There Is No One Left (The Secret Garden (Full Cast))

01Chapter I of The Secret Garden.

02This is a LibriVox recording.

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05The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

06Cast of Characters Mary Lennox.

07Read by Arielle Lipshaw.

08Mrs.

09Lennox.

10Read by Capricia Page.

11Colonel McGrew.

12Read by Tyler Harms.

13Basil.

14Read by Victoria Martin.

15Mrs.

16Crawford.

17Read by Abaye.

18Officer's Wife.

19Read by Pamela Krantz.

20Mrs.

21Medlock.

22Read by Grace Garrett.

23Archibald Craven.

24Read by Alex Lau.

25Station, master.

26Read by Martin Gieson.

27Martha.

28Read by Elizabeth Clatt.

29Ben Weatherstaff.

30Read by Andy Minter.

31Dickon.

32Read by Charlotte Duckett.

33Colin Craven.

34Read by Amanda Friday.

35Dr.

36Craven.

37Read by Tyler Harms.

38Nurse.

39Read by Kara Schallenberg.

40Mr.

41Roach.

42Read by John Trevithick.

43Mrs.

44Susan Sowerby.

45Read by Victoria Martin.

46Lilius Craven.

47Read by Eden Ray Hedrick.

48And narrated by Elizabeth Clett.

49Chapter 1.

50There is no one left.

51When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle, everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen.

52It was true, too.

53She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression.

54Her hair was yellow and her face was yellow because she had been born in India and had always been ill in one way or another.

55Her father had held a position under the English government and had always been busy and ill himself, and her mother had been a great beauty, who cared only to go to parties and amuse herself with gay people.

56She had not wanted a little girl at all, and when Mary was born, she handed her over to the caravan Ayah, who was made to understand that if she wished to please the Mem Sahib, she must keep the child out of sight as much as possible.

57So, when she was a sickly, fretful, ugly little baby, she was kept out of the way, and when she became a sickly, fretful, toddling little thing, she was kept out of the way also.

58She never remembered seeing familiarly anything but the dark faces of her ayah and the other native servants, and as they always obeyed her and gave her her own way in everything, because the Mem Sahib 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.

59The 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, and when other governesses came to try and fill it, they always went away in a shorter time than the first one.

60So, if Mary had not chosen to really want to know how to read books, she would never have learned her letters at all.

61One 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.

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

63"'I will not let you stay.

64Send my ayah to me.' The woman looked frightened, but she only stammered that the ayah could not come, and 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.

65There was something mysterious in the air that morning.

66Nothing 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.

67But no one would tell her anything, and her ayah did not come.

68She 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.

69She pretended 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 name she would call Sadie when she returned.

70"'Pig!

71Pig!

72Daughter of pigs!' she said, because to call a native a pig is the worst insult of all.

73She was grinding her teeth and saying this over and over again when she heard her mother come out on the veranda with someone.

74She was with a fair young man, and they stood talking together in low, strange voices.

75Mary knew the fair young man who looked like a boy.

76She had heard that he was a very young officer who had just come from England.

77The child stared at him, but she stared most at her mother.

78She 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.

79Her hair was like curly silk, and she had a delicate little nose which seemed to be disdaining things, and she had large laughing eyes.

80All her clothes were thin and floating, and Mary said they were— full of lace.

81Full of lace!

82Full of lace!

83Full of lace!

84They looked fuller of lace than ever this morning, but her eyes were not laughing at all.

85They were large and scared, and lifted imploringly to the fair boy officer's face.

86Is it so very bad?

87Oh, is it?

88Is it?

89Mary heard her say?

90Awfully!

91Awfully!

92Awfully!

93Awfully!

94The young man answered in a trembling voice.

95Awfully!

96Mrs.

97Lennox!

98You ought to have gone to the hills two weeks ago!

99The Mem Sahib wrung her hands.

100Oh, I know I ought!

101She cried.

