When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselth waite Manorto live with her uncle everybody said she was the mostdisagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true, too.
She had a little thin face and a little thin body,thin light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow,and her face was yellow because she had been born inIndia and had always been ill in one way or another.
Her father had held a position under the EnglishGovernment and had always been busy and ill himself,and her mother had been a great beauty who cared onlyto go to parties and amuse herself with gay people.
She had not wanted a little girl at all, and when Marywas born she handed her over to the care of an Ayah,who was made to understand that if she wished to pleasethe Mem Sahib she must keep the child out of sight as muchas possible. So when she was a sickly, fretful, ugly littlebaby she was kept out of the way, and when she becamea sickly, fretful, toddling thing she was kept out ofthe way also. She never remembered seeing familiarlyanything but the dark faces of her Ayah and the othernative servants, and as they always obeyed her and gaveher her own way in everything, because the Mem Sahibwould be angry if she was disturbed by her crying,by the time she was six years old she was as tyrannicaland selfish a little pig as ever lived. The young Englishgoverness who came to teach her to read and write dislikedher so much that she gave up her place in three months,and when other governesses came to try to fill it theyalways went away in a shorter time than the first one.
So if Mary had not chosen to really want to know howto read books she would never have learned her letters at all.
One frightfully hot morning, when she was about nineyears old, she awakened feeling very cross, and she becamecrosser still when she saw that the servant who stoodby her bedside was not her Ayah.
"Why did you come?" she said to the strange woman.
"I will not let you stay. Send my Ayah to me."The woman looked frightened, but she only stammeredthat the Ayah could not come and when Mary threw herselfinto a passion and beat and kicked her, she looked onlymore frightened and repeated that it was not possiblefor the Ayah to come to Missie Sahib.
There was something mysterious in the air that morning.
Nothing was done in its regular order and several of thenative servants seemed missing, while those whom Marysaw slunk or hurried about with ashy and scared faces.
But no one would tell her anything and her Ayah did not come.
She was actually left alone as the morning went on,and at last she wandered out into the garden and beganto play by herself under a tree near the veranda.
She pretended that she was making a flower-bed, and she stuckbig scarlet hibiscus blossoms into little heaps of earth,all the time growing more and more angry and mutteringto herself the things she would say and the names shewould call Saidie when she returned.
"Pig! Pig! Daughter of Pigs!" she said, because to calla native a pig is the worst insult of all.
She was grinding her teeth and saying this over and overagain when she heard her mother come out on the verandawith some one. She was with a fair young man and they stoodtalking together in low strange voices. Mary knew the fairyoung man who looked like a boy. She had heard that hewas a very young officer who had just come from England.
The child stared at him, but she stared most at her mother.
She always did this when she had a chance to see her,because the Mem Sahib--Mary used to call her that oftenerthan anything else--was such a tall, slim, pretty personand wore such lovely clothes. Her hair was like curlysilk and she had a delicate little nose which seemedto be disdaining things, and she had large laughing eyes.
All her clothes were thin and floating, and Mary said theywere "full of lace." They looked fuller of lace than everthis morning, but her eyes were not laughing at all.
They were large and scared and lifted imploringly to the fairboy officer's face.
"Is it so very bad? Oh, is it?" Mary heard her say.
"Awfully," the young man answered in a trembling voice.
"Awfully, Mrs. Lennox. You ought to have gone to the hillstwo weeks ago."The Mem Sahib wrung her hands.
"Oh, I know I ought!" she cried. "I only stayed to goto that silly dinner party. What a fool I was!"At that very moment such a loud sound of wailing brokeout from the servants' quarters that she clutched the youngman's arm, and Mary stood shivering from head to foot.
The wailing grew wilder and wilder. "What is it? What is it?"Mrs. Lennox gasped.
"Some one has died," answered the boy officer. "You didnot say it had broken out among your servants.""I did not know!" the Mem Sahib cried. "Come with me!
Come with me!" and she turned and ran into the house.
