There Was Someone Crying - There Was! (The Secret Garden (Full Cast))

01Chapter 6.

02There was someone crying.

03There was.

04The next day the rain poured down in torrents again, and when Mary looked out of her window, the moor was almost hidden by grey mist and cloud.

05There could be no going out to-day.

06What do you do in your cottage when it rains like this?

07she asked Martha.

08Try to keep from under each other's feet, mostly, Martha answered.

09There does seem a lot of us then.

10Mother's a good-tempered woman, but she gets fair moithered.

11The biggest ones goes out in the cow-shed and plays there.

12Dickon, he doesn't mind the wet.

13He just goes out the same as if the sun was shining.

14He says he sees things on rainy days as doesn't show when it's fair weather.

15He once found a little fox-cub, half drowned in its hole, and he brought it home in the bosom of his shirt to keep it warm.

16Its mother had been killed nearby, and the hole was swum out, and the rest of her litter was dead.

17He's got it at home now.

18He found a half-drowned young crow another time, and he brought it home too, and tamed it.

19It's named Soot because it's so black, and it hops and flies about with him everywhere.

20The time had come when Mary had forgotten to resent Martha's familiar talk.

21She had even begun to find it interesting, and to be sorry when she stopped or went away.

22The stories she had been told by her ayah when she lived in India had been quite unlike those Martha had to tell about the moorland cottage, which held fourteen people who lived in four little rooms and never had quite enough to eat.

23The children seemed to tumble about and amuse themselves like a litter of rough, good-natured collie puppies.

24Mary was most attracted by the mother and Dickon.

25When Martha told stories of what mother said or did, they always sounded comfortable.

26If I had a raven or a fox-cub I could play with it, said Mary.

27But I have nothing.

28Martha looked perplexed.

29Can the knit?

30she asked.

31No, answered Mary.

32Can the sew?

33No.

34Can the reed?

35Yes.

36Then why doesn't there?

37Read something, or learn a bit of spelling.

38Tha'st old enough to be learning thy book a good bit now.

39I haven't any books, said Mary.

40Those I had were left in India.

41That's a pity, said Martha.

42If Mrs.

43Medlock had let thee go into the library, there's thousands of books there.

44Mary did not ask where the library was, because she was suddenly inspired by a new idea.

45She made up her mind to go and find it herself.

46She was not troubled about Mrs.

47Medlock.

48Mrs.

49Medlock seemed always to be in her comfortable housekeeper's sitting-room downstairs.

50In this queer place one scarcely ever saw any one at all.

51In fact, there was no one to see but the servants, and when their master was away they lived a luxurious life below stairs, where there was a huge kitchen hung about with shining brass and pewter, and a large servants' hall where there were four or five abundant meals eaten every day, and where a great deal of lively romping went on when Mrs.

52Medlock was out of the way.

53Mary's meals were served regularly, and Martha waited on her, but no one troubled themselves about her in the least.

54Mrs.

55Medlock came and looked at her every day or two, but no one inquired what she did or told her what to do.

56She supposed that perhaps this was the English way of treating children.

57In India she had always been attended by her ayah, who followed her about and waited on her hand and foot.

58She had often been tired of her company.

59Now she was followed by nobody, and was learning to dress herself because Martha looked as though she thought she was silly and stupid when she wanted to have things handed to her and put on.

60Hasn't the got good sense, she said once, when Mary had stood waiting for her to put on her gloves for her.

61Our Susan, Anne, is twice as sharp as thee, and she's only four-year-old.

62Sometimes thee looks fair soft in the head.

63Mary had worn her contrary scowl for an hour after that, but it made her think several entirely new things.

64She stood at the window for about ten minutes this morning after Martha had swept up the hearth for the last time and gone downstairs.

65She was thinking over the new idea which had come to her when she heard of the library.

66She did not care very much about the library itself, because she had read very few books, but to hear of it brought back to her mind the hundred rooms with closed doors.

67She wondered if they were all really locked, and what she would find if she could get into any of them.

68Were there a hundred, really?

69Why shouldn't she go and see how many doors she could count?

70It would be something to do on this morning when she could not go out.

71She had never been taught to ask permission to do things, and she knew nothing at all about authority, so she would not have thought it necessary to ask Mrs.

72Medlock if she might walk about the house, even if she had seen her.

73She opened the door of the room and went into the corridor, and then she began her wanderings.

74It was a long corridor, and it branched into other corridors and led her up short flights of steps which mounted to others again.

75There were doors and doors, and there were pictures on the walls.

76Sometimes they were pictures of dark, curious landscapes, but oftenest they were portraits of men and women in queer, grand costumes made of satin and velvet.

77She found herself in one long gallery whose walls were covered with these portraits.

78She had never thought that there could be so many in any house.

