The Secret Garden: Martha

Martha, the maid who came to clean Mary’s room each morning, was nothing like the servants Mary had known in India.She spoke in a broad Yorkshire accent and treated Mary like an ordinary girl, not a young mistress to be obeyed.At first this made Mary furious, but slowly she found herself curious about everything Martha said.

Martha told her about the cottage on the moor where she had grown up with eleven brothers and sisters.Her father earned only sixteen shillings a week, yet somehow her mother fed and clothed twelve children.“We’re a poor lot,” Martha said cheerfully, “but we’re a happy one.”

Best of all, Martha said, was her brother Dickon, a boy of twelve who spent all day alone on the moor.Wild animals were never afraid of him — foxes, squirrels, and birds all came when he called.He even had a pony of his own, a shaggy little moor pony that had grown to love him.

One day Mary asked about a walled garden she had noticed, its door always locked.Martha’s face changed, and she said it had belonged to Mrs. Craven, the master’s wife.

Mrs. Craven had loved that garden and spent hours there with her husband, until an old tree branch broke beneath her.She fell, and the next day she died; her husband locked the garden and buried the key, and never let anyone speak of it again.

Mary said nothing, but she could not stop thinking about a garden locked away for ten years.That night, for the first time in her life, she found herself wondering what a stranger’s story truly felt like from the inside.“How does tha’ like thysel’?” Martha had asked her once, laughing, and the question would not leave Mary’s mind.For the first time since coming to Yorkshire, Mary began dressing herself each morning, curious now about the moor, the robin, and the garden no one was allowed to see.