Shadows of Ladenbrooke Manor

by Melanie Dobson

  “In my parents’ basement,” she said, holding it up. “I was wondering if you could answer some questions about my sister.”

  Mrs. Westcott opened the door wider. “I only have a few minutes.”

  “I can come back tomorrow.”

  But Mrs. Westcott waved her inside, and Heather stepped over the threshold into the home that had once been as familiar as her own. The last time she was here, she and Christopher were supposed to be filling out forms for college at the kitchen table, but at the time, it had been almost impossible for her to focus on paperwork.

  Mrs. Westcott pointed toward the plaid couch for Heather while she sat on an upholstered chair, drumming her fingers on the arms. “I’m sorry I don’t have time to offer you tea today.”

  “I won’t stay long,” Heather promised, glad she didn’t have to make small talk this afternoon.

  “Will you come back for tea another time?” the older woman asked.

  “Of course,” Heather replied. Christopher was living in Oxford now and their teenage years were far behind them. It was absurd for her to continue avoiding this place.

  She slid the book across the polished coffee table in front of Mrs. Westcott. “Did my sister paint these butterflies?”

  Mrs. Westcott touched the edges of the cover as if it were sacred. “Libby was a beautiful artist.”

  “My parents never talked about her.”

  “It was probably too hard—”

  “I wish they’d let me get to know her through their stories.”

  Mrs. Westcott lifted her hands, softly drumming her fingers together. “Did you know your mum had a younger brother?”

  Heather shook her head.

  “She lost him not long after the war.” Mrs. Westcott inched further back on her chair.

  “It’s hard to lose someone you love when you’re so young.”

  “But my parents weren’t young when they lost Libby.”

  “No, but your mother tried hard to shield herself and you from this loss. She tried to create—” Mrs. Westcott hesitated.

  Heather understood what it was like to shield someone you loved, but she didn’t know why her parents had to shield her from the memories.

  “She never wanted to hurt you,” Mrs. Westcott said.

  Heather leaned forward. “I found some pictures of my parents holding Libby’s hand when she was a girl. They looked so happy.”

  “They adored both of you.”

  “Could you tell me how she died?”

  Mrs. Westcott glanced up at the clock over the fireplace mantel. “That isn’t my story to tell.”

  “Whose story is it?”

  Mrs. Westcott shook her head. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  Heather looked down at the book, flipping the page to the Autumn Dancer shimmering with bright orange, red, and golden browns. “It does to me.”

  Mrs. Westcott reached for the book and pulled it onto her lap. “As you grow older, you realize some things that happened in the past should probably remain there.”

  Heather managed a smile. No matter how many years went by, she suspected that Mrs. Westcott would continue to think of her as a child. “I’m old enough to realize that.”

  “Of course you are.” Mrs. Westcott gingerly touched the picture of the butterfly. “I’m surprised your mother kept this.”

  “Why would she get rid of it?”

  Mrs. Westcott didn’t answer her question this time. Instead, she leafed through the pictures until she found a bright-blue butterfly rimmed with red.

  “Libby wasn’t well.” Mrs. Westcott sighed as she closed the book. “She broke your mum’s heart.”

  “I’m not here to judge her,” Heather said. “Or my mother.”

  But even as the words left her mouth, she realized they weren’t completely true.

  “Now that your father is gone . . .” Mrs. Westcott’s voice trailed off as she slid the book back onto the table. “Perhaps I should tell you.”

  A strange sense of foreboding crept up her spine.

  “It happened so long ago—”

  “Before I was born?” Heather asked.

  The woman slowly nodded her head.

  Heather scooted to the edge of her seat. “Did you know my sister?”

  “As much as anyone could know her, I suppose.” Mrs. Westcott glanced at the clock again.

  Heather lifted the book off the table. “Perhaps we should talk on Monday?”

  Before Mrs. Westcott replied, a car pulled into the driveway, the gravel rumbling under its tires. “Oh dear,” she mumbled as she hopped up from her chair, her eyes fixed on the front window.

