A Chance to Grow (A Secret Garden Sequel)

Chapter Three

                                                                       Chapter Three

Mary Lennox hadn't expected to feel so differently toward the boys when she came home. She meant for it to be like old times; even as they grew older she barely recognized the changes but here they were now in full force, daring her to try and overlook them. Dickon and Colin had become men. When had it happened? Did they look that way when she'd last visited? She couldn't remember. It all felt so sudden, as if the winds had shifted and time quickened its pace.

The girl's school she attended had been very careful about girls being taught properly. Each morning they were awakened at the same time and each night they obeyed the "lights out" and drifted to sleep on command. Classes in the disciplines followed breakfast and classes on deportment and beauty followed after. There was a prescribed way to do everything: how to handle a spoon, how to sit, walk, speak. She'd relearned all of manners, shucking off the habits of diversity and randomness that nature had taught her through the garden. Nature forced a bloom to grow in any available space, but society did not agree with its philosophy. Girls had to be trained, not allowed to grow or run wild. Mary missed the calm of an unordered day, a day wholly her own with no restrictions, no goals to meet.

Now she had her two boys, her two men: Colin, ever the slightly obnoxious, and Dickon, always the genuine and true. She loved them both but not equally. She'd had to admit to herself years ago that her heart tended to soften for one over the other but she'd never let it show. Colin would not tolerate it if he knew; he was a jealous sort, never wanting anyone else to have what he could not. Mary suspected this fire inside him helped him finally get out of bed and walk so many years before. She'd spent so much time with Dickon then, just the two of them, tending to the garden day in and out. Sickly and weak, Colin stayed in bed, seething. He'd always be so angry when Mary came to visit – not happy to see her again but angry because she had left him to begin with.

This was precisely why she liked Dickon more than Colin. Dickon never showed jealousy or spite. He worked hard without complaint, offering to take on more if it meant easing another person's burden. He could almost read Mary's mind; on many an occasion he would show up at just the right moment: when she needed tools, he brought them. When she needed seeds or a watering can or advice, he provided. He spoke glowingly of her to his mother and siblings so that when word came back to Mary through either Martha or upon visits from their mother, Mary felt very warm inside. This contrasted with Colin, whose favorite person to speak glowingly of was always Colin.

Mary did not begrudge him his selfishness at first, for she had known what it was to be selfish and why. Colin had been a prisoner of fear for so many years; it was only natural that he needed to learn how to relate to other people. Now, so many years later, he had not seemed to have grown out of it as Mary had hoped.

And so she went on, secretly harboring a greater love for Dickon Sowerby, the boy who was as poor as any servant, who could never offer her the life of status and privilege that her education had sought to secure. She'd thought no one could tell; she thought her secret was buried so deep it was not to be found out, but she was wrong.

On the night after her arrival, Mary and Martha busied themselves in Mary's bedroom, putting away dresses and other clothing and toiletries. At Mary's insistence Martha tried on one of her gowns, a hazy white dress that reached to the floor.

"Oh Miss Mary, it's grand! I feel like a Princess!" Martha said as she spun around, admiring herself in the mirror.

"It suits you," said Mary cheerfully.