THE SECRET GARDEN

Finished reading it at last! What a fabulous book though- worth a read if you have some spare time and like an easy read with a happy ending! Here's a summary (just in case you want the jist of the story without reading it) and a few key quotes that will probably appear in my work at some point.

• · Mary comes over to England (Yorkshire) from India. She is spoilt, thin, and sickly.
• · Her Uncle (Mr Craven) is uninterested in her well being, as he is preparing to leave to travel Europe. He provides nothing for her to do, no games, no books etc.
• · The servants send Mary outside to amuse herself and she meets Ben Weatherstaff (gardener) and the robin.
• · Martha, Mary’s maid, takes a shine to Mary as her temper improves and buys her a skipping rope out of her wages. Mary begins to skip in the garden for most of the day and grows stronger.
• · One day, while skipping she discovers a key and realizes it is the key to the garden that Ben had told her about. The garden that no one had been into (supposedly) after Mr Craven’s death.
• · The robin, who loves in the garden, shows Mary where the hidden door is and she goes into the garden. Finding it covered in dead branches and creepers, she begins to garden and improve it.
• · Dickon (Martha’s brother) at Mary request buys her gardening tools and seeds to plant in the garden Dickon is an animal charmer and can talk to the robin and is followed by a squirrel and a rabbit.
• · Mary tells Dickon about the garden and they begin to improve it together.
• · During this time, Mary frequently hears someone crying in the night but it told it is the wind or a servant. One day she follows the crying and finds her sick cousin, Colin, who she didn’t even know existed.
• · Spoilt (like Mary was when she first arrived) Colin as all the servants at his command and expects Mary to do the same. However, when demanded to come to see Colin she refuses and goes into the garden with Dickon. When she returns, Colin has worked himself into hysteria and is screaming and crying.
• · Mary, unable to sleep from the noise and tired from a days gardening, shouts at her cousin. Which does him good, as none of the servants can disobey him.
• · As he improves, Mary tells Colin about Dickon and his animals and, hypothetically, the garden, as she does not know if Colin can be trusted.
• · Dickon visits Colin in his room and brings all his animals and birds, including an abandoned lamb that needs feeding.
• · Colin begins to want to go outside, in the ‘fresh air’ and Dickon and Mary take him out in his wheel chair and show him the garden (as they decide he can be trusted on the visit).
• · During this first visit, they are discovered by Ben the gardener, who is angry with them for disturbing the garden. Colin, with newfound strength stands and orders Ben to come inside. Shocked that the ‘cripple’ and ‘half-it’ can stand, be obeys.
• · It turns out that it was Ben who has been tending the garden over the last ten years, by climbing over the wall. Old age, however, has prevented him from getting into the garden for the last two years.
• · Ben agrees to keep their secret and helps them garden.
• · Spring has arrived and the garden has blossomed and grown. All four work together on the garden.
• · The servants and the doctor are surprised by Colin’s improvement (and appetite) and put it down to fresh air and Mary.
• · Colin grows stronger each day and the housekeeper, Mrs Medlock, ask Dickon and Martha’s mother to find our what the children are getting up to in the garden (normal, doesn’t know about the secret garden).
• · Dickon, as a good boy would, when asked tells his mother everything and she too goes into the garden and brings food for everyone to have a picnic.
• · Colin no longer needs his chair, but still uses it to trick the servants and keep their secret.
• · Far away in Italy Mr Craven begins to dream about the garden and when he receives a letter from Dickon and Martha’s mother say that he should return and that he would be great surprised, he begins his journey home.
• · As soon as he arrives, he heads straight towards his wife’s garden, the secret garden and as he approaches Colin runs out and flies straight into him. Both are surprised to see each other and Dickon and Mary soon follow Colin out of the garden as won they were racing (but Colin had won).
• · Colin and Mr Craven (his father), walk across the lawn towards the house. The servants can hardly believe that it is the same sick boy they thought they were nursing. Ben, however, just smiles.

Not really a brief summary but I think that sums the book up pretty well! Now, onto the key quotes:

‘Perhaps it has been buried for ten years’ she said in a whisper, ‘perhaps it is the key to the garden!’

There are flowers uncurling and buds on everything and a green veil ha covered nearly all the grey.

Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle will not grow.

‘Where are you?’ ‘In the garden…. In the garden!’

When the summer comes there will be curtains and fountains of roses… Now the spring has begun perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…

And, of course:

Mistress Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells, and cockles shells, and Marigolds in a row.

Enjoy!