Sleep Story: The Secret Garden Chapters 5 & 6

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett Chapter 5 The Cry in the Corridor At first,

Each day passed,

For Mary Lennox was exactly like the others.

Every morning she awoke in her tapestried room and found Martha kneeling upon the hearth,

Building her fire.

Every morning she ate her breakfast in the nursery,

Which had nothing amusing in it.

And after each breakfast she gazed out of the window,

Across to the huge moor,

Which seemed to spread out on all sides and climb up to the sky.

And after she had stared for a while,

She realized that if she did not go out,

She would have to stay in and do nothing,

And so she went out.

She did not know that this was the best thing she could have done,

And she did not know that when she began to walk quickly,

Or even run along the paths and down the avenue.

She was stirring her slow blood and making herself stronger by fighting with the wind,

Which swept down from the moor.

She ran only to make herself warm,

And she hated the wind,

Which rushed at her face and roared and held her back as if it were some giant she could not see.

But the big breaths of rough fresh air blown over the heather filled her lungs with something which was good for her whole thin body,

And whipped some red color into her cheeks and brightened her dull eyes when she did not know anything about it.

But after a few days spent almost entirely out of doors,

She wakened one morning knowing what it was to be hungry,

And when she sat to her breakfast,

She did not glance disdainfully at her porridge and push it away,

But took up her spoon and began to eat it,

And went on eating it until her bowl was empty.

The god on well enough with that this morning,

Didn't the?

Said Martha.

It tastes nice today,

Said Mary,

Feeling a little surprised herself.

It's the air of the moor that's given thee stomach with the victuals,

Answered Martha.

It's lucky for thee that thou's got victuals as well as appetite.

There's been twelve in our cottage,

Has had the stomach,

And nothing to put in it.

You go on playing you out of doors every day,

And you'll get some flesh on your bones,

And you won't be so yeller.

I don't play,

Said Mary.

I have nothing to play with.

Nothing to play with,

Exclaimed Martha.

Our children plays with sticks and stones.

They just run about and shouts and looks at things.

Mary did not shout,

But she looked at things.

There was nothing else to do.

She walked round and round the gardens,

And wandered about the paths in the park.

Sometimes she looked for Ben Weatherstaff,

But those several times she saw him at work,

He was too busy to look at her,

Or it was too surly.

Once,

When she was walking toward him,

He picked up his spade and turned away,

As if he didn't it on purpose.

One place she went to oftener than to any other.

It was the long walk outside the gardens,

With the walls around them.

There were bare flower beds on either side of it,

And against the walls ivy grew thickly.

There was one part of the wall where the creeping dark green leaves were more bushy than elsewhere.

It seemed as if for a long time that part had been neglected.

The rest of it had been clipped and made to look neat,

But at this lower end of the walk it had not been trimmed at all.

A few days after she had talked to Ben Weatherstaff,

Mary stopped to notice this and wondered why it was so.

She had just paused and was looking up at a long spray of ivy,

Swinging in the wind when she saw a gleam of scarlet and heard a brilliant chirp.

And there,

On the top of the wall,

Forward perched,

Ben Weatherstaff's robin red-breast,

Tilting forward to look at her with his small head on one side.

Oh,

She cried out,

It is you,

It is you.

And it did not seem at all queer to her that she spoke to him as if she were sure that he understood and answered her.

He did answer.

He twittered,

And chirped,

And hopped along the wall as if he were telling her all sorts of things.

It seemed to Mistress Mary as if she understood him too,

Though he was not speaking in words.

It was as if he said,

Good morning,

Isn't the wind nice?

Isn't the sun nice?

Isn't everything nice?

Let us both chirp and hop and twitter.

Come on,

Come on.

Mary began to laugh,

And as he hopped and took little flights along the wall,

She ran after him.

Poor little thin,

Sallow,

Ugly Mary.

She actually looked almost pretty for a moment.

I like you,

I like you,

She cried out,

Pattering down the walk,

And she chirped and tried to whistle,

Which alas she did not know how to do in the least.

