9
The Strangest House
It was the sweetest, most
mysterious-looking place any one could imagine. The high walls
which shut it in were covered with the leafless stems of climbing
roses which were so thick that they were matted together. Mary
Lennox knew they were roses because she had seen a great many roses
in India. All the ground was covered with grass of a wintry brown
and out of it grew clumps of bushes which were surely rose-bushes
if they were alive. There were numbers of standard roses which had
so spread their branches that they were like little trees. There
were other trees in the garden, and one of the things which made
the place look strangest and loveliest was that climbing roses had
run all over them and swung down long tendrils which made light
swaying curtains, and here and there they had caught at each other
or at a far-reaching branch and had crept from one tree to another
and made lovely bridges of themselves. There were neither leaves
nor roses on them now and Mary did not know whether they were dead
or alive, but their thin gray or brown branches and sprays looked
like a sort of hazy mantle spreading over everything, walls, and
trees, and even brown grass, where they had fallen from their
fastenings and run along the ground. It was this hazy tangle from
tree to tree which made it all look so mysterious. Mary had thought
it must be different from other gardens which had not been left all
by themselves so long; and indeed it was different from any other
place she had ever seen in her life.
“How still it is!” she whispered. “How
still!”
Then she waited a moment and listened at the
stillness. The robin, who had flown to his treetop, was still as
all the rest. He did not even flutter his wings; he sat without
stirring, and looked at Mary.
“No wonder it is still,” she whispered again. “I am
the first person who has spoken in here for ten years.”
She moved away from the door, stepping as softly as
if she were afraid of awakening some one. She was glad that there
was grass under her feet and that her steps made no sounds. She
walked under one of the fairy-like gray arches between the trees
and looked up at the sprays and tendrils which formed them.
“I wonder if they are all quite dead,” she said.
“Is it all a quite dead garden? I wish it wasn’t.”
If she had been Ben Weatherstaff she could have
told whether the wood was alive by looking at it, but she could
only see that there were only gray or brown sprays and branches and
none showed any signs of even a tiny leaf-bud anywhere.
But she was inside the wonderful garden and she
could come through the door under the ivy any time and she felt as
if she had found a world all her own.
The sun was shining inside the four walls and the
high arch of blue sky over this particular piece of Misselthwaite
seemed even more brilliant and soft than it was over the moor. The
robin flew down from his tree-top and hopped about or flew after
her from one bush to another. He chirped a good deal and had a very
busy air, as if he were showing her things. Everything was strange
and silent and she seemed to be hundreds of miles away from any
one, but somehow she did not feel lonely at all. All that troubled
her was her wish that she knew whether all the roses were dead, or
if perhaps some of them had lived and might put out leaves and buds
as the weather got warmer. She did not want it to be a quite dead
garden. If it were a quite alive garden, how wonderful it would be,
and what thousands of roses would grow on every side!
Her skipping-rope had hung over her arm when she
came in and after she had walked about for a while she thought she
would skip round the whole garden, stopping when she wanted to look
at things. There seemed to have been grass paths here and there,
and in one or two corners there were alcoves of evergreen with
stone seats or tall moss-covered flower urns in them.
As she came near the second of these alcoves she
stopped skipping. There had once been a flowerbed in it, and she
thought she saw something sticking out of the black earth—some
sharp little pale green points. She remembered what Ben
Weatherstaff had said and she knelt down to look at them.
“Yes, they are tiny growing things and they might
be crocuses or snowdrops or daffodils,” she whispered.
She bent very close to them and sniffed the fresh
scent of the damp earth. She liked it very much.
Perhaps there are some other ones coming up in
other places,” she said. ”I will go all over the garden and
look.”
She did not skip, but walked. She went slowly and
kept her eyes on the ground. She looked in the old border beds and
among the grass, and after she had gone round, trying to miss
nothing, she had found ever so many more sharp, pale green points,
and she had become quite excited again.
“It isn’t a quite dead garden,” she cried out
softly to herself “Even if the roses are dead, there are other
things alive.”
She did not know anything about gardening, but the
grass seemed so thick in some of the places where the green points
were pushing their way through that she thought they did not seem
to have room enough to grow. She searched about until she found a
rather sharp piece of wood and knelt down and dug and weeded out
the weeds and grass until she made nice little clear places around
them.
“Now they look as if they could breathe,” she said,
after she had finished with the first ones. “I am going to do ever
so many more. I’ll do all I can see. If I haven’t time today I can
come tomorrow.”
She went from place to place, and dug and weeded,
and enjoyed herself so immensely that she was led on from bed to
bed and into the grass under the trees. The exercise made her so
warm that she first threw her coat off, and then her hat, and
without knowing it she was smiling down on to the grass and the
pale green points all the time.
The robin was tremendously busy. He was very much
pleased to see gardening begun on his own estate. He had often
wondered at Ben Weatherstaff. Where gardening is done all sorts of
delightful things to eat are turned up with the soil. Now here was
this new kind of creature who was not half Ben’s size and yet had
had the sense to come into his garden and begin at once.
