the secret garden.

Chapter IX
A very strange house

It was the most mysterious-looking place anyone can imagine. The high walls were covered with the leafless stems of climbing roses. Mary Lennox knew they were roses because she saw many roses in India. All the ground was covered with grass. There were many trees in the garden, too. here were neither leaves nor roses on them now and Mary did not know whether they were dead or alive.

“How still it is!” she whispered. “How still!”

Then she waited a moment and listened at the stillness. The robin did not flutter his wings; he sat and looked at Mary.

“No wonder,” she whispered again. “I am the first person who has spoken in here for ten years.”

She moved away from the door. She was glad that there was grass under her feet and that her steps made no sounds. She walked under one of the gray arches between the trees.

“Are they are all dead?” she said. “Is it a dead garden?”

She was inside the wonderful secret garden. The sun was shining inside the four walls and the high arch of blue sky seemed even more brilliant than it was over the moor. The robin flew after her from one bush to another. Everything was strange and silent, but somehow she did not feel lonely at all.

She did not want it to be a dead garden. Her skipping-rope hung over her arm. She came near the alcove. There was a flower-bed in it, and she knelt down.

“These might be crocuses or snowdrops or daffodils,” she whispered.

She bent very close to them and sniffed the fresh scent of the damp earth. She liked it very much. “Perhaps there are some other ones coming up in other. I will go all over the garden and look.”

She did not skip, but walked. She went slowly. She looked in the old border beds and among the grass.

“It isn’t a dead garden,” she cried out softly to herself. “Even if the roses are dead, there are other things alive.”

She found a sharp piece of wood and dug and weeded out the weeds and grass until she made nice little clear places around them.

“Now they can breathe,” she said. “I am going to do more. I’ll do all I can see. If I have no time today I can come tomorrow.”

She went from place to place, and dug and weeded, and enjoyed herself immensely. The robin was busy. He was very much pleased to see that.

Mary worked in her garden until it was time to go to her midday dinner. She put on her coat and hat, and picked up her skipping-rope. She was really happy.

“I shall come back this afternoon,” she said, looking all round at her new kingdom, and speaking to the trees and the rose-bushes.

Then she ran lightly across the grass, pushed the old door and slipped through it under the ivy. She had such red cheeks and such bright eyes that Martha was delighted.

“Martha,” she said, “what are those white roots that look like onions?”

“They’re bulbs,” answered Martha. “Dickon has planted a lot of them in our garden.”

“Does Dickon know all about them?” asked Mary.

“Our Dickon can make a flower grow out of a brick walk.”

Mary finished her dinner and went to her favorite seat on the hearth-rug.

“I want to have a little spade,” she said.

“Are you going to dig?” asked Martha, laughing.

Mary looked at the fire and pondered a little. She must be careful. She wasn’t doing any harm. But if Mr. Craven knows about the open door he will be angry and get a new key.

“This is such a big lonely place,” she said slowly. “The house is lonely, and the park is lonely, and the gardens are lonely. There is no one to talk to here except you and Ben Weatherstaff. But you must work and Ben Weatherstaff doesn’t speak to me often. I will make a little garden if he gives me some seeds.”

“There now![19]” Martha exclaimed. “My mother says, ‘That girl from India can dig and rake and be happy.’”

“Really?” said Mary. “How many things she knows, doesn’t she?”

“Eh!” said Martha. “Of course, she does.’”

“How much does a spade cost-a little one?” Mary asked.

“Well, at Thwaite village there’s a shop. I saw little garden sets with a spade and a rake and a fork for two shillings.”

“I’ve got more in my purse,” said Mary. “Mrs. Morrison gave me five shillings and Mrs. Medlock gave me some money from Mr. Craven. I didn’t know what to buy.”

“Oh, you’re rich,” said Martha. “You can buy anything you want. In the shop at Thwaite they sell packages of flower-seeds for a penny each, and our Dickon knows which are the prettiest ones and how to make them grow. Do you know how to write?”

“Yes,” Mary answered.

“We can write a letter to Dickon and ask him to go and buy the garden tools and the seeds.”

“Oh! you’re a good girl!” Mary cried. “You are, really! I didn’t know you were so nice!”

“I’ll bring a pen and ink and some paper.”

Martha ran out of the room, and Mary stood by the fire and twisted her thin little hands together with sheer pleasure.

“If I have a spade,” she whispered, “I can make the earth nice and soft and dig up weeds. If I have seeds and can make flowers grow the garden won’t be dead at all.”

