Shadows of Ladenbrooke Manor

by Melanie Dobson

  She glanced at her watch. Brie’s sister-in-law should have started work twenty minutes ago. Perhaps she could offer some clarity, at least, to her questions about Libby.

  HEATHER FOUND EDITH BEHIND THE meat counter, a hairnet holding back her graying hair. She looked as if she’d been quite pretty at one time, but heavy wrinkles now lined her forehead and eyelids.

  When Heather introduced herself, Edith greeted her with a solid handshake. Then she hung up her apron on a hook and led Heather out behind the supermarket, to sit at a picnic table along the edge of the parking lot. Cigarette butts littered the patches of gravel and grass underneath.

  Edith plucked a pack out of her shirt pocket and offered Heather one. After she declined, Edith lit her cigarette, took a long drag, and turned her head to blow the smoke. “So you’re Libby’s kid sister.”

  The words sounded strange to Heather’s ears, but she nodded. “Brie said you used to be friends with her.”

  She took another drag on her cigarette. “I wouldn’t say friends exactly.”

  Heather’s cell phone rang, but she muted it without looking at the screen. “What were you?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t think your sister had any friends when we were kids. She wasn’t particularly fond of people except Oliver Croft, of course. All the girls were fond of Oliver.”

  “Did she and Oliver date?”

  “Not officially, I suppose. His parents would have had a royal conniption if they thought he was sweet on her.”

  “What was wrong with Libby?”

  Edith examined her face. “Libby was different than the other girls our age, but that wasn’t the main problem. Oliver’s parents needed him to marry someone with a truckload of cash.”

  “And my parent’s didn’t have enough—”

  “No one in Bibury had enough money for the Crofts. They had that huge house to maintain, but they didn’t have the income to keep it up.”

  Heather pulled out the book of butterflies from her handbag. “Do you recognize this?”

  Edith scanned the cover. “No, but Libby was always drawing something in one of her books when we were in primary school.”

  Heather slid the book back into her bag. “Do you know how Oliver died?”

  Edith shook her head. “Everyone was hush-hush about it. The police came to our school right after they found his body, asking all sorts of questions. We wanted to know what happened, of course, but they wouldn’t tell us a thing.”

  “Did Libby die before or after Oliver?”

  Edith took another drag on her cigarette. “Your sister left school before Oliver’s death, and I never saw her again. Then I heard she died, but no one told me exactly when or how. It sounded awfully suspicious to me.”

  “My parents told me she was sick.”

  Edith nodded slowly. “She probably was ill. Your sister was very beautiful, but seemed so simple and . . .”

  “And what?” she prompted.

  “Different,” Edith finally said. “Back before most people appreciated differences. Oliver really liked her though, and my friends and I—we were jealous. Unfortunately, I didn’t treat Libby very well.”

  Heather cringed. “You teased her?”

  Edith nodded slowly, smoke clouding her face.

  Heather didn’t ask any more questions, afraid perhaps of what she might hear. Children could be cruel, and if her sister was different from the other girls, and pretty, perhaps they had done more than teased her. Perhaps they had wounded her deeply.

  Perhaps her sister, the beautiful young woman who’d been fond of butterflies along with the boy next door, had thought life was no longer worth living.

  DAPHNE WESTCOTT FIDGETED WITH THE case of her mobile phone as she waited outside Willow Cottage, praying that someone—anyone—would contact her with an emergency. She looked down at the screen. Thankfully there were four solid bars of service up on the hill.

  The slightest hint of a contraction, from any of the five women in her care, would have to take precedent over her talk with Heather today. But even though she’d been waiting for almost an hour outside the cottage, no one had called.

  More than thirty years ago, she’d finished her schooling to become a midwife, and it was her hard-won reputation of honesty and reliability that kept her working in the years after most nurses and midwives retired.

