Chapter 4 Chapter 4 Martha

In the morning she opened her eyes because a maid had come into the room, and she was kneeling on the hearthrug and picking cinders loudly.Mary lay watching her for a while, then looked around the room.She had never seen such a room before, and found it strange and dark.The walls are covered in tapestries with embroidered forest scenes.Under the tree are figures in costumes, and a castle turret looms in the distance.There are hunters, horses, dogs and ladies in the painting.Mary felt that she was in the forest with them.From a sunken window she could see a great upslope, treeless, like an endless, dark, purple sea.

"What's that?" she said, pointing out the window. The young maid, Martha, just stood up, looked over, and pointed, "Is there?" "right" "It's the wilderness," she grinned kindly. "You like it?" "No," replied Mary, "I hate it." "That's because you're not used to it yet," said Martha, walking back to the fire. "It's too big for you now. But you'll like it." "What about you?" Mary asked. "Oh, I like it," replied Martha, polishing the iron frame with great interest. "I like it very much. It's not bare. It's covered with living things, and it smells good. Love it in spring and summer - gorse, gorse, heather are in bloom and smell like honey, fresh air everywhere - the sky is so high and the bees and larks are so loud It's nice—singing. Ah! The wilderness, I'll give you nothing."

Mary listened, her expression dark and confused.This was completely different from the Indian servants she was used to.They are as humble and fawning as slaves, afraid to speak to their masters.They make a kind of bowed bow and hand salute to their masters, calling them "protectors of the poor" or something like that.Indian servants are ordered, not requested.It was not customary to say "please" and "thank you" there, and Mary always slapped the nanny in the face when she was angry.She wondered a little bit how she would react if someone slapped this girl.She was a round, rose-coloured, kind-hearted creature, but she had an air of strength that made Miss Mary suppose she would even slap her back--if it had only been a little girl.

"You're a strange servant," she said from the pillow, rather haughtily. Mary sat up on her knees, shoe polish brush in hand, and laughed, not looking at all about to lose her temper. "Ah! I know," she said, "if Misselwest had a mistress, I'd never be a servant. They might make me a kitchen servant. I'm too ordinary, Too much Yorkshire accent. But the house is interesting, it's so big, it seems to have no master or mistress except Mr. Pitcher and Mrs. Medlock. Mr. Craven, when he was here Don't care, and he's almost always out. Mrs. Medlock kindly gave me the errand. She told me she'd never be able to do it if Misselwest was like the other big estates."

"Are you my servant?" asked Mary, still her domineering little Indian. Martha began to polish her firewood again. "Come here to do servant's work, to serve you a little by the way. But you don't need a lot of attention." "Who's going to dress me?" Mary demanded. Martha straightened up on her knees again and stared.To her astonishment, she spoke loose and vague Yorkshire. "Bahui puts on her own dental suit!" she said. "What do you mean? I don't understand what you're saying," said Mary. "Ah! I forgot," said Martha, "Mrs. Medlock told me I had to be careful or you wouldn't know what I was talking about. I mean can't you dress yourself?"

"No," replied Mary, in great indignation, "I've never done it in my life. Of course my nurse would dress me." "Then," said Martha, obviously unaware of how reckless she was, "you should learn. You should have started earlier. It will do you good to take care of yourself. My mother used to say she understood that children of great men No wonder you grow up to be fools—the nurses, they're bathed, dressed, and taken for a walk as if they were puppies!" "India is different," said Mary contemptuously, and she couldn't bear it. But Martha didn't move at all.

"Ah! I can see it's different," she answered, almost sympathetically. "I dare say it's because there are too many black people and so few respectable white people. When I heard you came from India, Thought you were black too." Mary sat up furiously. "What!" she said, "what! You think I'm a native! You—you pig!" Martha stared, her face burning. "Who are you calling?" she said. "You don't have to be so mad. That's not the way a little girl talks. I don't look down on niggers at all. You read the pamphlets, niggers are always pious. You always Read that niggers are our brothers. I've never met a black person and am happily thinking of getting close to one. When I come in to make a fire in the morning, I sneak up to your bed and carefully pull the covers down to watch you .You're like that," she said with disappointment. "You're no darker than me—except you're much yellower."