When Martha returned with her pen and ink and paper, she dictated a letter to Mary:

“My Dear Dickon:

Miss Mary has plenty of money. Will you go to Thwaite and buy her some flower seeds and a set of garden tools to make a flower-bed? Pick the prettiest ones and easy to grow. Give my love to mother and everyone of you. Miss Mary is going to tell me a lot. So you will hear about elephants and camels and lions and tigers.

Your loving sister,

Martha Phoebe Sowerby.”

“We’ll put the money in the envelope and I’ll get the butcher’s boy to take it in his cart. He’s a great Dickon’s friend,” said Martha.

“How shall I get the things when Dickon buys them?” asked Mary.

“He’ll bring them to you himself.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Mary, “then I shall see him!”

“Do you want to see him?” asked Martha suddenly.

“Yes, I do. I never saw a boy foxes and crows loved. I want to see him very much.”

Martha stayed with her until tea-time, but they talked very little. Just before Martha went down-stairs for the tea-tray, Mary asked a question.

“Martha,” she said, “has the scullery-maid had the toothache again today?”

Martha certainly started slightly.

“Why do you ask?” she said.

“I opened the door and walked down the corridor. And I heard that crying again, just as we heard it the other night. There isn’t a wind today.”

“Eh!” said Martha restlessly. “There’s Mrs. Medlock’s bell.”

And Martha almost ran out of the room.

“It’s a very strange house,” said Mary drowsily and she fell asleep.

Chapter X
Dickon

Mary was beginning to like to be out of doors; she no longer hated the wind, but enjoyed it. She could run faster, and longer, and she could skip very well.

Mary was an odd, determined little person, and now she had something interesting. She was very much absorbed, indeed. She worked and dug and pulled up weeds steadily. It seemed to her like a game. Sometimes she stopped digging to look at the garden and try to imagine it with thousands of flowers.

“How long have you been here?” Ben Weatherstaff asked her one day.

“I think it’s about a month,” she answered.

“That’s just the beginning,” he said.

“Have you a garden of your own?” she asked.

“No. I’m a bachelor and lodge with Martin.”

“If you have one,” said Mary, “what will you plant?”

“Cabbages and potatoes an onions.”

“But what about a flower garden?” persisted Mary.

“Mostly roses.”

“Do you like roses?” she said.

“Well, yes, I do. The young lady was fond of them. She loved them like they were children-or robins. She kissed them. Ten years ago.”

“Where is she now?” asked Mary.

“Heaven,” he answered, and drove his spade deep into the soil.

“What happened to the roses?” Mary asked again.

“They were left to themselves[20]. Why do you care so much about roses?”

Mary was almost afraid to answer.

“I–I want to play that-that I have a garden of my own,” she stammered. “I-there is nothing for me to do. I have nothing-and no one.”

“Well,” said Ben Weatherstaff slowly, as he watched her, “that’s true.”

Mary went skipping slowly down the outside walk. The walk curved round the secret garden and ended at a gate which opened into a wood, in the park. Suddenly she heard a low, peculiar whistling sound.

It was a very strange thing indeed. A boy was sitting under a tree, playing on a rough wooden pipe. He was about twelve. He looked very clean and his nose turned up and his cheeks were as red as poppies. And on the trunk of the tree, a brown squirrel was clinging and watching him, and from behind a bush nearby a cock pheasant was delicately stretching his neck to peep out, and quite near him were two rabbits sitting up and sniffing with tremulous noses.

When he saw Mary he spoke to her,

“Don’t move. They are afraid.”

Mary remained motionless. He stopped playing his pipe and rose from the ground. The squirrel scampered back up into the branches of the tree, the pheasant withdrew its head and the rabbits began to hop away.

“I’m Dickon,” the boy said. “I know you’re Miss Mary.”

“Did you get Martha’s letter?” she asked.

He nodded his head.

“That’s why I’m here.”

He took something which was lying on the ground beside him.

“I’ve got the garden tools. A little spade and rake and a fork and hoe. Eh! They are good. There’s a trowel, too. And some seeds.”

“Will you show the seeds to me?” Mary said.

They sat down and he took a clumsy little brown paper package out of his coat pocket. He untied the string and inside there were many smaller packages with a picture of a flower on each one.

He stopped and turned his head quickly.

“Where’s that robin?” he said.

The chirp came from a thick holly bush.

“Aye,” said Dickon, “he’s calling someone. He says ‘Here I am. Look at me.’ There he is in the bush. Whose is he?”