But the robin seemed to be quite satisfied,

And chirped,

And whistled back at her.

At last he spread his wings and made a darting flight to the top of the tree,

Where he perched and sang loudly.

That reminded Mary of the first time she had seen him.

He had been swinging on the top tree then,

And she had been standing in the orchard.

Now she was on the other side of the orchard,

And standing in the path outside the wall,

Much lower down,

And there was the same tree inside.

It's in the garden,

No one can go,

She told herself.

It's the garden without a door,

He lives in there.

How I wish I could see what it was like.

She ran up the walk to the green door she had entered the first morning,

Then she ran down the path through the other door,

And then into the orchard.

And when she stood and looked up there was a tree on the other side of the wall,

And there was the robin,

Just finishing his song,

And beginning to preen his feathers with his beak.

It is the garden,

She said,

I'm sure of it.

She walked around and looked closely at the side of the orchard wall,

But she only found what she had found before,

That there was no door in it.

Then she ran through the kitchen gardens again,

And out into the walk,

Outside the long,

Ivy colored wall.

And she walked to the end of it,

And looked at it,

But there was no door.

And then she walked to the other end,

Looking again,

But there was no door.

It's very queer,

She said,

Ben Weatherstaff said there was no door,

And there is no door,

But there must have been one ten years ago,

Because Mr.

Craven buried the key.

This gave her so much to think of,

She began to be quite interested,

And feel that she was not sorry that she had come to Missal Wake Manor.

In India she had always felt hot and too languid to care much about anything.

The fact was that the fresh wind from the moor had begun to blow the cobwebs out of her young brain,

And to waken her up a little.

She stayed out of doors nearly all day,

And when she sat down to her supper at night,

She felt hungry,

And drowsy,

And comfortable.

She did not feel cross when Martha chattered away.

She felt as if she'd rather like to hear her,

And at last she thought she would ask her a question.

She asked it after she had finished her supper,

And had sat down on the hearth rug before the fire.

Why did Mr.

Craven hate the garden,

She said?

She had made Martha stay with her,

And Martha had not objected at all.

She was very young,

And used to a crowded cottage full of brothers and sisters,

And she found it dull in the great servant's hall,

Downstairs,

Where the footmen and the upper housemaids made fun of her Yorkshire speech,

And looked upon her as a common little thing,

And sat and whispered among themselves.

Martha liked to talk,

And the strange child who had lived in India had been waited upon by blacks,

Was novelty enough to attract her.

She sat down on the hearth herself,

Without waiting to be asked.

Art the thinking about the garden yet,

She said?

I knew the wood.

That was just the way with me when I first heard about it.

Why did he hate it,

Mary persisted.

Martha tucked her feet under her,

And made herself quite comfortable.

Listen to the wind weathering around the house,

She said.

You could bear stand up on the moor if you was out on it tonight.

Mary did not know what weathering meant until she listened,

And then she understood.

It must mean that hollow shuddering sort of roar which rushed round and round the house,

As if the giant no one could see were buffering and beating at the walls,

And windows to try to break in.

But one knew he could not get in,

And somehow it made one feel very safe and warm inside a room with a red coal fire.

But why did he hate it so,

She asked,

After she had listened.

She intended to know if Martha did.

Then Martha gave up her store of knowledge.

Mine,

She said,

Miss Medlock said,

It's not to be talked about.

There's lots of things in this place that's not to be talked over.

That's Mr.

Craven's orders.

His troubles are none servant's business,

He says,

But for the garden he wouldn't be like he is.

There was Miss Craven's garden that she had made when they first were married,

And she just loved it,

And they used to tend the flowers themselves,

And none of the gardeners was ever let to go in.

Him and her used to go in and shut the door and stay there for hours and hours reading and talking.

And she was just a bit of a girl,

And there was an old tree with a branch bent like a seat on it.

And she made roses grow over it,

And she used to sit there.

But one day when she was sitting there,

The branch broke,

And she fell on the ground and was hurt so bad that the next day she died.

