The Secret Garden
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 blacking-brush 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
housemaids. 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 anyone 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,