CAUTION/Warning: The material you are about to read is heartbreaking.
I dreaded writing this chapter... I really wanted to keep writing happy romantic love scenes, but this is how their story ends.
I hope I have fulfilled the purpose of defining and explaining how Lord Archibald Craven came to be in such a constant state of melancholy in The Secret Garden. His mourning...How severe his experience of the loss of his Lady-his one true love was...
...
A fortnight later...
"Archie, it looks as if the rain's finally stopped. Let's go back into our garden. Such treacherous weather is surely to have wrecked havoc upon my poor Roses. Let's see what's to be done." When they entered, Archie said, "My darling, no work for you. Rest. Ben is coming with all of the equipment needed. Only he and I shall work. You must take care." He placed his hand gently upon her belly. Archie started to walk around to survey the damage.
Lilias sat upon her swing.
What Lilias did not know was that lightning had struck that old tree, and its solid branches were no longer strong. Waiting on Ben, Lilias began to swing softly at first, then a little higher and higher but still as softly as possible.
Archie did not wander too far from her, but his head was turned. He wouldn't have allowed her to swing at all though softly.
Then-the unimaginable...
A branch holding one of the swing's ropes cracked harshly sending reverberations downward causing Lilias to lose her balance and fall backwards with the momentum.
She screamed in shock.
Archie's heart seemed to stop in his utter panic at the sound of her voice.
Lilias lost all control of her reflexes and landed harshly on her side on the ground-ribs and tummy taking a blow.
"Archie!"
Archie was on the ground near her in a matter of seconds.
"Archie...the baby." She cried in distress.
Archie didn't know whether he should move her.
He rubbed his hand gently along her body, tears of horrific fear filling his eyes...He looked over her and noticed the blood that was evidently beginning to pour from her body and beginning to saturate her gown at her lowest part of her midsection.
"The baby..." She repeated.
"It's all right. It's all right..." He repeated in a whisper again and again to reassure her. "..It's all right...Lily...oh...my God..."
Ben entered at that moment and turned over his wheelbarrow in horror and shock.
Archie took his jacket off and held it against her body over her dress in some desperate reactionary thought to stop the blood from pouring out of her. She and the baby were clearly in severe danger. Was she hemorrhaging? He did not know, but it seemed as if she were bleeding out. He needed to get her to the house.
"Fetch Dr. Gibson! Bring him...to the manor...to the house! Immediately!" Archie barked the command as he swept Lilias up into his arms as gently as possible.
He then carried her as swiftly as his legs would take him-the adrenaline stirring him to move so fast he was unaware of the distance he travelled in such a short time.
...
The butler swung open the door. Archie continued to carry his wife to the nearest bedroom.
"Oh... My... God!" Medlock screeched.
A rush of staff attended to Lilias.
"I need more blankets...more towels." Medlock ordered.
Lilias was determined to remain conscious...no matter the loss of blood. She was going to bring this baby into the world.
The staff brought water and ice as well. Archie wiped a cold towel across Lilias's neck and brow.
She began to breathe in labour. Archie held her hand.
Medlock did not yet quite gather the courage to order Archie out of the room.
In a sinister appearance at the doorway was Dr. Neville Craven.
Lilias's blood was soaking towels quickly. He knew this was not a good course of events.
"How dare...! Get him out of my house!" Archie growled.
"I can help...to try to...save her...to save them both." Neville answered. "Do not turn me away, Brother. I'm the only doctor you've got...that is here now."
Archie did not speak, but in his racing mind...They must be saved. There is no try.
"Master, he's all we got. Your brother...Dr. Craven." Medlock coaxed.
Neville corrected Lilias's way of breathing and re-positioned her. This labour needed to progress quickly. His ultimate recommendation was a Caesarian section but no time to transport her...the journey to the hospital would finish her. His personal tools were rudimentary at best. He gave her an injection of some sort hurriedly.
Medlock urged Archie to leave the room.
