Perhaps she slept here once, said Mary. She stares at me so that she makes me feel queer.
After that she opened more doors and more. She saw so many rooms that she became quite tired and began to think that there must be a hundred, though she had not counted them. In all of them there were old pictures or old tapestries with strange scenes worked on them. There were curious pieces of furniture and curious ornaments in nearly all of them.
In one room, which looked like a ladys sitting-room, the hangings were all embroidered velvet, and in a cabinet were about a hundred little elephants made of ivory. They were of different sizes, and some had their mahouts or palanquins on their backs. Some were much bigger than the others and some were so tiny that they seemed only babies. Mary had seen carved ivory in India and she knew all about elephants. She opened the door of the cabinet and stood on a footstool and played with these for quite a long time. When she got tired she set the elephants in order and shut the door of the cabinet.
In all her wanderings through the long corridors and the empty rooms, she had seen nothing alive; but in this room she saw something. Just after she had closed the cabinet door she heard a tiny rustling sound. It made her jump and look around at the sofa by the fireplace, from which it seemed to come. In the corner of the sofa there was a cushion, and in the velvet which covered it there was a hole, and out of the hole peeped a tiny head with a pair of frightened eyes in it.
Mary crept softly across the room to look. The bright eyes belonged to a little gray mouse, and the mouse had eaten a hole into the cushion and made a comfortable nest there. Six baby mice were cuddled up asleep near her. If there was no one else alive in the hundred rooms there were seven mice who did not look lonely at all.
If they wouldnt be so frightened I would take them back with me, said Mary.
She had wandered about long enough to feel too tired to wander any farther, and she turned back. Two or three times she lost her way by turning down the wrong corridor and was obliged to ramble up and down until she found the right one; but at last she reached her own floor again, though she was some distance from her own room and did not know exactly where she was.
I believe I have taken a wrong turning again, she said, standing still at what seemed the end of a short passage with tapestry on the wall. I dont know which way to go. How still everything is!
It was while she was standing here and just after she had said this that the stillness was broken by a sound. It was another cry, but not quite like the one she had heard last night; it was only a short one, a fretful childish whine muffled by passing through walls.
Its nearer than it was, said Mary, her heart beating rather faster. And it is crying.
She put her hand accidentally upon the tapestry near her, and then sprang back, feeling quite startled. The tapestry was the covering of a door which fell open and showed her that there was another part of the corridor behind it, and Mrs. Medlock was coming up it with her bunch of keys in her hand and a very cross look on her face.
What are you doing here? she said, and she took Mary by the arm and pulled her away. What did I tell you?
I turned round the wrong corner, explained Mary. I didnt know which way to go and I heard someone crying. She quite hated Mrs. Medlock at the moment, but she hated her more the next.
You didnt hear anything of the sort, said the housekeeper. You come along back to your own nursery or Ill 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 youre told to stay or youll find yourself locked up. The master had better get you a governess, same as he said he would. Youre one that needs someone to look sharp after you. Ive 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 someone 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.
Chapter VII
The key to 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 rainstorm 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 storms 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. Thats because th springtimes on its way. Its a long way off yet, but its 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.
Martha laughed as she had done the first morning.
There now, she said. Ive talked broad Yorkshire again like Mrs. Medlock said I mustnt. Nowt o th soart means nothin-of-the-sort, slowly and carefully, but it takes so long to say it. Yorkshires th sunniest place on earth when it is sunny. I told thee thad like th moor after a bit. Just you wait till you see th gold-colored gorse blossoms an th blossoms o th broom, an th heather flowerin, all purple bells, an hundreds o butterflies flutterin an bees hummin an skylarks soarin up an singin. Youll want to get out on it at sunrise an live out on it all day like Dickon does.
Could I ever get there? asked Mary wistfully, looking through her window at the far-off blue. It was so new and big and wonderful and such a heavenly color.
I dont know, answered Martha. Thas never used tha legs since tha was born, it seems to me. Tha couldnt walk five mile. Its five mile to our cottage.
I should like to see your cottage.
Martha stared at her a moment curiously before she took up her polishing brush and began to rub the grate again. She was thinking that the small plain face did not look quite as sour at this moment as it had done the first morning she saw it. It looked just a trifle like little Susan Anns when she wanted something very much.
Ill ask my mother about it, she said. Shes one o them that nearly always sees a way to do things. Its my day out today an Im goin home. Eh! I am glad. Mrs. Medlock thinks a lot o mother. Perhaps she could talk to her.
I like your mother, said Mary.
I should think tha did, agreed Martha, polishing away.
Ive never seen her, said Mary.
No, tha hasnt, replied Martha.
She sat up on her heels again and rubbed the end of her nose with the back of her hand as if puzzled for a moment, but she ended quite positively.
Well, shes that sensible an hard workin an good-natured an clean that no one could help likin her whether theyd seen her or not. When Im goin home to her on my day out I just jump for joy when Im crossin the moor.
I like Dickon, added Mary. And Ive never seen him.
Well, said Martha stoutly, Ive told thee that th very birds likes him an th rabbits an wild sheep an ponies, an th foxes themselves. I wonder, staring at her reflectively, what Dickon would think of thee?
He wouldnt like me, said Mary in her stiff, cold little way. No one does.
Martha looked reflective again.
How does tha like thysel? she inquired, really quite as if she were curious to know.
Mary hesitated a moment and thought it over.
Not at all-really, she answered. But I never thought of that before.
Martha grinned a little as if at some homely recollection.
Mother said that to me once, she said. She was at her wash-tub an I was in a bad temper an talkin ill of folk, an she turns round on me an says: Tha young vixen, tha! There tha stands sayin tha doesnt like this one an tha doesnt like that one. How does tha like thysel? It made me laugh an it brought me to my senses in a minute.
