“I turned round the wrong corner,” explained
Mary. “I didn’t know which way to
go and I heard some one crying.”
She quite hated Mrs. Medlock at the moment, but she
hated her more the next.
“You didn’t hear anything of the sort,”
said the housekeeper. “You come along back
to your own nursery or I’ll box your ears.”
And she took her by the arm and half pushed, half
pulled her up one passage and down another until she
pushed her in at the door of her own room.
“Now,” she said, “you stay where
you’re told to stay or you’ll find yourself
locked up. The master had better get you a governess,
same as he said he would. You’re one that
needs some one to look sharp after you. I’ve
got enough to do.”
She went out of the room and slammed the door after
her, and Mary went and sat on the hearth-rug, pale
with rage. She did not cry, but ground her teeth.
“There was some one crying—there
was—there was!” she
said to herself.
She had heard it twice now, and sometime she would
find out. She had found out a great deal this
morning. She felt as if she had been on a long
journey, and at any rate she had had something to amuse
her all the time, and she had played with the ivory
elephants and had seen the gray mouse and its babies
in their nest in the velvet cushion.
THE KEY OF THE GARDEN
Two days after this, when Mary opened her eyes she
sat upright in bed immediately, and called to Martha.
“Look at the moor! Look at the moor!”
The rain-storm had ended and the gray mist and clouds
had been swept away in the night by the wind.
The wind itself had ceased and a brilliant, deep blue
sky arched high over the moorland. Never, never
had Mary dreamed of a sky so blue. In India skies
were hot and blazing; this was of a deep cool blue
which almost seemed to sparkle like the waters of
some lovely bottomless lake, and here and there, high,
high in the arched blueness floated small clouds of
snow-white fleece. The far-reaching world of
the moor itself looked softly blue instead of gloomy
purple-black or awful dreary gray.
“Aye,” said Martha with a cheerful grin.
“Th’ storm’s over for a bit.
It does like this at this time o’ th’
year. It goes off in a night like it was pretendin’
it had never been here an’ never meant to come
again. That’s because th’ springtime’s
on its way. It’s a long way off yet, but
it’s comin’.”
“I thought perhaps it always rained or looked
dark in England,” Mary said.
“Eh! no!” said Martha, sitting up on her
heels among her black lead brushes. “Nowt
o’ th’ soart!”
“What does that mean?” asked Mary seriously.
In India the natives spoke different dialects which
only a few people understood, so she was not surprised
when Martha used words she did not know.