  Heather stood quickly. “I’m sorry—” she apologized. “I’ve stayed too long.”

  She stepped toward the picture window, but Mrs. Westcott took her arm, bustling her away from the glass. “You should probably use the back door.”

  JULY 1968, LADENBROOKE MANOR

  Oliver’s family had returned to London, like they did every year before his mother opened up their gardens. This year he had petitioned his father for permission to stay in the manor over the weekend. At first, his father had refused his request, so Oliver had to up the stakes. He said he needed to stay behind to practice cricket with his team.

  Finally, his father relented.

  His parents didn’t socialize with anyone who hadn’t obtained upper-class status, but the game of cricket leveled society’s rigid structure. It was the one place where he was allowed to spend time with friends from the middle and even working classes. His father, of course, always assumed his son would win the games against those in a lower class, but Oliver wasn’t nearly as athletic as his father liked to think. There was no cricket practice this weekend, though his father was much too busy to bother with details like that.

  When the gardens opened, Oliver donned a tweed cap and sunglasses and then wandered incognito among the visitors. He had watched Libby from the tower, but it had been so long since he’d been close to her. He’d worried for days that the Doyles wouldn’t come. . . .

  But they had, and while Mr. and Mrs. Doyle visited with another family, he followed Libby to a quiet bench in his mother’s white garden. He didn’t disturb her, standing instead back by an arbor where he could study her as she studied the butterflies.

  Libby pulled her knees to her chest and slowly rocked back and forth as she watched two butterflies dance among the white-and-silver tips of petunias, lilies, and phlox. She was completely lost in her world until three girls stepped close to the bench, local girls who were fourteen or fifteen. Close to her age.

  Edith was the name of the tallest girl. She and her gang giggled whenever they came near Oliver in the village, but this morning their laughter wasn’t nervous or innocent. It was ugly.

  Libby ignored the girls’ teasing, folding her head between her arms, but they were relentless, calling her awful names.

  Imbecile. Idiot. Simpleton.

  And his heart reared to defend her.

  He’d only meant to watch Libby, not to frighten her as he’d done so many times when they were younger, but he couldn’t allow anyone to torment her.

  He rushed toward the pack before they insulted her again. “Good afternoon, ladies,” he said though his pleasantry didn’t sound pleasant at all.

  The laughter dissoved into giggles.

  “Hello, Oliver,” Edith said. Her blonde hair was held back with a blue hairband, and she smiled at him as if she were daring him to flirt back.

  He wasn’t the least bit interested in flirting, stepping instead toward the bench. “If your mum heard you use those names, she’d box your ears.”

  Edith laughed again as she flung her hand toward Libby. “My mum thinks she’s stupid too.”

  “Then, perhaps, someone should box her ears as well.”

  She clasped her hands together, her laughter fading. “We’re only having a bit of fun.”

  “It’s not so much fun for Libby.”

  Turning away from
Edith, he sat down on the bench. “Hiya.”

  Libby lifted her head slowly from her hiding place, like a turtle sneaking a peak from its shell.

  Then he looked back at the regiment of prim and proper girls before him. “Libby is one of my best friends.”

  “We didn’t know—” Edith said, the confidence in her voice waning.

  “I can assure you that she’s not an idiot or a simpleton, but I’m not certain about our present company.”

  “We didn’t mean anything by it,” another girl said. “She just—well, she never says anything.”

  “That’s because you aren’t listening,” he said as he draped his arm across the back of the bench. Libby sat a bit straighter. “Besides, some people consider contemplation a virtue—and ignorance a vice.”

  The girl huffed at his insult, and the trio began to back away. When he turned back toward Libby, he heard one of the girls whispering about the impudence of the younger Lord Croft. Perhaps he was an idiot too. . . .

  “I’m sorry they weren’t playing nice.”

  Libby rocked again. “I don’t want to be their friend.”

