The Secret Garden
All the pink left Mary’s cheeks. Her heart began to thump and she felt
herself changing into a stiff, plain, silent child again. She did not
even answer Mrs. Medlock, but turned and walked into her bedroom,
followed by Martha. She said nothing while her dress was changed, and
her hair brushed, and after she was quite tidy she followed Mrs.
Medlock down the corridors, in silence. What was there for her to say?
She was obliged to go and see Mr. Craven and he would not like her, and
she would not like him. She knew what he would think of her.
She was taken to a part of the house she had not been into before. At
last Mrs. Medlock knocked at a door, and when someone said, “Come in,”
they entered the room together. A man was sitting in an armchair before
the fire, and Mrs. Medlock spoke to him.
“This is Miss Mary, sir,” she said.
“You can go and leave her here. I will ring for you when I want you to
take her away,” said Mr. Craven.
When she went out and closed the door, Mary could only stand waiting, a
plain little thing, twisting her thin hands together. She could see
that the man in the chair was not so much a hunchback as a man with
high, rather crooked shoulders, and he had black hair streaked with
white. He turned his head over his high shoulders and spoke to her.
“Come here!” he said.
Mary went to him.
He was not ugly. His face would have been handsome if it had not been
so miserable. He looked as if the sight of her worried and fretted him
and as if he did not know what in the world to do with her.
“Are you well?” he asked.
“Yes,” answered Mary.
“Do they take good care of you?”
“Yes.”
He rubbed his forehead fretfully as he looked her over.
“You are very thin,” he said.
“I am getting fatter,” Mary answered in what she knew was her stiffest
way.
What an unhappy face he had! His black eyes seemed as if they scarcely
saw her, as if they were seeing something else, and he could hardly
keep his thoughts upon her.
“I forgot you,” he said. “How could I remember you? I intended to send
you a governess or a nurse, or someone of that sort, but I forgot.”
“Please,” began Mary. “Please—” and then the lump in her throat choked
her.
“What do you want to say?” he inquired.
“I am—I am too big for a nurse,” said Mary. “And please—please don’t
make me have a governess yet.”
He rubbed his forehead again and stared at her.
“That was what the Sowerby woman said,” he muttered absent-mindedly.
Then Mary gathered a scrap of courage.
“Is she—is she Martha’s mother?” she stammered.
“Yes, I think so,” he replied.
“She knows about children,” said Mary. “She has twelve. She knows.”
He seemed to rouse himself.
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to play out of doors,” Mary answered, hoping that her voice did
not tremble. “I never liked it in India. It makes me hungry here, and I
am getting fatter.”
He was watching her.
“Mrs. Sowerby said it would do you good. Perhaps it will,” he said.
“She thought you had better get stronger before you had a governess.”
“It makes me feel strong when I play and the wind comes over the moor,”
argued Mary.
“Where do you play?” he asked next.
“Everywhere,” gasped Mary. “Martha’s mother sent me a skipping-rope. I
skip and run—and I look about to see if things are beginning to stick
up out of the earth. I don’t do any harm.”
“Don’t look so frightened,” he said in a worried voice. “You could not
do any harm, a child like you! You may do what you like.”
Mary put her hand up to her throat because she was afraid he might see
the excited lump which she felt jump into it. She came a step nearer to
him.
“May I?” she said tremulously.
Her anxious little face seemed to worry him more than ever.
“Don’t look so frightened,” he exclaimed. “Of course you may. I am your
guardian, though I am a poor one for any child. I cannot give you time
or attention. I am too ill, and wretched and distracted; but I wish you
to be happy and comfortable. I don’t know anything about children, but
Mrs. Medlock is to see that you have all you need. I sent for you today
because Mrs. Sowerby said I ought to see you. Her daughter had talked
about you. She thought you needed fresh air and freedom and running
about.”
“She knows all about children,” Mary said again in spite of herself.
“She ought to,” said Mr. Craven. “I thought her rather bold to stop me
on the moor, but she said—Mrs. Craven had been kind to her.” It seemed
hard for him to speak his dead wife’s name. “She is a respectable
woman. Now I have seen you I think she said sensible things. Play out
of doors as much as you like. It’s a big place and you may go where you
like and amuse yourself as you like. Is there anything you want?” as if
a sudden thought had struck him. “Do you want toys, books, dolls?”
“Might I,” quavered Mary, “might I have a bit of earth?”
In her eagerness she did not realize how queer the words would sound
and that they were not the ones she had meant to say. Mr. Craven looked
quite startled.
“Earth!” he repeated. “What do you mean?”
“To plant seeds in—to make things grow—to see them come alive,” Mary
faltered.
He gazed at her a moment and then passed his hand quickly over his
eyes.
“Do you—care about gardens so much,” he said slowly.
“I didn’t know about them in India,” said Mary. “I was always ill and
tired and it was too hot. I sometimes made little beds in the sand and
stuck flowers in them. But here it is different.”
Mr. Craven got up and began to walk slowly across the room.
“A bit of earth,” he said to himself, and Mary thought that somehow she
must have reminded him of something. When he stopped and spoke to her
his dark eyes looked almost soft and kind.
