31_days | [8th December][The Secret Garden] Not With a Whimper

Title: Not With a Whimper
Day/Theme: 8th December/"Imaginary ordinary"
Series: The Secret Garden
Character/Pairing: Colin, Dickon, Mary
Rating: PG

On a sunny day before the end of their clear-cut world, they imagine the future.

Colin wants to be an explorer these days, he announces to them, munching an apple with gusto. Mary thinks quite primly that it will be good for him, and Dickon grins and tells them what Billy Turner told him about Africa. Billy Turner was a soldier in the Boer War; he said that he saw lions and rhinoceroses and rode an elephant. Colin says immediately that he will, too, and he will go big game-hunting and bring home a lion skin for Mary. He finishes his apple and wraps it in the newspaper that they brought out to the garden with them.

Dickon sees one of the articles that Colin’s crumpling has revealed and reads it aloud in a careful voice, tracing the printed words with his finger. Then he looks up and says, “Billy Turner said as how us’ns’ll all see th’ world for our sen’. ‘I tell thee’, he says, ‘watch the way th’ wind’s blowin’ and tha’ will know my meanin’.’”

Mary frowns, not at Dickon, but at the newspaper. “Do you mean,” she asks, “how the grown-ups talk about ‘Germany getting too big for its boots and there’ll be storms ahead’?” She looked pensive, having quoted Dr Craven.

“Aye, tha’.”

“Father says it probably won’t come to anything,” Colin said briskly, “and it won’t be for years and years, anyway. Let’s talk about something nicer.” He starts discoursing on the subject of Africa again, rhapsodising over the wide open spaces of country and pressing Dickon for more details of what Billy Turner told him. Dickon complies cheerfully.

Dickon wants nothing more than to be with his animals on the moors forever and for her part Mary agrees with him. Leaving the secret garden to become cold and barren again would freeze some vital part of her soul; she would not stand for it.

She tells Dickon this and he smiles at her sweetly and slowly, saying wisely, “Aye, tha knows the way of it.” That pleases Mary and she squeezes Dickon’s hand with loving fervour. Colin demands to know if he, too, has ‘the way of it’, and Dickon laughs.

And their talk is of the future, which is misty and more than misty. In the warmth of a bright and sunny day, today, three children hold hands and vow to stay together always.