Mary had liked to look at her mother from a distanceand she had thought her very pretty, but as she knewvery little of her she could scarcely have been expectedto love her or to miss her very much when she was gone.
She did not miss her at all, in fact, and as she was aself-absorbed child she gave her entire thought to herself,as she had always done. If she had been older she wouldno doubt have been very anxious at being left alone inthe world, but she was very young, and as she had alwaysbeen taken care of, she supposed she always would be.
What she thought was that she would like to know if she wasgoing to nice people, who would be polite to her and giveher her own way as her Ayah and the other native servantshad done.
She knew that she was not going to stay at the Englishclergyman's house where she was taken at first. She didnot want to stay. The English clergyman was poor and hehad five children nearly all the same age and they woreshabby clothes and were always quarreling and snatchingtoys from each other. Mary hated their untidy bungalowand was so disagreeable to them that after the first dayor two nobody would play with her. By the second daythey had given her a nickname which made her furious.
It was Basil who thought of it first. Basil was a littleboy with impudent blue eyes and a turned-up nose, and Maryhated him. She was playing by herself under a tree,just as she had been playing the day the cholera broke out.
She was making heaps of earth and paths for a gardenand Basil came and stood near to watch her. Presently hegot rather interested and suddenly made a suggestion.
Why don't you put a heap of stones there and pretendit is a rockery?" he said. "There in the middle,"and he leaned over her to point.
Go away!" cried Mary. "I don't want boys. Go away!"For a moment Basil looked angry, and then he began to tease.
He was always teasing his sisters. He danced roundand round her and made faces and sang and laughed.
Mistress Mary, quite contrary,How does your garden grow
With silver bells, and cockle shells,And marigolds all in a row."He sang it until the other children heard and laughed, too;and the crosser Mary got, the more they sang "Mistress Mary,quite contrary"; and after that as long as she stayedwith them they called her "Mistress Mary Quite Contrary"when they spoke of her to each other, and often when theyspoke to her.
You are going to be sent home," Basil said to her,"at the end of the week. And we're glad of it.""I am glad of it, too," answered Mary. "Where is home?""She doesn't know where home is!" said Basil,with seven-year-old scorn. "It's England, of course.
Our grandmama lives there and our sister Mabel was sentto her last year. You are not going to your grandmama.
You have none. You are going to your uncle. His name isMr. Archibald Craven.""I don't know anything about him," snapped Mary.
I know you don't," Basil answered. "You don't know anything.
Girls never do. I heard father and mother talking about him.
He lives in a great, big, desolate old house in thecountry and no one goes near him. He's so cross he won'tlet them, and they wouldn't come if he would let them.
He's a hunchback, and he's horrid." "I don't believe you,"said Mary; and she turned her back and stuck her fingersin her ears, because she would not listen any more.
But she thought over it a great deal afterward; and whenMrs. Crawford told her that night that she was goingto sail away to England in a few days and go to her uncle,Mr. Archibald Craven, who lived at Misselthwaite Manor,she looked so stony and stubbornly uninterested thatthey did not know what to think about her. They triedto be kind to her, but she only turned her face awaywhen Mrs. Crawford attempted to kiss her, and heldherself stiffly when Mr. Crawford patted her shoulder.
She is such a plain child," Mrs. Crawford said pityingly,afterward. "And her mother was such a pretty creature.
She had a very pretty manner, too, and Mary has the mostunattractive ways I ever saw in a child. The childrencall her `Mistress Mary Quite Contrary,' and thoughit's naughty of them, one can't help understanding it.""Perhaps if her mother had carried her pretty faceand her pretty manners oftener into the nursery Marymight have learned some pretty ways too. It is very sad,now the poor beautiful thing is gone, to remember thatmany people never even knew that she had a child at all.""I believe she scarcely ever looked at her,"sighed Mrs. Crawford. "When her Ayah was dead therewas no one to give a thought to the little thing.
Think of the servants running away and leaving her allalone in that deserted bungalow. Colonel McGrew said henearly jumped out of his skin when he opened the doorand found her standing by herself in the middle of the room."Mary made the long voyage to England under the care ofan officer's wife, who was taking her children to leavethem in a boarding-school. She was very much absorbedin her own little boy and girl, and was rather glad to handthe child over to the woman Mr. Archibald Craven sentto meet her, in London. The woman was his housekeeperat Misselthwaite Manor, and her name was Mrs. Medlock.
She was a stout woman, with very red cheeks and sharpblack eyes. She wore a very purple dress, a blacksilk mantle with jet fringe on it and a black bonnetwith purple velvet flowers which stuck up and trembledwhen she moved her head. Mary did not like her at all,but as she very seldom liked people there was nothingremarkable in that; besides which it was very evidentMrs. Medlock did not think much of her.
My word! she's a plain little piece of goods!" she said.
And we'd heard that her mother was a beauty. She hasn'thanded much of it down, has she, ma'am?" "Perhaps shewill improve as she grows older," the officer's wifesaid good-naturedly. "If she were not so sallow and hada nicer expression, her features are rather good.
Children alter so much.""She'll have to alter a good deal," answered Mrs. Medlock.
And, there's nothing likely to improve children atMisselthwaite--if you ask me!" They thought Mary was notlistening because she was standing a little apart from themat the window of the private hotel they had gone to.