Mistress Mary worked in her garden until it was
time to go to her midday dinner. In fact, she was rather late in
remembering, and when she put on her coat and hat, and picked up
her skipping-rope, she could not believe that she had been working
two or three hours. She had been actually happy all the time; and
dozens and dozens of the tiny, pale green points were to be seen in
cleared places, looking twice as cheerful as they had looked before
when the grass and weeds had been smothering them.
“I shall come back this afternoon,” she said,
looking all round at her new kingdom, and speaking to the trees and
the rose-bushes as if they heard her.
Then she ran lightly across the grass, pushed open
the slow old door and slipped through it under the ivy. She had
such red cheeks and such bright eyes and ate such a dinner that
Martha was delighted.
“Two pieces o’ meat an’ two helps o’ rice puddin‘!”
she said. “Eh! mother will be pleased when I tell her what th’
skippin’-rope’s done for thee.”
In the course of her digging with her pointed stick
Mistress Mary had found herself digging up a sort of white root
rather like an onion. She had put it back in its place and patted
the earth carefully down on it and just now she wondered if Martha
could tell her what it was.
“Martha,” she said, “what are those white roots
that look like onions?”
“They’re bulbs,” answered Martha. “Lots o’ spring
flowers grow from ‘em. Th’ very little ones are snowdrops an’
crocuses an’ th’ big ones are narcissuses an’ jonquils and
daffydowndillys. Th’ biggest of all is lilies an’ purple
flags.q Eh!
they are nice. Dickon’s got a whole lot of ’em planted in our bit
o’ garden.”
“Does Dickon know all about them?” asked Mary, a
new idea taking possession of her.
“Our Dickon can make a flower grow out of a brick
walk. Mother says he just whispers things out o’ th’ ground.”
“Do bulbs live a long time? Would they live years
and years if no one helped them?” inquired Mary anxiously.
“They’re things as helps themselves,” said Martha.
“That’s why poor folk can afford to have ‘em. If you don’t trouble
’em, most of ‘em’ll work away underground for a lifetime an’ spread
out an’ have little ’uns. There’s a place in th’ park woods here
where there’s snowdropsby thousands. They’re the prettiest sight in
Yorkshire when th’ spring comes. No one knows when they was first
planted.”
“I wish the spring was here now,” said Mary. “I
want to see all the things that grow in England.”
She had finished her dinner and gone to her
favorite seat on the hearth-rug.
“I wish—I wish I had a little spade,” she
said.
“Whatever does tha’ want a spade for?” asked
Martha, laughing. “Art tha’ goin’ to take to diggin’? I must tell
mother that, too.”
Mary looked at the fire and pondered a little. She
must be careful if she meant to keep her secret kingdom. She wasn’t
doing any harm, but if Mr. Craven found out about the open door he
would be fearfully angry and get a new key and lock it up
forevermore. She really could not bear that.
“This is such a big lonely place,” she said slowly,
as if she were turning matters over in her mind. “The house is
lonely, and the park is lonely, and the gardens are lonely. So many
places seem shut up. I never did many things in India, but there
were more people to look at—natives and soldiers marching by—and
sometimes bands playing, and my Ayah told me stories. There is no
one to talk to here except you and Ben Weatherstaff. And you have
to do your work and Ben Weatherstaff won’t speak to me often. I
thought if I had a little spade I could dig somewhere as he does,
and I might make a little garden if he would give me some
seeds.”
Martha’s face quite lighted up.
“There now!” she exclaimed, “if that wasn’t one of
th’ things mother said. She says, ‘There’s such a lot o’ room in
that big place, why don’t they give her a bit for herself, even if
she doesn’t plant nothin’ but parsley an’ radishes? She’d dig an’
rake away an’ be right down happy over it.’ Them was the very words
she said.”
“Were they?” said Mary. “How many things
she knows, doesn’t she?”
“Eh!” said Martha. “It’s like she says: ‘A woman as
brings up twelve children learns something besides her ABC.
Children’s as good as ’rithmetic to set you findin’ out
things.’”
“How much would a spade cost—a little one?” Mary
asked.
“Well,” was Martha’s reflective answer, “at Thwaite
village there’s a shop or so an’ I saw little garden sets with a
spade an’ a rake an’ a fork all tied together for two shillings.
An’ they was stout enough to work with, too.”
“I’ve got more than that in my purse,” said Mary.
“Mrs. Morrison gave me five shillings and Mrs. Medlock gave me some
money from Mr. Craven.”
“Did he remember thee that much?” exclaimed
Martha.
“Mrs. Medlock said I was to have a shilling a week
to spend. She gives me one every Saturday. I didn’t know what to
spend it on.”
“My word! that’s riches,” said Martha. “Tha’ can
buy anything in th’ world tha’ wants. Th’ rent of our cottage is
only one an’ threepence an’ it’s like pullin’ eye-teeth to get it.
Now I’ve just thought of somethin’,” putting her hands on her
hips.
