Scene 1
Karoca zaprzężona w konie jedzie o zmierzchu. Mary i Mrs Medlock siedzą naprzeciwko siebie. Mary jest ubrana w czarną sukienkę i wygląda niechlujnie. Patrzą na siebie. Słychać kopyta koni.
Mary – Where are you taking me?
Mrs Medlock – Do you know anything about your uncle Mr Craven?
Mary – No
Mrs Medlock – Never heard your father and mother talk about him?
Mary – No. They never talked to me about anything in particular.
Mrs Medlock – Humph. I suppose you might as well be told something, to prepare you. You are going to a strange place. Certainly nothing like India, I would imagine.
Mary – milczy
Mrs Medlock – It’s a grand big place in a gloomy way, and Mr Craven’s proud of it in his way. The house is six hundred years old, and it’s on the edge of the moor, and there’s near a hundred rooms in it, though most of them are shut and locked. There’s a big park round. But there’s nothing else. Well. What do you think of that?
Mary – Nothing. I know nothing about such places.
Mrs Medlock – Eh! But you are like an old woman. Don’t you care?
Mary – It doesn’t matter whether I care or not!
Mrs Medlock – You are right enough there, it doesn’t, with your mother and father gone. What you’re to be kept at Misselthwaite Manor for I don’t know. Mr Craven’s not going to trouble himself about you, that’s sure and certain. He’s got a crooked back, and it set him wrong. He was a sour man and got no good of his money and big place till he was married. (Mary spogląda z zainteresowaniem) She was a sweet pretty thing and he’d have walked the world over to get a blade of grass she wanted. When she died…
Mary – Oh! Did she die?
Mrs Medlock – Yes, she died and it made Mr Craven stranger than ever. He cares about nobody. He won’t see people. Most of the time he goes away and when he is at Misselthwaite he shuts himself up in the West Wing. You needn’t expect to see him. You have to play about and look after yourself. But when you’re in the house don’t wander and poke about.
Mary – I shall not want to poke about.
Mrs Medlock – I’m glad to hear that.
Mary – What is a moor?
Mrs Medlock – Look out of the window. You won’t see much because it’s a dark night but you can see something.
(Słychać szumiące drzewa. Postacie w tle przemieszczają się razem z krzewami lub jakimś materiałem i imitują dźwięki)
Mary – It’s not the sea, is it?
Mrs Medlock – No, it isn’t. Nor fields or mountains, it’s just miles and miles and miles of wild land that nothing grows on but heather and broom, and nothing lives on but wild ponies and sheep.
Mary – I feel as if it might be the sea, if there was water on it.
Mrs Medlock – That’s the wind blowing through the bushes. It’s a wild, dreary enough place, though there’s plenty that likes it – particularly when the heather’s in bloom.
Mary – I don’t like it. I don’t like it.
Mrs Medlock – Ah, there it is. The house up ahead. Now we’ll show you to your rooms, and you must keep to them. No wandering. Don’t you forget that! Gather up your things, child.
Mary – I am not accustomed to carrying my own luggage.
Mrs Medlock – Aren’t you?
Mary – My servants in India always did such things. – Mary wychodzi.
Mrs Medlock – Oh my, my, what a disagreeable child – zabiera rzeczy Mary i wychodzi.