The Secret Garden | Page 6

her and began to talk in a
brisk, hard voice.
"I suppose I may as well tell you something about where you are going
to," she said. "Do you know anything about your uncle?"
"No," said Mary.
"Never heard your father and mother talk about him?"
"No," said Mary frowning. She frowned because she remembered that
her father and mother had never talked to her about anything in
particular. Certainly they had never told her things.
"Humph," muttered Mrs. Medlock, staring at her queer, unresponsive
little face. She did not say any more for a few moments and then she
began again.
"I suppose you might as well be told something--to prepare you. You
are going to a queer place."
Mary said nothing at all, and Mrs. Medlock looked rather discomfited
by her apparent indifference, but, after taking a breath, she went on.
"Not but that it's a grand big place in a gloomy way, and Mr. Craven's
proud of it in his way--and that's gloomy enough, too. The house is six
hundred years old and it's on the edge of the moor, and there's near a
hundred rooms in it, though most of them's shut up and locked. And
there's pictures and fine old furniture and things that's been there for
ages, and there's a big park round it and gardens and trees with
branches trailing to the ground--some of them." She paused and took
another breath. "But there's nothing else," she ended suddenly.
Mary had begun to listen in spite of herself. It all sounded so unlike
India, and anything new rather attracted her. But she did not intend to

look as if she were interested. That was one of her unhappy,
disagreeable ways. So she sat still.
"Well," said Mrs. Medlock. "What do you think of it?"
"Nothing," she answered. "I know nothing about such places."
That made Mrs. Medlock laugh a short sort of laugh.
"Eh!" she said, "but you are like an old woman. Don't you care?"
"It doesn't matter," said Mary, "whether I care or not."
"You are right enough there," said Mrs. Medlock. "It doesn't. What
you're to be kept at Misselthwaite Manor for I don't know, unless
because it's the easiest way. _He's_ not going to trouble himself about
you, that's sure and certain. He never troubles himself about no one."
She stopped herself as if she had just remembered something in time.
"He's got a crooked back," she said. "That set him wrong. He was a
sour young man and got no good of all his money and big place till he
was married."
Mary's eyes turned toward her in spite of her intention not to seem to
care. She had never thought of the hunchback's being married and she
was a trifle surprised. Mrs. Medlock saw this, and as she was a
talkative woman she continued with more interest. This was one way of
passing some of the time, at any rate.
"She was a sweet, pretty thing and he'd have walked the world over to
get her a blade o' grass she wanted. Nobody thought she'd marry him,
but she did, and people said she married him for his money. But she
didn't--she didn't," positively. "When she died--"
Mary gave a little involuntary jump.
"Oh! did she die!" she exclaimed, quite without meaning to. She had
just remembered a French fairy story she had once read called "Riquet

à la Houppe." It had been about a poor hunchback and a beautiful
princess and it had made her suddenly sorry for Mr. Archibald Craven.
"Yes, she died," Mrs. Medlock answered. "And it made him queerer
than ever. He cares about nobody. He won't see people. Most of the
time he goes away, and when he is at Misselthwaite he shuts himself up
in the West Wing and won't let any one but Pitcher see him. Pitcher's
an old fellow, but he took care of him when he was a child and he
knows his ways."
It sounded like something in a book and it did not make Mary feel
cheerful. A house with a hundred rooms, nearly all shut up and with
their doors locked--a house on the edge of a moor--whatsoever a moor
was--sounded dreary. A man with a crooked back who shut himself up
also! She stared out of the window with her lips pinched together, and
it seemed quite natural that the rain should have begun to pour down in
gray slanting lines and splash and stream down the window-panes. If
the pretty wife had been alive she might have made things cheerful by
being something like her own mother and by running in and out and
going to parties as she had done in frocks "full of lace." But she was
not there any more.
"You needn't expect