Mary couldn't bear the anger and humiliation. "You think I'm a native! How dare you! You don't know anything about natives! They're not people—they're servants who have to salute you. You don't know anything about India! You don't know anything about everything!" She was so angry, so helpless under the simple gaze of this girl, that somehow she suddenly felt very alone, away from everything she knew and knew her.She threw herself on the pillow and let out a sudden angry sob.Her sobs were so uncontrollable that good Yorkshire Martha, a little frightened, took pity on her.Martha went to the bed and bent over her.

"Oh! don't you cry like that!" she begged, "you really don't. I didn't know you'd be offended. I don't know anything--as you say. I beg your pardon, miss. Don't cry Already." There was a soothing, a genuine friendliness, a firmness in her strange Yorkshire speech that worked on Mary.She gradually stopped crying and became quiet.Martha breathed a sigh of relief. "It's time for you to get up," she said. "Mrs. Medlock said, I'll take breakfast and tea into the next room. That room has been converted into your nursery. If you get up, I'll help you dress." Clothes. If the buttons are on the back and you can't button them yourself."

When Mary finally decided to get up, Martha took out from the closet clothes that she had worn when she and Mrs. Medlock arrived the night before. "Those aren't mine," she said. "Mine are all black." She examined the thick white wool coat and dress, and added a grim affirmation: "Those look better than mine." "You must wear these," Martha answered. "Mr. Craven ordered Mrs. Medlock to buy them from London. He said, 'I don't want a boy in black wandering about like a ghost. ’ He said, ‘That would make the place more bleak. Dress her in colour.’ Mom said she knew what he meant. Mom always knew what guys were thinking. She never hesitated to say something.”

