CHAPTER II 12
" I believe she scarcely ever looked at her," sighed Mrs. Crawford. " When her Ayah was dead there was no one to give a thought to the little thing. Think of the servants running away and leaving her all alone in that deserted bungalow. Colonel McGrew said he nearly jumped out of his skin when he opened the door and found her standing by herself in the middle of the room."
Mary made the long voyage to England under the care of an officer ' s wife, who was taking her children to leave them in a boarding-school. She was very much absorbed in her own little boy and girl, and was rather glad to hand the child over to the woman Mr. Archibald Craven sent to meet her, in London. The woman was his housekeeper at Misselthwaite Manor, and her name was Mrs. Medlock. She was a stout woman, with very red cheeks and sharp black eyes. She wore a very purple dress, a black silk mantle with jet fringe on it and a black bonnet with purple velvet flowers which stuck up and trembled when she moved her head. Mary did not like her at all, but as she very seldom liked people there was nothing remarkable in that; besides which it was very evident Mrs. Medlock did not think much of her.
" My word! she ' s a plain little piece of goods!" she said. " And we ' d heard that her mother was a beauty. She hasn ' t handed much of it down, has she, ma ' am?"
" Perhaps she will improve as she grows older," the officer ' s wife said good-naturedly. " If she were not so sallow and had a nicer expression, her features are rather good. Children alter so much."
" She ' ll have to alter a good deal," answered Mrs. Medlock. " And there ' s nothing likely to improve children at Misselthwaite--if you ask me!"
They thought Mary was not listening because she was standing a little apart from them at the window of the private hotel they had gone to. She was watching the passing buses and cabs, and people, but she heard quite well and was made very curious about her uncle and the place he lived in. What sort of a place was it, and what would he be like? What was a hunchback? She had never seen one. Perhaps there were none in India.