  She loved her job—the wonder of ushering a new life into the world and helping instill confidence in a new mother to care well for her child. She’d had failures over the years, children who’d arrived in the world with medical conditions she couldn’t mend and mothers who hadn’t wanted to mother. She couldn’t remember every baby she’d helped deliver, but she’d never been able to forget the first baby she’d helped bring into the world. Forty-five years ago.

  She sighed.

  Her biggest success had also been her greatest failure.

  A car rumbled up the gravel in the driveway. She checked her phone again, but it seemed there would be no way out of this conversation. She had to tell Heather the truth this time.

  She stood as Heather stepped out of her car. “I thought I’d pay you a visit.”

  Heather looked at her skeptically. “Don’t you have company at home?”

  “They left on Friday,” Daphne said, but couldn’t tell if the woman walking toward her was pleased or disappointed by that news.

  Heather motioned toward the door. “Come in.”

  Daphne stepped into house, and pleasant memories flooded back to her, her years reading to Libby when she was a child, the many times Heather and Christopher played together as toddlers while she and Maggie sipped tea on the patio. “I haven’t been in here since your mother died.”

  “You were a good friend to her.”

  “I tried to be,” Daphne said. “But perhaps not always in the best way.”

  Heather directed her to the chairs by the fireplace. “Did you come to tell me about Libby?”

  Daphne glanced down at the phone in her hands before nodding slowly. “And I’ve come to ask your forgiveness.”

  She’d been a decade younger than Maggie, but they had been raising children the same age. For better or worse, they shared the bond of secrecy, started in a moment of desperation and propagated by little lies that started white but blackened over the years.

  Heather sat in her father’s chair. “I met with a woman named Edith in Cirencester today. She said she knew Libby when she was in school.”

  “I don’t think anyone really knew Libby. . . .”

  Heather leaned forward. “What was my sister like?”

  Daphne checked her phone one last time and then muted it. “Libby was beautiful and wild and completely enchanted by flowers and butterflies. She was like a fairy, fluttering around all the time, and she was so lost in her own world that sometimes you thought there might have been a bit of magic in her.”

  “So she did make the butterfly book—”

  “I’m sure she drew the pictures, but Libby struggled to communicate when she was a child. With her words and writing.” She folded her hands together. “If she was born today, I’m sure the doctors would have a diagnosis and therapy to help her, but back then, no one knew what was wrong.”

  Heather leaned toward her. “I searched the local newspaper for her obituary, but I couldn’t find anything about her death.”

  Daphne fidgeted with her phone, wishing again she was anyplace but here. Maggie should have shared Libby’s story with Heather, but Daphne bore just as much responsibility in the deception.

  “Do you know what happened to her?” Heather asked.

  “Walter and Maggie loved you, Heather. They both wanted you to have a happy childhood, and they would have done anything they could to protect you.” She paused. “Even if it meant withholding the truth.”

  “Please tell me what happened.”

  “Libby didn’t die, Heather. She ran away.”

  Heather shivered, folding her arms across her chest. “They should have
told me. . . .”

  “The rumors about Libby’s death started after you were born, and your mother did nothing to stop it. She loved Libby fiercely and when she left—it was almost as if Maggie had to say good-bye in her heart for good.”

  “Do you know where Libby went?”

  Daphne shook her head.

  “So my sister might still be alive?”

  Instead of responding, Daphne twisted the phone in her hand, looking at the screen again to see if anyone had called. She’d harbored Maggie’s secrets for so long, guarding them with all her heart, but it was time, finally time, to let this one go. “Libby wasn’t your sister, Heather.”

  Heather leaned forward. “What was she?”

  She took a deep breath. “Libby was your mum.”

  MAY 1970, BIBURY

  Maggie pedaled her bicycle up the steep hill, her basket filled with tomatoes and avocado pears from the greengrocer, a rump roast from the butcher, and a tin of cheese crispies from the general store. It was a splendid spring day, the apple trees blossoming and flowers blooming on both sides of the lane.

