Читать книгу Таинственный сад / The secret garden - Фрэнсис-Элиза Ходжсон Бёрнетт - Страница 11

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.”