Фрэнсис Элиза Ходжсон Бёрнетт
Таинственный сад / The secret garden

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.”