She went away in high spirits as soon as she had given Mary her breakfast. She was going to walk five miles across the moor to the cottage, and she was going to help her mother with the washing and do the weeks baking and enjoy herself thoroughly.
Mary felt lonelier than ever when she knew she was no longer in the house. She went out into the garden as quickly as possible, and the first thing she did was to run round and round the fountain flower garden ten times. She counted the times carefully and when she had finished she felt in better spirits. The sunshine made the whole place look different. The high, deep, blue sky arched over Misselthwaite as well as over the moor, and she kept lifting her face and looking up into it, trying to imagine what it would be like to lie down on one of the little snow-white clouds and float about. She went into the first kitchen-garden and found Ben Weatherstaff working there with two other gardeners. The change in the weather seemed to have done him good. He spoke to her of his own accord.
Springtimes comin, he said. Cannot tha smell it?
Mary sniffed and thought she could.
I smell something nice and fresh and damp, she said.
Thats th good rich earth, he answered, digging away. Its in a good humor makin ready to grow things. Its glad when plantin time comes. Its dull in th winter when its got nowt to do. In th flower gardens out there things will be stirrin down below in th dark. Th suns warmin em. Youll see bits o green spikes stickin out o th black earth after a bit.
What will they be? asked Mary.
Crocuses an snowdrops an daffydowndillys. Has tha never seen them?
No. Everything is hot, and wet, and green after the rains in India, said Mary. And I think things grow up in a night.
These wont grow up in a night, said Weatherstaff. Thall have to wait for em. Theyll poke up a bit higher here, an push out a spike more there, an uncurl a leaf this day an another that. You watch em.
I am going to, answered Mary.
Very soon she heard the soft rustling flight of wings again and she knew at once that the robin had come again. He was very pert and lively, and hopped about so close to her feet, and put his head on one side and looked at her so slyly that she asked Ben Weatherstaff a question.
Do you think he remembers me? she said.
Remembers thee! said Weatherstaff indignantly. He knows every cabbage stump in th gardens, let alone th people. Hes never seen a little wench here before, an hes bent on findin out all about thee. Thas no need to try to hide anything from him.
Are things stirring down below in the dark in that garden where he lives? Mary inquired.
What garden? grunted Weatherstaff, becoming surly again.
The one where the old rose-trees are. She could not help asking, because she wanted so much to know. Are all the flowers dead, or do some of them come again in the summer? Are there ever any roses?
Ask him, said Ben Weatherstaff, hunching his shoulders toward the robin. Hes the only one as knows. No one else has seen inside it for ten year.
Ten years was a long time, Mary thought. She had been born ten years ago.
She walked away, slowly thinking. She had begun to like the garden just as she had begun to like the robin and Dickon and Marthas mother. She was beginning to like Martha, too. That seemed a good many people to like-when you were not used to liking. She thought of the robin as one of the people. She went to her walk outside the long, ivy-covered wall over which she could see the tree-tops; and the second time she walked up and down the most interesting and exciting thing happened to her, and it was all through Ben Weatherstaffs robin.
She heard a chirp and a twitter, and when she looked at the bare flower-bed at her left side there he was hopping about and pretending to peck things out of the earth to persuade her that he had not followed her. But she knew he had followed her and the surprise so filled her with delight that she almost trembled a little.
You do remember me! she cried out. You do! You are prettier than anything else in the world!
She chirped, and talked, and coaxed and he hopped, and flirted his tail and twittered. It was as if he were talking. His red waistcoat was like satin and he puffed his tiny breast out and was so fine and so grand and so pretty that it was really as if he were showing her how important and like a human person a robin could be. Mistress Mary forgot that she had ever been contrary in her life when he allowed her to draw closer and closer to him, and bend down and talk and try to make something like robin sounds.
Oh! to think that he should actually let her come as near to him as that! He knew nothing in the world would make her put out her hand toward him or startle him in the least tiniest way. He knew it because he was a real person-only nicer than any other person in the world. She was so happy that she scarcely dared to breathe.
The flower-bed was not quite bare. It was bare of flowers because the perennial plants had been cut down for their winter rest, but there were tall shrubs and low ones which grew together at the back of the bed, and as the robin hopped about under them she saw him hop over a small pile of freshly turned up earth. He stopped on it to look for a worm. The earth had been turned up because a dog had been trying to dig up a mole and he had scratched quite a deep hole.
Mary looked at it, not really knowing why the hole was there, and as she looked she saw something almost buried in the newly-turned soil. It was something like a ring of rusty iron or brass and when the robin flew up into a tree nearby she put out her hand and picked the ring up. It was more than a ring, however; it was an old key which looked as if it had been buried a long time.
Mistress Mary stood up and looked at it with an almost frightened face as it hung from her finger.
Perhaps it has been buried for ten years, she said in a whisper. Perhaps it is the key to the garden!
Chapter VIII
The Robin who showed the way
She looked at the key quite a long time. She turned it over and over, and thought about it. As I have said before, she was not a child who had been trained to ask permission or consult her elders about things. All she thought about the key was that if it was the key to the closed garden, and she could find out where the door was, she could perhaps open it and see what was inside the walls, and what had happened to the old rose-trees. It was because it had been shut up so long that she wanted to see it. It seemed as if it must be different from other places and that something strange must have happened to it during ten years. Besides that, if she liked it she could go into it every day and shut the door behind her, and she could make up some play of her own and play it quite alone, because nobody would ever know where she was, but would think the door was still locked and the key buried in the earth. The thought of that pleased her very much.