THE BRANCH

Choice 1: The Rajah and His Rubies

Part I

Colin searched room after room for his cousin. There was no sign of her on the grounds or in her rooms. None of the servants had seen her since luncheon and not even Dickon had heard from her since she was called in to meet with Lord Craven.

"My father summoned her?" He asked in confusion. "For what purpose?"

At Dickon's shrug, Colin only shook his head. Lord Craven sought Mary out far less than he sought out his son (which was not often) – and Colin could not imagine what he would wish to see his ward for. He resumed his efforts, this time systematically going from room to room.

She was not where he expected her to be and most certainly not behaving as he had ever seen her before. When Colin found her, she was gazing at her reflection in a mirror, her hand lightly touching the diamond necklace around her throat. She looked so old, so much more like a woman and he had never seen her wear jewelry before. It was all wrong, out-of-sorts, and it took him a few moments before he ventured to call out to her.

"What are you doing in here?" He asked.

She did not turn away, instead, her eyes found his reflection in the mirror. They were red and stained by tears. She reached out her other hand and tilted the mirror slightly, just far enough so she could see the rest of him in its glass.

"Do you ever come here?" She asked.

He glanced around at the stale, unused room - it's furnishings covered with white cloth. The servants must come and dust occasionally, but it had never been slept in or aired out. Not once in all the days he could remember.

"No," he answered honestly. He took a tentative step into the room, releasing his hold on the doorway.

She dropped her eyes from him and instead looked down at a small portrait perched on the vanity before her. Two sisters looked back at her, both dressed in white, their expressions as comely as their identical features.

"I come here… sometimes," she said, answering the question he did not ask.

He came close enough to take the gilded frame in his hands and peer into the photograph. The edges of his mouth turned upward.

"You showed me this once, when we were young. Remember? That night?"

She thought of their many shared secrets, hidden by shadows and candlelight. She nodded and drew the photograph away from him, almost possessively. "It's hardly fair."

"What is?"

"You resemble them more than I ever will."

He quirked his head so he could see both their reflections in the mirror. He knew it was true and yet in her tremulous, melancholy mood, he did not think she meant for him to agree with her. Instead, he ran his hand along the clasp of the necklace.

"Did you find this in here?"

"No." She leaned back, then, and rested her head against his shoulder, her eyes shut. "It belonged to her. Your father gave it to me. He thought it would cheer me up."

"But it hasn't?"

"Everyone expects me to be like her… that someday, I will wake up and behave as she did, look like her, fill the spaces she left vacant when she died. I cannot. I hardly even remember what she looked like."

Colin chuckled quietly and reached out to encircle her in his arms. It was an old, familiar gesture from their childhood, one that had continued even as he grew taller and she stopped abruptly. Her willowy edges had slowly grown soft and round and she no longer startled at his touch like a frightened doe. She leaned back into the comfort of his arms.

"I don't," he said. "I am quite content with you as Mary and not as any reincarnation of either of our mothers."

"I know."

She opened her eyes, her hand leaving the necklace to rest on his forearm. "Sometimes, I feel like this room. There is so much hidden under sheets, locked, and shut away and I'm expected to know what it was like before, but I do not. It is almost like a museum without patrons."

"I would describe it more as a mausoleum."

She laughed without humor and leaned even closer against his chest, her eyes searching the room around her through the reflection in the mirror. "I used to think… maybe… after you learned to walk… after the garden door was opened, maybe…this room…"

"You thought my father would open up all the doors and stop hiding behind old tragedies?" Colin finished, his tone dripping with disdain.

"I suppose."

It was his turn to sigh, though the sound was tinged with bitterness - an old, caustic wound which would never fully heal. "I do not think he knows how. I do not think he can ever face this room again without cause any more than he can venture back into the Garden without us forcing him."

"What will you do? Once this house is yours?"

"Whatever would please you, of course. Should I burn it all to the ground and build you something far more majestic and less dreary? Perhaps, we can tear out all the walls of this room to make room for windows and plant oranges and orchids and have cage after cage of scarlet macaws."

"Surely, it is not my decision."

"Isn't it?" He whispered.

Their eyes locked in unspoken communication and unheard promises. Colin's grip around her tightened the slightest amount and he leaned over to place a single kiss against her tear-stained cheek.

"I would have you open all the doors and leave nothing else hidden from sight," she whispered.

"Even the Garden?"

"Especially the Garden."

She rose and walked to the window. Even from this vantage point, she could see the splash of pink of the roses creeping over the walls around their old haven. Old Ben Weatherstaff, ever more bent and grey, slowly weeded a planter nearby. Dickon worked alongside him, his hat tossed on the wheelbarrow as he trimmed a hedge into the shape of a horse. She smiled at the sight of it, grateful for this small piece of familiarity.

So much else had changed.

It was the "War to End all Wars," they said, yet it seemed like the war without an end. It was the war which brought the entire world together – only to tear it apart again.

