Chapter I. There is No One Left

The Secret Garden

by Francis Hodgson Burnett

When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her
uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking 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, ugly little baby she
was kept out of the way, 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, when she was about nine years old,
she awakened feeling very cross, and she became crosser still when
she saw that the servant who stood by her bedside was not her
Ayah.

"Why did you come?" she said to the strange woman. "I will not
let you stay. Send my Ayah to me."

The woman looked frightened, but she only stammered that the
Ayah could not come and when Mary threw herself into a passion and
beat and kicked her, she looked only more frightened and repeated
that it was not possible for the Ayah to come to Missie Sahib.

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 slunk 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 flower-bed, and she stuck big scarlet hibiscus blossoms into
little heaps of earth, 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.

"Pig! Pig! Daughter of Pigs!" she said, because to call a native
a pig is the worst insult of all.

She was grinding her teeth and saying this over and over again
when she heard her mother come out on the veranda with some one. She
was with a fair young man and they stood talking together in low
strange voices. Mary knew the fair young man who looked like a boy.
She had heard that 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 always did this when she had a chance to see her, because the Mem
Sahib--Mary used to call her that oftener than anything else--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 which
seemed to be disdaining things, and she had large laughing eyes. All
her clothes were thin and floating, and Mary said they were "full of
lace." They looked fuller of lace than ever this morning, but her
eyes were not laughing at all. They were large and scared and lifted
imploringly to the fair boy officer's face.

"Is it so very bad? Oh, is it?" Mary heard her say.

"Awfully," the young man answered in a trembling voice.
"Awfully, Mrs. Lennox. You ought to have gone to the hills two weeks
ago."

The Mem Sahib wrung her hands.

"Oh, I know I ought!" she cried. "I only stayed to go to that
silly dinner party. What a fool I was!"

At that very moment such a loud sound of wailing broke out from
the servants' quarters that she clutched 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. 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 and bewilderment of the second day Mary hid
herself in the nursery and was forgotten by everyone. Nobody thought
of her, nobody wanted her, and strange things happened of which she
knew nothing. Mary alternately cried and slept through the hours.
She only knew that people were ill and that she heard mysterious and
tightening sounds. Once she crept into the dining-room and found it
empty, though a partly finished meal was on the table and chairs and
plates looked as if they had been hastily pushed back when the diners
rose suddenly for some reason. The child ate some fruit and biscuits,
and being thirsty she drank a glass of wine which stood nearly
filled. It was sweet, and she did not know how strong it was. Very
soon it made her intensely drowsy, and she went back to her nursery
and shut herself in again, frightened by cries she heard in the huts
and by the hurrying sound of feet. The wine made her so sleepy that
she could scarcely keep her eyes open and she lay down on her bed and
knew nothing more for a long time.

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 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 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, and as she lay waiting the house seemed to grow
more and more silent. She heard something rustling on the matting
and when she looked down she saw a little snake gliding along and
watching her with eyes like jewels. She was not frightened, because
he was a harmless little thing who would not hurt her and he seemed
in a hurry to get out of the room. He slipped under the door as she
watched him.

"How queer and quiet it is," she said. "It sounds as if there
were no one in the bungalow but me and the snake."

Almost the next minute she heard footsteps in the compound, 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!" 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 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?"

"It is the child no one ever saw!" exclaimed the man, turning to
his companions. "She has actually been forgotten!"

"Why was I forgotten?" Mary said, stamping her foot. "Why does
nobody come?"

The young man whose name was Barney looked at her very sadly.
Mary even thought she saw him wink his eyes as if to wink tears
away.

"Poor little kid!" he said. "There is nobody left to come."

It was in that strange and sudden way that Mary found out that
she had neither father nor mother left; that they had died and been
carried away in the night, and that the few native servants who had
not died also had left the house as quickly as they could get out of
it, none of them even remembering that there was a Missie Sahib. That
was why the place was so quiet. It was true that there was no one in
the bungalow but herself and the little rustling snake.