“What?” said Mary eagerly.
“In the shop at Thwaite they sell packages o’
flower-seeds for a penny each, and our Dickon he knows which is th’
prettiest ones an’ how to make ’em grow. He walks over to Thwaite
many a day just’ for th’ fun of it. Does tha’ know how to print
letters?” suddenly.
“I know how to write,” Mary answered.
Martha shook her head.
“Our Dickon can only read printin’. If tha’ could
print we could write a letter to him an’ ask him to go an’ buy th’
garden tools an’ th’ seeds at th’ same time.”
“Oh! you’re a good girl!” Mary cried. “You are,
really! I didn’t know you were so nice. I know I can print letters
if I try. Let’s ask Mrs. Medlock for a pen and ink and some
paper.”
“I’ve got some of my own,” said Martha. “I bought
’em so I could print a bit of a letter to mother of a Sunday. I’ll
go and get it.”
She ran out of the room, and Mary stood by the fire
and twisted her thin little hands together with sheer
pleasure.
“If I have a spade,” she whispered, “I can make the
earth nice and soft and dig up weeds. If I have seeds and can make
flowers grow the garden won’t be dead at all—it will come
alive.”
She did not go out again that afternoon because
when Martha returned with her pen and ink and paper she was obliged
to clear the table and carry the plates and dishes downstairs and
when she got into the kitchen Mrs. Medlock was there and told her
to do something, so Mary waited for what seemed to her a long time
before she came back. Then it was a serious piece of work to write
to Dickon. Mary had been taught very little because her governesses
had disliked her too much to stay with her. She could not spell
particularly well but she found that she could print letters when
she tried. This was the letter Martha dictated to her:
“My Dear Dickon:
This comes hoping to find you well as it leaves
me at present. Miss Mary has plenty of money and will you go to
Thwaite and buy her some flower-seeds and a set of garden tools to
make a flower-bed. Pick the prettiest ones and easy to grow because
she has never done it before and lived in India which is different.
Give my love to mother and every one of you. Miss Mary is going to
tell me a lot more so that on my next day out you can hear about
elephants and camels and gentlemen going hunting lions and
tigers.
Your loving sister, Martha Phoebe
Sowerby.”
“We’ll put the money in th’ envelope an’ I’ll get
th’ butcher boy to take it in his cart. He’s a great friend o’
Dickon’s,” said Martha.
“How shall I get the things when Dickon buys
them?”
“He’ll bring ’em to you himself. He’ll like to walk
over this way.”
“Oh! exclaimed Mary, ”then I shall see him! I never
thought I should see Dickon.”
“Does tha’ want to see him?” asked Martha suddenly,
for Mary had looked so pleased.
“Yes, I do. I never saw a boy foxes and crows
loved. I want to see him very much.”
Martha gave a little start, as if she remembered
something.
“Now to think,” she broke out, “to think o’ me
forgettin’ that there; an’ I thought I was goin’ to tell you first
thing this mornin’. I asked mother—and she said she’d ask Mrs.
Medlock her own self.”
“Do you mean—” Mary began.
“What I said Tuesday. Ask her if you might be
driven over to our cottage some day and have a bit o’ mother’s hot
oat cake,r an’
butter, an’ a glass o’ milk.”
It seemed as if all the interesting things were
happening in one day. To think of going over the moor in the
daylight and when the sky was blue! To think of going into the
cottage which held twelve children!
“Does she think Mrs. Medlock would let me go?” she
asked, quite anxiously.
“Aye, she thinks she would. She knows what a tidy
woman mother is and how clean she keeps the cottage.”
“If I went I should see your mother as well as
Dickon,” said Mary, thinking it over and liking the idea very much.
“She doesn’t seem to be like the mothers in India.”
Her work in the garden and the excitement of the
afternoon ended by making her feel quiet and thoughtful. Martha
stayed with her until tea-time, but they sat in comfortable quiet
and talked very little. But just before Martha went downstairs for
the tea-tray, Mary asked a question.
“Martha,” she said, “has the scullery-maid had the
tooth-ache again today?”
Martha certainly started slightly.
“What makes thee ask that?” she said.
“Because when I waited so long for you to come back
I opened the door and walked down the corridor to see if you were
coming. And I heard that far-off crying again, just as we heard it
the other night. There isn’t a wind today, so you see it couldn’t
have been the wind.”
“Eh!” said Martha restlessly. “Tha’ mustn’t go
walkin’ about in corridors an’ listenin’. Mr. Craven would be that
there angry there’s no knowin’ what he’d do.”
“I wasn’t listening,” said Mary. “I was just
waiting for you—and I heard it. That’s three times.”
“My word! There’s Mrs. Medlock’s bell,” said
Martha, and she almost ran out of the room.
“It’s the strangest house any one ever lived in,”
said Mary drowsily, as she dropped her head on the cushioned seat
of the armchair near her. Fresh air, and digging, and skipping-rope
had made her feel so comfortably tired that she fell asleep.