Beyond the Secret Garden

by Ann Thwaite

  It is so quiet here—and so sweet and so like early June. Roses are everywhere. But just now I am so tired. Perhaps I shall bound up again and be quite well—but this is to explain why you must be very faithful to your Mammy and attend to her business.

  From this time on, Vivian took care of her business affairs. It was a great comfort to her that she had “tucked away” a fortune and that, when she was dead, Vivian and his family would always be “comfortable and free”. But she was determined not to give in to pain and illness and old age. She refused to resign herself to lace caps and folded hands and talk of tombstones. “People meeting her for the first time always marvelled, even in her very last years, at her appearance of vigor,” Vivian wrote. She still liked to look forward and not back. Charles Scribner, trying to the end to get another book out of her, suggested she wrote her reminiscences, but the very idea made her “start back violently and turn pale”. “I have reminiscences enough,” she wrote on 23rd July 1921, “but I cannot see myself writing them.” She could hardly admit that she had really, after all, missed the Party, that it had gone on in other rooms, that she had worn the white dresses and heard the music but had only glimpsed the rapture through half-closed doors. “My life has been a heavy burden to me—a burden of work and uncertainty and the responsibility of high ideals, . . .” she had once written to Vivian.

  Now, at last, there was no anxiety, no uncertainty. She looked forward with hope. She still believed absolutely in some sort of life after death. Even on earth, there was hope. “When you have a garden, you have a future,” she wrote in one of her last articles. Early in 1921, she was taken seriously ill while spending the winter in Bermuda. It was feared that she might die but Edith’s loving care eventually prevailed. Vivian was sent for and she wrote in a shaky hand, “Please bring Gillet’s Fern Catalogue. There are places here too shady for anything but ferns.” She was thinking of the Plandome garden too. She sent lists of seeds she wanted, including large supplies of mignonette. “I want to have the scent of it all over the garden.” She suggested the gardener could throw it wherever there was a bare place between flowers. She hated bare places.

  The story-telling part of her brain still had not stopped working. “When I seemed to be actually dying, there suddenly passed through my brain a new book . . . and a few days ago there came another—quite clear. They are both comedy things—which came out of the new world. They might be 1930 or something like it. . . Here are the titles, which I wrote down, but you must keep them dead secret,” she told Vivian, “except to Constance: No. 1. The Industrious Apprentice. No. 2. A Transfusion of Blood.” But they were never written—and she did not live to see the new world of 1930.

  The last years were as happy as they could be in the face of constant pain. She spent the summers at Plandome and the winters in New York hotels. She did not want to die in Bermuda or travel so far from Vivian again, though there were times when she longed for England. “Tell me about all the nice places near enough to you which one might possibly rent for a summer, if one were well and courageous enough. Let us make fairy stories,” she wrote to Rosamund Campbell early in 1923. “Sometimes they come true.” America was wonderful but it was “roaring and banging and rattling and shrieking and crowding itself with disorder and making a god of speed”. Everyone seemed to be wanting to crowd into New York and battle for more money and more speed—building madly and tearing down more madly still. Only under the oak tree in the rose garden on Long Island was there peace.

  She derived much pleasure from her grandchildren. A year or two before, she had written to Elizabeth Jordan:

  . . . Vivian and Constance came in to our mid-day dinner and in the afternoon Vivian brought the children up in the car and they rushed in out of the rain, dancing and shrieking with joy because Nanda was going to play with them. I am Nanda, you know, and I am considered desperately fascinating. You see, le bon Dieu so made me that I can “be” any number of persons at a moment’s notice.

  I am “Mrs Desmond”. Verity is my daughter, Lily Desmond, and Dorin is Mrs Clarence, our neighbor, who lives in Archie’s room and goes to market in the bathroom. Mrs Desmond’s cook has left her, but Lily cooks perfectly, and we telephone to Mrs Clarence to come to tea and have magnificent collations on the top of a box turned upside down, covered with scraps of silk and set with dolls’ tea things.

  A great deal of telephoning is done and the “market man” constantly makes excuses and hasn’t got what we want. My arm chair is a car and gets out of order, and the garage man can’t mend it because he is “so busy”. Once he was painting his house. The animated telephonings of these two small things—one four—the other three—form a resumé of the difficulties of modern housekeeping. They are always without cooks and cannot get things done.