102I only stayed to go to that silly dinner-party!

103What a fool I was!

104At 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.

105The wailing grew wilder and wilder.

106What is it?

107What is it?

108Mrs.

109Lennox gasped.

110Someone has died, answered the boy officer.

111You did not say it had broken out among your servants?

112I did not know, the Mem Sahib cried.

113Come with me!

114Come with me!

115And she turned and ran back into the house.

116After that appalling things happened, and the mysteriousness of the morning was explained to Mary.

117The cholera had broken out in its most fatal form, and people were dying like flies.

118The Ayah had been taken ill in the night, and it was because she had just died that the servants had wailed in the huts.

119Before the next day three other servants were dead, and others had run away in terror.

120There was panic on every side, and dying people in all the bungalows.

121During the confusion and bewilderment of the second day, Mary hid herself in the nursery and was forgotten by every one.

122Nobody thought of her, nobody wanted her, and strange things happened of which she knew nothing.

123Mary alternately cried and slept through the hours.

124She only knew that people were ill, and that she heard mysterious and frightening sounds.

125Once 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.

126The child ate some fruit and biscuits, and being thirsty she drank a glass of wine which stood nearly filled.

127It was sweet, and she did not know how strong it was.

128Very 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 sound of her eyes open, and she lay down on her bed, and knew nothing more for a long time.

129Many 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.

130When she awakened she lay and stared at the wall.

131The house was perfectly still.

132She had never known it to be so silent before.

133She heard neither voices nor footsteps, and wondered if everybody had got well of the cholera and all the trouble was over.

134She wondered also who would take care of her now her ayah was dead.

135There would be a new ayah, and perhaps she would know some new stories.

136Mary had been rather tired of the old ones.

137She did not cry because her nurse had died.

138She was not an affectionate child, and had never cared much for any one.

139The 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.

140Every one was too panic-stricken to think of a little girl no one was fond of.

141When people had the cholera it seemed that they remembered nothing but themselves.

142But if every one had got well again surely someone would remember and come to look for her.

143But no one came, and as she lay waiting the house seemed to grow more and more silent.

144She 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.

145She was not frightened, because he was a harmless little thing who would not hurt her, and seemed in a hurry to get out of the room.

146He slipped under the door as she watched him.

147How queer and quiet it is, she said.

148It sounds as if there were no one in the bungalow but me and the snake.

149Almost the next minute she heard footsteps in the compound, and then on the veranda.

150They were men's footsteps, and the men entered the bungalow and talked in low voices.

151No one went to meet or speak to them, and they seemed to open doors and look into rooms.

152What desolation!

153she heard one voice say.

154That pretty, pretty woman.

155I suppose the child too.

156I heard there was a child, though no one ever saw her.

157Mary was standing in the middle of the nursery when they opened the door a few minutes later.

158She looked an ugly, cross little thing, and was frowning because she was beginning to be hungry and feel disgracefully neglected.

159The first man who came in was a large officer she had once seen talking to her father.

160He looked tired and troubled, but when he saw her he was so startled that he almost jumped back.

161Barney!

162he cried out.

163There's a child here, a child alone, in a place like this.

164Mercy on us, who is she?

165I am Mary Lennox, the little girl said, drawing herself up stiffly.

166She thought the man was very rude to call her father's bungalow a place like this.

167I fell asleep when everyone had the cholera, and I have only just wakened up.

168Why does nobody come?

169It is a child no one ever saw!

170exclaimed the man, turning to his companions.

171She has actually been forgotten!

172Why was I forgotten?

173Mary said, stamping her foot.

174Why does nobody come?

175The young man, whose name was Barney, was looking at her very sadly.

176Mary even thought she saw him wink his eyes, as if to wink tears away.

177Poor little kid!

178he said.

179There is nobody left to come.

180It 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.

181That was why the place was so quiet.

182It was true that there was no one in the bungalow, but herself and the little rustling snake.

183End of chapter 1 That was why the