Kitabı oku: «Таинственный сад / The secret garden», sayfa 2

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 andmade faces⁵ 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.”