Secret Garden

Author: F. H. Burnette (USA), translated by Zhang Jianping
Translator: Zhang Jianping
Country:
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-02-12
Features: However, no one came. As she lay in bed waiting, the house seemed to grow quieter and quieter. She heard rustling sounds on the tatami mat and looked down to see a small snake approaching, its bead-like eyes staring at her. She was not afraid because it was a harmless, non-venomous snake, seemingly eager to escape the room. She watched it slither under the door. "How strange, how quiet," she said. "It sounds as if there's only me and this snake in the house." Almost immediately, she heard footsteps in the courtyard, followed by footsteps on the veranda. They were men's footsteps; several men entered the house, whispering among themselves. No one came to greet them or speak to them, as if they had opened a series of doors, peering into the room. "How desolate!" one voice said. "That beautiful woman! I bet the child is beautiful too. I heard there's a child, though no one has ever seen her." After a few minutes, they opened the children's room door, and Mary stood in the center. She seemed like an ugly, irritable little creature, frowning because she was hungry and felt overlooked. One of the men who entered was a tall officer she had seen speak with her father. He looked exhausted and confused but was taken aback when he saw Mary, nearly jumping back. "Barney!" he exclaimed. "There's a child here! A lone child! In a place like this! Good heavens, who is she!" "I'm Mary Lennox," the little girl said, standing straight. She thought it was very rude for him to call her father's little house "a place like this." "When everyone got cholera, I fell asleep, and I just woke up. Why didn't anyone come?" "That's the child no one has ever seen!" the man exclaimed, turning to his companion. "She's been completely forgotten!" "Why have I been forgotten?" Mary stamped her foot. "Why didn't anyone come?" The young man called Barney looked at her sadly. Mary even thought she saw him blinking, as if trying to hold back tears. "Poor little thing!" he said. "No one will come now, there's no one left here." In this strange and sudden way, Mary discovered that her father and mother were gone; they had died during the night and been taken away, and the few surviving servants had left the house as quickly as possible, not one of them remembering that there was still a Miss in the house. That was why it was so quiet. Indeed, in this little house, there was no one besides her and the small snake rustling along the floor. She stepped inside to find that the garden was surrounded by walls, just one of several gardens that seemed interconnected and walled on all sides. She saw another green door open, revealing a path between the bushes and flowerbeds, where winter vegetables were grown. Fruit trees were trained close to the walls, and some flowerbeds were covered with glass frames. Mary stood there, taking in the surroundings, feeling that the place was desolate and ugly. Come summer, when the plants greened up, it might look a bit better, but for now, there was no beauty to be seen. Shortly after, an old man with a shovel on his shoulder walked past the second garden gate. He was startled to see Mary and touched his hat. He had a grumpy old face and showed no pleasure in seeing her—but at that moment, she had no fondness for his garden, and her face wore the expression of a stubborn cow, so he was not pleased to see her either. "What kind of place is this?" she asked. "A vegetable garden," he replied. "What is that?" Mary pointed to another green door. "Another vegetable garden," was the simple answer. "There's another one over the wall, and there's an orchard on the other side of that garden." "Can I go in?" Mary asked. "If you want to, go ahead. But there's nothing to see there." Mary paid him no mind. She followed the path into the second green door. There she saw more walls, winter vegetables, and glass frames, but the second wall had another door that was not open. Perhaps the door led to the garden that had not been entered for ten years. Mary had never been a child who knew fear and always did as she pleased. She walked up to the green door and turned the handle. She hoped it wouldn't open, wanting to confirm that she had found the secret garden—but it opened easily, and she stepped inside. It was a small orchard. The walls surrounded it, and the fruit trees were trained close to the walls, with winter-brown grass and bare trees planted among them. But she couldn't find any green doors anywhere. Mary searched for a door and, when she reached the northern end of the garden, noticed that the wall seemed to extend beyond the orchard, as if it encircled something on the other side. She stood quietly, watching the treetops out from the wall, with a chestnut-red bird perched on the highest branch. Suddenly, it gave its winter chirp, as if it had seen Mary and was calling to her. She stopped and listened to its chirping. Its cheerful, friendly chirping filled her with a sense of happiness—even a girl who was as