  It was also the first time she’d visited the village since Heather had been born, and it was good to be back in town. People eyed her oddly, as they had back in Clevedon, but no one seemed to whisper when she entered the shops. They had nothing to whisper about.

  And she didn’t particularly care if they did whisper. Joy had washed over their little family, and while Libby rarely talked, the gardens behind their cottage seemed to breathe hope back to her soul. Heather was a strong baby, demanding the attention of whoever was in the room, and she and Walter were both more than pleased to accommodate her when Libby was outside. Heather’s strength—even her discontentment at times—was a blessing to them. With her tenacity, they hoped she would thrive.

  Libby continued to mature with her new responsibilities though sometimes Maggie would have to call her in from the garden to feed Heather. Or she slept through the baby’s cries and Maggie would have to wake her.

  Sometimes Libby’s gaze drifted over toward the towers of Ladenbrooke, and for that moment, Maggie lost her entirely.

  But Libby was trying her best to be a good mother. She loved her daughter in her own way. Neither she nor Libby ever talked about Oliver, and Maggie didn’t think Walter suspected the father of Libby’s child. She prayed he would never find out.

  At the top of the hill, Maggie braked suddenly, the tin of crispies spilling to the ground along with her bag of produce. Her hands trembled as she tried to hold up her bicycle, and she felt as if she might faint.

  The gates of Ladenbrooke were open, and they were never open unless . . .

  She breathed deeply, trying to calm the racing in her heart.

  Had the Croft family come home?

  Oliver may have had Libby last summer, but he couldn’t have her anymore. If he even wanted her . . .

  She collected the food from the ground and tossed it back in her basket before walking her bicycle past the gate. She couldn’t seem to stop herself from staring inside the gap, at the beginning of the treed lane that wound toward the manor.

  Hopefully Oliver would stay in London for the next three months to play rugby or row or whatever held his attention these days, but if he came home, Maggie would not let him ruin their family’s newfound peace or her daughter’s stability. He and his greed, his arrogance, would not destroy everything they’d built.

  She pedaled home as quickly as she could and leaned her bicycle against the stable door, trying to calm her heart before she walked inside the house. Once Libby’s mind focused on something, whether it was her butterflies or her art or Oliver, it was impossible to deter her. Even if Oliver didn’t return to Ladenbrooke, what would Libby do if she thought he was here?

  Surely Oliver would avoid Libby if he knew about Heather. But what if Libby kept their child a secret from him, like Maggie had done years ago when she saw Elliot?

  Perhaps she and Walter should try to sell Willow Cottage. Leave Bibury like they’d left Clevedon. They could find a new home where both their daughter and granddaughter would be safe.

  “Libby?” she called out as she rushed into the house.

  When no one answered, the familiar dread weighed against her heart. She flung open the back door.

  “Libby?” This time she was shouting, not caring who heard, but still no one answered.

  She rushed back into the house and realized that Heather was in the sitting room, asleep in her cot.

  Heather was asleep, and Libby was gone.

  LIBBY HURRIED DOWN THROUGH THE field and trees behind the cottage, her feet bidden forward. Her nightmares about the river had subsided, swept away in Oliver’s arms, but in his absence, inside the walls of the cottage, she’d felt as if her life was being sucked out of her. Sometimes it almost seemed as if she couldn’t breathe anymore.

  But this afternoon, under the blue shimmer of summer sky, she felt alive again. Mud cooled her bare toes as rays of sunlight pricked her skin, energizing her. She craved Oliver’s touch. His smile. His kiss.

  Mummy said that Oliver didn’t really love her, but he did. He’d climbed the beech tree this morning to leave another bouquet on her windowsill, but this time he hadn’t asked to meet her by the gate. Instead he’d drawn a picture of himself and her by their tower.

  The pale-blue dress she’d worn last year no longer fit, but she had a new skirt and blouse, the soft apricot color of the lady’s roses. And she wore a pretty silk scarf that Mummy had bought for her, a dozen colors blending perfectly together like the colors that spilled from a setting sun.

