Chapter 2 Chapter Two Miss Mary is Very Stubborn

Mary used to like to look at her mother from a distance, thinking she was beautiful.After she died, however, Mary could not be expected to love and miss her, because Mary knew so little about her.She doesn't miss her at all, in fact, she's a kid who's preoccupied with herself, and all her thoughts are about herself, always.If she had been older, no doubt, she would have been anxious to be left alone in the world, but she was young and always looked after, and she expected things to go on as usual.All she wanted to know was whether she went to a good family.Good people will follow her like wet nurses and other Indian servants.

At first she was sent to the home of an English clergyman, where she knew she would not stay.She doesn't want to stay.The British pastor is very poor, and has five children who are almost the same age.They dressed shabby and were always arguing and taking toys from each other.Mary hated their messy little house.She was so bad tempered and difficult to get along with that no one wanted to play with her after a day or two.The next day, they gave her a nickname, which made her very angry. It was Basil who remembered first.Basil was a little boy with impertinent blue eyes and an upturned nose, and Mary hated him.She played by herself under the tree, as she had done on the day of the cholera outbreak.Basil came and stood by to watch her make little mounds and paths in the garden.Now he felt interested, and suddenly made a suggestion.

"Why don't you build a bunch of rocks there for a rockery?" he said, "in the middle," he pointed, leaning over her head. "Go away!" Mary yelled, "I don't want boys. Go away!" Basil's face was angry for a while, and then he started to play tricks on people.He always likes to play tricks on his sisters.He danced round and round Mary, making faces, singing and laughing. Miss Mary, very stubborn, How does your garden look like? Silver wind chimes, cockle shells, Marigolds, lined up. He sang it until the other children heard it and laughed too.The more upset Mary felt, the harder they sang, "Miss Mary, very stubborn."From then on, whenever she was with them, they called her "Miss Mary is very stubborn," among themselves, and sometimes to her.

"You're going to be sent home," Basil told her, "this weekend. We're happy." "I'm glad too," retorted Mary. "Where's home?" "She doesn't know where home is!" said Basil, with the contempt of a seven-year-old. "In England, of course. My grandma lives there, and my sister Mabel was sent to her last year. You're not going to your grandma. You don't have a grandma. You're going to your uncle. His name is Archibald Craven." "I don't know him at all," Mary snapped back. "I know you don't know," replied Basil, "you don't know anything. Girls are always like that. I heard Mom and Dad talk about him. He lived in a big, lonely old house in the country, and nobody Get close to him. He has a bad temper, so no one is allowed to come near him, but even if he were, people wouldn't come. He's a hunchback, and he's scary."

"I don't believe you," said Mary, and she turned and put her fingers in her ears because she didn't want to hear any more. But then she thought about it a lot.That night Mrs. Crawford told her that in a few days she would sail for England, to his uncle Archibald.Misselthwaite Manor, where Craven lived, seemed hard-hearted and uninterested, and the couple didn't know what to do with her.They tried to be gentle with her, but Mrs. Crawford tried to kiss her, but she just turned away; Mr. Crawford patted her shoulder lightly, and she just tensed up. "She's such a mediocre child," said Mrs. Crawford regretfully. "Her mother was such a beautiful creature. She had a beautiful manner, too, but Mary had the dullest manners of a child I ever saw. Child They called her 'Miss Mary is very stubborn,' and although they were a little mischievous, it was impossible not to understand."

"Mary might have learned something if her mother had brought more of her good looks and grace into the nursery. It's a pity that the poor beauty is gone now, and many people never knew she had child." "I'm sure she didn't even look at her," sighed Mrs. Crawford. "Her nurse died, and no one thought about the little thing. Come to think of it, the servants have gone away, and she's left all alone in the In that deserted house. Colonel McGrew said he was nearly out of his wits with fright when he opened the door and found her standing alone in the middle of the room."

Under the care of an officer's wife, Mary sailed the long voyage to England.The officer's wife took her children to leave them in a boarding school.Her heart was almost entirely in her little children, and so in London she gladly handed Mary over to Archibald.The woman sent by Craven to fetch Mary.The woman was the steward of Misselthwaite Hall, and her name was Mrs. Medlock.She was a stocky woman with a very red face and dark, piercing eyes.She wore a deep purple dress, a black silk cloak with swart borders, and a black bonnet with purple flowers.When her head moved, the flowers stretched out and quivered.Mary didn't like her at all, but she rarely liked anyone, so it was not surprising, and Mrs. Medlock obviously didn't think much of her.

"My God! She's such a mediocre little thing!" She said, "We heard her mother was a beauty. She didn't pass her beauty down, did she?" "Maybe she'll look better when she's older." The officer's wife said kindly: "If her face is not so sallow and has a better expression... Her face shape is actually pretty good. The child will change a lot." "Then she'd have to change a lot," answered Mrs. Medlock, "and there's nothing Misselthwaite could do to improve the child—if you ask me!" They thought Mary couldn't hear because Mary was some distance away from them.After coming to this private hotel, she had been standing by the window, watching the passing buses, taxis and pedestrians, but she could hear clearly, and began to wonder about her uncle and where he lived.What kind of place was that, what would he be like?What is a hunchback?She never saw it.Possibly none in India.

Since she didn't have a nanny and began to live in other people's homes, she gradually felt lonely and had all kinds of strange thoughts that she didn't have before.She began to wonder why she never seemed to belong to anyone, even when her parents were alive.Other children seemed to belong to their parents, but she never seemed to be anyone's little girl.She had servants, food, and clothes, but no one ever paid any attention to her.She didn't know it was because she had a bad temper, but of course she didn't realize it at the time.She often feels that others have a bad temper, but she doesn't know that it is her own bad temper.

