Author's note. I re-watched the 1987 Secret Garden the other night with my girls - the Hallmark Hall of Fame one where Mary Lennox has a Texan accent. It's far from being the most faithful adaptation, but it's the one I grew up watching (also Baby Colin Firth is in it). Maybe because I am a parent now it strikes me how very much Colin Craven gets a raw deal and in a weird way, I see some parallels with myself.
Also, I'm aware that Colin's age is given as ten in the book, but they cast him a couple years older in this adaptation, so I went with that.
He's not sure why he thought this time would be any different.
He's awake the second the door opens - always been a light sleeper. Always wondering if the next time the door opens, it will be him. Colin had spent the whole day in the Garden and it had been pleasant to lay in bed and think the day over before falling into a well-earned sleep. He knows the names now of all the flowers now, in Latin and English and Yorkshire. He'd done two turns around the perimeter using Ben Weatherstaff as a crutch and his legs ache, but it's a good ache. Then the door opens and he can tell by the dragging gait that it's his father, and maybe it's the lingering magic of the Garden but he naively hopes that this time won't be like all the others.
But his father goes to the portrait of Lilias on the wall - Colin can tell by the sound; he's lived most of his life in this room, he knows it like the back of his hand. He's holding his breath, hoping for anything - a word, a touch, any crumb of affection. But his father doesn't even approach the bed. Just stares at Lilias for a few minutes, shuts the drape, and leaves.
Almost before the door is closed, hot tears are spilling down his cheeks. Ridiculous to think it wouldn't always be this way. Colin is a disappointment to his father, a curse. He cries for hours, and then he hates himself even more - to be carrying on like that, a big boy of almost thirteen. It's not the histrionic sobs he's so often employed for the benefit of Nurse Boggs and the maids; in fact, he thinks he'd die of shame if one of them walked in now. He can't remember the last time he cried for real, out of genuine sorrow and not mere peevishness.
He can't remember the last time he felt ashamed.
Colin cries for hours, hardly making a sound, heartbroken sobs muffled by his pillow. He runs out of tears eventually, but the crying jag has left him with a headache and he still can't sleep. The little clock on the mantel chimes seven before his eyes finally dip shut.
Mary's up before the dawn, breakfasted and dressed in her stoutest shoes and eager to return to the Garden. They'd made good headway on clearing out the little pond yesterday - Colin had been able to help, sitting on a cushion at the water's edge, and it had all been so pleasant, talking and laughing while the sun warmed their heads. Why, her fingers are positively itching to have a trowel in them again. So when she hasn't been summoned to Colin's room by mid-morning, she decides to beard the lion in his den, marching off down the hall with her skipping rope in her pocket.
Mary finds Colin sitting up in his bed, but not dressed. She doesn't comment on this, nor on the untouched breakfast tray. But he really does look terrible, face pale and eyes all puffy and swollen. "Are you not coming today?" Mary asks. Colin doesn't respond. "We did too much yesterday, perhaps."
Mary throws herself on the sofa with an audible phumph. "Are you just going to sit here like a statue all day, then?"
"I might," Colin says in a rough voice.
"Are you ill?"
"My head aches." When Nurse Boggs had come in at eight that morning and found him still abed, pale and silent and unmoving, naturally the first thing she'd done was press a hand to his forehead. And when she found that he wasn't the least bit feverish, and he didn't fuss at her or try to bite her on the hand, she was more worried still. "I couldn't sleep."
"Well then." Mary looks over his untouched food, selects the fattest crumpet and nibbles it thoughtfully. "Do you want to go out with us in the afternoon?"
"No."
"Do you want Dickon to come with his animals?"
"No."
"Then what is it you want, Colin Craven?"
"I want -" Colin hesitates a moment, and then it all comes pouring out of him, a torrent he couldn't stop if he tried. "I want someone to love me." Mary's eyes go wide at this, but with a mouth full of crumpet she doesn't interrupt. "My father hates me, and my mother is dead, and Dr Craven hates me, and Nurse Boggs hates me, and Medlock and all the servants - That's why I was so nasty to you, when we first met. Because I knew you'd hate me sooner or later and I'd rather it be sooner."
"Oh, Colin."
"And don't tell that I'm being a silly boy and of course my father doesn't hate me. Mrs Medlock says that all the time, and she thinks I don't know she's lying, but I know."