She was watching the passing buses and cabs and people,but she heard quite well and was made very curious abouther uncle and the place he lived in. What sort of a placewas it, and what would he be like? What was a hunchback
She had never seen one. Perhaps there were none in India.
Since she had been living in other people's housesand had had no Ayah, she had begun to feel lonelyand to think queer thoughts which were new to her.
She had begun to wonder why she had never seemed to belongto anyone even when her father and mother had been alive.
Other children seemed to belong to their fathers and mothers,but she had never seemed to really be anyone's little girl.
She had had servants, and food and clothes, but no onehad taken any notice of her. She did not know that thiswas because she was a disagreeable child; but then,of course, she did not know she was disagreeable.
She often thought that other people were, but she did notknow that she was so herself.
She thought Mrs. Medlock the most disagreeable personshe had ever seen, with her common, highly colored faceand her common fine bonnet. When the next day they setout on their journey to Yorkshire, she walked throughthe station to the railway carriage with her head upand trying to keep as far away from her as she could,because she did not want to seem to belong to her.
It would have made her angry to think people imagined shewas her little girl.
But Mrs. Medlock was not in the least disturbed by herand her thoughts. She was the kind of woman who would"stand no nonsense from young ones." At least, that iswhat she would have said if she had been asked. She hadnot wanted to go to London just when her sister Maria'sdaughter was going to be married, but she had a comfortable,well paid place as housekeeper at Misselthwaite Manorand the only way in which she could keep it was to doat once what Mr. Archibald Craven told her to do.
She never dared even to ask a question.
Captain Lennox and his wife died of the cholera,"Mr. Craven had said in his short, cold way. "Captain Lennoxwas my wife's brother and I am their daughter's guardian.
The child is to be brought here. You must go to Londonand bring her yourself."So she packed her small trunk and made the journey.
Mary sat in her corner of the railway carriage and lookedplain and fretful. She had nothing to read or to look at,and she had folded her thin little black-gloved hands inher lap. Her black dress made her look yellower than ever,and her limp light hair straggled from under her blackcrepe hat.
A more marred-looking young one I never saw in my life,"Mrs. Medlock thought. (Marred is a Yorkshire word andmeans spoiled and pettish.) She had never seen a childwho sat so still without doing anything; and at last shegot tired of watching her and began to talk in a brisk,hard voice.
I suppose I may as well tell you something about whereyou are going to," she said. "Do you know anythingabout your uncle?""No," said Mary.
Never heard your father and mother talk about him?""No," said Mary frowning. She frowned because sheremembered that her father and mother had never talkedto her about anything in particular. Certainly theyhad never told her things.
Humph," muttered Mrs. Medlock, staring at her queer,unresponsive little face. She did not say any more fora few moments and then she began again.
I suppose you might as well be told something--toprepare you. You are going to a queer place."Mary said nothing at all, and Mrs. Medlock looked ratherdiscomfited by her apparent indifference, but, after takinga 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'sgloomy enough, too. The house is six hundred years oldand it's on the edge of the moor, and there's near a hundredrooms in it, though most of them's shut up and locked.
And there's pictures and fine old furniture and thingsthat's been there for ages, and there's a big park roundit and gardens and trees with branches trailing to theground--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 soundedso 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 shesat 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 Manorfor I don't know, unless because it's the easiest way.
He's not going to trouble himself about you, that's sureand certain. He never troubles himself about no one."She stopped herself as if she had just remembered somethingin 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 moneyand big place till he was married."Mary's eyes turned toward her in spite of her intentionnot to seem to care. She had never thought of thehunchback's being married and she was a trifle surprised.
Mrs. Medlock saw this, and as she was a talkative womanshe continued with more interest. This was one wayof passing some of the time, at any rate.
She was a sweet, pretty thing and he'd have walkedthe 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 onceread called "Riquet a la Houppe." It had been about a poorhunchback and a beautiful princess and it had made hersuddenly sorry for Mr. Archibald Craven.
Yes, she died," Mrs. Medlock answered. "And itmade 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 inthe West Wing and won't let any one but Pitcher see him.
Pitcher's an old fellow, but he took care of him when hewas a child and he knows his ways."It sounded like something in a book and it did not makeMary feel cheerful. A house with a hundred rooms,nearly all shut up and with their doors locked--a house onthe edge of a moor--whatsoever a moor was--sounded dreary.
A man with a crooked back who shut himself up also! Shestared out of the window with her lips pinched together,and it seemed quite natural that the rain should have begunto pour down in gray slanting lines and splash and streamdown the window-panes. If the pretty wife had been aliveshe might have made things cheerful by being somethinglike her own mother and by running in and out and goingto parties as she had done in frocks "full of lace."But she was not there any more.
You needn't expect to see him, because ten to one you won't,"said Mrs. Medlock. "And you mustn't expect that therewill be people to talk to you. You'll have to playabout and look after yourself. You'll be told what roomsyou can go into and what rooms you're to keep out of.
There's gardens enough. But when you're in the housedon't go wandering and poking about. Mr. Craven won'thave it.""I shall not want to go poking about," said sour littleMary and just as suddenly as she had begun to be rathersorry for Mr. Archibald Craven she began to cease to besorry and to think he was unpleasant enough to deserveall that had happened to him.
And she turned her face toward the streaming panes of thewindow of the railway carriage and gazed out at the grayrain-storm which looked as if it would go on forever and ever.
She watched it so long and steadily that the graynessgrew heavier and heavier before her eyes and she fell asleep.