  “I don’t want to be their friend either,” he said. “But I sure wish you’d be mine.”

  She didn’t reply, but she didn’t scoot away either like she’d done when they were children. Or ask him to leave. As people milled around, they sat there together, watching the butterflies.

  “Those girls are as annoying as the mosquitos down by the river.” He’d meant it to be funny, but she didn’t laugh. “But you—” He studied her again like he’d done when they were kids. “You are different.”

  When she turned, the look in her blue eyes was one of curiosity and the slightest hint of appreciation.

  “I know your secret,” he whispered.

  She shook her head. “I don’t have secrets.”

  “You aren’t really a butterfly.”

  “I know that.”

  “You’re really a princess. A butterfly princess.”

  Her eyes grew wide, and then she laughed. Not a giggle like the other girls or the falsity of forced laughter. Her laugh came from the depths of her heart. She wasn’t nervous. Libby was free, not caring one whit what anyone else thought about her.

  Oliver wished she would care just a little about what he thought, but if she cared too much, her focus might turn inward like the other girls, painfully aware of what she said and did when she was around him. She might no longer dance among his mother’s flowers.

  As he laughed with her that morning, something passed between them. Something he couldn’t explain.

  No longer would he be satisfied with watching Libby dance from afar. He wanted to dance right beside her.

  WALTER CALLED LIBBY’S NAME WHEN he stepped through the front door. Usually she was waiting for him in the sitting room when he came home from work, but sometimes she got caught up in looking at the pictures of a book she’d borrowed from the lending library or sketching a flower she’d seen in the gardens.

  He knocked on her bedroom door, and when no one answered, he opened it. Libby wasn’t inside, but her window was open. The breeze fluttered the gauzy pink curtains and jangled the glittery beads strung down from the canopy, making them dance like marionettes over her bed. Maggie had picked out colors reminiscent of a magical garden, and together she and Libby had created a bright space that thrived even on the gloomiest days.

  The colors were beautiful, but the rest of the room was not. Markers, pencils, pieces of paper, and books were strewn across the bedcovers, spilling over onto the floor. He’d repeatedly asked Libby to make her bed before school and clean up her room when she returned home, but she always seemed to forget. At least she said she forgot. There was a fine line between defiance and distraction, and he wasn’t always certain which it was for her.

  He wanted to smooth out the wrinkles on her bed, but he resisted the urge. She must learn to care for herself or she would never be able to live on her own.

  One of Libby’s sketchbooks lay open on the messy bedcovers, and he sat down on the mattress to look at the flowers she’d drawn at Ladenbrooke. Libby was fourteen now, and in the last few years, he’d come to realize that she was as smart as the next person. Sometimes she feigned ignorance to get out of what was required of her, or stayed silent so she could slip away. Unfortunately her silence made people doubt her intelligence.

  Sometimes Walter wished she would yell, even at him. Scream or shout or even cry. But if she was ever angry, she never expressed it. She did express hurt sometimes, and love, but only to a select few and only in her peculiar way. Her smiles were rare, but he treasured every one sent his way.

  Thirteen years had passed since he’d slugged Baron Bonheur in that alley. It had taken almost as many years to build up all that had been destroyed in those few seconds.

  How many times had he regretted listening to Mrs. Bishop that morning? If he had been away from the village, off reporting about someone else’s problems, he never would have found Maggie and Elliot together. Never would have known that Libby wasn’t his daughter by birth. Never would have given up his career as a writer and newspaperman.

  But sometimes he also wondered if he’d prevented something worse from happening between that man and Maggie. He didn’t know what—nor would he allow his mind to conjure up any potential scenarios—but now, after more than a decade in hindsight, he thought he might have saved his family in that alleyway. Or at least, that’s how he chose to look at it.

