Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
and marigolds all in a row.
The Secret Garden is a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. At the time of her death, Frances Hodgson Burnett was well-known for her Little Lord Fauntleroy , with most people not even mentioning The Secret Garden. Slowly, since her death, The Secret Garden has steadily risen to prominence, and is now arguably Burnett’s best-known work. The book is often noted as one of the best children’s books of the twentieth century.
This book introduced me to a very English style of names, a style that I still seem to lean to for my own taste. In a way, this was a very formative book for my early start in name-nerdery.
Cast of Characters:
Mary Lennox
“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 in India and had always been ill in one way or another.”
Mary was a sickly, sour-faced little girl born in India to wealthy British parents who have very little interest in her, leaving her in the care of an Ayah from birth. Orphaned by an outbreak of cholera, she is sent back to England to the legal guardianship of her only remaining relative. After finding the garden, and helping nurse it back to life, Mary herself begins to blossom, losing her sickly look and unpleasant manner.
Archibald Craven
“She could see that the man in the chair was no so much a hunchback as a man with high, rather crooked shoulders, and he had black hair streaked with white….He was not ugly. His face would have been handsome if it had not been so miserable.”
Lord Archibald Craven is the ‘hunchbacked’ master of Misselthwaite manor; father to Colin, brother to Mrs Lennox and unlce to Mary. A kind and caring man though he is, depression took hold of him after the death of his wife Lilias, ten years before the novel takes place. He therefore cannot bear to see his son, Colin, who resembles her so much. At the end of the book, Archibald’s wife comes to him in a dream and he returns to Misselthwaite to find his son in perfect health and embraces him.
Lilias Craven
Lilias was Archibald’s wife, who died ten years before the start of the novel when she fell from a tree in her garden. She is described as being beautiful and gentle.
Martha Sowerby
“She was a round, rosy, good-natured looking creature,”
Martha is Mary’s kind, sweet-tempered maid-servant and another important element to Mary’s change of personality and lifestyle. She befriends Mary, and tells her about a walled garden that was the late Mrs. Craven’s favorite place. No one has entered the garden since she died because Archibald locked its entrance and buried the key in an unknown location.
Dickon Sowerby
“A boy was sitting under a tree, with his back against it, playing on a rough wooden pipe. He was a funny-looking boy about twelve. He looked very clean and his nose turned up and his cheeks were as red as poppies, and never had Mistress Mary seen such round and such blue eyes in any boy’s face.”
Dickon is the high-spirited 12 year old brother of Mary’s maid servant Martha Sowerby. Having lived on the moor all his life, Dickon has a deeply rooted connection with the land and the animals, often being referred to as an animal-charmer though he seems to have the unique ability to charm people as well as animals. From the moment Martha mentions Dickon and his wild animals, Mary is instantly drawn to him, later describing him as “beautiful”. Dickon is one of the main elements responsible for the transformation in Mary and Colin.
Colin Craven
“The boy had a sharp, delicate face, the colour of ivory and he seemed to have eyes too big for it. He had also a lot of hair which tumbled over his forehead in heavy locks and made his thin face seem smaller. He looked like a boy who had been ill, but he was crying more as if he were cross than as if he were in pain.”
Mary’s uncle’s son, at the start he was a lonely, bedridden boy as petulant and disagreeable as Mary used to be. His father shuns him because the child closely resembles his mother. Mr. Craven is a mild hunch back, and both he and Colin are morbidly convinced that the boy will develop the same condition. After Mary and Colin become friends, Colin blossoms in the garden, learning to walk again. He is of course reunited with his father who happily embraces him after he finds his son strong and well.
Ben Weatherstaff
Ben Weatherstaff is the gruff old gardener at Misselthwaite Manor - who had secretly been tending the garden after Lilias died, being a favourite of Lilias’ when she was alive. Like Medlock, under his rough exterior he is kind-hearted.
Susan Sowerby
Living in a very crowded cottage 5 miles from the estate, Susan Sowerby is the mother of no less than twelve children, including Martha and Dickon. She is the perfect symbol of motherhood. Just as Dickon knows everything there is to know about the moor and its hoarde of animals, Susan Sowerby knows all there is to know about children. She is bold and very kind and both Mary and Colin become fascinated with her simply by listening to the stories they are told about her by Dickon and Martha. It is not until near the very end of the story that Colin and Mary finally get to meet her.
Mrs. Medlock
“She was a stout woman, with very red cheeks and sharp black eyes….She thought Mrs Medlock the most disagreeable person she had ever seen, with her common highly coloured face, and her common fine bonnet.”
The head housekeeper at Misselthwaite manor, Mrs Medlock patiently obeys every one of Lord Craven’s orders though she tires of her young charge from India. Being a widow and having no children of her own she doesn’t appear to understand them as Susan Sowerby does of whom she is very fond having been old childhood friends. Underneath her stiff demeanour, Medlock is ultimately kind.
I’ve always adored the name Mary. It’s so sweet and charming. Part of me would love to use it for my own baby. Colin is wonderful classic that I would use in a heart beat, if only Colin McCall didn’t sound so horrible! I prefer Archie to Archibald, but probably wouldn’t use either. I think Lilias, Susan, and Martha are gorgeous gems.
My favorite character was Dickon, and oh how I wished his name was usuable. It’s one of my biggest GP’s!
Thanks for reading!