She thought Mrs. Medlock the most awkward person she had ever met, with a vulgar face and delicate hat.The next day they set off on their journey to Yorkshire, and she walked across the station to the train carriages, her head held high, as far away from Mrs Medlock as she could, because she didn't want to be thought of as belonging to her.It annoyed her to think that she might be thought to be Mrs. Medlock's youngest daughter. But Mrs. Medlock paid no attention to Mary and her thoughts.She was the kind of woman who "has no tolerance for young men's nonsense."At least, that's what she'd say if asked.She hadn't wanted to go to London, her sister Maria's daughter was getting married, but the job of butler at Misselthwaite was so well paid and comfortable that the only way to keep it was to execute Archibald at once.Mr. Craven's request.She didn't even dare to ask a question.

"Captain Lennox and his wife have died of cholera," said Mr. Craven curtly and dryly. "Captain Lennox is my wife's brother, and I am their daughter's guardian. The child is to be taken. You I must go to London myself to bring her back." So she packed her little suitcase and made the trip. Mary sat in the corner of the train car, looking calm and restless.With nothing to look at and nothing to read, she folded her small hands in black gloves in her lap.Her black dress made her look yellower, and her thinning hair fell listlessly from a black crumpled hat. "I never saw such a 'damn' kid in my life," thought Mrs. Medlock. ("Broken" is a Yorkshire word for being spoiled and self-willed.) She had never seen a child who could sit so stiffly, doing nothing.At last, tired of looking at Mary, she began to speak, fast and hard. "I figured I should tell you where you're going too," she said. "Do you know your uncle?" "I don't know," said Mary. "Never heard your parents mention him?" "No." Mary frowned.She frowned as she remembered that her parents never talked to her about anything.They certainly didn't tell her anything. "Well," muttered Mrs. Medlock, staring at her queer, unresponsive little face.For a little while, she said nothing, and then she started again. "I figured you'd know something—could be prepared. You're going somewhere queer." Mary said nothing, and Mrs. Medlock seemed uncomfortable with her apparent indifference, but, taking a breath, she continued. "Although it is a magnificent big house, it is a little too big. Mr. Craven is proud of the house in his own way, but his way is also quite dark. The house is six hundred years old, and it is on the edge of the field. Inside There were nearly a hundred rooms, but most of them were locked up. There were pictures, fine antique furniture, and various other things that had been there for an unknown number of years. Around the house was a large garden with trees that trailed their branches to the ground." She paused for a breath, "but there's nothing else".She stopped abruptly. Mary began to listen involuntarily.It sounds like everything is different from India, and anything new is quite attractive to her.But she was reluctant to appear interested.That was one of her unhappy, disobedient ways.So she sat quite still. "Well," said Mrs. Medlock, "what do you think?" "Not so much," she answered, "I don't know what the place is like." Mrs. Medlock gave a short laugh. "Well!" she said, "but you look like an old woman. Don't you mind?" "I don't care," said Mary, "it doesn't matter." "You're right about that," Mrs. Medlock said, "It doesn't matter. Why you stay at Misselthwaite I don't know, unless it's the easiest way. He won't trouble himself for you, it's a certainty." Yes. He never bothered himself for anyone." She stopped, as if just remembering something. "He's got a hunchback," she said, "and it's killing him. He was unhappy when he was young, and his money, his big house, started to work when he got married." Mary tried to appear unconcerned, but the eyes turned to her involuntarily.She never thought that the hunchback would get married, and she was a little surprised.Mrs. Medlock, who was a chatterbox, saw it, and went on with more interest.Maybe this is more or less a way to pass the time. "She was a sweet, pretty person. He would walk all over the world to find a grass she wanted. No one believed she would marry him, but she did. Some say she did it for his money. But She's not—she's not," she said decisively. "When she died—" Mary jumped up involuntarily. "Oh! Is she dead!" She exclaimed, exclaimed very reluctantly.She immediately thought of a French fairy tale.In the fairy tale there is a poor hunchback and a beautiful princess who suddenly feels sorry for Mr. Archibald Craven. "Yes, she's dead," answered Mrs. Medlock, "and it makes him queerer than ever. He doesn't care about anybody. Doesn't see anybody. Most of the time he's out, at Misserswaite." He locked himself in the west building and saw no one except Pichel. Pichel is an old man, but he took care of him since he was a child and knew his temper." It sounded like a story in a book, and it made Mary uncomfortable.A house with hundreds of rooms, almost all shut and locked doors—a house on the edge of a moor—sounded gloomy.A hunchbacked man, shut himself up too!She stared out the window, her lips pursed together.The place looked as though heavy rain was completely normal, with countless gray lines running down the window panes.If that beautiful wife had lived, perhaps she would have animated everything like her mother, would have run in and out, attended parties, and dressed in gowns "full of lace" like her mother.But she wasn't there anymore. "You don't expect to see him, because nine times out of ten you won't," said Mrs. Medlock, "and you never expect anyone to come and talk to you. You have to play and fend for yourself. Will tell you what There are rooms you can go in and you can't. There are lots of gardens. But you're not allowed to wander around and touch things while you're in the house. Mr. Craven won't put up with that." "I don't want to fumble around," said surly little Mary, abruptly, as abruptly as she felt pity for Mr. Craven, and she felt at once that he was a nuisance, and that he deserved what happened. Then she turned her face to the rain-soaked train window and gazed out at the gray downpour.The torrential rain seemed to last forever.She stared at it for a long time, the gray became heavier and heavier before her eyes, and she fell asleep.