“You can have as much earth as you want,” he said. “You remind me of
someone else who loved the earth and things that grow. When you see a
bit of earth you want,” with something like a smile, “take it, child,
and make it come alive.”
“May I take it from anywhere—if it’s not wanted?”
“Anywhere,” he answered. “There! You must go now, I am tired.” He
touched the bell to call Mrs. Medlock. “Good-by. I shall be away all
summer.”
Mrs. Medlock came so quickly that Mary thought she must have been
waiting in the corridor.
“Mrs. Medlock,” Mr. Craven said to her, “now I have seen the child I
understand what Mrs. Sowerby meant. She must be less delicate before
she begins lessons. Give her simple, healthy food. Let her run wild in
the garden. Don’t look after her too much. She needs liberty and fresh
air and romping about. Mrs. Sowerby is to come and see her now and then
and she may sometimes go to the cottage.”
Mrs. Medlock looked pleased. She was relieved to hear that she need not
“look after” Mary too much. She had felt her a tiresome charge and had
indeed seen as little of her as she dared. In addition to this she was
fond of Martha’s mother.
“Thank you, sir,” she said. “Susan Sowerby and me went to school
together and she’s as sensible and good-hearted a woman as you’d find
in a day’s walk. I never had any children myself and she’s had twelve,
and there never was healthier or better ones. Miss Mary can get no harm
from them. I’d always take Susan Sowerby’s advice about children
myself. She’s what you might call healthy-minded—if you understand me.”
“I understand,” Mr. Craven answered. “Take Miss Mary away now and send
Pitcher to me.”
When Mrs. Medlock left her at the end of her own corridor Mary flew
back to her room. She found Martha waiting there. Martha had, in fact,
hurried back after she had removed the dinner service.
“I can have my garden!” cried Mary. “I may have it where I like! I am
not going to have a governess for a long time! Your mother is coming to
see me and I may go to your cottage! He says a little girl like me
could not do any harm and I may do what I like—anywhere!”
“Eh!” said Martha delightedly, “that was nice of him wasn’t it?”
“Martha,” said Mary solemnly, “he is really a nice man, only his face
is so miserable and his forehead is all drawn together.”
She ran as quickly as she could to the garden. She had been away so
much longer than she had thought she should and she knew Dickon would
have to set out early on his five-mile walk. When she slipped through
the door under the ivy, she saw he was not working where she had left
him. The gardening tools were laid together under a tree. She ran to
them, looking all round the place, but there was no Dickon to be seen.
He had gone away and the secret garden was empty—except for the robin
who had just flown across the wall and sat on a standard rose-bush
watching her.
“He’s gone,” she said woefully. “Oh! was he—was he—was he only a wood
fairy?”
Something white fastened to the standard rose-bush caught her eye. It
was a piece of paper, in fact, it was a piece of the letter she had
printed for Martha to send to Dickon. It was fastened on the bush with
a long thorn, and in a minute she knew Dickon had left it there. There
were some roughly printed letters on it and a sort of picture. At first
she could not tell what it was. Then she saw it was meant for a nest
with a bird sitting on it. Underneath were the printed letters and they
said:
“I will cum bak.”
CHAPTER XIII.
“I AM COLIN”
Mary took the picture back to the house when she went to her supper and
she showed it to Martha.
“Eh!” said Martha with great pride. “I never knew our Dickon was as
clever as that. That there’s a picture of a missel thrush on her nest,
as large as life an’ twice as natural.”
Then Mary knew Dickon had meant the picture to be a message. He had
meant that she might be sure he would keep her secret. Her garden was
her nest and she was like a missel thrush. Oh, how she did like that
queer, common boy!
She hoped he would come back the very next day and she fell asleep
looking forward to the morning.
But you never know what the weather will do in Yorkshire, particularly
in the springtime. She was awakened in the night by the sound of rain
beating with heavy drops against her window. It was pouring down in
torrents and the wind was “wuthering” round the corners and in the
chimneys of the huge old house. Mary sat up in bed and felt miserable
and angry.
“The rain is as contrary as I ever was,” she said. “It came because it
knew I did not want it.”
She threw herself back on her pillow and buried her face. She did not
cry, but she lay and hated the sound of the heavily beating rain, she
hated the wind and its “wuthering.” She could not go to sleep again.
The mournful sound kept her awake because she felt mournful herself. If
she had felt happy it would probably have lulled her to sleep. How it
“wuthered” and how the big raindrops poured down and beat against the
pane!
“It sounds just like a person lost on the moor and wandering on and on
crying,” she said.
She had been lying awake turning from side to side for about an hour,
when suddenly something made her sit up in bed and turn her head toward
the door listening. She listened and she listened.
“It isn’t the wind now,” she said in a loud whisper. “That isn’t the
wind. It is different. It is that crying I heard before.”
The door of her room was ajar and the sound came down the corridor, a
far-off faint sound of fretful crying. She listened for a few minutes
and each minute she became more and more sure. She felt as if she must
find out what it was. It seemed even stranger than the secret garden
and the buried key. Perhaps the fact that she was in a rebellious mood
made her bold. She put her foot out of bed and stood on the floor.
“I am going to find out what it is,” she said. “Everybody is in bed and
I don’t care about Mrs. Medlock—I don’t care!”
There was a candle by her bedside and she took it up and went softly