Shadows of Ladenbrooke Manor

by Melanie Dobson

  Maggie groaned, and he put down the bottle and scooted closer to her side.

  “She’s stunning,” he whispered, pushing back the hair that had stuck to his wife’s forehead.

  Maggie’s eyes fluttered open and then closed again. “Elliot?”

  Confused, he nudged her arm. “No, it’s Walter.”

  This time her eyes shot open, and she stared at him before her gaze fell to the white bundle in his arms. He lifted the baby up so she could see her. “It’s our daughter.”

  “Is she well?”

  He nodded. “And she looks just like you.”

  “I hope that’s good,” she said, her smile creased with concern.

  Walter laughed, hoping to ease the worry on her face. “It’s very good. I’d hate to think of how she’d look if she took after me.”

  Still, her smile looked forced.

  “You did a splendid job, Maggie.” He readjusted the pillow behind her and kissed her forehead. “Sally said she’s healthy.”

  Her gaze remained on the baby. “I’m glad.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she reopened them, he gently placed their daughter in her arms. She nuzzled the child with her nose and then leaned back against the pillow again to study her as if she weren’t certain the baby was real. “She’s so pretty.”

  “Of course.” He eyed their daughter again. “But I think we must find a new name for her.”

  Worry crept into Maggie’s eyes again. “Why?”

  “She doesn’t look like an Eliza or Caroline.” He tapped his foot on the floor, crossing his arms. Maggie still didn’t want to name their daughter Margaret so he ticked through the names of past and present relatives, but none of them seemed right.

  “Who does she look like?” Maggie asked.

  He bit his lip, wishing he had a cigarette.

  “What about Liberty?” he finally suggested. He certainly touted liberty enough in his writing, and it made sense to name his baby after what he prized most. “We could call her Libby.”

  “No—” Maggie’s fingers fiddled with the baby blanket. “Why don’t we just name her Libby?”

  “Libby,” he repeated. “Libby Doyle.”

  His gaze rested again on his daughter, asleep now in Maggie’s arms.

  Maggie and Libby. Mother and daughter. Two women he would love forever.

  His blessings overflowed.

  “I like it,” he said.

  “Libby . . .” Maggie whispered as she began to drift back to sleep.

  Walter reached for their daughter and held her close to his chest as he studied his wife, her light-brown curls loose around her forehead, peace softening the lines of worry on her face.

  The name of the man she’d asked for—Elliot—tossed around in his mind. He didn’t know anyone named Elliot, and he’d never heard his wife mention a man by that name before. While he tried to leave his instinct to dig up information at the newspaper office, he couldn’t leave this alone. The midwife said Maggie might say strange things on the pethidine, but, still, he needed to know who his wife had asked for instead of him.

  “Maggie,” he whispered, his fingers resting on her hand.

  Her eyes opened slowly, and she focused on him. “What is it?”

  He swallowed hard. Instead of answering her question, he asked another. “Who is Elliot?”

  Her eyes blinked with alarm. Then another question leapt from her lips, much too fast. “What do you mean?”

  He examined Maggie’s face as she had examined their daughter’s features. Was she trying to deceive him?

  His mother would say some of their conflict over the past weeks had to do with Maggie’s pregnancy. Or perhaps his distrust stemmed from the past year, after she’d snubbed his first marriage proposal. But maybe it was something else. Someone else—

  He silently chided himself for doubting her in the hours after she’d given birth to their daughter. Maggie was his wife—the mother of his child—and he loved her. He must put aside his own doubts, his insecurities as to why she married him. He would lay down his very life for her if necessary. Sure, she had been fond of other men before they married, just as he once thought he’d loved another woman when he was eighteen.

  “What is it, Walter?” she asked again, her voice quivering.

  There was nothing more for them to argue about. Their daughter was here now, mending the wounds between them. They would put aside the past and walk hand in hand into the future.

  He kissed Maggie’s forehead. “It’s nothing, Love.”

