CHAPTER SIX

"THERE WAS SOMEONE CRYING!"

The next morning it was raining very hard. Mary saw that she wouldn't be able to go outside that day. "What does your family do when it rains?" she asked Martha.

"We try not to step on each other, mostly!" said Martha. "Our house is so small, and there are fourteen of us there! The biggest ones go and play in the cow shed. Dickon says he doesn't mind the rain. He goes outside no matter what the weather. He says he sees things in rainy weather. Once he found a little baby fox. Its mother had been killed, so Dickon brought it home. Another time he found a little crow, almost drowned. He brought it home and tamed it. Now it flies around with him everywhere!"

Mary had decided that she liked Martha's stories. In India, Mary's Ayi had told her stories about princesses and princes, or magical things. Martha's stories were more like real life. Mary especially liked it when Martha talked about her mother and Dickon.

"Well, if I had an animal friend, I could play with it," said Mary. "But I have nothing."

"Can you sew?" asked Martha.

"No."

"Can you read?"

"Yes," said Mary. She liked reading.

"Well, why don't you ask Mrs Medlock if you can go into the library? There are thousands of books there."

This was a very good idea. Mary didn't ask Mrs Medlock, however. She knew that Mrs Medlock was always in her comfortable sitting room downstairs. Really, in this house, one never saw anyone at all! Mary decided to go and find the library herself. She could explore the house.

Mary waited until Martha had gone downstairs before leaving her room. For the next two hours Mary wandered around the enormous house. It seemed that there really were a hundred rooms. It was such a strange house; no one lived in these many rooms. In one room, there was a little glass cabinet. It had some small elephants inside. They were made of stone. These reminded Mary of India. She opened the cabinet and played with the little stone elephants for a while. Soon she began to feel tired. She put the ivory elephants back into the cabinet, the way she had found them. She decided it was time to go back to her room. She never had found the library!

Unfortunately, Mary didn't remember the way back. She walked through a few halls with many doors and went up and down stairs. Most of the doors were locked. "I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere," she thought. It was so quiet!

Mary came to the end of a passage. There was a beautiful, thick curtain covering hanging on the wall at the passage's end. "Now where do I go?" thought Mary. It was just at this moment that she heard a sound like someone crying. Curious, she put her hand on the curtain, and it moved. Mary was surprised to see that the curtain covered a door, which had opened. The passage continued on the other side. Mary saw Mrs Medlock walking towards her with some keys in her hand. Suddenly she saw Mary.

"What are you doing here?" she said to Mary angrily. "What did I tell you about wandering around the house?"

"I was going back to my room but I got lost," said Mary. "Then I heard someone crying."

Mrs Medlock looked even angrier. "You didn't hear anyone crying!" she said. She pulled and pushed Mary down the hall, around the corner, and back to her own room. "Now, you stay where you're told to stay. Otherwise, you'll be locked up. Master Craven had better find you a teacher. You need someone to watch you! I have enough to do already!"

Mary hated Mrs Medlock at that moment. She did not cry; she was only very angry. She went and sat down by the fire. "There was someone crying, there was, there was!" Mary said to herself. "She's not telling the truth!"

She had heard the mysterious crying two times now. One day, she would find out what it was. In the meantime, she had had a very interesting day.

(end of section)