There is No One Left (The Secret Garden)

01CHAPTER I.

02There is no one left.

03When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle, everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen.

04It was true, too.

05She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression.

06Her hair was yellow, and her face was yellow because she had been born in India.

07And had always been ill in one way or another.

08Her father had held a position under the English government, and had always been busy and ill himself.

09And her mother had been a great beauty who cared only to go to parties and amuse herself with gay people.

10She 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 memsahib, she must keep the child out of sight as much as possible.

11So 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.

12She never remembered seeing familiarly anything but the dark faces of her ayah and the other native servants.

13And as they always obeyed her and gave her her own way in everything, because the memsahib 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.

14The 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.

15And when other governesses came to try to fill it, they always went away in a shorter time than the first one.

16So if Mary had not chosen to really want to know how to read books, she would never have learned her letters at all.

17One 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.

18"'Why did you come?' she said to the strange woman.

19"'I will not let you stay.

20Send my ayah to me.' The woman looked frightened, but she only stammered that the ayah could not come.

21And 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 Missy Sahib.

22There was something mysterious in the air that morning.

23Nothing 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.

24But no one would tell her anything, and her ayah did not come.

25She 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.

26She 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 Saidi, when she returned.

27"'Pig!

28Pig!

29Daughter of pigs!' she said.

30"'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 someone.

31She was with a fair young man, and they stood talking together in low, strange voices.

32Mary knew the fair young man who looked like a boy.

33She had heard that he was a very young officer, who had just come from England.

34The child stared at him, but she stared most at her mother.

35She 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.

36Her hair was like curly silk, and she had a delicate little nose, which seemed to be disdaining things, and she had large, laughing eyes.

37All her clothes were thin and floating, and Mary said they were full of lace.

38They looked fuller of lace than ever this morning, but her eyes were not laughing at all.

39They were large and scared, and lifted imploringly to the fair boy officer's face.

40"'Is it so very bad?

41Oh, is it?' Mary heard her say.

42"'Awfully!' the young man answered in a trembling voice.

43"'Awfully, Mrs.

44Lennox.

45You ought to have gone to the hills two weeks ago.' The Mem Sahib wrung her hands.

46"'Oh, I know I ought,' she cried.

47"'I only stayed to go to that silly dinner-party.

48What 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.

49The wailing grew wilder and wilder.

50"'What is it?

51What is it?' Mrs.

52Lennox gasped.

53"'Someone has died,' answered the boy officer.

54"'You did not say it had broken out among your servants?' "'I did not know!' the Mem Sahib cried.

55"'Come with me, come with me!' And she turned, and ran into the house.

56After that, appalling things happened, and the mysteriousness of the morning was explained to Mary.

57The cholera had broken out in its most fatal form, and people were dying like flies.

58The ayah had been taken ill in the night, and it was because she had just died that the servants had wailed in the huts.

59Before the next day three other servants were dead, and others had run away in terror.

60There was panic on every side, and dying people in all the bungalows.

61During the confusion and bewilderment of the second day, Mary hid herself in the nursery, and was forgotten by every one.

62Nobody thought of her, nobody wanted her, and strange things happened of which she knew nothing.

63Mary alternately cried and slept through the hours.

64She only knew that people were ill, and that she heard mysterious and frightening sounds.

65Once 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.

66The child ate some fruit and biscuits, and being thirsty she drank a glass of wine, which stood nearly filled.

67It was sweet, and she did not know how strong it was.

68Very 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.

69The 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.

70Many 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.

71When she awakened she lay and stared at the wall.

72The house was perfectly still.

73She had never known it to be so silent before.

74She heard neither voices nor footsteps, and wondered if everybody had got well of the cholera, and all the trouble was over.

75She wondered also who would take care of her now her Aya was dead.

76There would be a new Aya, and perhaps she would know some new stories.

77Mary had been rather tired of the old ones.

78She did not cry because her nurse had died.

79She was not an affectionate child, and had never cared much for anyone.

80The 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.

81Everyone was too panic-stricken to think of a little girl no one was fond of.

82When people had the cholera, it seemed that they remembered nothing but themselves.

83But if every one had got well again, surely some one would remember, and come to look for her.

84But no one came.

85And as she lay waiting, the house seemed to grow more and more silent.

86She 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.

87She 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.

88He slipped under the door, as she watched him.

89How queer and quiet it is!

90She said.

91It sounds as if there were no one in the bungalow but me and the snake.

92Almost the next minute she heard footsteps in the compound, and then on the veranda.

93They were men's footsteps, and the men entered the bungalow and talked in low voices.

94No one went to meet or speak to them, and they seemed to open doors, and look into rooms.

95What desolation!

96she heard one voice say.

97That pretty, pretty woman!

98I suppose the child, too.

99I heard there was a child, though no one ever saw her.

100Mary was standing in the middle of the nursery when they opened the door, a few minutes later.

101She looked an ugly, cross little thing, and was frowning because she was beginning to be hungry, and feel disgracefully neglected.

102The first man who came in was a large officer she had once seen talking to her father.

103He looked tired and troubled, but when he saw her he was so startled that he almost jumped back.

104"'Barney!' he cried out.

105"'There is a child here, a child alone, in a place like this.

106Mercy on us!

107Who is she?' "'I am Mary Lennox,' the little girl said, drawing herself up stiffly.

108She thought the man was very rude to call her father's bungalow.

109"'A place like this.' "'I fell asleep when everyone had the cholera, and I have only just wakened up.

110"'Why does nobody come?' "'It is the child no one ever saw!' exclaimed the man, turning to his companions.

111"'She has actually been forgotten.' "'Why was I forgotten?' Mary said, stamping her foot.

112"'Why does nobody come?' The young man, whose name was Barney, looked at her very sadly.

113Mary even thought she saw him wink his eyes, as if to wink tears away.

114"'Poor little kid,' he said.

115"'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 Missy Sahib.

116That was why the place was so quiet.

117It was true that there was no one in the bungalow but herself and the little rustling snake.

118End of chapter 1 Read by Kara Schallenberg On January 5, 2006 In Oceanside, California