The doctors thought he'd go out of his mind and die too,

And that's why he hates it.

No one's ever gone in since,

And he won't let anyone talk about it.

Mary did not ask any more questions.

She looked at the red fire and listened to the wind weathering.

It seemed to be weathering louder than ever.

At that moment,

A very good thing was happening to her.

Four good things had happened to her,

In fact,

Since she came to Misslewaith Manor.

She had felt as if she'd understood Robin,

And that he understood her.

She had run in the wind until her blood had grown warm.

She had been healthily hungry for the first time in her life,

And she found out what it was to be sorry for someone.

But as she was listening to the wind,

She began to listen to something else.

She did not know what it was,

Because at first she could scarcely distinguish it from the wind itself.

It was a curious sound.

It seemed almost as if a child were crying somewhere.

Sometimes the wind sounded rather like a child crying,

But presently Mistress Mary felt quite sure this sound was inside the house,

Not outside it.

It was far away,

But it was inside.

She turned round and looked at Martha.

Do you hear anyone crying?

She said.

Martha suddenly looked confused.

No,

She answered,

It's the wind.

Sometimes it sounds as if someone was lost on the moor in Whalen.

It's got all sorts of sounds.

But listen,

Said Mary,

It's in the house,

Down one of the long corridors.

At that very moment a door must have been opened somewhere downstairs,

For a great rushing draft,

Blew along the passage,

And the door of the room they sat in was blown open with a crash.

And as they both jumped to their feet,

The light was blown out,

And the crying sound was swept down the far corridor so that it was to be heard more plainly than ever.

There,

Mary said,

I told you so.

It is someone crying,

And it isn't a grown-up person.

Martha ran and shut the door and turned the key,

But before she did they both heard the sound of a door and some far passage shutting with a bang,

And then everything was quiet,

For even the wind ceased to wuther in for a few moments.

It was just the wind,

Said Martha stubbornly,

And if it wasn't,

It was little Betty Butterworth,

The scullery maid.

She had a toothache all day,

But something troubled and awkward in her manner made Mistress Mary stare very hard at her.

She did not believe she was speaking the truth.

Chapter 6 There was someone crying,

There was.

The next day the rain poured down and turned again,

And when Mary looked out her window the moor was almost hidden by gray mist and cloud.

There could be no going out today.

What do you do in your cottage when it rains like this?

She asked Martha.

Try to keep from under each other's feet mostly,

Martha answered.

A.

There does seem a lot of us,

Then.

Mother's a good-tempered woman,

But she gets fair-moithered.

The biggest ones goes out in the cow shed and plays there.

Dickon,

He doesn't mind the wet.

He goes out just the same as if the sun were shining.

He says he sees things on rainy days,

As doesn't show when it's fair weather.

He once found a little fox cub half-drowned in its hole,

And he brought it home in the bosom of his shirt to keep it warm.

Its mother had been killed nearby,

And the hole was swum out,

And the rest of the litter was gone.

He's got it at home now.

He found a half-drowned young crow the other time,

And he brought that home too and tamed it.

It's named Suit because it's so black,

And it hops and flies around with him everywhere.

The time had come when Mary had forgotten to resent Martha's familiar talk.

She had even begun to find it interesting and to be sorry when she stopped or went away.

The stories she'd been told by her Aya when she lived in India had been quite unlike those Martha had to tell about the Morland College,

Which held fourteen people who lived in four little rooms and never had quite enough to eat.

The children seemed to tumble about and amuse themselves,

Like a litter of rough,

Good-natured collie puppies.

Mary was most attracted by the mother and Dickon.

When Martha told stories of that mother,

Said,

Or did,

They always sounded comfortable.

If I had a raven or a fox cub,

I would play with it,

Said Mary,

But I have nothing.

Martha looked perplexed.

Can the knit?

She asked.

No,

Answered Mary.

Can the sew?

No.

Can the read?

Yes.

Then why doesn't the read something or learn a bit of spelling?