The newspapers said it was their "duty" and it was all for the "glory and honor of England." Whatever other motivations there were, the end result was half the servants exchanged life on the manor for life in the trenches and more vanished every day – sometimes voluntarily, and sometimes conscripted. Rooms gathered dust as the housekeeping staff dwindled and replacements were harder and harder to find. Fields around Misselthwaite were planted with more crops than flowers and these were tended by women and their children. Even the pasturelands lay strangely still and quiet as their former occupants were called to give their hoofs and backs to the war effort.

Not a single horse would return to Misselthwaite.

Colin would have volunteered for the newly formed Royal Flying Corps - if he had been old enough. He still talked about it, sometimes- the adventure, the glory, the possibilities.

"Imagine! Battle by air – it's like something from a story book! I could learn to fly and see the world and bring about an end to the war," he said, his grey eyes shining wide and bright. In those moments, he looked more the boy than the man and Mary hardly had the heart to scold him.

He did not mention the potential costs. Very few did, not until the death notices flooded in, followed by limping discharged soldiers – those fortunate enough to continue to live, though sometimes their damaged souls wondered if it was those who died which were the lucky ones.

Lord Craven did not approve of his son's aspirations. With a single son and heir, it was understandable. However, it was Colin's age more than his future inheritance which proved the greatest protection for the aspiring pilot.

Lord Craven managed to keep hold of Dickon Sowerby. He argued Dickon's skills were necessary for the war effort and he was better used at Misselthwaite than on the frontlines of a battle. If the war effort wanted horses from Misselthwaite, then they needed Dickon to rear and train them. This argument was enough to delay Dickon's conscription.

His brother was not so fortunate and the Sowerby's numbered one less in years to come.

Lord Craven's frequent travels were curtailed by the rising conflict and he found himself trapped within the borders of England far longer than he was used to. Even trips to London and the seaside towns were put on hold as those received more German attacks than he felt was worth risking for a holiday. Colin's university and Mary's art school were far enough from U-Boats and Zeppelins that he encouraged them to attend classes that coming autumn.

Between rations on bread and butter and the movement to simpler forms of dress, Mary parading before a mirror in a diamond necklace was as disjointed as the thought of Colin in a soldier's uniform practicing drills. Yet, the sight of Ben and Dickon working in the garden was familiar. It was the way it ought to be. She watched them work for a few moments more. Then, she disentangled herself from Colin's embrace and unclasped the necklace. She decided it was time for her to return to the Garden. She had more seeds to plant and the necklace would be of no help there.

Someday, she would wear it, but not now.

Not yet.

Colin returned to Cambridge that fall, but not before gifting his cousin a gilded bird cage.

"It is no robin, but I thought you would enjoy a new feathered companion of your own," he told her.

Within, a brilliant scarlet macaw clung to the cage and whistled to her.

Mary gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. "How beautiful!"

"His name is Joe."

"Joe? Joe? No, it cannot be! A cabby horse is called 'Joe.' A hunting dog or a well-fattened goose. How can you call this magnificent creature by such a common, vulgar name?"

Colin laughed. "You can change his name, if you can convince the lout to answer to any other. He's a stubborn one- nearly as stubborn as you and he knows his name is Joe."

She pouted for only a moment before she threw her arms around him. "Thank you," she said.

"He is only the first. Soon, we will fill that old forgotten bedroom with bird cages," he said, and he winked, his grey eyes alight.

She laughed, as he hoped she would. "He is not a robin, but I will be glad for the company," she said. "Oh, he is a majestic creature! Dickon will be so pleased!"

"Don't you go setting Dickon on him or the next we know Joe will be speaking Yorkshire and riding upon the back of a fox!"

"That would be a sight not easily forgotten!"

"I hope… that I am a sight not so easily forgotten as well," he said, reaching out to clasp her hand in his.

"Of course not," she answered. "I will miss you."

"And I you."

It was not only Colin that Mary would miss. She only had a few days to drink in her fill of the moors and dreary old stones of the manor house before she was off to attend her next session of classes. Her art school filled her days with illustrations and watercolors, oil paintings and still life portraits. Yet, her evenings were filled with pouring through all the books and notes Colin sent her. She found his education much more interesting. He was full of stories of social anthropology and biology and chemistry and physics and philosophy.

"What an age we live in!" He proclaimed. "What advances in knowledge and technology! Science is its own manner of magic and magic its own sort of science. If only we can end this bloody War and get back to the real business of understanding things!"

He wrote to her. Long, eloquent letters filled as much with his latest musings as reminiscences of their shared past. Mary's letters contained far less words and far more drawings. Sketches of flowers and birds' nests and smiles of classmates covered her pages and revealed more about the author than any deluge of words ever could. It was through letters that they celebrated the end of the War and dreamed of what life could look like, now the War was over.

Everyone held hopes that life would return to what it had been like before… but it never could. Too much had changed, too much had broken. They could only move forward – never back. For the young, those without long years of Before the War, it was easier to keep their heads high and fling themselves into the fast-paced, ever moving, swirling currents of change.

