Mary Lennox

Mary Lennox is the central figure in the novel. She is introduced as a very unlikeable 10-year-old girl who was never wanted by her parents and as such has been ignored by them and cared for by servants. Mary is English but lives in India until a cholera epidemic kills her parents and she is sent to England to live with an uncle she has never met. When she arrives on the Yorkshire moors, she is pale and sickly with a terrible disposition, but she gradually begins to open up to her maid, Martha, who promptes her to become interested in other people for the first time. When Martha tells her about a secret garden on the property that has been locked away for a decade, Mary becomes fascinated with it and is determined to find it. Eventually she locates the garden and with the help of...