Таинственный сад / The secret garden

Martha suddenly looked confused.

“No,” she answered. “It’s the wind.”

“But listen,” said Mary. “It’s in the house-down one of those long corridors. It is someone crying-and it isn’t a grown-up person.”

Martha ran and shut the door and turned the key.

“It was the wind,” said Martha stubbornly. “Or it was little Betty Butterworth, the scullery-maid[15 - scullery-maid – судомойка]. She’s had the toothache all day.”

But Mary did not believe she was speaking the truth.

Chapter VI

“There was someone crying – there was!”

The next day the rain poured down in torrents.

“What do you do in your cottage when it rains like this?” she asked Martha.

“Eh! The biggest ones go out in the cow-shed and play there,” Martha answered. “Dickon doesn’t mind the wet. He goes out just the same[16 - just the same – всё равно]. He once found a little fox cub half drowned in its hole and he brought it home to keep it warm. He found a half-drowned young crow another time and he brought it home, too, and tamed it. Its name is Soot because it’s black.”

“I want to have a raven or a fox cub to with it,” said Mary. “But I have nothing.”

Martha looked perplexed.

“Can you knit?” she asked.

“No,” answered Mary.

“Can you sew?”

“No.”

“Can you read?”

“Yes. But I have no books,” said Mary. “Those I had were left in India.”

“That’s a pity,” said Martha. “Ask Mrs. Medlock to go into the library, there are thousands of books there.”

Mary did not ask where the library was, because she was suddenly inspired by a new idea. She decided to go and find it herself. She was not troubled about Mrs. Medlock. Mrs. Medlock was always in her comfortable housekeeper’s sitting-room downstairs. In this queer place one scarcely ever saw anyone at all.

Mrs. Medlock came and looked at her every day, but no one inquired what she did or told her what to do. She supposed that perhaps this was the English custom. In India, her Ayah followed her all the time. Mary was often tired of her company. Now she nobody followed her.

Mary stood at the window for about ten minutes this morning after her breakfast. She was thinking over the new idea. She did not care very much about the library itself, because she read very few books. But the hundred rooms with closed doors! She wondered if they were all really locked. Were there a hundred really? How many doors can she count?

She opened the door of the room and went into the corridor. It was a long corridor and it branched into other corridors and it led her up short flights of steps 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, sometimes they were portraits of men and women in queer, grand costumes. She found herself in one long gallery whose walls were covered with these portraits. She walked slowly down this place and stared at the faces. Some were pictures of children-little girls in thick satin frocks and boys with puffed sleeves and lace collars and long hair, or with big ruffs around their necks.

Suddenly she heard a cry. It was a short one, a fretful, childish whine.

“It’s near,” said Mary.

She put her hand accidentally upon the tapestry near her, and then sprang back. The tapestry was the covering of a door. Suddenly Mrs. Medlock came 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 I tell you?”

“I turned round the wrong corner,” explained Mary. “I didn’t know which way to go and I heard someone crying.”

“You didn’t hear anything!” said the housekeeper. “Come back to your own nursery!”

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

“Now,” she said, “you stay here. The master will get you a governess to look after you.”

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

“There was someone crying-there was-there was!” she said to herself.

Chapter VII

The key of the garden

Two days after this, when Mary opened her eyes she sat upright in bed immediately, and called to Martha.

“Look at the moor! Look at the moor!”

A brilliant, deep blue sky arched high over the moorland. In India skies were hot and blazing. The world of the moor looked softly blue instead of gloomy purple-black or awful dreary gray.

“I thought perhaps it always rained in England,” Mary said.

“Eh! no!” said Martha, sitting up on her heels.

“Can I ever get there?” asked Mary wistfully, looking through her window at the far-off blue. It was new and big and wonderful.

“I don’t know,” answered Martha. “Five miles, I think.”

“I want to see your cottage.”

Martha stared at her.

“I’ll ask my mother about it,” Martha said. “Mrs. Medlock likes my mother. Perhaps she can talk to her.”

“I like your mother, too” said Mary.

“Of course,” agreed Martha.

“And I like Dickon,” added Mary.

“Well,” said Martha stoutly, “all the birds like him and the rabbits and wild sheep and the ponies, and the foxes.”