"Master, you must not bear witness to this. You must go now. You must leave this room.
"Silence, Medlock! I shan't! I shan't leave her!" He cried in constant fear of losing his wife and his child.
"I don't want you touching her." Archie growled at Neville.
Dr. Gibson entered. His immediate conclusion was that Lilias could not survive this blood loss.
He convinced Archie to back out of the room. Archie felt safer now that she would be in Dr. Gibson's hands, but his heart was breaking for his Lilias-the trauma she was experiencing, and he was told to leave her.
"Send for Aisling," Archie ordered of Medlock as he was leaving the room against his true desire to stay for fear of not being at her side and losing her, "I will not have her be afraid."
He pressed a sweet and lingering kiss to his wife's brow.
...
Dr. Gibson argued with Neville.
"Get away from her."
Dr. Gibson's care for Lilias as he was her doctor since her own birth overcame his civility, and he pushed Neville away and out of the door.
Archie had Neville thrown out.
...
Archie collapsed slowly to the floor outside of the door to the room...the most frightened he's ever been in his life.
He buried his face to his knees as he sat in a crouching tucked position upon the floor. The door was closed. Leclair walked over and then sat down by his Master. Aisling had rushed in.
"What shall I do Leclair? What shall I...what am I...What should we do? What can we do?" His words were echoing quietly through sobs.
"Pray." Was all Leclair could say in answer.
The baby was indeed removed from her womb soon. Dr. Gibson handed the weakly, crying baby to the staff and ordered instructions quickly on what to do with him, as he immediately kept working to stop the bleeding. It seemed a wonder that Dr. Gibson was able to stop it only moments later.
"He's breathing. He's alive." One of the staff cried.
...
"You have a son, Mrs. Craven."
When the baby was slightly cleaned, someone placed him in his mother's weak arms if only for a short time to give her the chance to see him.
"Call the Master in quickly."
"Archie...Isn't he beautiful? Our boy?" Archie was amazed at the strength of his wife and his child. They both were somewhat alert.
"Colin." Archie's eyes sparkled as he said the name.
"I have a son?" Archie smiled through tears.
Lilias smiled back with tears in her eyes.
A member of the staff then took the baby from its mother's arms.
"We must tend to him, Milady. Rest now."
Lilias understood as they took Colin away.
"Archie, come to me. Hold me. I'm so...tired."
"My angel." Archie replied as he gently lay beside her at her request. "How could you ever know...how much I love you."
"I'm so sorry. Forgive me." She whispered. "Can you forgive me? I love you and Colin so very much...so very much."
"You'll be grand, my love. Sleep now."
"Kiss me, my love." She begged.
Archie answered her request, but it was the passion with which Lilias responded that haunted Archie-as if she knew it would be the last time.
Dr. Gibson knew that all they could do was pray that she would pull through, but he would not dare speak to Archie any longer of the gravity of her condition, though she appeared slightly stable now. Postnatal complications seemed imminent. She'd lost so much blood.
Archie and Lilias fell asleep. Archie fell asleep against his own will. He wanted to remain awake to keep watch over her. Something in him told him to wake to monitor his wife's condition.
He slightly raised himself up in the bed looking over her and called her name.
"Lily?"
She felt cold. He touched her searching for a pulse. He put his hand to her chest to feel her heartbeat. Alas, there was nothing.
"No," Archie whispered at first. "No... no...no, no!" His voice grew louder. He burst into tears in shock gasping.
"Don't go. Please, love. Please don't leave me. Please, don't leave me." He spoke through tears, "Come back, my love. Come back to me."
Aisling and Gregory cracked open the door and witnessed the scene. She buried her face in Gregory's chest. Gregory held Aisling tightly to him. His eyes grew large with the shock of sadness.
Archie began to scream in agony. "Noooooooo!" He cried gutteral cries of pain as if his heart was being literally sliced with a sword as he knelt on her bed cowering over her lifeless body and burying his face where her heart should have beat. He was gasping for breath through his sobs to prevent himself from hyperventillating.