The first time Mary wore her mother's jewelry was to the theatre. Colin took her to see Pretty Peggy at the Prince's Theatre. His classes at Cambridge had just enough of a holiday to allow for a reunion in London. The entire theatre was awash in an ocean of sequins and feathers and furs and Mary was no exception. She sparkled just as much as her necklace in the dim theatre light. Colin, dressed in a new suit, sat tall and straight beside her, his head held high.

Mary would never grow into a striking beauty. For all the beauty of her mother, it was her father she favored. While her hair had lost the pale yellowness of her youth, age had only managed to turn it a mute brown. Her eyes remained the unremarkable shade of earth after the rain. Her figure, while well-formed enough, was nothing exceptional. Her complexion never gained the brilliance one could hope for, even with all the improvement gained by the winds and sun of the open moor. While a far cry from the sallow, sour girl she had once been, she would never be praised for her appearance.

However, Lord Craven maintained enough wealth to ensure his niece displayed his status prominently and so she possessed the manner of beauty possessed by the wealthy – that which is purchased and acquired. With all the leisure and resources at their disposal, nature could be supplemented, bent, and enhanced until they were a sight to marvel at, living monuments to the power of wealth. Any could be breathtakingly beautiful, if garbed in enough layers of silk and satin and sequins.

While nature gifted Colin Craven the inherent charms and striking physical appearance his cousin lacked, he never found her wanting. In their hearts, Colin and Mary were very much the same as they ever were. Both of them remained the most selfish creatures in the world. Thus, they understood the other perfectly.

When it was, some years later, that the marriage of Colin Craven and his cousin Mary Lennox was announced, Society praised the match. He was the brilliant, young academic and she his curious, supportive wife. The future heir of Misselthwaite married a woman of proper breeding, education, and fortune. Afterall, childhood attachment could cover any number of drawbacks to the match and, really, in all those points that truly mattered, they were well-suited to each other.

Lord Craven and all Misselthwaite welcomed the match, though none could say they were surprised by it.

"From the day that girl arrived, I knew how it would be," Mrs. Medlock declared, to all who would listen. "Have there ever existed two more stubborn children? It is as if they were made for each other!"

Yet, there was one soul in all Misselthwaite who, for all he understood the match, he could not help the waves of regret he felt at knowing it had come to pass.

Of course, Mary Lennox was meant for Colin Craven. It was the way of things. He had always known that – but it did not keep Dickon Sowerby from watching from afar, wishing for what never could be. Dickon hid behind his spade and horse halter, tending to the living things at Misselthwaite, paid to keep the manor alive and growing.

It was a good job and one he was grateful for. Yet, sometimes he wondered if he should leave and try his fortune in the cities, as so many others were wont to do these days. With so many men buried overseas, positions and opportunities abounded. Why work as a servant or field laborer when better paying jobs were clamoring for able-bodied men? Yet, every time he thought of leaving, thought of departing Misselthwaite for good, leaving Mary behind, he knew he couldn't.

Misselthwaite belonged to Mary and he would make sure it bloomed and thrived and remained beautiful.

Just like her.

He remembered her as a girl, under the light of the noonday sun and surrounded by roses in full bloom. He had watched her stumbling steps into womanhood, her uneasy climb into her role as a daughter of the manor. He had seen her cry. Twice. He knew that for the very few she chose to love, she loved as fiercely as a tiger. She was like the wind over the moor- without walls, without limits- and she blew where she wished, upsetting the grasses below her without care.

He watched as she went away to school and was taught how to behave as she ought. They wished to enclose her in walls and gilded cages. They sought to tame her and charm her and make her settle like a well-bred lady. For all her lessons and fine teachers and tight-laced corsets, they never could saddle break her quite the way they wished. For all she looked the part of a fine lady, he could see the restless energy in her eyes, the quivering of internal muscles that sought to break free and gallop across the moor.

He knew Mary... and he knew Colin. He had seen both at their very best... and at their very worst.

Colin, for all his world had expanded, was still an invalid at heart. He had never learned to stretch his muscles of human compassion and tenderness and sympathy. For all he could now walk and run and explore, he was still bound by the same paralysis of heart, the same braces of selfishness, as he had ever been. His dwelling now included great swathes of London, but he was still restricted in his capacity to recognize the importance of anyone but himself.

Both Colin and Mary knew what it was to be unwanted by their parents. They had experienced no poverty but that of affection. They had learned only late in childhood how to exert themselves and the value of other humans for purposes other than in service to themselves- and even then, they had learned to use each other to fill their longstanding drought for attention. They were equally matched in tempers and their explosive arguments could be heard from the house all the way into the gardens.

Neither had learned to bend.

Yet, married as they were, the bough that could not move with the wind would break in the storms that would come and he hoped, when that time came, they were still wick enough to survive.

Author's Note: I meant to have each choice be a single chapter, but it didn't flow as well with time jumps and perspective jumps and all. I'm hoping I can sum up each choice in two chapters each. Thanks for your patience with this story! While I have the general content drafted out, it's the mountain of research I have to do around that content that is so very slow. I'm going to try to limit my research bunny trails as much as I can, but we will still plod along slowly.