“He’s Ben Weatherstaff’s, but I think he knows me a little,” answered Mary.

“Aye, he knows you,” said Dickon. “And he likes you. He’ll tell me all about you in a minute.”

He moved quite close to the bush with the slow movement. Then he made a sound almost like the robin’s own twitter. The robin listened a few seconds, intently, and then answered.

“He’s a friend of yours,” chuckled Dickon.

“Do you understand everything birds say?” said Mary.

“I think I do, and they think I do,” he said. “I’ve lived on the moor with them so long. I’ve watched them a lot. I think I’m one of them. Sometimes I think perhaps I’m a bird, or a fox, or a rabbit, or a squirrel, or even a beetle.”

He laughed and came back to the log and began to talk about the flower seeds. He told her how to plant them, and watch them, and feed and water them.

“Look,” he said suddenly. “I’ll plant them for you myself. Where is your garden?”

She turned red and then pale.

“I don’t know anything about boys,” she said slowly. “Can you keep a secret, if I tell you one? It’s a great secret.”

Dickon rubbed his hand over his head again, but he answered quite good-humoredly.

“I’m keeping secrets all the time,” he said. “Aye, I can keep secrets.”

“I’ve stolen a garden,” she said very fast. “It isn’t mine. It isn’t anybody’s. Nobody wants it, nobody cares for it, nobody ever goes into it. Perhaps everything is dead in it already; I don’t know.”

Dickon’s curious blue eyes grew rounder and rounder.

“Eh-h-h!” he said.

“I’ve nothing to do,” said Mary. “Nothing belongs to me. I found it myself and I got into it myself. I was only just like the robin.”

“Where is it?” asked Dickon.

Mary got up from the log at once.

“Come with me and I’ll show you,” she said.

She led him round the laurel path and to the walk where the ivy grew so thickly. Dickon followed her with a queer look on his face. He moved softly. When she stepped to the wall and lifted the hanging ivy he started. There was a door and Mary pushed it slowly open and they passed in together.

“It’s this,” she said. “It’s a secret garden, and I’m the only one in the world who wants it to be alive.”

Dickon looked round it, and round and round again.

“Eh!” he almost whispered, “it is a queer, pretty place! It’s like a dream.”

Chapter XI
Mary’s nest

“What a garden!” Dickon said, in a whisper.

“Did you know about it?” asked Mary.

Dickon nodded.

“Martha told me about it,” he answered.

He stopped and looked round at the lovely gray tangle about him, and his eyes looked happy.

“Eh! It will be the safest nesting place in England.”

Mary put her hand on his arm.

“Will there be roses?” she whispered. “Can you tell? Perhaps they were all dead.”

“Eh! No! Not all of them!” he answered. “Look here!”

He stepped over to the nearest tree with a curtain of tangled sprays and branches. He took a thick knife out of his pocket and opened one of its blades.

“I see dead wood here,” he said. “But this one is alive,” and he touched a shoot which looked green instead of hard, dry gray.

Mary touched it herself.

“That one?” she said. “Is that one quite alive?”

“It’s as alive as you or me,” he said.

“I’m glad it’s alive!” she cried out. “I want them all to be alive. Let us go round the garden and count how many alive ones there are.”

They went from tree to tree and from bush to bush. Dickon carried his knife in his hand and showed her things which she thought wonderful.

“These are dead,” he said, “but those are strong. See here!” and he pulled down a thick gray branch. He knelt and with his knife cut the branch through, not far above the earth.

“There!” he said exultantly. “I told you so. It’s alive. Look at it. There’s a big root here,” he stopped and lifted his face. “There will be a fountain of roses here this summer.”

They went from bush to bush and from tree to tree. He was very strong and clever with his knife and knew how to cut the dry and dead wood away. The spade, and hoe, and fork were very useful. He showed her how to use the fork while he dug about roots with the spade and stirred the earth. They were working industriously.

“Why!” he cried, pointing to the grass a few feet away. “Who did that there?”

It was one of Mary’s own little clearings.

“I did it,” said Mary.

“I thought that you didn’t know anything about gardening,” he exclaimed.

“I don’t,” she answered, “but they were so little, and the grass was so thick and strong. They had no room to breathe. So I made a place for them.”

Dickon went and knelt down by them, smiling.

“That was right,” he said. “They will grow now. They’re crocuses and snowdrops, and these here are narcissuses. A lot of work for such a little wench!”

