Kitabı oku: «Таинственный сад / The Secret Garden. B1», sayfa 10

‘Why?’ asked Mary coldly.

‘Because they don’t get enough to eat, that’s why, and they’re always hungry. You’re very lucky to have the food, miss.’ Mary said nothing, but she drank some tea and ate a little bread.

‘Now put a coat on and run outside to play,’ said Martha. ‘It’ll do you good to be in the fresh air.’

Mary looked out of the window at the cold grey sky. ‘Why should I go out on a day like this?’ she asked.

‘Well, there’s nothing to play with indoors, is there?’

Mary realized Martha was right. ‘But who will go with me?’ she said.

Marthastared at her. ‘Nobody. You’ll have to learn to play by yourself. Dickon plays by himself on the moors for hours, with the wild birds, and the sheep, and the other animals.’ She looked away for a moment. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you this, but – but one of the walled gardens is locked up. Nobody’s been in it for ten years. It was Mrs Craven’s garden, and when she died so suddenly, Mr Craven locked it and buried the key – Oh, I must go, I can hear Mrs Medlock’s bell ringing for me.’ Mary went downstairs and wandered through the great empty gardens. Many of the fruit and vegetable gardens had walls round them, but there were no locked doors. She saw an old man digging in one of the vegetable gardens, but he looked cross and unfriendly, so she walked on.

‘How ugly it all looks in winter!’ she thought. ‘But what a mystery the locked garden is! Why did my uncle bury the key? If he loved his wife, why did he hate her garden? Perhaps I’ll never know. I don’t suppose I’ll like him if I ever meet him. And he won’t like me, so I won’t be able to ask him.’