Shadows of Ladenbrooke Manor

by Melanie Dobson

  With the same hand he’d punched Elliot, Walter slapped the handle of the carriage. And then Maggie watched with dismay as her husband walked away.

  JUNE 1955, CLEVEDON, ENGLAND

  Gray clouds drifted slowly over the estuary as church bells rang out on the hill above Maggie’s bench. She and Walter didn’t go to church this morning. Instead they sat next to each other, trying to piece back together the fragments of their life.

  She gently rocked the pram back and forth to keep her hands busy, trying to calm her heart. Not only had Mrs. Bishop told Walter about her meeting with Elliot, but she’d returned to the scene of the crime and perched herself at the end of the alleyway, listening to everything.

  Thanks to Mrs. Bishop and her underlings, the news of Maggie rendezvousing with a French sailor struck Clevedon like the fierce winds of a winter storm. It was the tail of the storm that brought the worst sting though. The whispers about her bastard child.

  Walter had only spoken to Maggie when absolutely necessary over the past three weeks. Aunt Priscilla now snubbed both Maggie and Libby. Uncle Timothy tilted his head in greeting when he saw Maggie at church last week, but he didn’t dote over Libby like he usually did. Her innocent daughter had become an outcast alongside her.

  “We have to move,” Walter said, tired but resolute.

  Maggie shifted on the bench, her eyes fixed on the calm harbor before them. “I tried to tell you.”

  “But you didn’t tell me why we needed to leave.”

  “If I told you the truth—” She swallowed. “I didn’t want you to hate Libby because of me.”

  “You didn’t want to marry me. You needed a father for your child, and without knowing it, I volunteered.” When she looked over at him, she saw tears in his eyes. “After everything, why would you agree to meet that man again?”

  “I wasn’t going to meet him. I only wanted him to leave Libby and me alone.”

  He stared at the carriage. “I wish I could believe you.”

  “Do you want a divorce?” she asked, barely a whisper.

  “No—”

  “Libby and I will leave Clevedon so you can stay.”

  Walter shook his head. “I vowed to stay married. For better or worse.”

  She released the handle and clutched her hands together. “No one expects you to—”

  “I promised, Maggie, and I keep my promises.”

  She glanced out at the bay, at a trawler in the distance, her foot tapping against the cement. She knew the world was big beyond their town, but she had no idea how big. She remembered a bit of London as a girl, the tall spires and the art shop her father had loved. The Frasers weren’t people who liked to travel, even after the war, so she never returned to London.

  Walter plucked a stone off the pavement and hurled it toward the water. “I don’t know where we’ll go—”

  “Perhaps we don’t have to know. Perhaps we can pack up the car and just drive.”

  Walter didn’t move. “At some point we’ll have to stop driving.”

  “I think we’ll know exactly when that is.”

  Libby whimpered, and Maggie glanced over at her husband. She cried so infrequently that he used to jump when she made the slightest noise, rescue her like he was her prince, but he no longer seemed to hear her cries.

  Maggie leaned over and lifted their daughter out of the carriage. Libby watched the boats rise and fall with the swell of the waves. She didn’t make much noise, but she observed everything.

  “Perhaps she’ll be a writer like you,” Maggie said.

  Walter shook his head. “She’s nothing like me.”

  “But she will be,” Maggie vowed. “She will want to be just like her father.”

  Walter turned toward her. “You must stop pretending that everything’s fine.”

  “I’m not pretending—” She started, but then stopped. What was wrong with pretending a little? It was so much better than wallowing.

  “It’s not fine now,” she said, her voice wavering. “But it will be.”

  Walter stood up and walked away.

  Libby grasped one of Maggie’s curls and tugged on it. Maggie turned her gaze away from her husband, back down to her daughter. Then she kissed Libby on the forehead.

  Before she married Walter, she’d known he was a man of principle, but she’d thought he would leave her and Libby now—he certainly had every right to do so. Instead it seemed he was willing to start a new life with them, and she was immensely relieved.

  She prayed he wouldn’t stay angry for long. It wasn’t Libby’s fault that her real father was a fiend.

  The only daddy she would ever know was the man who’d rescued them both.

  WITH BOXES CRAMMED INTO THE boot of their car, their luggage strapped to the top, Walter drove Maggie and her daughter out of Clevedon at dawn. A few friends had helped them pack last night, but Anthony was the only person who’d come by early this morning to wave good-bye.

  The moment Elliot Bonheur said he’d visit Maggie again, Walter knew they’d have to move. Even if his wife had severed her heart from that man, he couldn’t risk staying near the coast—for his sake or for hers. The speculating about Bonheur while he was at work, wondering if the man had returned, would drive him mad.

  It felt as if everything he’d worked for, everything he desired, had been obliterated back in that alleyway.

  As they crested the hill, he glanced into the rearview mirror for one last look at Clevedon. He’d arrived here when he was twenty-two to work at the paper, and in months, Mr. Bishop had handed over the reins of the Clevedon Mercury to him. The war had stolen his father’s life, but he’d wanted to continue his father’s legacy as a newspaperman along with the strong legacy of loving and caring well for his family.

