(no subject)

[a_poor_guardian]

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.

Comments

[outta-a-chair.livejournal.com]

Shrieking with laughter, really, if you want to be accurate.

Footsteps run past, sometimes on stone paths and sometimes--carefully, or else a high female voice will shriek at them to be so--on dirt that's not yet holding a living thing.

[mistressmaryquitecontrary]

Speaking of the aforementioned female voice:

"Colin Craven! Not so fast!"



It's a little painful to hear - if only because of the pitch.

[a_poor_guardian]

Archibald's breath catches in his throat.

He is sure, now, that he is dreaming.

[uncommongardenr.livejournal.com]

If so, then he's also dreaming a cheerful Yorkshire voice, full of laughter as it calls out.

"Aye, I c'n barely keep up wi' thee!"

[outta-a-chair.livejournal.com]

"Shan't slow down for you!" he yells and runs faster, because he shall run faster than anyone.

Well, maybe not, but he won't admit it.

[mistressmaryquitecontrary]

"You are going to step," Mary shrills, "on the crocuses!"

Which translates to: you can go faster than me, and it's not fair!


But it's wonderful, too.

[a_poor_guardian]

Archibald knows that the door in the wall has been locked now for ten years. When it swings open, sending tendrils of ivy everywhere, he is beyond wonder. In any case, there is no time to think of it, as the tall boy racing through the door will fall into him if Archibald doesn't catch him--

a tall boy with rosy cheeks, black hair and Lily's gray eyes, warm and laughing in Archibald's arms--

Archibald gasps for breath, stammers. "Who? Who in God's name?"

[outta-a-chair.livejournal.com]

"Oof!"

He wasn't planning on this. Not running into anyone, of course, but especially not his father. He thought it would be very dignified.

It's really not, and he grins up at the man after a moment. It's mostly joyful, and a little smug, and a little wary, because he remembers some things he's been told of his father and he's not certain how much is true.

Still, he draws himself up tall as he can and looks at the man who's holding him and says, "Father," which he never has before, not as a name, and it almost stops him before he finishes, simply, "I am Colin."

[a_poor_guardian]

Archibald swallows. It takes him a few tries before he can speak, and when he does, his voice comes roughly. "Colin." Archibald takes a shuddering breath. "In the garden. You were in the garden all along."

[outta-a-chair.livejournal.com]

"Yes," he says, and he's not sure what's wrong with his father. "It was the garden that did it. The garden and the Magic and Mary and Dickon."

And Colin himself, just a bit.

"And--and we kept it a secret, because we thought you should see first. Because I am well. I can beat Mary in a race." There's a pause, and he adds, smugly, "She hates it. And I am going to be an athlete."

[mistressmaryquitecontrary]

Mary's been standing four steps behind Colin this whole time; her arms folded tightly across her chest, and her face stiff with uncertainty and mistrust.

"He does not beat me all the time," she mutters; and then, jutting her chin upwards, "and I do not mind so very much."

Because she, you see, is on Colin's side.

[uncommongardenr.livejournal.com]

Dickon is at Mary's shoulder, just a bit behind her, and his cap is off and held in one hand and his face is quiet and solemn, partly because it's the master of Misselthwaite, right there, but mostly because it's Colin's father, seeing his son awake and alive and healthy.

"Sir," he says quietly, giving a slight nod. "Mother said she'd written t' thee."

[a_poor_guardian]

"You are Susan Sowerby's child, then," Archibald says to Dickon. "She is a good woman." He's not really looking at Dickon, though, not with Mary Lennox staring coldly at him and with Colin, strong and joyful, standing right there.

"There is more color in your cheeks, Mary. You look very well." Archibald isn't used to giving compliments, so the words come out awkwardly, but he means them.

"And Colin." Archibald's eyes are wet, but he's smiling wider than he has smiled in many years. "How your mother would like to see you now."

[outta-a-chair.livejournal.com]

He shrugs, a little.

His mother sees him in the painting. He has her eyes.

He doesn't exactly miss her, because he doesn't think she's not here, not any more.

It's Mary's garden. But it's always his mother's, too.

"You--you needn't cry, Father."