"I wasn't going to say that," says Mary, the child so ugly that her parents had to hide her away. "And I don't hate you. Even when I was screaming at you I never hated you, really. You're the most interesting thing about this house - you and the Garden."
"You'd be the only one to think so."
"Don't be silly," Mary snaps. "I like you, and Dickon likes you, and all the animals - and I daresay old Ben's taken a liking to you, as well."
"But not my father. He's known me my whole life, and he doesn't care one whit for me."
Mary still doesn't contradict him - he couldn't have borne it if she had. "Well now, that is a problem," she says. "What are we going to do about that? Perhaps if we could get the Magic to work on him, some ways."
"Perhaps if I could walk. Perhaps if I could show him there wasn't a lump on my back. Perhaps if I didn't look so much like her," Colin says bitterly. "But why should I have to earn his love? Shouldn't he love me already, because I am his? Some fathers love their children; I've read it in books."
Mary snorts indelicately. "Mine didn't." Colin favors her with the ghost of a smile. "But why should today be any different?"
"He came into my rooms last night," Colin says shamefully, barely above a whisper. "You knew he was home - only for a few days though. Well he - he came in when he thought I must be asleep."
"But why should that be a bad thing?" Mary says. "I thought -"
"He didn't even look at me," Colin says in a wobbly voice. "He didn't even come near the bed. I'd rather he stayed away altogether than that."
Mary remembers how she'd always looked forward to those rare visits with her parents - how she'd always longed for a kind word from her pretty, vivacious mother and her boyish father. How she'd always come away disappointed. Each time her hopes rose a little less and fell a little more. How alike she and Colin are, she thinks - the pair of them watching uninvited at a banquet and starving for a crust.
"Oh," Mary breathes, and creeps across the bedclothes to squeeze his hand. "What should you like me to do?"
Colin's shoulders slump. "I just need some rest."
"Of course. Would you like me to open the windows? Look at that sky - the fresh air will put you straight to sleep."
"Yes, thank you."
"Do you know, Colin," Mary says when the task is done, "this shows how different you are already."
"What do you mean?"
"You see, you're sad right now, but you're sad for a real reason and not because you're dying or there's a lump on your back."
"Oh."
"But also - don't you see - you're sad but you're not having hysterics and biting and throwing pillows at me. The old Colin, when he was unhappy, wanted everyone else to be unhappy too." Mary pats him on the cheek, an odd motherly gesture for such a small person as her. "Dickon and I will come back in the afternoon, and we'll take you out, and if you aren't in the mood for digging you can lay under the canopy tree with the animals. Doesn't that sound nice?"
Colin agrees that it does, and allows himself to sink lower in his bed, and fills his lungs with the good clean air coming in the windows. He tries to quiet his mind, but the thoughts race through it continually.
If his father came back now, Colin reasons, he wouldn't forgive him.
He could stride into Father's office as soon as the man returns, and he's no doubt Father would be proud, and there would be embracing and even tears. Yet as much as Colin is looking forward to that moment, he's unconvinced that it will erase his long-held hurt. He's no doubt a more lovable boy now - healthy and cheerful and likely to live. But he needed to be loved all those years he was bedridden, friendless and afraid. Father needs to get down on his knees and beg to be forgiven for that, and Colin knows in his heart of hearts that such a thing will never happen.
He tells Dickon and Mary nearly everything, but he will never tell them this.
Some days later Colin is doing some potting under the canopy tree when he realizes he and Ben Weatherstaff are alone - Dickon and Mary having taken a load of dead branches out to be burned. Colin motions the old gardener closer. "Ben," he says in an urgent whisper. "Which tree was it?"
Ben stares at the boy a moment, but he is not surprised or taken aback. He merely holds out a hand to help Colin to his feet. As they make their way around the perimeter, Colin notes with some pride that he relies less on the old man than even a week ago. They stop in front of the gray dead tree. The fallen bough isn't there anymore - Ben having cleared it away years ago - but you can see the jagged place like a missing tooth. The climbing roses over it are budding, and it could have been a lovely sight.
"This were the Missus' tree," Ben says, peering at Colin with his watery blue eyes. "But tha' knowed it already, didn't thee?"
Colin nods slowly. "Tear it down, Ben," he says in a strangely hard voice. "I don't want to look at it ever again."
Ben puts a gnarled hand on the boy's shoulder knowingly. "Aye, lad. I'll see it done."
the end.