  The war had taken Maggie’s parents as well, and Walter once thought she wanted to build a family with him. Instead she had started a family with someone else.

  She should have told him the truth about Bonheur before they married. About Libby. It would have been painful, but he would have had a choice in whether or not he wanted to raise another man’s child.

  How could he ever trust his wife again? And how could he love Libby when he despised her father?

  Libby slept on Maggie’s lap as they traveled east through the rain, the windshield blades sweeping drops of water back and forth across the glass. When Walter told Mr. Bishop he couldn’t stay at the newspaper, the man gave him an extra week’s pay to help tide them over. He’d thought about going to Kent to live for a short time with his mother and stepfather, just until he found work, but he didn’t think his mother’s new husband would want them staying there. He prayed he would find a position soon that involved the written word, but it was more important now for him to provide for his family.

  As they drove east, he turned the radio dial so they could listen to the news, but about an hour into their drive, Maggie turned it again, skipping past two music stations until she found a program. Educating Archie. Quite possibly the worst show on the radio.

  The bad jokes, between a ventriloquist and his dummy, grated on his nerves. Along with the decidedly fake-sounding laughter in the background and the requisite applause.

  He squeezed the steering wheel. “Please turn the dial.”

  Maggie looked over at him as if he’d asked her to jump out of their automobile. “Why would I change it?”

  “Because this is absurd.”

  “It’s funny, Walter.”

  “Not to people who appreciate good humor.”

  She tucked the blanket over Libby’s shoulders. “She seems to like it.”

  He glanced over. It didn’t seem to him that Libby cared one whit what they listened to.

  The audience laughed again, and he gritted his teeth. He didn’t particularly care to laugh about anything right now.

  Maggie shifted Libby in her arms, before leaning her head back on the seat.

  He’d promised to honor and protect his wife. And to love her, as lo
ng as they both lived.

  God help him, he would do the best he could. Perhaps one day he would be able to embrace the future alongside Maggie and her child as well.

  Christopher Westcott slowly drank his pint of ale at the Bird and Baby, as locals liked to call The Eagle and Child, and basked in the familiar smells—old wood bathed in lemon oil, braised beef, stale beer that spackled the bar. The pub was a popular mecca for those who admired J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and their entire group of literary giants they called Inklings.

  Christopher wasn’t even close to being a literary giant nor was he a tourist, but he enjoyed writing and liked to feign himself one of the professors who might have basked in the lively readings and debates of the Inklings instead of just the aromas of this pub.

  Personally, he admired the writings of George MacDonald, the man C. S. Lewis considered his mentor. MacDonald was a writer and professor. And he was a frequently unemployed Scottish minister due to his views on God’s love and grace. The man could speak the language of theologians at the same time he wrote books for children and readers of all ages whom he described as “child-like, whether they be of five, or fifty, or seventy-five.” MacDonald was a man of integrity who believed that God did not punish His children except to amend and heal them. A man who believed God’s love and grace was available to all people—a direct affront to the Calvinists in his era.

  Christopher admired men from the past like George MacDonald, and he admired more contemporary, clandestine men of integrity like Walter Doyle who had encouraged him to lay down his pride and write about the stirrings in his own soul.

  He checked his watch. Tonight he and Adrienne had a table reserved at Brasserie Blanc, and with both of their hectic schedules, neither of them were particularly fond of waiting for the other. Sitting and pondering in the Oxford pub was a poor excuse for his tardiness, but he wanted to at least start his article.

  He eyed the iPad screen in front of him, trying to collect the right words to oppose predestination, but they eluded him.

  Walter had passed away almost four months ago, but sometimes Christopher forgot that his friend was gone. Every time he drove by Oaken Holt—the country estate that doubled as a retirement community—he pretended Walter was still waiting inside to share a cup of coffee and an hour of conversation. Walter inspired him to not only learn about the facts in the Bible but also to delve into the mysteries of the Scriptures. To pray and think and write down all that churned inside him.

  Even though Walter had said years ago that Christopher was much too old to call Walter his mentor, he continued to ask his friend for both advice and to critique his writing. It was their own little Inklings group, in the dining room of the Oaken Holt Care Home.

  In his final weeks, Walter no longer seemed to know who Christopher was or why he was there, but he liked to think the elderly man was still encouraged by the friendly face of one of his protégées.

  His mobile phone rang, and he saw his mother’s number on the screen. She’d rung him four times while he was lecturing this week but never left a message. This time he could actually answer it.

  “Hello, Mum.”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment, apparently shocked that he was on the phone.

  He and his mum had both lost their spouses to cancer in the past decade. It was a bond neither of them wanted, but one they couldn’t escape. In their grief, they’d learned to give each other plenty of grace. His parents had four children, but even though he and Julianna had wanted to be parents, God never gave them a child. They’d been married for only three years when Julianna was diagnosed with cancer.

  In the past months, Christopher had been trying to convince his mother to sell their large family home and move into something smaller, but she said she didn’t want to live alone in a new place. Perhaps she’d finally changed her mind.