“I’m growing stronger,” said Mary, “And when I dig I’m not tired at all. I like to smell the earth.”

“It’s good for you,” he said, nodding his head wisely. “When it’s raining I lie under a bush and listen to the soft swish of drops.”

“Do you never catch cold?” inquired Mary, gazing at him wonderingly.

“Not me,” he said, grinning. “I have never caught cold since I was born.”

He was working all the time he was talking and Mary was following him and helping him with her fork or the trowel.

“There’s a lot of work to do here!” he said.

“Will you come again and help me to do it?” Mary begged. “I can dig and pull up weeds, and do whatever you tell me. Oh! do come, Dickon!”

“I’ll come every day if you want, rain or shine,” he answered stoutly. “Eh! We’ll have a lot of fun.”

He began to walk about, looking up in the trees and at the walls and bushes with a thoughtful expression.

“It’s a secret garden,” he said, “right?”

“The door was locked and the key was buried,” said Mary. “No one could get in.”

“Yes,” he said. “It’s a queer place.”

Dickon laughed. Mary looked at him.

“Dickon,” she said. “You are as nice as Martha said you were. I like you. I never thought I could like five people.”

Dickon looked funny and delightful, Mary thought, with his round blue eyes and red cheeks.

“Only five people?” he said. “Who are the other four?”

“Your mother and Martha,” Mary said, “and the robin and Ben Weatherstaff.”

Dickon laughed again.

“I know you think I’m a queer lad,” he said, “but I think that you are a very queer lass.”

Then Mary did a strange thing. She leaned forward and asked him a question,

“Do you like me?”

“Eh!” he answered heartily, “I do. I like you, and so does the robin, I believe!”

“That’s two, then,” said Mary. “That’s two for me.”

And then they began to work harder than ever and more joyfully. Then Mary heard the big clock in the courtyard strike the hour of her midday dinner.

“I shall go,” she said mournfully. “And you will go too, won’t you?”

Dickon grinned.

“My dinner is with me,” he said. “Mother always gives me a bit of something in my pocket.”

He picked up his coat from the grass and brought out of a pocket a lumpy little bundle. It held two thick pieces of bread with a slice of bacon.”

Mary thought it looked a queer dinner. She went slowly to the door in the wall and then she stopped and went back.

“Whatever happens, you-you never will tell?” she said.

He smiled encouragingly.

“Not me,” he said.

Chapter XII
A bit of Earth

Mary ran fast and reached her room. Her dinner was waiting on the table, and Martha was waiting near it.

“You’re late,” she said. “Where have you been?”

“I’ve seen Dickon!” said Mary. “I’ve seen Dickon!”

“Yes,” said Martha exultantly. “How do you like him?”

“I think-I think he’s beautiful!” said Mary.

Martha looked pleased.

Mary ate her dinner as quickly as she could. When she rose from the table she was going to run to her room to put on her hat again, but Martha stopped her.

“I’ve got something to tell you,” she said. “Mr. Craven came back and I think he wants to see you.”

“Oh!” Mary said. “Why! Why! He didn’t want to see me when I came.”

“Well,” explained Martha, “I don’t know about it, but he wants to see you before he goes away again, tomorrow.”

“Oh!” cried Mary, “is he going away tomorrow? I am so glad!”

“He’s going for a long time. He won’t come back till autumn or winter. He’s going to travel abroad.”

“Oh! I’m so glad-so glad!” said Mary. “When do you think he will want to see…”

She did not finish the sentence, because the door opened, and Mrs. Medlock walked in. She looked nervous and excited.

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Примечания

1

at all – совсем

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she was kept out of the way – её держали на расстоянии

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feeling very cross – в дурном настроении

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4

broke out among your servants – дошла до ваших слуг

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5

made faces – кривлялся

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6

boarding-school – школа-пансион

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7

their daughter’s guardian – опекун их дочери

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8

Don’t you care? – Неужели тебе всё равно?

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9

sour young man – желчный юноша

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10

was raking out the cinders – выгребала золу

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11

slapped her in the face – давала ей пощёчины

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12

out of kindness – по доброте душевной

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13

turned down the walk – побрела по тропинке

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14

it’s not to be talked about – это не тема для разговоров

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15

scullery-maid – судомойка

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16

just the same – всё равно

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17

held out her hand – пожала ей руку

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18

Upon my word! – Ну и ну!

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19

There now! – Вот как!

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20

They were left to themselves. – Их забросили.

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