  Libby would be their hope. Their beacon.

  And they would grow as a family, right here in Clevedon.

  APRIL 1955, CLEVEDON, ENGLAND

  Maggie slowly rocked Libby in the morning light, the two of them tucked under a blanket in the sitting room. Walter said their daughter was perfect, and he was absolutely right. She was almost nine months now, and one of her first memories would be of ink-stained hands, stretched out to hold her when Walter came home from the office at night. The smell of cigarette smoke and sweat on her father’s clothes.

  Libby would have the love of both her parents for the rest of her life.

  Maggie looked out the window at the harbor. They hadn’t moved in with the Morton family. She’d been honest with Walter—at least in her concerns that Libby’s cries might frustrate Mr. and Mrs. Morton. In hindsight, she shouldn’t have worried. Libby rarely cried.

  Walter found them an apartment over the chemist’s office in the town center. Two blocks from the newspaper. The street below was noisy until late at night, but Libby didn’t mind the noise. She was quite satisfied watching the colorful mobile Walter found for her at the secondhand store.

  Libby liked her mobile and she also liked hearing Maggie sing. Sometimes Maggie wondered if her daughter understood much more than they imagined.

  She gently brushed her hands over Libby’s head. Even though she didn’t have much hair yet, Maggie could see the tints of copper among the blonde. People might ask about her hair color as she grew older, but Maggie had already concocted another story to combat the inquiries. It was one about an Irish grandparent in her lineage. Walter might ask questions as well, but it wouldn’t matter. She’d become quite good at telling her stories.

  And after more than a year of marriage, she was perfectly content in this new life of hers in Clevedon. The whispers among the older women were fading, and Aunt Priscilla liked the attention she received whenever she held her new niece, so even she seemed to forget about her insistence that Maggie move away.

  “Let’s go for a stroll, shall we?” Maggie asked as she stood to change Libby’s nappy. Even though the air wasn’t terribly cold, she dressed her daughter in her matinee coat and bonnet and then bundled her up in the two afghans Walter’s mother—Granny Doyle—knitted for her. She carried Libby downstairs, to the back courtyard where she kept their pram alongside their neighbors’ baby carriages and bicycles.

  Maggie wrapped a scarf around her hair and began pushing Libby through the center of town, the wheels of the pram bounding along the cobblestone path. The spring had been warm and tulips bloomed in clusters along the streets, the sweet fragrance mixing with the trace of salt in the air.

  Libby seemed to like their walks, but she didn’t babble or make happy sounds like some of the other babies in Clevedon. The sounds and motion soothed her, though, and after watching the sky and sandpipers, she almost always fell asleep.

  In The Mothercraft Manual, Mary Lillian Read said babies should sleep seventeen hours a day—and cry for thirty minutes—but not Maggie’s daughter. She was much too alert and curious with the world to sleep but fourteen hours. And much too content to cry.

  Walter once asked Maggie quietly, as if Libby might overhear them, if she thought something was wrong. He’d heard that some babies born too early had trouble with their mental faculties, and he was worried Libby was slow in the mind. Maggie assured him that Libby was just fine, that Mary Lillian Read said most chi
ldren have slow mental adjustment until age six. She didn’t tell him, of course, that Libby was actually born more than a week late.

  The local doctor expressed concern about Libby’s “listlessness” and secretly Maggie also wondered if something was wrong. But she didn’t want to worry about that now. The fresh sea air was good for both of them, and she sucked it in with gusto.

  If Walter hadn’t figured out by now that Libby wasn’t his, she guessed he never would. Rumors among some of the women might still linger, but they seemed to be as potent as a breeze carried out to sea. Some might hear the whisper of it, but then it would be gone. Walter adored their daughter. Nothing would ever change that.

  This town, she’d decided, would be a good place for their family after all.

