Coming alive with the garden

Archibald Craven, master of Misselthwaite Manor, taps his fingers on his desk while Mrs. Medlock reads out the household accounts. He is about to wave his approval of Medlock's numbers and dismiss her from his library, when she names a sum "...to measure Miss Mary for clothes, her old ones all being too small, sir."

Archibald stops tapping. "She has grown so much, Medlock?"

Medlock bobs her head in a little nod. "Yes, Mr. Craven." She prepares to explain some other feature of the household budget, but the master raises a hand to silence her.

"Then she is getting too old," he says, half to himself, "to run around in the gardens all day. Medlock?"

"Yes, Mr. Craven?"

"See about girls' schools in Yorkshire. The best schools, of course, with good teachers and very large grounds."

Medlock bobs her head again, this time in relief. As she's said more than once below stairs, it's hardly right for a girl that age to play with no one but two boys. "Yes, Mr. Craven."

"And ask Mary to come and speak to me."

"Of course, Mr. Craven."

Thanks to penknife for this survey.

( In which more is said about Archibald’s sexual morality than you probably wanted to know )

All the long railroad journey home from Italy, Archibald has been thinking about Mary and Colin. Months ago, he left Mary alone with a few servants and some books, and with permission to make a little garden somewhere. She was a small, sallow, delicate child, and surely she needed someone to watch over her. Fancy a child like that finding her way to Milliways, where things could happen to her better not to be thought of. It was time, and more than time, for the girl to have a real guardian.

And Colin! Archibald abandoned Colin long before Mary. He remembers the boy as a weak, wretched infant with his mother's great grey eyes staring indifferently from his face. The boy seemed far too much like Lilias Craven, and yet not nearly enough. Archibald sent him velvet robes and leather-bound books, gave him a nurse to watch over his health and the best doctors that could be found, and stayed far away from the child.

"Perhaps I have been all wrong for ten years," he says to himself. "Ten years is a long time. It may be too late to do anything for either of them --quite too late. What have I been thinking of!"

Gabriel Tam said, back at Milliways, It's never too late. For the love of God, man, go to your children.

***

At last Archibald's carriage reaches the moor, all blooming with purple heather in the sunlight. The great manor looms against the edge of the sky. It is the first time in ten years, Archibald realizes, that he is glad to be home.

In the garden! Lilias cries in Archibald's mind, as the carriage is pulls past the gardens' outer gate. "Stop the carriage," Archibald orders the driver. "Pitcher, tell Medlock I've arrived and prepare my rooms. I will be coming inside shortly."

The valet and the driver, long accustomed to their eccentric master, acknowledge their orders with a "Yes, sir" and a bob of the head each. Pitcher opens the door and helps Archibald out.

When the servants have driven off, Archibald walks through the trellised gate. The paths inside are hung with golden ivy. Archibald turns once, twice, without thinking about it, and then he is on the Long Walk. The door will be coming up on the left, although it is locked and the key is --

Archibald stops in his tracks, just before the doorway, because on the other side of the wall, people are laughing.

[After this]

Archibald Craven walks outside. In the cold, clear night, the gibbous moon's reflection shimmers on the lake, illuminating the grounds in silver and purple shadows.

(It's never too late.)

Archibald walks out, past the lake, past the greenhouse and the apple tree, into the darkness of the woods. He breathes slowly, deeply, letting the clean smell of the forest fill his lungs.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep
Archibald keeps walking further, until he cannot see any of the light from the bar area at all. A little moonlight filters down between the branches of the trees, enough that Archibald does not bump into any trees.

But I have promises to keep
(For the love of God, man, go to them. Go to your children.)

And miles to go before I sleep
All this week he has heard her calling. "Archie!" Lilias says, in the sweet, clear, happy voice he remembers from those days. "Archie!" On the first day Archibald thought he was imagining things, or remembering; for a moment on the second day he thought he was mad. He hears her now, unmistakably; the only other sounds in the woods tonight are Archibald's own footsteps crunching on the leaves and grasses. "Archie!"

Archibald walks faster, hurrying around the trees, trying to come closer to her. "Lilias! I hear you, Lily. Where are you?"

And miles to go before I sleep
The woods have begun to clear, or perhaps to rearrange themselves. Archibald finds himself in a maze of high trimmed hedges like the ones the Misselthwaite gardeners care for. In the moonlight, he makes his way around one turn and another, turning left and right and left again.

(it's a maze, this garden, it's a maze of ways)

At last, Archibald is stopped by a blank high wall covered in ivy.

"In the garden!" Lily's voice answers him. He still cannot see her. "In the garden!"

At last, Archibald Craven realizes he is dreaming. The maze fades away around him, and he knows no more until morning comes.