  Verity is growing prettier and prettier. She has a flower petal face, and a halo of curling corn silk hair, and dimples, and roguish eyes—and darkening lashes—and a quaint, elfish, little sideways smile. Dorin is tiny and fantastic and elfin, but not pretty yet.

  My den is a nursery. The closet in the corner contains . . . a family of dolls of assorted sizes—half of them dressed in brilliant blue, half in brilliant scarlet. I invented and dressed them. They are the Poppies and the Larkspurs. There is Mr Poppy, in scarlet velvet knickerbockers and silk hat and coat. Mrs Poppy and a little sister Poppy and little brother Poppy. Mrs Larkspur and an equal set of Larkspurs. They make quite showy parties sitting in the wicker chairs round the tea table. And Mrs Desmond and Lily are most superior in their manners.

  Frances genuinely liked children. There is no question about that. She would never, as Beatrix Potter once did, have turned children out of her hay-field. In the house at Plandome she kept a Jacobean cupboard she had bought when she was living at Maytham. She had a vertical wooden wall placed down the middle—you can still see the grooves—so that when children opened the doors it was not an ordinary cupboard but a doll’s house with four rooms: drawing-room, nursery bedroom, dining-room and kitchen. They were full of the sort of miniature things which had not been available when Frances was a child. There was a writing desk, with a telephone on it, a wringer, a vacuum cleaner, hot-house fruits made of plaster of Paris and a shower that really worked, if you poured water into a thing at the top—and dolls, of course, of every description, bought in Tenterden, Amsterdam, Cortina or New York, over the years.

  In her last illness, one of the de Kay family brought her young daughter to see the old lady. Even now she was not finished with her fantasy. She told the child the things Sara Crewe had once said: “What I believe about dolls is that they can do things they will not let us know about. If you stay in the room [my doll] will just sit there and stare, but if you go out, she will begin to read, perhaps, or go and look out of the window.” And such was her magic still that the child, a stolid, sensible girl not given to believing in fairies, for a moment felt her reason totter. For a moment, she felt it must be so, as Frances had said—that behind the wooden doors of the Jacobean toy cupboard, the dolls were indeed at work and play, busy in their separate existence and that it was only when she opened the doors that they would freeze into immobility again.

  In her last illness, Frances sat propped up in bed, writing In the Garden on blue-lined manuscript paper—but the pen-driving machine was wearing out. From her window, she could see beds of lingering roses, gorgeous clusters of dahlias and chrysanthemums, and beyond the flower beds the bay and the boats and the sunset. Someone said that the flowers that autumn “blossomed with unusual luxuriance for her passing”, the sort of pretty thought that would have pleased her. She died on 29th October 1924 in her home at Plandome, four weeks before her seventy-fifth birthday. She was buried at God’s Acre, Roslyn, Long Island.

  Frances’ last public appearance had been at the opening performance of Mary Pickford’s version of Little Lord Fauntleroy. After her death, a gossip writer wrote in the Bookman: “We saw her only once, in a box at the opening of Mary Pickford’s productio
n of the famous story. She sat quietly, an imposing detached figure . . .” But there had been a muddle. Miss Pickford did not know she was there, and in a speech at the end expressed her regret that Mrs Burnett had not been able to come. Afterwards she wrote:

  I am sure there must have been many things in the picture that were not quite pleasing to you—certain liberties—and many omissions, but from the kind tone of your letter, I am sure that you have made allowances for us, knowing that it is not always easy to take a classic like Little Lord Fauntleroy and place it on the cold, silver screen and retain the spirit and charm of the book. Fauntleroy cost more effort, time and money to produce than any other film of my experience. So you see, dear Mrs Burnett, that we did try to do justice to your very beautiful story. I regret exceedingly I missed the pleasure of being presented to you the opening night. I have appeared in four of your stories on the screen . . .

