The Secret Garden
Mrs. Medlock
The housekeeper
The stern housekeeper at Misselthwaite, who collects Mary in London and enforces Mr. Craven's rules.
Mrs. Medlock is the head housekeeper at Misselthwaite Manor. She is authoritarian and no-nonsense, and anxious to follow Mr. Craven's rules. She meets Mary in London and judges her at once as a plain sour piece. On the long carriage ride across the moor, she tells her bluntly that there is nothing but heather, gorse, ponies and sheep.
She is strict but not cruel. A hundred rooms are shut up and locked, she says, and Mary is not to go poking about.
“So this is Miss Mary! Well, she's not much to look at, is she? A plain sour piece.”
In the story
Contains spoilers.
Mrs. Medlock catches Mary wandering the forbidden wings and marches her back to her room, unwilling to listen when Mary says she heard crying. Later she is flabbergasted by Colin's appetite and ruddy cheeks, and stands by as he is carried downstairs to his wheelchair.
At the end, she is the one who tells Archibald Craven that Colin is outdoors, and she is in the hall when father and son walk into the manor together.
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