"Do you know anything about your uncle ?" "No," said Mary.
"Never heard your father and mother talk about him ?" "No," said Mary frowning.

She frowned because she remembered that her father and mother had never talked to her about anything in particular.
Certainly they had never told her things.
"Humph," muttered Mrs.Medlock, staring at her queer, unresponsive little face.

She did not say any more for a few moments and then she began again.
"I suppose you might as well be told something--to prepare you.

You are going to a queer place." Mary said nothing at all, and Mrs.Medlock looked rather discomfited by her apparent indifference, but, after taking a breath, she went on.
"Not but that it's a grand big place in a gloomy way, and Mr.Craven's proud of it in his way--and that's gloomy enough, too.

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's shut up and locked.