  “You should leave a message,” he said, scolding her like she’d done so often when he was younger.

  “Some things shouldn’t be said on voice mail.”

  He leaned back against the wooden slats in his chair, alarmed. “What is it?”

  “Heather has come home, and I thought perhaps—” Thankfully, she stopped herself. “I just thought you’d want to know.”

  He didn’t want or need that information. “Duly noted.”

  “Are you still coming home this weekend?”

  Confound it—he had completely forgotten he was supposed to introduce Adrienne to his family on Friday. He couldn’t stay away just because Heather finally decided to return.

  “Of course.” He stuffed his iPad back into the black case. There was no sense in trying to write now.

  “Both your brothers and your sister are coming to meet your friend.”

  He roped the strap of his case over his shoulder. “Her name is Adrienne, and you have to play nice this time.”

  “I was nice the last time you brought a girl home.”

  He groaned. “Lauren was a woman, and you were not nice to her.”

  His mother made a huffing sound. “How was I supposed to know she couldn’t peel potatoes?”

  “You were testing her,” he said as he walked toward the door. And Lauren had failed the test. They ended up in the Accident & Emergency department to stitch up her thumb. The next day Lauren asked him not to contact her again. “I’m serious, Mum.”

  She sighed.

  “No asking Adrienne to help in the kitchen. And no inviting Heather over for tea while we’re home.”

  “What if your friend offers to help?”

  “Tell her that you want her to relax like you do with every other guest.”

  She mumbled her agreement before he disconnected the call.

  Stepping out of the pub onto St. Giles’, he turned into a mew that wove along the backs of shops. Ancient trees grew amidst the broken cobblestone of this pathway, and small clusters of students, dressed in their traditional black-and-white subfusc, passed by him. Visitors to Oxford usually stuck to the main thoroughfares, making these passageways between the town’s shops and colleges a quiet respite from the crowds.

  He’d spent his first years here as a student trying to forget Heather. Then the rest of his adult life, he’d tried to avoid her when she’d returned home.

  Guilt still gnawed at him for missing Walter’s memorial service. He could have canceled his lecture in Amsterdam—as his mother reminded him several times—but he hadn’t wanted to see Walter’s daughter.

  He went the following week instead—after Heather left—to pay his respects at Walter’s grave.

  If only he could conjure up a reason to postpone this weekend’s visit as well.

  A WREN CHATTERED FROM A twig nest in the stable, scolding Heather and Ella for invading his world. Or perhaps he was welcoming their company after being alone for so long. It was sometimes impossible, Heather thought, to tell the difference between affection and irritation.

  All morning, they’d kept the door of the stable propped open, and the fresh air stirred the decades of dust and dirt. Sweat coated Heather’s forehead, and she tried to wipe it off with her sleeve. When she looked over at Ella, her daughter laughed at her. “You just smeared dirt across your face.”

  “Do you have a problem with dirt?”

  “Not particularly, but I didn’t think you were a fan.” Ella lifted the lid off another box. “It looks like you were caught in some sort of storm.”

  Her gaze roamed over the remaining seventy-two containers stacked on the floor, and she felt as if she’d been trapped in the perfect storm. She and Ella had been working hard for five days, cleaning out the closets in the upstairs bedrooms first before tackling the ground floor and then diving into the storage here. After she finished, she still had to sort through her parent’s things in the basement.

  Ella had been disappointed that they hadn’t found anything about Oliver Croft yet, but she kept searching, determined to find out what happened to the young man who’d lived next door.

  Whe
n her daughter’s phone beeped, she pulled it out of her pocket, a smile crossing her face as she read her husband’s text.

  Nick had texted Heather a handful of times this week, mostly with questions about restoration projects and then frustration that she planned to stay the entire two weeks. He seemed to miss her expertise more than her company though, and if she was honest, she didn’t particularly miss his company either.

  Ella was right—Nick was stuffy and a bit pompous. But he was also safe. Her daughter didn’t understand Heather’s need for a safe friendship. Nick Davis might not make her smile, but he would also never break her heart.

  While Ella texted Matthew back, Heather lifted out another file and skimmed through a set of her father’s articles about the production of penicillin in Clevedon. Her parents rarely talked about their years living in that town, about seventy miles southwest of Bibury, though her mum told her she’d lived with a family in Clevedon after being evacuated from her family’s neighborhood in South London during the war. Mum must have been terrified to take the train west by herself at such a young age, but she’d never told Heather about her journey or about her years growing up in the coastal town.

  Ella slid her phone into her back pocket and started rummaging through the box in front of her.

  Heather glanced at her watch. “Isn’t Matthew supposed to be sleeping?”

  “He wanted to make sure I was really flying home tomorrow.” Ella smiled again. “He said he’s about to jump on a plane headed this way.”

  “Maybe he could help us finish this,” Heather quipped.

  “He would help us carry it all to the dump.”

  Heather glanced around at the fifty years’ worth of accumulation. There was a towering pile of books by the door to sell or give away and another stack of files with old newspaper articles ranging in topic from the threat of communism to how to make a gelatin salad with green olives and cabbage.