  The Fauntleroy film was certainly an extraordinary technical achievement. Mary Pickford appeared both as Cedric and his mother, and the quality of Charles Rosher’s photography is impressive. One shot of Fauntleroy kissing his mother on the cheek lasts about three seconds on the screen and took sixteen hours of continuous work to achieve. This shot, and all the others involving two Marys in the same frame, was accomplished within the camera. The dividing line is completely imperceptible. The double exposure work is extraordinarily fine. But who, least of all Frances, could bear to see a plumpish twenty-seven-year-old woman playing the beautiful small boy? Mary Pickford had spent several hundred thousand dollars on the film; she had tried to make it the big picture of her career. It was shown in about eight thousand theatres in the United States and Canada and in many more all over the world. There was some discussion about a special edition of the book being produced to be sold when the film was being shown. But it came to nothing, perhaps because Frances could not bear to have Mary Pickford’s photographs as Cedric illustrating it. But in spite of some ludicrous moments and the basic inappropriateness of Miss Pickford in the title rôle, the film was much closer in spirit to the book than many prettier versions of other books which were to follow over the years, both for the cinema and television.

  The most lavish film of all was probably the 1939 version of A Little Princess, which starred Shirley Temple as Sara Crewe. The New Yorker critic suffered from the delusion that “the adaptors have been faithful to the old kindergarten classic”, though he admits that “Mr Zanuck’s heart is in the right place and he won’t let Shirley’s father stay dead or poor too long”. Richard Greene played a riding master, though one can hardly imagine a riding master at Miss Minchin’s. And Cesar Romero was coached in Hindustani for his part as Ram Dass. But the most surprising touch was “the intervention of the aged Queen Victoria”. “Twelve thousand battled to watch Shirley’s Film Premier,” reported the New Yorker, and called the film one of Hollywood’s finest achievements. Certainly Frances would have been interested to have been there that night to see the reception by the new world of a confection far more sentimental than its Victorian original.

  It was fitting that Frances’ last public appearance should have been at the film of Little Lord Fauntleroy, for it was Fauntleroy who had made her a public figure. His name was more famous than hers. The small velvet-clothed figure had embedded itself in the national conscience. He had hung round her neck as well as Vivian’s. On the centenary of her birth, Life magazine carried a long article not on Frances but on Little Lord Faunderoy, illustrated with photographs of boys large and small, known (such as Buster Keaton) and unknown, all of them wearing velvet suits and lace collars. There was a danger that people would forget she had written anything else.

  The Times obituary writer praised her work in bringing about finally the 1911 Copyright Act, but recorded that it was “chiefly, almost solely, by this idyll of child life [Little Lord Fauntleroy] that Mrs Hodgson Burnett’s name is known to the multitude of readers and theatre-goers. The story has a quality all its own. In her other books and plays, Mrs Burnett was less successfully Dickensian, sentimental, naïve. Little Lord Fauntleroy had for millions of readers and theatre-goers the compelling attraction of the laughter that is akin to tears.”

  The Times readers rushed to mention their own favourites. A Mr A. L. N. Russell of London, W.11, wrote: “The obituary notice of Mrs Burnett might convey the impression that except for Lord Fauntleroy (which belongs to a past age) there is no more work of hers worthy of mention. But there are fairly recent books which are read and re-read by many with the greatest enthusiasm. I have found no novel that I can lend with a greater assurance of giving pleasure than T. Tembarom, and The Secret Garden is one of the most delightful children’s books (and one of the best sermons) ever written . . .”

  “Giving pleasure”—the phrase would have delighted Frances. “With the best that I have in me,” she had said to Vivian, “I have tried to write more happiness into the world.” She had seldom failed to give pleasure with her writing. In life, of course, it was different. Things did not always turn out the way she wanted them to. People cannot be manipulated like characters in a story. Over and over again she had tried to make dreams come true, her own and other people’s. As one of her contemporaries put it: “Beauty, romance, imagination—they possessed her all three, but reality shook her cruelly.”

  A committee placed a memorial to Frances in a part of Central Park, New York, near Mount Sinai Hospital. Statues of a boy and girl—perhaps a romantic epitome of the spirit of children’s literature—stand in a garden, but it is not a secret garden; and few children who play there notice the inscription or listen to stories as the committee hoped they would.