  She sat down on the bench where she used to watch for Elliot’s boat Illimité. They’d met the first time about three years ago when she’d stopped by the ice cream parlor after work for a strawberry milk shake. Elliot had strutted through the door all confident, like he was James Dean with his dark jeans, V-neck shirt, and slicked-up hair. She suspected that he had been planning to go to the pub with his crew, but when he saw her through the window, he decided on root beer instead of a pint.

  Either way, she’d enjoyed flirting with him.

  That night he’d invited her to meet him at the cavern on Hangstone Hill, away from the lights in town. She was seventeen at the time, and while other girls were allowed to go out at night, Aunt Priscilla wouldn’t permit her to leave their house after dark without a chaperone. So she’d had to sneak out of her window like she was in primary school.

  Elliot had been the perfect gentleman that night. He’d roasted monkfish and potatoes over a small fire and spread a blanket over the pebbles in the mouth of the cave. They’d sipped Coca-Colas, smoked cigarettes, and she laughed at the stories of his expeditions. When the fire died down into hot coals, he pointed out the constellations.

  She hadn’t cared much about the stars, but she enjoyed his attention. On that night, and the nights to follow, she imagined him to be one of the pirates who used to pilfer the coast. A smuggler who was wanted by the local customs men.

  He told her he wanted to take her with him one day to see the world. She never told him she was scared of the water, but for him, she thought she could do anything. And she had wanted to be with him and see the places he described—Morocco, Sweden, the Greek Isles, France.

  A year passed, and each time Elliot returned to their village, she would meet him by the cavern. By then, she was eighteen and no longer had to sneak out of the house, but she was careful not to be seen with him in town.

  Elliot brought her exotic gifts from his travels, though she didn’t dare bring any of them home—except the chocolates along with the fountain pen and black leather journal from Spain. As she grew older, Elliot’s gifts became more costly even as his gentlemanly manners began to wane. She’d enjoyed kissing him very much in the beginning, but then he began chiding her for her immaturity. She’d refused his advances for months until he said he loved her. That he would marry her. And if she loved him, he said, she would reciprocate his affection.

  She’d allowed him to bargain for what should have been priceless, giving him the gift of her heart along with her body. She’d been so foolish. Elliot didn’t really love her nor did he want to marry her. He’d gotten exactly what he wanted and then he was gone.

  She’d suspected back then—though she hadn’t known for certain—where babies came from. Some older women seemed to think ignorance in that area was a blessing. Libby was a blessing, but ignorance was not. She would never allow her daughter to be ignorant about such things.

  Reaching down, she tangled Libby’s little fingers into hers. Libby was Elliot’s last gift—and his best gift—to her.

  Walter didn’t buy her exotic gifts. He respected and cared for her, even in the months when her body was changing. She’d done nothing to earn his love and yet he gave it freely. She may have lied about Libby, but she hadn’t lied about her vows to him. No matter what happened, she would be faithful, as long as they both lived.

  A fishing trawler moved past the promenade and cast anchor near the pier. In the distance, she could see the white sails of yachts fluttering between the shores of England and Wales.

  She rarely came down to the promenade these days, because whenever she saw a yacht in the harbor, her chest felt as if it might cave in over her heart. What would Elliot do if he found out about Libby? He might get on his boat and sail right back to France, but there was a chance he’d want to keep his daughter. She could never let that happen. . . .

  Nor could she allow him the opportunity to shatter her and Walter’s future with the truth.

  One time she had begged God to bring Elliot back to her, but now she prayed he would never return. Everything would be fine as long as he stayed far away from her family.

  Nettles clustered together under the dust-coated windows of her parents’ stone cottage, like a thorny shield to ward off intruders. The thatch roof glowed an iridescent green from the clinging barnacles of moss, and the beam above the wooden front door sagged precariously.

  Beside the door, the name of the house—Willow Cottage—was painted on a sign with The Old Bothy spelled out underneath. The word Old was inconsequential. No description was necessary to explain that the cottage was way past its prime.