Just old enough to be learning the good book a bit now.

I haven't any books,

Said Mary.

Those I had were left in India.

That's a pity,

Said Martha.

If Miss Medlock let thee go in the library,

There's thousands of books there.

Mary did not ask where the library was,

Because she was so suddenly inspired by a new idea.

She made up her mind to go and find it herself.

She was not troubled about Miss Medlock.

Miss Medlock seemed always to be in her comfortable housekeeper's sitting room downstairs.

In this queer place,

One scarcely ever saw anyone at all.

In fact,

There was no one to see but the servants,

And when their master was away,

They lived a luxurious life below the stairs,

Where there was a huge kitchen hung about with shiny brass and pewter,

And a large servant's hall where there were four or five abundant meals eaten every day,

And where a great deal of lively romping went on when Miss Medlock was out of the way.

Mary's meals were served regularly,

And Martha waited on her,

But no one troubled themselves about her in the least.

Miss Medlock came and looked at her every day or two,

But no one inquired what she did or told her what to do.

She supposed that perhaps this was the English way of treating children.

In India,

She had always been attended by her ayah,

Who had followed her about and waited on her hand and foot.

She had often been tired of her company.

Now she was followed by nobody and was learning to dress herself,

Because Martha looked as though she thought it was silly and stupid when she wanted to have things handed to her or put on.

Hasn't that got good sense,

She once said,

When Mary had stood waiting for her to put her gloves on her?

Our Susan Ann is twice as sharp as thee,

And she's only four years old,

Sometimes the looks fair soft in the head.

Mary had worn her contrary scowl for an hour after that,

But it made her think several entirely new things.

She stood at the window for about ten minutes this morning after Martha had swept up the hearth for the last time and gone downstairs.

She was thinking over the new idea which had come to her when she heard of the library.

She did not care very much about the library itself,

Because she had read very few books,

But to hear of it brought back to her mind the hundred rooms with closed doors.

She wondered if they were all really locked and what she could find if she get into any of them.

Were there a hundred really?

Why shouldn't she go and see how many doors she could count?

It would be something to do this morning when she could not go out.

She'd never been taught to ask permission to do things,

And she knew nothing at all about authority,

So she would not have thought it necessary to ask Medlock if she might walk around the house,

Even if she had seen her.

She opened the door of the room and went into the corridor,

And then she began her wanderings.

It was a long corridor,

And it branched into other corridors,

And it led her up short flights of stairs which mounted to others again.

There were doors and doors,

And there were pictures on the walls.

Sometimes they were pictures of dark,

Curious landscapes.

Benovinist,

They were portraits of men and women in queer grand costumes made of satin and velvet.

She found herself in one long gallery whose walls were covered with these portraits.

She had never thought there could be so many in any house.

She walked slowly down this place and stared at the faces which also seemed to stare at her.

She felt as if they were wondering what a little girl from India was doing in their house.

Some were pictures of children,

Little girls in thick satin frocks,

Which reached to their feet and stood out about them,

And boys with puff sleeves and lace collars and long hair,

Or with big ruffs around their necks.

She always stopped to look at the children and wondered what their names were and where they had gone and why they wore such odd clothes.

There was a stiff,

Plain little girl rather like herself.

She wore a green brocade dress and held a green parrot on her finger.

Her eyes had a sharp,

Curious look.

Where do you live now?

Said Mary aloud to her.

I wish you were here.

Surely no other little girl ever spent such a queer morning.

It seemed as if there was no one in all the huge rambling house but her own small self,

Wandering about upstairs and down through narrow passages and wide ones where it seemed to her that no one but herself had ever walked.

Since so many rooms had been built,

People must have lived in them,

But it all seemed so empty that she could not believe it true.

It was not until she climbed to the second floor that she thought of turning the handle of the door.

All of the doors were shut as Miss Medlock had said they were,

But at last she put her hand on a handle and one of them had turned.

