Читать книгу The Secret Garden / Таинственный сад - Фрэнсис Элиза Бёрнетт - Страница 2

When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking [1] child ever seen. It was true, too. She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow, and her face was yellow because she had been born in India and had always been ill in one way or another. Her father had held a position under the English Government and had always been busy and ill himself, and her mother had been a great beauty who cared only to go to parties and amuse herself with gay people. She had not wanted a little girl at all, and when Mary was born she handed her over to the care of an Ayah, who was made to understand that if she wished to please the Mem Sahib she must keep the child out of sight as much as possible. So when she was a sickly, fretful [2], ugly little baby she was kept out of the way [3] and when she became a sickly, fretful, toddling thing she was kept out of the way also. She never remembered seeing familiarly anything but the dark faces of her Ayah and the other native servants, and as they always obeyed her and gave her her own way in everything, because the Mem Sahib would be angry if she was disturbed by her crying, by the time she was six years old she was as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived. The young English governess who came to teach her to read and write disliked her so much that she gave up her place in three months, and when other governesses came to try to fill it they always went away in a shorter time than the first one. So if Mary had not chosen to really want to know how to read books she would never have learned her letters at all.

One frightfully hot morning she awakened feeling very cross and saw that the servant who stood by her bedside was not her Ayah. Mary wanted the strange woman to send Ayah to her.The woman only stammered that the Ayah could not come. Then Mary began to beat and kick her but she only repeated that it was not possible for the Ayah to come to her.

There was something mysterious in the air that morning. Nothing was done in its regular order and several of the native servants seemed missing, while those whom Mary saw slink [4]or hurried about with ashy and scared faces. But no one would tell her anything and her Ayah did not come. She was actually left alone as the morning went on, and at last she wandered out into the garden and began to play by herself under a tree near the veranda. She pretended that she was making a flowerbed, and she stuck big scarlet hibiscus blossoms into little heaps of earth [5], all the time growing more and more angry and muttering to herself the things she would say and the names she would call Saidie when she returned.

Suddenly Mary heard her mother talking together with a fair young man. He was a very young officer who had just come from England. The child stared at him, but she stared most at her mother. She was such a tall, slim, pretty person and wore such lovely clothes. Her hair was like curly silk and she had a delicate little nose and large laughing eyes. All her clothes were thin and floating, and Mary said they were “full of lace.” The officer said to Mrs. Lennox that she must have gone to the hills two weeks ago. The Mem Sahib began to cry and blame herself.

At that very moment such a loud sound of wailing [6] broke out from the servants' quarters that she clutched [7] the young man's arm, and Mary stood shivering from head to foot. The wailing grew wilder and wilder. “What is it? What is it?” Mrs. Lennox gasped.

“Some one has died,” answered the boy officer. “You did not say it had broken out among your servants.”

“I did not know!” the Mem Sahib cried. “Come with me! Come with me!” and she turned and ran into the house.

After that, appalling things happened, and the mysteriousness of the morning was explained to Mary. The cholera had broken out in its most fatal form and people were dying like flies. The Ayah had been taken ill in the night, and it was because she had just died that the servants had wailed in the huts [8]. Before the next day three other servants were dead and others had run away in terror. There was panic on every side, and dying people in all the bungalows.

During the confusion of the second day Mary hid herself in the nursery and was forgotten by everyone. Mary alternately cried and slept through the hours. She only knew that people were ill and that she heard and frightening sounds. Once she crept into the dining-room and drank a glass of wine. Very soon it made her intensely drowsy. She lay down on her bed and fell asleep.

Many things happened during the hours in which she slept so heavily, but she was not disturbed by the wails and the sound of things being carried in and out of the bungalow.

When she awakened she lay and stared at the wall. The house was perfectly still. She had never known it to be so silent before. She heard neither voices nor footsteps, and wondered if everybody had got well of the cholera and all the trouble was over. She wondered also who would take care of her now her Ayah was dead. There would be a new Ayah, and perhaps she would know some new stories. Mary had been rather tired of the old ones. She did not cry because her nurse had died. She was not an affectionate [9] child and had never cared much for any one. The noise and hurrying about and wailing over the cholera had frightened her, and she had been angry because no one seemed to remember that she was alive. Everyone was too panic-stricken [10] to think of a little girl no one was fond of. When people had the cholera it seemed that they remembered nothing but themselves. But if everyone had got well again, surely some one would remember and come to look for her.

But no one came. She lay waiting the house to grow more and more silent.

Almost the next minute she heard footsteps in the compound [11], 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 and they seemed to open doors and look into rooms. “What desolation [12], 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 looked an ugly, cross [13] little thing and was frowning because she was beginning to be hungry and feel disgracefully neglected. The first man who came in was a large officer she had once seen talking to her father. He looked tired and troubled, but when he saw her he was so startled that he almost jumped back.

“Barney!” he cried out. “There is a child here! A child alone! In a place like this! Mercy on us, who is she!”

“I am Mary Lennox,” the little girl said, drawing herself up stiffly. 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 and I have only just wakened up. Why does nobody come?”

The young man whose name was Barney looked at her very sadly. None of the servants who had not died even remembering that there was a Missie Sahib. There was no one in the bungalow but herself and the little rustling snake.