as Mary would feel lonely in this closed-up great house, this desolate great swamp, and this bare great garden, making it seem as if she were the only person in the world. If she had been a child full of emotions and used to being pampered, she would have felt heartbroken; but even as "Stubborn Mary," she felt a sense of desolation, and the bright chestnut bird almost made the girl with a sorrowful face smile. She listened to its chirping until it flew away. It was not like the birds in India, and she liked it, not knowing if she would see it again. Perhaps it lived in the secret garden and knew everything about it. No one could imagine a place in the world looking so lovely and mysterious. High walls wereed with bare rose stems, and dense ones seemed like a woven mat covering the walls. Mary Lennox knew these were roses because she had seen many in India. The ground was covered with dead grass, and among the dead grass grew thickets of bushes—if those bushes could live, they would be rose bushes. There were many standard roses, their branches and leaves spreading out like small trees. There were other trees in the garden, all covered with climbing rose vines. Their long tendrils hung down, swaying like curtains, and they intertwined everywhere, or connected with the spreading branches, sometimes forming charming bridges as they climbed from one tree to another. It was these climbing roses that made the place look so strange and lovely. Now these vines had neither leaves nor roses, and Mary didn't know if they were dead or alive. But their large and small gray and brown branches, like a mist, covered everything—the walls, the trees, even the dead grass. They dropped from what they were climbing and stretched forward on the ground. It was this mist-like network of branches winding around one tree after another that gave the place such a mysterious aura. Mary had thought this garden must be different from the others; after all, they were not as neglected as this one. Indeed, it was unlike any place she had ever seen. "How quiet here!" she murmured. "So quiet!" Then she waited for a moment, listening intently in the stillness. The thrush that had flown to the treetops was just as quiet as everything else. Not even its wings stirred; it sat there motionless, watching Mary. "No wonder it's so quiet," she murmured again. "I'm the only one who's spoken here in ten years." She stepped away from the door and walked silently, as if afraid of waking someone up. She was glad to have grass under her feet, so she wouldn't make any noise while walking. She walked beneath an archway of gray trees, as in a fairy tale, looking up at the branches and tendrils that formed the arch. "I wonder if they're all dead," she said. "Is this a dead garden? I hope it isn't." If she had been Ben Weatherstaff, she would have known whether the trees were alive or dead at a glance, but she could only see gray and brown branches of all sizes, with no trace of flower buds. But she had at least entered this magical garden, and she could come in through the door under the ivy anytime. She felt as if she had discovered a world that belonged entirely to her. The garden was bathed in sunlight, and the blue sky hanging above Misselthwaite Manor seemed brighter and softer than the sky over the swamp. The thrush flew down from the treetops and followed her, hopping or flying from one bush to another. It chirped incessantly, as if it were showing her around. Everything was strange and silent, and she felt as if she were miles away from everyone, yet she didn't feel lonely at all. Her only concern was whether all the roses were dead or if some might still be alive, and with the changing of the weather, they might burst into bloom. She didn't want it to be a dead garden. If it were a living garden, how wonderful it would be! Countless roses would bloom everywhere! Miss Mary always felt that no matter how long she lived, she would never forget the morning her garden began to awaken. Of course, in her eyes, that morning the garden seemed to have already begun to awaken. When Dickon started clearing the ground to plant seeds, Mary remembered the song Bazil had sung to tease her. "Is there a flower like a bell?" she asked. "Larkspur is like that," he replied, digging the soil with a small shovel. "And cowslips, round-leaved cowslips." "Let's plant some," Mary said. "Larkspur is already here; I saw it. They'll grow too densely, so we'll have to space them out, but there are many. Other flowers take two years to grow from seed to bloom, but I can bring some from our flowerbed at home for you. Why do you want these?" Mary told him about Bazil and his siblings in India, how much she hated them, and how they called her "Stubborn Mary." "They often danced and sang around me. They sang like this—Miss Mary, stubborn as a mule, what kind of garden is this? Silver bells and snail shells, with marigolds in a row. I've always remembered this, and I often wonder if there really are flowers like silver bells." She frowned slightly and drove her small shovel hard into the soil. "I'm not like them at all," Dickon laughed heartily.