  She hoped Oliver would still think her pretty.

  At the edge of the river, she dipped her toes into the water, surprised by the cold sting when the air felt so warm. Stepping back, she eyed the swift current.

  When she ran away last year, the water had been trickling around the rocks instead of racing over them. But she’d waded over to Ladenbrooke then and she would do it again now.

  Oliver’s face flashed through her mind, and she breathed in the memory as she stepped back into the water. The river streamed around her ankles, the stones slippery under her bare feet. Silvery branches from the willow swept across the surface of the river, and she embraced them in her arms, clinging to the branches and leaves as she inched herself around the wall.

  Fear clamped her chest, weighing down her entire body. She hated this—the feeling of being anchored to the ground. She wasn’t made to walk or swim. She was made to fly.

  And she was made to be with Oliver.

  Lifting her skirt, she moved around the tree and then the wall, to the grassy bank on the other side. She twirled once on land, her feet light again. Then she glided up through the forest and into the Italian garden.

  Someone moved on the other side of the hedge, and she smiled as she hurried toward the figure, but instead of Oliver, she saw Henry’s black hair, peppered with white.

  Freezing, she pressed her back into the trimmed topiary of a swan, the pruned branches poking her neck and arms. Oliver had warned her last summer to be careful when she snuck over to Ladenbrooke, saying if anyone saw her in the gardens, she might never be allowed to see him again.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath. If only she could fly away like a real swan.

  “Miss Doyle?”

  For a moment, she didn’t move, hoping the head gardener would pass by, but he didn’t.

  “You can come out, Libby.”

  She opened one eye and saw Henry looking back down at her, his left eye twitching. “You have to go home.”

  She straightened herself then stepped away from the swan’s prickly wings. “I’m here by invitation.”

  The gardener twisted his cap. “Who invited you?”

  “Oliver.” Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out his picture.

  Henry scanned the paper. “I wouldn’t call this an invitation.”

  “You can ask Oliver,” she replied, carefully refolding it.


  He wiped his face with his handkerchief. “Lady Croft won’t be pleased.”

  “I don’t care about the lady,” she said, trying to be strong.

  His gaze trailed the steps up to the house. “You should care.”

  “Please, Henry—” she started. “Don’t tell her about me.”

  “She’ll find out.”

  “Not if you—” She struggled for the right words to convince him. “Not if you keep our secret.”

  He took a step back toward the path from which he’d come. “You mustn’t stay long.”

  When Walter did something that pleased Mummy, she kissed his cheek, so Libby did exactly what she thought her mummy would do. Stepping up on her toes, she strained her neck to kiss the whiskers on Henry’s cheek.

  He cleared his throat. “You better hurry on now in case the lady decides to take a stroll.”

  He didn’t need to tell her twice. In the distance, beyond the maze, was the tower, and she hurried toward it. Was Oliver there now, waiting for her? It was strange to be meeting him in the daylight instead of the midnight hours.

  She passed by the lily pond and the statue of a goddess before stepping into the maze. The path toward the tower might be confusing to some, but it was as familiar to her as the road that led from the village up to her home. The last time she was here, it had been so cold she thought she might freeze to death, if the growth inside her didn’t take her first.

  How could she have been so stupid to have not known about the baby?

  But she knew now. She wouldn’t make the same mistake.

  Oliver would understand.

  Gnats swarmed near the top of the hedges, the hour of dusk their feasting time. Her hands over her arms, she ducked her head and pressed through the insects that drank blood instead of nectar, winding through the maze until she reached the folly.

  “Oliver?” she called softly. Then she called his name again, louder this time.

  She waited for his familiar whistle, for his handsome face to appear in an open window, but when she didn’t see him, she climbed the steps. He was probably waiting for her upstairs with his fancy pillows and champagne.