After that, appalling things happened, and the mysteriousnessof the morning was explained to Mary. The cholera hadbroken out in its most fatal form and people were dyinglike flies. The Ayah had been taken ill in the night,and it was because she had just died that the servantshad wailed in the huts. Before the next day three otherservants were dead and others had run away in terror.
There was panic on every side, and dying people in allthe bungalows.
During the confusion and bewilderment of the second day Maryhid herself in the nursery and was forgotten by everyone.
Nobody thought of her, nobody wanted her, and strange thingshappened of which she knew nothing. Mary alternately criedand slept through the hours. She only knew that people wereill and that she heard mysterious and tightening sounds.
Once she crept into the dining-room and found it empty,though a partly finished meal was on the table and chairsand plates looked as if they had been hastily pushedback when the diners rose suddenly for some reason.
The child ate some fruit and biscuits, and being thirstyshe drank a glass of wine which stood nearly filled.
It was sweet, and she did not know how strong it was.
Very soon it made her intensely drowsy, and she went backto her nursery and shut herself in again, frightened by criesshe heard in the huts and by the hurrying sound of feet.
The wine made her so sleepy that she could scarcely keep hereyes open and she lay down on her bed and knew nothing morefor a long time.
Many things happened during the hours in which she sleptso heavily, but she was not disturbed by the wails and thesound of things being carried in and out of the bungalow.
When she awakened she lay and stared at the wall.
The house was perfectly still. She had never knownit to be so silent before. She heard neither voicesnor footsteps, and wondered if everybody had got well ofthe cholera and all the trouble was over. She wonderedalso who would take care of her now her Ayah was dead.
There would be a new Ayah, and perhaps she would knowsome new stories. Mary had been rather tired of theold ones. She did not cry because her nurse had died.
She was not an affectionate child and had never cared muchfor any one. The noise and hurrying about and wailingover the cholera had frightened her, and she had been angrybecause no one seemed to remember that she was alive.
Everyone was too panic-stricken to think of a littlegirl no one was fond of. When people had the cholerait seemed that they remembered nothing but themselves.
But if everyone had got well again, surely some one wouldremember and come to look for her.
But no one came, and as she lay waiting the house seemedto grow more and more silent. She heard something rustlingon the matting and when she looked down she saw a littlesnake gliding along and watching her with eyes like jewels.
She was not frightened, because he was a harmless littlething who would not hurt her and he seemed in a hurryto get out of the room. He slipped under the door as shewatched him.
"How queer and quiet it is," she said. "It sounds asif there were no one in the bungalow but me and the snake."Almost the next minute she heard footsteps in the compound,and then on the veranda. They were men's footsteps,and the men entered the bungalow and talked in low voices.
No one went to meet or speak to them and they seemedto open doors and look into rooms. "What desolation!"she heard one voice say. "That pretty, pretty woman!
I suppose the child, too. I heard there was a child,though no one ever saw her."Mary was standing in the middle of the nursery when theyopened the door a few minutes later. She looked an ugly,cross little thing and was frowning because she wasbeginning to be hungry and feel disgracefully neglected.
The first man who came in was a large officer she had onceseen talking to her father. He looked tired and troubled,but when he saw her he was so startled that he almostjumped back.
"Barney!" he cried out. "There is a child here! A childalone! In a place like this! Mercy on us, who is she!""I am Mary Lennox," the little girl said, drawing herselfup stiffly. She thought the man was very rude to call herfather's bungalow "A place like this!" "I fell asleep wheneveryone had the cholera and I have only just wakened up.
Why does nobody come?""It is the child no one ever saw!" exclaimed the man,turning to his companions. "She has actually been forgotten!""Why was I forgotten?" Mary said, stamping her foot.
"Why does nobody come?"The young man whose name was Barney looked at her very sadly.
Mary even thought she saw him wink his eyes as if to winktears away.
"Poor little kid!" he said. "There is nobody left to come."It was in that strange and sudden way that Mary foundout that she had neither father nor mother left;that they had died and been carried away in the night,and that the few native servants who had not died also hadleft the house as quickly as they could get out of it,none of them even remembering that there was a Missie Sahib.
That was why the place was so quiet. It was true that therewas no one in the bungalow but herself and the littlerustling snake.