  When she was a child, Heather didn’t think their home was dilapidated. Instead it had been a haven of quiet beauty to her, the stones on the walls harboring stories of the past. Most of her memories were now blurred, but she remembered marveling at the mystery of this place.

  Ella stepped up beside her and they surveyed the front of the cottage together. “I remember it.”

  Heather’s eyebrows climbed. “It’s been more than twenty years.”

  “But I still remember.” Ella nudged at a loose paver with her toe. “We’ve aged together.”

  “You’ve aged well, my dear, but the house—not so much.” She leaned over and plucked out a tall weed. “Your grandfather used to be meticulous about the upkeep.”

  Ella pushed her sunglasses up on her head, her curls bunching behind her ears. “Now it’s more vintage.”

  Heather’s father had been classic vintage. After a hard day of work, he liked to sit in front of their fireplace, in his overstuffed chair, smoking a pipe and reading one of his many books about philosophy, history, or religion. Long ago she used to crawl onto his lap in the evenings and pretend to read with him. Sometimes she would fall asleep and wake the next morning in her bed.

  Ella might have considered him stuffy at first, but Walter Doyle wasn’t a snob. He enjoyed people well enough and he was innately curious. Whenever Heather or anyone else asked a question, he searched for the answer.

  But her father liked the quiet more than conversation because it gave him an opportunity to think or read one of his treasured books. After a long day of helping people communicate by post, he rarely had energy left for casual communication, though whenever she wanted to talk, he always put down his books to listen. Or tell her a story.

  She opened her leather handbag and pulled out the ring of keys the retirement village had mailed to her along with boxes of Dad’s books and clothing.

  Sometimes the good memories were more difficult to process than the hard ones.

  Ella tapped the sign. “What’s a bothy?”

  Heather nodded toward the ivy-draped wall that stood about forty feet to their right. “A century ago, this place housed the gardeners who worked for the Croft family.”

  Ella stretched up on her toes as if she might be able to see the property on the other side. “They must have had a big garden over there.”

  “My mum said it was spectacular.” She tried two keys on the ring; the second one unlocked the front door.

  Ella followed her into the musty-smelling sitting room with its formal couch and two chairs. Heather cranked open a window to let in fresh air and erase some of the
remnants of time. A dark wood door to the right of the room looked as if it might lead to a secret cellar, but this house no longer conjured up mystery in her mind like it had when she was a child. Behind the wooden door were steps that led upstairs to two bedrooms where she and Ella would spend the night.

  She was tempted to take a nap right now, but that would only prolong her jet lag. She and Ella needed to push through a few more hours, and then they could crash until morning.

  Ella collapsed onto one of the stuffed chairs, and dust particles ballooned up around her face. She coughed, waving her hands.

  “Oh no you don’t,” Heather said, reaching for one of her daughter’s arms. “You already slept in the car.”

  “Just another quick nap.”

  She tugged on Ella’s arm. “A quick nap will mean you’re up all night.”

  Ella shook her arm free and crossed it over the other one. “Ten minutes.”

  “I’ll take you down to the village right now for a proper pot of English tea.”

  Her eyes closed, Ella leaned her head back. “I’m too old for you to tell me what to do and much too young to drink proper pots of tea.”

  Heather rubbed her hands together. “Perhaps I can tempt you with some coffee and a sandwich.”

  Ella opened up one eye. “A mocha?”

  “No promises.”

  She shut her eyes again. “I’m not getting back in the car.”

  “We could bike instead.”

  Ella sat back up. “Where will we get bicycles?”

  “From the old stable.” At least she hoped the bikes were still there.

  Ella stood slowly. “I’ll take a nap when we get back.”

  “We’ll both be ready for bed then.”

  The first key on her ring opened the door of the stable beside the house. The gardeners probably kept equipment instead of horses inside since a much larger stable had been built on the other side of Ladenbrooke. Her parents had turned the building into a bicycle and storage shed.