[a_poor_guardian]

"I am not crying," Archibald says.

It's true; the drops of water in his eyes have not leaked out yet.

"Colin, my boy, will you tell me about the garden?"

[outta-a-chair.livejournal.com]

"I shall show you," he says, firmly, and takes his father's hand to lead him in.

It's a world of color and scent and green and life, and Colin is very careful not to step on any of it, thank you very much, Mary.

[a_poor_guardian]

Archibald, still marvelling at the warm hand holding his own, follows Colin into the garden.

The place is a wilderness of autumn gold and purple and violet blue and flaming scarlet and on every side sheaves of late lilies are standing together, white or white and ruby. Archibald remembers when the first of them were planted, so that just at this season of the year their late glories should reveal themselves. Late roses climb and hang and cluster. The sunshine deepening the hue of the yellowing trees makes the garden an embowered temple of gold.

Archibald stands silent, looking round and round.

"I thought it would be dead," he says.

[mistressmaryquitecontrary]

"I thought so first at too," Mary admits; trailing behind them, a few steps, with Dickon at her side.

Her voice is thin, but clear, and gets stronger the further into the garden she walks.

"But it was all wick inside - oh! It was all alive.

"It only needed someone to help it."

[uncommongardenr.livejournal.com]

"Aye, sir," Dickon says gently from his place at Mary's side. "There's lots o' things as 'ave more life in 'em than it seems, sometimes. They just need t' be cared for."

[a_poor_guardian]

"So I understand," says Archibald. He turns around a little to see Mary and Dickon standing a little away from himself and Colin.

That isn't right, Archibald realizes. Dickon has a mother and father, but Mary is his own ward.

(Go to your children, Gabriel Tam said.)

"Mary," he says, stretching out the hand that is not still holding Colin's. "Come here and show me what you've done."

[mistressmaryquitecontrary]

Mary hesitates, a long moment - and the doubt is still there, written clear across her face.

And then, abruptly, she takes two steps forward, and places her small thin right hand in Archibald's - but not before she seizes Dickon's hand with her left, joining them all in a long thin line.

It's awkward, and unwieldy, and makes it hard for her to point out the flowers.

But it's right, all the same.

"It was not all me," she says, and turns her face up to her uncle.

"Dickon taught me how; and Ben Weatherstaff kept the roses alive, and the robin showed the way.

"And Colin has been digging, too."

[a_poor_guardian]

"Then you've all been doing good work," says Archibald, smiling at Dickon, Mary and Colin in turn. (His throat still tightens when he looks at Colin.)

"Dickon, if there is anything we can do for you, it is yours.

"Colin, my fine, brave boy --" Archibald swallows. "I'm proud of you, and I think that your mother is watching, and she is proud of you also."

He looks back at Mary, her callused hand nearly engulfed in his larger hand.

"Mary Lennox, I want you to know that for as long as you wish, Misselthwaite Manor is your home. I have been a poor guardian, but I mean not to be any longer. I will try.

"And Mary, this bit of earth--" Archibald lifts Mary's hand and gestures all about them-- "this, if you would like it, is your garden."

[outta-a-chair.livejournal.com]

Mary smiled sweetly, and thanked her uncle kindly, and the three children and the man went off to have tea.

It would be lovely to end it that way.

That's not how it happens. That's not how things work. Not really.

Mary is still sour, because it's not his to give her, it's hers already, and Colin stomps on her foot, quite by accident, and Dickon has the good sense to step a bit away.

Because that, you see, is how families work.

And after a few moments of quarrel, which Colin's father isn't quite sure how to stop, the cousins stop on their own, both a bit sulky. It's only a moment, though, before it passes, and Colin pulls his father forward by the hand to show him more--without a hug, because he is not certain how to love his father, yet, but he has now started to learn. The gray eyes that are strange and too bright will have to learn to be angry, some day, when they look at Archibald, and someday they will be filled with tears, and someday they will hold only affection. But for now, at least, they are curious and eager.

And as his son points out the lilies and the roses and starts to tell him about his plans for a book, and Mary throws in details, Archibald Craven begins to learn, at last, what it is to have a family.