Таинственный сад / The secret garden

But the hundred rooms with closed doors! She wondered if they were all really locked. Were there a hundred really? How many doors can she count?

She opened the door of the room and went into the corridor. It was a long corridor and it branched into other corridors and it led her up short flights of steps which mounted to others again. There were doors and doors, and there were pictures on the walls. Sometimes they were pictures of dark, curious landscapes, sometimes they were portraits of men and women in queer, grand costumes.

She found herself in one long gallery whose walls were covered with these portraits. She walked slowly down this place and stared at the faces. Some were pictures of children-little girls in thick satin frocks and boys with puffed sleeves and lace collars and long hair, or with big ruffs around their necks.

Suddenly she heard a cry. It was a short one, a fretful, childish whine.

“It’s near,” said Mary.

She put her hand accidentally upon the tapestry near her, and then sprang back.

The tapestry was the covering of a door. Suddenly Mrs. Medlock came up with her bunch of keys in her hand and a very cross look on her face.

“What are you doing here?” she said, and she took Mary by the arm and pulled her away. “What did I tell you?”

“I turned round the wrong corner,” explained Mary. “I didn’t know which way to go and I heard someone crying.”

“You didn’t hear anything!” said the housekeeper. “Come back to your own nursery!”

And she took her by the arm and pushed, pulled her up one passage and down another until she pushed her in at the door of her own room.

“Now,” she said, “you stay here. The master will get you a governess to look after you.”

She went out of the room and slammed the door after her. Mary went and sat on the hearth-rug, pale with rage.

“There was someone crying-there was-there was!” she said to herself.

Chapter VII

The key of the garden

Two days after this, when Mary opened her eyes she sat upright in bed immediately, and called to Martha.

“Look at the moor! Look at the moor!”

A brilliant, deep blue sky arched high over the moorland. In India skies were hot and blazing. The world of the moor looked softly blue instead of gloomy purple-black or awful dreary gray.

“I thought perhaps it always rained in England,” Mary said.

“Eh! no!” said Martha, sitting up on her heels.