79She walked slowly down this place and stared at the faces, which also seemed to stare at her.

80She felt as if they were wondering what a little girl from India was doing in their house.

81Some were pictures of children, little girls in thick satin frocks which reached to their feet and stood out about them, and boys with puffed sleeves and lace collars and long hair, or with big ruffs around their necks.

82She always stopped to look at the children, and wonder what their names were, and where they had gone, and why they wore such odd clothes.

83There was a stiff, plain little girl rather like herself.

84She wore a green brocade dress, and held a green parrot on her finger.

85Her eyes had a sharp, curious look.

86"'Where do you live now?' said Mary aloud to her.

87"'I wish you were here.' Surely no other little girl had ever spent such a queer mourning.

88It seemed as if there was no one in all the huge rambling house but her own small self, wandering about upstairs and down, through narrow passages and wide ones, where it seemed to her that no one but herself had ever walked.

89Since so many rooms had been built, people must have lived in them.

90But it all seemed so empty that she could not quite believe it true.

91It was not until she climbed to the second floor that she thought of turning the handle of a door.

92All the doors were shut, as Mrs.

93Medlock had said they were, but at last she put her hand on the handle of one and turned it.

94She was almost frightened for a moment when she felt that it turned without difficulty, and that when she pushed open the door itself, it slowly and heavily opened.

95It was a massive door and opened into a big bedroom.

96There were embroidered hangings on the wall, and inlaid furniture, such as she had seen in India, stood about the room.

97A broad window with leaded panes looked out upon the moor, and over the mantel was another portrait of the stiff, plain little girl, who seemed to stare at her more curiously than ever.

98"'Perhaps she slept here once,' said Mary.

99"'She stares at me so that she makes me feel queer.' After that she opened more doors, and more.

100She 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.

101In all of them there were old pictures or old tapestries with strange scenes worked on them.

102There were curious pieces of furniture and curious ornaments in nearly all of them.

103In one room, which looked like a lady's sitting-room, the hangings were all embroidered velvet, and in a cabinet were about a hundred little elephants made of ivory.

104They were of different sizes, and some had their mahouts or palanquins on their backs.

105Some were much bigger than the others, and some were so tiny they seemed only babies.

106Mary had seen carved ivory in India, and she knew all about elephants.

107She opened the door of the cabinet and stood on a footstool, and played with these for quite a long time.

108When she got tired she set the elephants in order, and shut the door of the cabinet.

109In all her wanderings through the long corridors and the empty rooms, she had seen nothing alive.

110But in this room she saw something.

111Just after she had closed the cabinet door, she heard a tiny rustling sound.

112It made her jump and look around at the sofa by the fireplace, from which it seemed to come.

113In 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.

114Mary crept softly across the room to look.

115The bright eyes belonged to a little grey mouse, and the mouse had eaten a hole into the cushion and made a comfortable nest there.

116Six baby mice were coddled up asleep near her.

117If there was no one else alive in the hundred rooms, there were seven mice who did not look lonely at all.

118If they wouldn't be so frightened I would take them back with me, said Mary.

119She had wandered about long enough to feel too tired to wander any farther, and she turned back.

120Two or three times she lost her way by turning down the wrong corridor and was obliged to ramble up and down till she found the right one.

121But 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.

122I 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.

123I don't know which way to go.

124How still everything is!

125It was while she was standing here and just after she had said this that the stillness was broken by a sound.

126It was another cry, but not quite like the one she had heard last night.

127It was only a short one, a fretful childish whine muffled by passing through walls.

128It's nearer than it was, said Mary, her heart beating rather faster.

129And it is crying!

130She put her hand accidentally upon the tapestry near her and then sprang back, feeling quite startled.

131The 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.

132Medlock was coming up it with her bunch of keys in her hand and a very cross look on her face.

133What are you doing here?

134she said, and she took Mary by the arm and pulled her away.

135What did I tell you?

136I turned round the wrong corner, explained Mary.

137I didn't know which way to go and I heard someone crying.

138She quite hated Mrs.

139Medlock at the moment, but she hated her more the next.

140You didn't hear anything of the sort, said the housekeeper.

141You come along now back to your own nursery or I'll box your ears.

142And 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.

143Now, she said, you stay where you're told to stay or you'll find yourself locked up.

144The master had better get you a governess same as he said he would.

145You're in the need someone to look sharp after you.

146I've got enough to do.

147She went out of the room and slammed the door after her, and Mary went and sat on the hearth rug pale with rage.

148She did not cry, but ground her teeth.

149There was someone crying.

150There was.

151There was.

152She said to herself.

153She had heard it twice now, and sometimes she would find out.

154She had found out a great deal this morning.

155She 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 grey mouse and its babies in their nest in the velvet cushion.

156End of chapter 6