บทที่ บทที่ 9 · THE STRANGEST HOUSE ANY ONE EVER LIVED IN

. THE STRANGEST HOUSE ANY ONE EVER LIVED IN

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 tree-top, 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 flower-bed 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 to-day I can come to-morrow."

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

narcissusis an' jonquils an' daffydowndillys. Th' biggest of all is

lilies an' purple flags. Eh! they are nice.