"I hate black things," said Mary. The process of getting dressed taught them both a lesson.Martha used to "button" her younger siblings, but she had never seen a child stand still, waiting for someone else to do it for her, as if she had no limbs herself. "Why don't you put your shoes on yourself?" said Mary, as she stretched out her foot quietly. "My nurse will do it," answered Mary, staring. "It's the custom." She often said this—"It's the custom." The native servants always said this.If someone tells them to do something their ancestors haven't done for thousands of years, they look at each other gently and say, "It's not custom." The other person knows it's over. It is not the custom to let Miss Mary do things, it is the custom for her to stand like a doll and let others dress.But before breakfast she was already beginning to suspect that her life at Misselwest would end up teaching her some very new things—like putting her own shoes on, putting her own socks on, picking up her own dropped things.If Martha had been serving young, dainty young ladies well-trained, she might have been more submissive and respectful, and would have known it was her duty to brush her hair, buckle her boots, and pick things up and put them away.However, she was just a Yorkshire farm girl, untrained and simple, who grew up with a group of brothers and sisters in a farmhouse on the moor.A bunch of kids never dreamed of not having to fend for themselves while taking care of the little ones below—little ones or babies on their arms, or toddlers, tripping everywhere. If Mary had been a music-loving child, she might have started laughing at Martha's talkativeness, but Mary just listened indifferently, wondering why she was so free-spirited.At first she had no interest, but slowly, as the girl jingled in a good-natured way, as if at home, Mary began to pay attention to what she was saying. "Ah! look at their lot," she said, "there are twelve of us, and my father only has sixteen shillings a week. I can tell you my mother spends it all on porridge for the dolls." They staggered over the moor and played there all day. Mother said the air on the moor fed them fat. She said she believed they ate grass like wild ponies. Our Dickon was twelve years old and he had A wild colt, claiming it is my own." "Where did he find it?" Mary asked. "He found it in the moor, when the wild foal was little—with its mother. He befriended it, and fed it a little bread, and plucked it young. The foal grew fond of Dickon, and followed He goes, let him ride on his back. Dickon's a good lad, and the animals love him." Mary has never had a pet and has always wanted one.And so she took an interest in Dickon, as she had never been interested in anyone but herself, and this first healthy feeling was like the slow wisps of dawn.She went into the room that had been converted into a nursery for her and found it was similar to the one she slept in.It was not a child's room, but a grown-up's room, with dark old pictures on the walls and heavy oak chairs.A hearty breakfast on the central table.But her appetite was always small, and when Martha set her the first plate, she stared at it with eyes worse than indifference. "I don't want it," she said. "You don't want this oatmeal?!" Martha shouted in disbelief. "don't want." "You don't know how good it is. Put some syrup, or sugar." "I don't want it," repeated Mary. "Ah!" said Martha, "I can't bear to see good food go to waste. If our children sat at this table, they'd eat it in less than five minutes." "Why?" said Mary dryly. "Why!" Martha imitated, "because they are almost never full. They are as hungry as eaglets and foxes." "I don't know what hunger is," said Mary, cold because of her ignorance. Martha became indignant. "Then it will do you good to try starvation. I can see that very well," she said bluntly, "that I'm impatient with people who sit there just staring at good bread and meat. I say! I I wish Dickon and Philip and Jane were all here with their bibs on." "Why don't you take it to them?" Mary suggested. "It's not mine," said Mary firmly. "It's not my day off. I get a day off once a month, like everyone else. Then I'll go home and clean up and give Mom a day off." Mary drank some tea and ate some toast and jam. "You dress warmly and go out and play," said Martha. "It's good for you and gives you an appetite." Mary went to the window.There are gardens, paths, and great trees, but everything is dull, cold and dark. "Go out? What am I going out in this weather?" "Then, if you don't go out, you can only stay in the house. What can you do?" Mary glanced around.Nothing to do.Amusement was not thought of by Mrs. Medlock when she was preparing the nursery.Maybe it would be better to go out and see what the garden looks like. "Who's going with me?" Mary asked. Martha stared. "Go by yourself," he answered, "you've got to learn to play by yourself, like any other kid without siblings. Our Dickon would go out on the moor for hours by himself. That's how he played with the pony. Made friends. He got a sheep, and the sheep knew him, and the birds came and ate from his hand. No matter how little he ate, he always saved a bit of bread to coax his animals." It was Dickon's story that made Mary decide to go out, though she didn't realize it herself.Even if there were no ponies and sheep out there, there would be birds.They were supposed to be different from the Indian birds, and maybe it would please her to look at them. Martha found Mary a coat and hat, and a pair of stout, stout boots, and led her downstairs. "You go around that road, and you will find a garden." She pointed to a door in the wall made of shrubs and said, "There are many flowers in summer, but there are no flowers blooming now." She seemed to hesitate for a moment, adding "There is a garden that is locked up. No one has been in it for ten years." "Why?" Mary asked involuntarily.There were a hundred locked doors in this strange house, and now there was another one. "When Mr. Craven's wife died, he had the garden locked up. He wouldn't let anyone in. It used to be hers. He locked it up and dug a hole and buried the key. Mrs. Medlock in Ring the bell—I must hurry." After she was gone, Mary went down the path to the