She was almost frightened for a moment when she felt that it turned without difficulty and that when she pushed upon the door itself it slowly and heavily opened.

It was a massive door and opened into a big bedroom.

There were embroidered hangings on the wall and inlaid furniture such as been in the India room.

A broad window with lead and panes looked out on upon the moor.

And over the mantle was another portrait of a stiff,

Plain little girl who seemed to stare at her more curiously than ever.

Perhaps she slept here once,

Said Mary.

She stares at me that it makes me feel queer.

After she opened more doors and more,

She saw so many rooms that she became quite tired and began to think that there must be a hundred,

Though she had not counted them.

In all of them there were old pictures or old tapestries with strange scenes worked on them.

There were curious pieces of furniture and curious ornaments in nearly all of them.

In one room which looked like a lady's sitting room,

The hangings were all embroidered velvet and in a cabinet were about a hundred little elephants made of ivory.

They were of different sizes and some had their mahouts or paliquins on their back.

Some were much bigger than the others and some were so tiny they seemed only like babies.

Mary had seen carved ivory in India and she knew all about elephants.

She opened the door of the cabinet and stood on a footstool and played with these for quite a long time.

When she got tired she set the elephants in order and shut the door of the cabinet.

In all her wanderings through the long corridors and the empty rooms she had seen nothing alive.

But in this room she saw something.

Just after she had closed the cabinet door she heard a tiny rustling sound.

It made her jump and look around at the sofa of the fireplace from which it seemed to come.

In the corner of the sofa there was a cushion and in the velvet which covered it there was a hole and out of the hole peeped a tiny head with a pair of frightened eyes in it.

Mary crept softly across the room to look.

The bright eyes belonged to a gray little mouse and the mouse had eaten a hole into the cushion and made a comfortable nest there.

Six baby mice were cuddled up asleep near her.

If there was no one else alive in the hundred rooms there were seven mice who did not look lonely at all.

If they wouldn't be so frightened I would take them back with me said Mary.

She had wandered about long enough to feel too tired to wander any farther and she turned back.

Two or three times she lost her way by turning down the wrong corridor and was obliged to ramble up and down until she found the right one.

But at last she reached her own floor again though she was some distance from her own room and did not know exactly where she was.

I believe I have taken a wrong turn again she said standing still at what seemed the end of a short passage with tapestry on the wall.

I don't know which way to go how still everything is.

It was while she was standing here and just after she had said this that the stillness was broken by a sound.

It was another cry but not quite like the one she'd heard last night.

It was only a short one a fretful childish whine muffled by passing through walls.

It's nearer than it was said Mary her heart beating rather faster and it is crying.

She put her hand accidentally upon the tapestry near her and then sprang back feeling quite startled.

The tapestry was the covering of a door which fell open and showed her that there was another part of the corridor behind it and Miss Medlock was coming up with her bunch of keys in her hand and a very cross look on her face.

What are you doing here she said and she took Mary by the arm and pulled her away.

What did she say?

What did I tell you?

I turned around the wrong corner explained Mary.

I didn't know which way to go and I heard someone crying.

She quite hated Miss Medlock at the moment but she hated her more than next.

You didn't hear anything of the sort said the housekeeper.

You come back to your own nursery or I'll box your ears.

And she took her by the arm and half pushed half pulled her up the passage and down another until she pushed her at the door of her own room.

Now she said you stay where you're told or you'll find yourself locked up.

The master had better get you a governess same as he said he would.

You're the one that needs someone to look sharp after you.

I've got enough to do.

She went out of the room and slammed the door after her but Mary went and sat on the hearth rug pale with rage.

She did not cry but ground her teeth.

There was someone crying there was there was she said to herself.

She had heard it twice now and sometimes she would find out.

She had found out a great deal this morning.

She felt as if she had been on a long journey and at any rate she had had something to amuse her all the time and she had played with the ivory elephants and had seen the grey mouse and its babies in their nest in the velvet cushion.

And that is the end of our sleep story tonight.

Thank you so much.

Until next time.

Sweet dreams.