Таинственный сад / The secret garden. Фрэнсис-Элиза Ходжсон Бёрнетт

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      “Yes, she died,” Mrs. Medlock answered. “And it made him queerer than ever. He cares about nobody. He doesn’t want to see people. Most of the time he goes away, and when he is at Misselthwaite he shuts himself up in the West Wing. Only Pitcher sees him. Pitcher is an old man, but he took care of him when he was a child and he knows him very well.”

      It did not make Mary feel cheerful. A house with a hundred rooms, with their doors locked-a house on the edge of a moor-sounded dreary. A man with a crooked back who shut himself up also! She stared out of the window with her lips pinched together.

      “Don’t expect to see him, because you won’t,” said Mrs. Medlock. “And you mustn’t expect that there will be people to talk to you. You’ll play about and look after yourself. They will tell you what rooms you can go into and what rooms you can’t. There are gardens nearby. But when you’re in the house don’t go wandering. Mr. Craven doesn’t like it.”

      “I don’t want to go wandering,” said sour little Mary.

      And she turned her face toward the window. Soon she fell asleep.

      Chapter III

      Across the moor

      She slept a long time, and when she awakened Mrs. Medlock bought a lunchbasket at one of the stations. They had some chicken and cold beef and bread and butter and some hot tea. The rain was streaming down heavily and everybody in the station wore wet and glistening waterproofs. The guard lighted the lamps in the carriage, and Mrs. Medlock cheered up very much over her tea and chicken and beef. Mary sat and stared at her until she fell asleep once more in the corner of the carriage.

      It was quite dark when she awakened again. The train stopped at a station and Mrs. Medlock was shaking her.

      “It’s time to open your eyes!” she said. “We’re at Thwaite Station and we’ve got a long drive before us.”

      Mary stood up while Mrs. Medlock collected her parcels. The little girl did not offer to help her, because in India native servants always picked up or carried things.

      The station was small. The station-master spoke to Mrs. Medlock, pronouncing his words in a queer fashion which Mary found out afterward was Yorkshire,

      “The carriage is waiting outside for you.”

      A brougham stood on the road before the little platform. Mary saw that it was a smart carriage and that it was a smart footman.

      When he shut the door, mounted the box with the coachman, and they drove off, the little girl sat and looked out of the window. She was not at all a timid child and she was not frightened.

      “What is a moor?” she said suddenly to Mrs. Medlock.

      “Look out of the window in about ten minutes and you’ll see,” the woman answered. “We’ll drive five miles across Missel Moor before we get to the Manor. You won’t see much because it’s a dark night, but you can see something.”

      Mary asked no more questions. They passed a church and a vicarage and a little shop. Then they were on the highroad and she saw hedges and trees. At last the horses began to go more slowly. She could see nothing, in fact, but a dense darkness on either side.

      “It’s not the sea, is it?” said Mary, looking round.

      “No, not it,” answered Mrs. Medlock. “Nor it isn’t fields nor mountains, it’s just miles and miles and miles of wild land that nothing grows on but heather and gorse and broom, and nothing lives on but wild ponies and sheep.”

      On and on they drove through the darkness. The road went up and down.

      “I don’t like it,” Mary said to herself. “I don’t like it at all.”

      They drove out of the vault into a clear space and stopped before an immensely long house. The entrance door was a huge one made of massive panels of oak. It opened into an enormous hall with the portraits on the walls and the figures in the suits of armor.

      A neat, thin old man stood near the manservant who opened the door for them.

      “You will take her to her room,” he said in a husky voice. “He doesn’t want to see her. He’s going to London in the morning.”

      “Very well, Mr. Pitcher,” Mrs. Medlock answered.

      Then Mary Lennox went up a broad staircase and down a long corridor and through another corridor and another, until a door opened in a wall and she found herself in a room with a fire in it and a supper on a table.

      Mrs. Medlock said unceremoniously:

      “Well, here you are! This room and the next are where you’ll live-and stay here. Don’t forget that!”

      Chapter IV

      Martha

      When Mary opened her eyes in the morning it was because a young housemaid came into her room to light the fire. She was raking out the cinders[10] noisily. Mary lay and watched her for a few moments and then began to look about the room. The room was curious and gloomy. The walls were covered with tapestry with a forest scene embroidered on it. There were fantastically dressed people under the trees and in the distance there was a castle. There were hunters and horses and dogs and ladies.

      Out of a deep window Mary saw a great stretch of land which had no trees on it, and looked rather like an endless, dull, purplish sea.

      “What is that?” she said, pointing out of the window.

      Martha, the young housemaid, looked and said,

      “That’s the moor. Do you like it?”

      “No,” answered Mary. “I hate it.”

      “That’s because it’s too big and bare now. But you will like it.”

      “Do you?” inquired Mary.

      “Yes, I do,” answered Martha. “I just love it. It’s lovely in spring and summer.”

      Mary listened to her with a grave, puzzled expression. The native servants in India were not like Martha. They were obsequious and servile. They called their masters “protector of the poor”. It was not the custom to say “please” and “thank you” and Mary always slapped her Ayah in the face[11] when she was angry.

      This girl was round, rosy and good-natured.

      “You are a strange servant,” she said from her pillows.

      Martha sat up on her heels.

      “Eh! I know that,” she said. “Mrs. Medlock gave me the place out of kindness[12].”

      “Are you going to be my servant?” Mary asked.

      “I’m Mrs. Medlock’s servant,” she said stoutly. “And she’s Mr. Craven’s. I’ll do some housemaid’s work up here and help you a bit. But you won’t need much.”

      “Who СКАЧАТЬ