open door in the bush wall.She couldn't help thinking about the garden that hadn't been touched for ten years.She wondered what the garden would be like, if there were any living flowers in it.When she passed through the bush gate she was in a large garden with wide lawns and trimmed edges of winding paths.There were trees, flower beds, evergreens trimmed into odd shapes, and a large pond with a gray fountain in the middle.But the bare flower beds looked bleak, and the fountain was not open.This is not the locked garden.How can the garden be locked?You can always go into a garden. As she was thinking this, she saw what seemed to be a long wall at the end of the path under her feet, covered with ivy.She wasn't familiar enough with England to know that she had come across a vegetable garden for growing vegetables and fruit.She went to the wall, and there was a door in the ivy, which was open.Obviously not the locked garden, where she could go. She went through the gate and found a walled garden, and it was only one of several walled gardens whose gates seemed to communicate with each other.She saw another open green door, revealing a path between shrubs and flower beds with winter vegetables.The branches of the fruit trees are tamed into one piece, flat against the wall.Some flower beds are covered with glass domes.It's a really bare and ugly place, Mary thought, standing there looking around intently.There is green in summer, which may look better, but there is nothing beautiful about it now. After a while, an old man with a shovel on his shoulder came from the gate of the second garden.He looked startled when he saw Mary, and touched his cap.His face was old and surly, and he was not happy to meet Mary - but she was angry at his garden at the time, and she had a "very stubborn" face, and she must have looked unwilling to touch him. "What is this place?" she asked. "A vegetable garden," he replied. "What's that?" Mary pointed to the other side of the green door. "Another vegetable garden," he paused, "there's another one over the wall, and that vegetable garden has an orchard on the other side of the wall." "Can I go in?" Mary asked. "If you like. But there's nothing to see." Mary didn't respond.She followed the path through the second green door.There she found more walls, winter vegetables, and glass enclosures, but a closed door on the second wall.Maybe to that garden that no one has seen in ten years.As Mary was not a timid child who always had her way, she went to the green door and twisted the handle.She hoped that the door would not open, so that she would find the mysterious garden—but the door opened easily, and she walked in, and it was an orchard.There was a wall all around, too, and the trees clung tamely against it, and the bare fruit trees among the brown winter grass--though there was no green door to be seen there.Mary looked, and when she came to the upper end of the garden she noticed that the wall did not seem to end in the orchard, but extended beyond it, and seemed to enclose another field beyond.She could see the tops of the trees on the wall, and as she stood still, she saw a bird with a bright red breast on the highest branch of a tree, and suddenly it began its winter song—almost as if It found her and was calling for her. She stopped and listened, and for some reason its cheerful, friendly chirps gave her a sense of delight—a grumpy little girl can feel lonely too, and the big closed house, the big bare fields, and the big bare gardens make this bad The short-tempered little girl felt as if there was no one else in the world but herself.Had she been a tender child, used to being loved, she might have been heartbroken.Despite her "Miss Mary's very obstinate," despite her loneliness, the bright-breasted bird almost put a smile on her little bitter face.She listened to it until it flew away.It was not like the Indian bird and she liked it and wondered if she would ever see him again.Maybe it lives in that secret garden and knows everything. Maybe because she had nothing to do, she couldn't forget the abandoned garden.She was curious about it and wanted to know what it was like.Why did Mr. Archibald bury the key?If he had loved his wife so much why did he hate her garden?She wondered if she would see him, but she knew that if she did, she wouldn't like him, and he wouldn't like her.She would just stand there and stare at him without saying a word, although she must have wanted to ask him how crazy he was: why did he do such a strange thing? "People never liked me, and I never liked everybody," she thought. "I'll never be able to talk like the Crawford kids. They're always talking and laughing and making noise." She thought about the way the robin sang to her, and she stopped abruptly on the path when she remembered the treetop where it perched. "I believe the tree is in the secret garden - I feel sure it is," she said. "There are walls all around the place and there is no door." She walked back to the first vegetable garden she had been to and saw the old man digging.She walked up to him and stood beside him, looking at him for a while, with a little indifference.He ignored her, so she finally spoke to him. "I went to other gardens," she said. "No one stopped you." He replied old-fashioned. "I went to the orchard." "There's no dog biting you at the door," he replied. "There is no door to another garden," said Mary. "What garden?" he said gruffly, pausing for a moment to dig. "The garden on the other side of the wall," answered Mary, "there are trees over there--I can see the tops of many trees. A little red-breasted bird stands on the top of the tree and sings." She was startled to see the change in that surly, weather-beaten old face.A smile slowly unfolded, and the gardener looked very different.This scene made her think, how wonderful, how much better a person looks when he smiles alone.It had never occurred to her before. He turned to the side of the garden near the orchard and began to whistle--in a soft voice.She couldn't understand how someone so surly could have such an attentive, patient voice.Almost instantly, something interesting happened.She heard a small, soft, hasty sound coming through the air—it was a little red-breasted