  He and Maggie had suffered plenty in those early years, but they had slowly grown to love each other. Perhaps they were even stronger because of all they’d gone through together. Libby may not look like him, but no one here seemed to care. With the exception of the reddish tint to her hair, she was the spitting image of her mother. And when people asked about Libby’s lovely hair, Maggie just said she got it from her father’s side of the family.

  He flipped through the pictures in Libby’s sketchbook. He wished he understood the way her mind worked. At age twelve, the smartest students in England transitioned into grammar school while the rest of the kids attended a secondary modern school to learn a trade. Libby would never attend grammar school nor had she shown much interest in pursuing a trade. But he was growing to appreciate her eye for beauty in their everyday life, details that most people overlooked. Some of the flowers in her book were still crude pencil drawings, but he had no doubt that Libby would bring them to life. She saw a rainbow of colors where other people saw only black and white.

  He set Libby’s sketchbook back on her crumpled bed. She was obsessed with color, along with beauty, and she had the uncanny ability to deflect the cares of the world and appreciate all of creation—whether she or God had created it.

  Walter walked to the back of the cottage and found Maggie outside, kneeling among the blossoms of spring flowers as she plucked out the weeds. Standing by the patio door, he admired his wife’s tenacity. The years together had taken them on a windy road, far from each other at times and then remarkably close as they hugged the side of a mountain that neither of them could climb alone.

  One of the hardest times had come two years ago when Lady Croft found Libby wandering in the gardens of Ladenbrooke. She treated his daughter like a common criminal and then proceeded to dismiss Maggie as if she’d been a conspirator with Libby’s crime. After almost eleven years of faithful service, his wife became unemployed.

  Maggie had fretted for a few days after being relieved of her position, but then she poured herself into her own gardens, working religiously on planting and fertilizing and ridding the soil of weeds that threatened to harm her flowers and vegetables. The flower gardens were both to entice Libby to stay at home and to keep Maggie’s hands busy.

  They’d cut back on their expenses, grown more vegetables among the flower gardens, and then Maggie had gone back to school to become a hairdresser. For the first time since they’d married, she was excited about the possibilities before her.

&
nbsp; If they were still renting, Walter had no doubt the Crofts would have evicted them from the cottage, but Lord Croft sold them the old bothy before Lady Croft’s dismissal. Instead of paying rent to the Croft family now, he and Maggie were dependent on the local savings and loan. He preferred it that way. His income from the post office was steady and sufficient enough to pay the monthly mortgage.

  Maggie renamed their home Willow Cottage after the elegant tree that draped over the river below the house. A farmer bought the field and forest on the hillside behind the cottage, the land between their garden and the River Coln, but the Doyles could use the path through the field whenever they liked to picnic by the water. Both Maggie and Libby were afraid of wading in the river, but they liked to sit under the willow and watch the current rush by.

  He scanned the gardens, but he didn’t see Libby.

  A few years back, when Maggie first began to garden, Libby had been disappointed that her flowers hadn’t grown into the colors she’d selected for them. She’d returned to sketching flowers on paper instead of planting them.

  Maggie had singlehandedly turned their two acres of backyard into a regular Garden of Eden. She’d created a formal garden and a whimsical one, and then she’d asked Walter to plant hedges in a rectangle shape to create a secret garden. He hadn’t said anything to Maggie, but he wasn’t sure how they could refer to the garden as secret when the entrance was as plain as day to anyone visiting behind their house. Still, he’d accommodated her and played along with her illusion that it was hidden.

  He walked toward his wife and kissed her on the cheek. “Where is Libby?” he asked.

  “Drawing in her room.”

  “Not anymore,” Walter replied with a shake of his head. “But she left her pencils scattered across her bed.”

  Fear flickered in her eyes. “Did you check the gate?”

  “Not yet.”

  Maggie sighed.

  The wrought-iron gate separated the cottage from the manor. The Croft family from the Doyles. Even though Lady Croft had released Maggie, Libby still didn’t respect the differences in their classes or their property. She thought she belonged on the Ladenbrooke side, but the local authorities did not.