Kate Maberly: Mary Lennox

The Secret Garden

Mary Lennox

[voiceover; last lines]
Mary: The spell was broken. My uncle learned to laugh, and I learned to cry. The secret garden is *always* open now. Open, and awake, and alive. If you look the right way, you can see that the *whole* world is a garden.

[first lines; voiceover]
Mary: My name is Mary Lennox. I was born in India. It was hot, and strange, and lonely in India. I didn't like it. Nobody by my servant, my ayah, looked after me. My parents didn't want me. My mother cared only to go to parties. And my father was busy with his military duties. I was never allowed to go to the parties. I watched them from my mother's bedroom window. I was angry, but I never cried. I didn't know how to cry.

Mary: [voiceover, while exploring her aunt's room] It looked just like my mother's room. This must have been my aunt's. The dressing tables looked the same. They even had twin ivory elephants.

Colin: Hair is dead.
Mary: If hair is dead, why does it keep growing all the time, even after you're dead? Well, maybe not your hair. You'll probably be bald.
Colin: Don't be daft. I'll die before I'm ever old enough to go bald.
Mary: I hate the way you talk about dying.
Colin: Everyone thinks I'll die.
Mary: If everyone thought that about me, I wouldn't do it.

Mrs. Medlock: Here's your breakfast.
Mary: But I'm still in my nightgown.
Mrs. Medlock: You can change after you've eaten. There are new clothes in the wardrobe.
Mary: Who's going to dress me?
Mrs. Medlock: You don't dress yourself?
Mary: Of course not; my ayah dressed me.
Mrs. Medlock: Nonsense! As old as you are, what do they do with children in India? Carry you around in a basket?
Mary: How dare you speak to me with such disrespect?

Martha: Now, what would you like to wear? Black, black, or black?
Mary: Are you blind? They're all black. And I *won't* be laughed at, servant.
Martha: My name's Martha.
[she begins to start slipping a black dress on Mary, but she backs away]
Martha: I won't tickle you. I promise.
[pause as Martha dresses Mary]
Martha: What do they wear in India? When I heard you was coming from there, I thought you'd be a native.
Mary: [furious] A what? You thought I was a what?
[repeatedly shoves Martha]
Mary: You - you - you daughter of a pig!
[starts throwing a tantrum by grunting and hitting her hands flat against the walls]
Martha: You needn't be like that. I've nothing against natives. As mother says, all of us are family. I've never seen a native. I was pleased to think I was.
Mary: You don't know anything about anything; none of you know nothing!

Ben Weatherstaff: Well, he's in breast. Cheeky little beggar.
[pointing to a robin]
Ben Weatherstaff: Look at him!
Mary: What about him?
Ben Weatherstaff: I can't think why, but he's decided to make friends with thee.
Mary: [looks surprised] He has? I've never had any friends.
Ben Weatherstaff: That I believe.

Martha: I've got a present for you. Me mother sent it over.
[She hands Mary a skipping rope]
Mary: What's it for?
Martha: You've got tigers and elephants in India, but have you not got skipping ropes?

Colin: [after Mary pulls a pair of curtain open to reveal a picture of Colin's mother, her aunt] That's my mother. My father never wants to see me. Because--I don't look *anything* like her. But *you*, you look like her.
Mary: Why do you keep a curtain over her?
Colin: She smiles too much.
Mary: Smiles too much? How can anybody smile too much?
Colin: Sometimes I hate her. She died when I was born.
Mary: But I thought she died in her garden.
Colin: Her garden? What garden?
Mary: Oh, just a garden. There are so many of them here.

Dickon: Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
Dickon, Mary: With silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row.
Mary: On the boat coming here, the other children used to sing that at me, but I wasn't as contrary as they were.

Mary: [shouting for Colin to stop throwing a tantrum over possible spores in the air] Stop it you, stop! I hate you! Everybody hates you! You're so selfish. You the most selfish boy there ever was!
Colin: I'm not as selfish as you are! Just because I'm always ill!
Mary: Nobody ill could scream like that!
Colin: I'm going to die!
Mary: What would you know about dying?
Colin: My mother died!
Mary: Both my parents died!
Colin: I'll get a lump on a back; I'll get a lump like my father!

Mary: [voiceover] My parents *always* thought about themselves. They never thought about me. And if only I could have known that in a few moments I would lose them forever.