bird flying towards them, and it actually landed on a pile of soil not far from the gardener's feet. "Isn't it?" the old man chuckled softly, and he spoke to the little bird like a child. "Where is Na, you cheeky little beggar?" He said, "I didn't see Na until today. Did Na start chasing girls so early this year? This is too impatient." The little bird turned its small head to one side and looked up at him, its bright and soft eyes were like two black dewdrops.It seems very familiar, not afraid at all.It jumped up and down, nimbly pecking at the soil, looking for seeds and worms.It aroused a strange feeling in Mary, for it was so pretty and happy and human.It has a plump little body, a delicate beak, and a pair of slender and delicate legs. "Does it come when you call it?" she asked in a low voice. "Of course he comes. I've known him since he learned to fly. He came from that garden nest, and the first time he flew over the fence, he was too weak to fly back. Those days we Made friends. When it flew over the fence again, their brood was gone. He felt lonely and came back to me." "What kind of bird is it?" asked Mary. "Don't you know? It's a red-breasted robin. It's the friendliest, most curious bird that ever lived. They're almost as friendly as dogs—if you know how to get along with them. Watch him peck the dirt around." Look at us. It knows we're talking about it." The old fellow looked like the strangest sight in the world.He looked at the bulging little bird in the scarlet vest as if he were both proud of it and cherished. "He's a complacent fellow," he chuckled, "and he likes to hear people talk about him. A curious—God bless me, he has nothing but curiosity and meddling. What. He knows all the things Mr. Cravenluh doesn't want to bother with. He's the gardener here, he is." The robins hopped busily up and down, pecking at the soil, stopping now and then to look at them.Mary thought it was full of curiosity in the black, dewy eyes that gazed at her.It was as if it wanted to know everything about her. "Where did the other chicks go?" she asked. "No one knows. The big bird drives them out of the nest and lets them fly. They scatter before you notice. This one is sensible. It knows it's alone." Miss Mary took a step towards the robin, and looked at it hard. "I feel lonely." She didn't know it before, and that was one of the things that made her feel bored and out of sorts.The robin looked at her, and the moment she looked at the robin, she seemed to understand. The old gardener pushed back the hat on his bald head and stared at her for a while. "Are you a kid from India?" he asked. Mary nodded. "No wonder you're lonely. You're lonelier here than you've been," he said. He began digging again, driving the shovel deep into the rich black soil of the garden, while the robins hopped busily about. "What's your name?" Mary asked. He stood up and answered her. "Ji Yuanben," he replied, and then added a strange smile, "I am also lonely, except when it is with me." He flicked his thumb at the robin, "I am just such a friend." "I haven't had any," said Mary, "I never have. My nurse doesn't like me, and I've never played with anyone." It's the Yorkshire way to say what you think indifferently, and Old Quarter is a man of the Yorkshire moors. "Na and I kind of look alike," he said, "we're made of the same material. We're both ugly, and we're both queer, and we're both queer. We're both vicious, both of us, I can guarantee it." This is the truth, Mary Lennox never heard the truth about herself.Native servants always salute you and obey you no matter what you do.She had never thought much about her appearance before, but she wondered if she was as unlovable as Ji Yuanben, and she also wondered if she was as surly as he was before the robin came.She actually began to suspect that she really had a "violent temper".She doesn't feel well. Suddenly a small sound waved near her, and she turned around.She was a few feet from a small apple tree when the robin flew up to a branch and burst into song.Ji Yuanben burst out laughing. "What does it want?" Mary asked. "It decided to make friends with you," Old Ji replied, "If it doesn't fall in love with you, just curse me." "Me?" said Mary, walking softly to the little tree and looking up. "Would you like to be my friend?" she said to the robin as if she were a human being, "would you like to be?" Her manner of speaking was not hard little, nor domineering Indian, but soft Attentive, Ji Yuan was as surprised as she was when she first heard him whistle. "Why," he cried, "you talk as sweetly as a human being, as if you were a real boy and no longer a hard old woman. You talk almost as Dickon talks to his wild things on the moor Same time. "You know Dickon?" asked Mary, turning her head hastily. "Everyone knows him. Yorkshire wanders. Knows him in every blackberry bush, every heather. I'll bet a fox will show him to his kits, and no lark's nest will be hidden from him." Mary would have liked to ask more questions.She was almost as curious about Dickon as she was about the abandoned garden.But at this moment, the robin who had just finished singing shook his body a little, spread his wings and flew away.Its visit is over, and there are other things to do. "It flew over the wall!" cried Mary, watching it. "It flew into the orchard—it flew over the other wall—into the garden without a gate!" "There it lives," said Old Quarter. "That's where it hatched. If he's courting, he's courting a young lady robin who lives in the old rose bush there." "Rose bush," said Mary, "is there a rose bush?" Ji Yuanben pulled out his shovel and started digging again. "Ten years ago." He muttered. "I'd like to see them," said Mary. "Where's the green door? There must be a door somewhere." Old Ji poked the shovel deeply, looking as out of place as when he first met. "It was there ten years ago, but it's gone now," he said. "There's no door!" cried Mary. "There must be." "Nobody's ever found it, and it's nobody's business. Don't be a nosy kid, sniffing around for no reason. Well, I've got to work. Go away and play. I don't have time." He actually stopped digging, slung the shovel over his shoulder, and walked away without even glancing at her, let alone saying goodbye.