They could hear Medlock come running.
She placed one hand over her own heart and one hand over her own mouth and gasped in unimaginable frightful sadness.
...
The wake was held at Misselthwaite.
It seemed as if no one said a word to anyone. Archie seemed the sorcerer that kept them silent. They feared a reaction from him. They all bore witness to his great heartbreak. So great was the sadness! All that was heard was friends and family stifling back sobs. All saw that Lord Craven never left her side.
When it was over, he did not leave. Each member of the staff was let in as if one by one to try to coax him to move away from her body and out of the room. They needed to take her to be buried.
"Sir," Medlock spoke in a low tone.
"It's time you must...let her go. Let her go now."
Archie ignored Medlock as if in a trance of melancholy staring at the still body of his wife.
"Come on, Sir. Walk this way with me."
He continued to stare as if in a trance.
Pitcher walked in.
"Mr. Archibald. The men are here whose job it is to..."
"Silence!" Archie hissed.
"Leave me. I must say goodbye. All I ask is a few moments more."
"If you don't work up the courage to leave now...Moments turn to hours...She's gone, Sir. We're all so very very sorry. God knows we are all heartbroken. Now, these men are here, because it's time."
He broke down crying burying his face in his hands. When he halfway regained composure, Archie placed a beautiful kiss upon Lilias's head.
Archie then began to seem to enter a stupor of grief-speaking in melancholy delirium.
"Haunt me, my love. Haunt Misselthwaite. We said we'd never leave each other."
...
Archie had locked himself in for over a month in his personal quarters. He wouldn't see people.
Then suddenly one day Archie emerged, his face pale as a ghost, heading through the corridors and up the wooden staircase of Lilias's ethereal quarters.
He noticed that all of the furniture had been covered with white sheets.
Archie stood at Lilias's dressing table. He reached in the pocket of his trousers withdrawing the garden's ornate key. He stared at it for a moment, and then opened the drawer to her music box. The tune "Greensleeves" began to play. He placed it in the drawer and gently closed the drawer again. He opened Lilias's perfume bottle and breathed in her fragrance.
He lay in her bed for hours.
He had not slept but a few hours each night since his wife's death purely out of ultimate exhaustion.
He dreamed of Lilias. They were in the garden laughing and kissing. Happy.
When he awoke, he became enraged with his reality.
He exited the room. When he reached the bottom of the wooden staircase, he used the force of his wrath to destroy the banister. He then kicked at the balusters. He bashed the mirrors in that lined the corridor of the wing with his cane. He tore the canvassed and framed art from the walls. It was as if he became the beast in the fairytale in the forbidden wing.
By some strange whim, he passed in front of Colin's nursery.
Medlock stared in shock. She was rocking Colin.
"Sir, you've come to see him!" He was sure he never saw Medlock smile, but she did just then if only for a moment.
"You see, we just got him in to the habit of drinking his milk. He wouldn't take any of it at first, but he's getting stronger."
Archie held out his arms suddenly motioning Medlock to hand him Colin. She did so with a shocked expression.
"Colin, my poor little boy." He said as he looked at the infant. Then, his mind flashed to Lilias's trauma.
Colin was in his father's arms for a few minutes.
"Here, take...take him. You can take him. I...want to thank you, Medlock-you and the staff who have helped to care for him and get him stronger. You understand I can't...I can't lose my little boy too. Please, continue to keep him safe.
"He's stronger, Sir. See? He's stronger." She replied.
"Yes, I see." Archie nodded. "I am very grateful."
...
Archie had always considered himself a cursed creature, but more so now than ever.
The town talked. They too gossipped believing him the hunchback cursed in life and love.
He ordered the garden's door shut and locked forever.
With Lady Lilias's death, it was like a spell had been cast upon Misselthwaite-a spell that was not to be broken for ten years...through the sheer willpower of a child, a young girl...