The Secret Garden

Mary Lennox is a sickly, sour-faced little girl born in India to wealthy British parents who have very little interest in her, leaving her in the care of an Ayah from birth. Orphaned by an outbreak of cholera, she is sent back to England to the legal guardianship of her only remaining relative: her father's brother-in-law, Archibald Craven, a reclusive widower. Craven is still mourning his wife, Lilias, who died ten years ago. To escape his sad memories, he constantly travels abroad, leaving Mary and the manor under the supervision of his housekeeper, Mrs. Medlock. The only person who has any time for the little girl is the chambermaid Martha Sowerby, who tells Mary about a walled garden that was the late Mrs. Craven's favorite place. No one has entered the garden since she died because Archibald locked its entrance and buried the key in an unknown location. Mary finds the key to the secret garden and a robin shows her where the door is hidden beneath overgrown ivy. Once inside, she discovers that although the roses seem lifeless, some of the other flowers have survived. She resolves to tend the garden herself. Although she wants to keep it a secret, she recruits Martha's brother Dickon, who has a way with plants and wild animals. Mary gives him money to buy gardening implements and he shows her that the roses, though neglected, are not dead. When Mary's uncle briefly meets with her for the first time since her arrival, Mary asks him for permission to claim her own garden from any abandoned part of the grounds, and he acquiesces. Thanks to her new-found interests and activities, Mary herself begins to blossom, losing her sickly look and unpleasant manner. On several occasions, Mary hears someone weeping in another part of the house. When she asks questions, the servants become evasive. They tell her that she is hearing things, or they blame the sound on ordinary sources such as the wind, or a servant with a toothache. Shortly after her uncle's visit, she goes exploring and discovers her uncle's son, Colin, a lonely, bedridden boy as petulant and disagreeable as Mary used to be. His father shuns him because the child closely resembles his mother. Mr. Craven is a mild hunch back, and both he and Colin are morbidly convinced that the boy will develop the same condition. The servants have been keeping Mary and Colin a secret from one another because Colin doesn't like strangers staring at him and is prone to terrible tantrums. Colin accepts Mary and insists on her visiting him often, but as spring approaches, Colin becomes jealous that Mary is spending more time out in the garden with Dickon. One day, Colin threatens to ban Dickon from the grounds, but Mary matches his bad temper and storms out without an apology. That evening, Colin escalates into a hysterical tantrum, convinced that he is becoming hunchbacked and is going to die; Mary shocks him out of his hysteria by screaming back at him. She also demands to see his back, and points out that the lumps behind his neck are simply the outlines of normal vertebrae like her own. Reassured, Colin agrees to let her bring Dickon to visit him inside his room, and they become friends.