The Secret Garden
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.
Presently an old man with a spade over his shoulder walked through the
door leading from the second garden. He looked startled when he saw
Mary, and then touched his cap. He had a surly old face, and did not
seem at all pleased to see her—but then she was displeased with his
garden and wore her “quite contrary” expression, and certainly did not
seem at all pleased to see him.
“What is this place?” she asked.
“One o’ th’ kitchen-gardens,” he answered.
“What is that?” said Mary, pointing through the other green door.
“Another of ’em,” shortly. “There’s another on t’other side o’ th’ wall
an’ there’s th’ orchard t’other side o’ that.”
“Can I go in them?” asked Mary.
“If tha’ likes. But there’s nowt to see.”
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 garden which no one had seen for ten
years. As she was not at all a timid child and always did what she
wanted to do, Mary went to the green door and turned the handle. She
hoped the door would not open because she wanted to be sure she had
found the mysterious garden—but it did open quite easily and she walked
through it and found herself in an orchard. There were walls all round
it also and trees trained against them, and there were bare fruit-trees
growing in the winter-browned grass—but there was no green door to be
seen anywhere. Mary looked for it, and yet when she had entered the
upper end of the garden she had noticed that the wall did not seem to
end with the orchard but to extend beyond it as if it enclosed a place
at the other side. She could see the tops of trees above the wall, and
when she stood still she saw a bird with a bright red breast sitting on
the topmost branch of one of them, and suddenly he burst into his
winter song—almost as if he had caught sight of her and was calling to
her.
She stopped and listened to him and somehow his cheerful, friendly
little whistle gave her a pleased feeling—even a disagreeable little
girl may be lonely, and the big closed house and big bare moor and big
bare gardens had made this one feel as if there was no one left in the
world but herself. If she had been an affectionate child, who had been
used to being loved, she would have broken her heart, but even though
she was “Mistress Mary Quite Contrary” she was desolate, and the
bright-breasted little bird brought a look into her sour little face
which was almost a smile. She listened to him until he flew away. He
was not like an Indian bird and she liked him and wondered if she
should ever see him again. Perhaps he lived in the mysterious garden
and knew all about it.
Perhaps it was because she had nothing whatever to do that she thought
so much of the deserted garden. She was curious about it and wanted to
see what it was like. Why had Mr. Archibald Craven buried the key? If
he had liked his wife so much why did he hate her garden? She wondered
if she should ever see him, but she knew that if she did she should not
like him, and he would not like her, and that she should only stand and
stare at him and say nothing, though she should be wanting dreadfully
to ask him why he had done such a queer thing.
“People never like me and I never like people,” she thought. “And I
never can talk as the Crawford children could. They were always talking
and laughing and making noises.”
She thought of the robin and of the way he seemed to sing his song at
her, and as she remembered the tree-top he perched on she stopped
rather suddenly on the path.
“I believe that tree was in the secret garden—I feel sure it was,” she
said. “There was a wall round the place and there was no door.”
She walked back into the first kitchen-garden she had entered and found
the old man digging there. She went and stood beside him and watched
him a few moments in her cold little way. He took no notice of her and
so at last she spoke to him.
“I have been into the other gardens,” she said.
“There was nothin’ to prevent thee,” he answered crustily.
“I went into the orchard.”
“There was no dog at th’ door to bite thee,” he answered.
“There was no door there into the other garden,” said Mary.
“What garden?” he said in a rough voice, stopping his digging for a
moment.
“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 he sang.”
To her surprise the surly old weather-beaten face actually changed its
expression. A slow smile spread over it and the gardener looked quite
different. It made her think that it was curious how much nicer a
person looked when he smiled. She had not thought of it before.
He turned about to the orchard side of his garden and began to
whistle—a low soft whistle. She could not understand how such a surly
man could make such a coaxing sound.
Almost the next moment a wonderful thing happened. She heard a soft
little rushing flight through the air—and it was the bird with the red
breast flying to them, and he actually alighted on the big clod of
earth quite near to the gardener’s foot.
“Here he is,” chuckled the old man, and then he spoke to the bird as if
he were speaking to a child.
“Where has tha’ been, tha’ cheeky little beggar?” he said. “I’ve not
seen thee before today. Has tha begun tha’ courtin’ this early in th’
season? Tha’rt too forrad.”
The bird put his tiny head on one side and looked up at him with his
soft bright eye which was like a black dewdrop. He seemed quite
familiar and not the least afraid. He hopped about and pecked the earth
briskly, looking for seeds and insects. It actually gave Mary a queer
feeling in her heart, because he was so pretty and cheerful and seemed
so like a person. He had a tiny plump body and a delicate beak, and
slender delicate legs.
“Will he always come when you call him?” she asked almost in a whisper.
“Aye, that he will. I’ve knowed him ever since he was a fledgling. He
come out of th’ nest in th’ other garden an’ when first he flew over
th’ wall he was too weak to fly back for a few days an’ we got
friendly. When he went over th’ wall again th’ rest of th’ brood was
gone an’ he was lonely an’ he come back to me.”
“What kind of a bird is he?” Mary asked.
“Doesn’t tha’ know? He’s a robin redbreast an’ they’re th’ friendliest,
curiousest birds alive. They’re almost as friendly as dogs—if you know
how to get on with ’em. Watch him peckin’ about there an’ lookin’ round
at us now an’ again. He knows we’re talkin’ about him.”
It was the queerest thing in the world to see the old fellow. He looked
at the plump little scarlet-waistcoated bird as if he were both proud
and fond of him.
“He’s a conceited one,” he chuckled. “He likes to hear folk talk about
him. An’ curious—bless me, there never was his like for curiosity an’
meddlin’. He’s always comin’ to see what I’m plantin’. He knows all th’
things Mester Craven never troubles hissel’ to find out. He’s th’ head
gardener, he is.”
The robin hopped about busily pecking the soil and now and then stopped
and looked at them a little. Mary thought his black dewdrop eyes gazed
at her with great curiosity. It really seemed as if he were finding out
all about her. The queer feeling in her heart increased.
“Where did the rest of the brood fly to?” she asked.
“There’s no knowin’. The old ones turn ’em out o’ their nest an’ make
’em fly an’ they’re scattered before you know it. This one was a
knowin’ one an’ he knew he was lonely.”
Mistress Mary went a step nearer to the robin and looked at him very
hard.
“I’m lonely,” she said.
She had not known before that this was one of the things which made her
feel sour and cross. She seemed to find it out when the robin looked at
her and she looked at the robin.
The old gardener pushed his cap back on his bald head and stared at her
a minute.
“Art tha’ th’ little wench from India?” he asked.
Mary nodded.
“Then no wonder tha’rt lonely. Tha’lt be lonlier before tha’s done,” he
said.
He began to dig again, driving his spade deep into the rich black
garden soil while the robin hopped about very busily employed.
“What is your name?” Mary inquired.
He stood up to answer her.
“Ben Weatherstaff,” he answered, and then he added with a surly
chuckle, “I’m lonely mysel’ except when he’s with me,” and he jerked
his thumb toward the robin. “He’s th’ 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.”
It is a Yorkshire habit to say what you think with blunt frankness, and
old Ben Weatherstaff was a Yorkshire moor man.
“Tha’ an’ me are a good bit alike,” he said. “We was wove out of th’
same cloth. We’re neither of us good lookin’ an’ we’re both of us as
sour as we look. We’ve got the same nasty tempers, both of us, I’ll
warrant.”
This was plain speaking, and Mary Lennox had never heard the truth