  Dates and Places

  1849 24th November: Frances born at 141 York Street, Cheetham Hill Road, Manchester (now 141 Cheetham Hill Road)

  1852 9 St Luke’s Terrace, Cheetham Hill Road (now 385 Cheetham Hill Road)

  1854 Seedley Grove, off Tanner’s Lane, Pendleton

  1855 16 Islington Square, Salford

  1864 1 Gore Street, Greenheys, Chorlton on Medlock

  1865 May, to Canada on ss Moravian; New Market, Tennessee

  1866 Noah’s Ark, outside Knoxville, Tennessee

  1868 Vagabondia Castle, Knoxville

  1872 To New York

  1872–3 Fifteen months in England, mostly in Manchester

  1873 19th September: Frances married Dr Swan Burnett at New Market, Tennessee

  1874 20th September: Lionel born at Temperance Hill, Knoxville

  1875 To Europe in the spring: 3 Rue Pauquet, Paris

  1876 5th April: Vivian born in Paris. Visit to Manchester; returned to New Market, Tennessee

  1877 1104 F Street, Washington, D.C.; M Street, Washington; 813 13th Street, Washington

  1879 1215 I Street, Washington; February, first visited Boston; June, Newport; 28th August to Canada

  1880 April, Canada; New England on way home; June, Nook Farm, Hartford, Connecticut

  1881 Summer in Long Island (New York)

  1882–4 Summers at Lynn, Massachusetts Bay; to Boston in the autumn of 1884

  1885 Returned to Washington; Boston again in the summer

  1886 Moved to 1734 K Street, Washington. In Boston again

  1887 May, to England: 23 Weymouth Street, London; August at Southwold and Elm Farm, Wangford, Suffolk; Paris; Florence

  1888 Back to London; house in Regents Park West; Joss Farm, St Peter’s, Thanet, Kent; to Boston, New York, and back to Washington

  1889 1770 Massachusetts Avenue, Washington; to England: 44 Lexham Gardens, London; Manchester; bungalow at Bellagio, Surrey, for summer; back to London; French Riviera; Rome

  1890 5th April, sailed from Rome to U.S.: Atlantic City and Philadelphia; Göbersdorf; Marienbad; Paris; London

  1891 Cannes; San Remo; London; Southport

  1892 London; 1770 Massachusetts Avenue, Washington; Swampscott, near Lynn

  1893 May, to England: The Glade, Hampton Court; 63 Portland Place, London W.I.; 9th December, sailed to
U.S.; Washington

  1894 May, to England: Portland Place; back to U.S.

  1895 January, returned to England: Portland Place; summer at Broomfields, near Frensham

  1896 Portland Place; back to U.S. in the autumn

  1897 1770 Massachusetts Avenue, Washington; New York

  1898 January, returned to England: Manchester; Portland Place; Maytham Hall, Rolvenden, Kent

  1899 Maytham; October, returned to Washington

  1900 February to Genoa; Maytham for summer; 48 Charles Street, London for winter

  1901 To Maytham in the spring; autumn to Holland and Belgium; returned to U.S.

  1902 Fishkill-on-Hudson; East Hampton

  1903 New York; East Hampton

  1904 New York; North Carolina; to Italy; June, returned to Maytham; 21st December, sailed for New York

  1905 Returned to Maytham for the summer; 16th November, sailed for U.S.; 25th, Atlantic crossing

  1906 New York; Washington; 12th May, sailed back to England; Maytham; Montreux

  1907 February, back to Maytham; 21st March, returned to U.S.: Sands Point, Long Island

  1908 Frankfurt; Tavistock; New York

  1909 New York, Plandome, Long Island

  1910 Spring, back to England again: London; the Dolomites and Austria; returned to U.S.: Plandome

  1911 March, to Bermuda; Plandome; cruise; Bermuda; Plandome

  1912 Bermuda; summer at Plandome; New York

  1913 Bermuda; Trieste; Austria (Vienna)

  1914 Salzburg; Rothenburg; Paris; May, back in New York (33rd and last crossing of the Atlantic); Bermuda; Plandome

  1915 Plandome; New Windsor on Hudson

  1916 Bermuda; New York; Plandome

  1917 Plandome; New Windsor on Hudson; New York

  1918 Plandome; Nova Scotia visit; Plandome

  1919 Bermuda; Plandome

  1920 Bermuda; Plandome

  1921–4 New York; Plandome