Shadows of Ladenbrooke Manor

by Melanie Dobson

  She smiled at the thought, but when she reached the top, her smile quickly disappeared.

  There was no one in the room.

  She’d thought Oliver would prepare the room like he had before, burn his citrus and sage incense to clear away the stench, but the room smelled like rotten food and the floor was cluttered with all the things she’d left behind. Tins she’d taken from the lady’s pantry. Pages ripped out from her sketchbook. The torch that needed batteries. Blankets that Oliver had brought down from the house last summer.

  She opened one of the shutters, and in the fading sunlight, she sat on the remains of a moth-eaten blanket.

  Oliver would be here soon and that was all that mattered.

  MAY 1970, WILLOW COTTAGE

  The postal truck from London arrived late, and Walter worked until half past six, sorting through the mail for the morning delivery. He’d once thought he would spend his life writing, but since they’d left Clevedon, he’d spent his career delivering other people’s stories. Sometimes as he worked, the desire to write his own stories rekindled inside him, all sorts of ideas playing in his mind, but he promptly quashed the muse. Instead of spending the evenings with a pen and paper, he now had a little girl who needed him when he came home.

  He wore no blinders about the challenges their family faced in the future nor did he know how they were going to reveal Heather’s birth to their community, but ever since he’d held Libby’s newborn in his arms, he was incredibly glad they hadn’t given her to another family to love.

  In fact, he hadn’t been this happy since his first year of marriage, when he thought Maggie had hung the moon and his daughter sprinkled the stars. Still, he tried to hold on to this season of their life with an open hand, knowing Libby could take her daughter away any time. If he clung too tightly, he feared he would never be able to let go.

  Maggie, on the other hand, had embraced this baby as if she was her own. Heaven help them both if Libby decided to take Heather away.

  Sometime soon, they would need to introduce Heather to their friends in the village. No matter what Maggie wanted, they couldn’t keep her hidden forever.

  As he turned onto their driveway, he heard Heather’s cries through an open window and he rushed inside to hold her. But neither she nor Libby nor even Maggie were in the sitting room. He checked inside the kitchen before flicking on the light switch beside the steps and running upstairs.

  He found his wife sitting on the carpet outside Libby’s bedroom, Heather crying in her arms.

  Maggie looked up at him, her face blotched from her own tears. “She’s hungry.”

  He looked into the dark doorway behind her. “Where’s Libby?”

  Maggie held Heather closer to her chest, crying along with the baby.

  He knelt down beside her. “Where is she, Maggie?”

  Maggie lowered Heather and looked in the baby’s face as if she were searching for answers from the child. “I don’t know.”

  “When did she leave?” he begged.

  Her eyes stayed focused on Heather. “I rode by Ladenbrooke this afternoon.”

  Walter twisted his cap in his hands, confused.

  “The gates were open,” Maggie continued.

  He glanced out the window over Maggie, at the stone wall through the window. “You think she’s in the gardens?”

  Maggie stood and began gently bouncing Heather to soothe her cries. “I think she’s with Oliver.”

  He dropped his cap to his side. “Oliver Croft?”

  Maggie nodded as he stood beside her.

  “But why would she be with—” He fell back against the banister, his question suspended between them. “Oliver is the father.”

  Maggie slowly nodded her head.

  “But when did she see Oliver?”

  “They were meeting in the gardens,” she said, her voice small.

  His chest constricted, and he felt as if he might explode. “You knew?”

  “I only saw them once, at the folly inside the maze.” She refused to meet his gaze. “I told him to leave her alone, and I locked our side of the gate so she couldn’t go back.”

  “Oh, Maggie—” He reached for Heather and held her against his chest. “That’s why you told me to check the tower.”

  “I should have done more.”

  When would Maggie ever learn that she had to trust him? They were supposed to work together, but after all these years, she still kept secrets from him.

  He shuddered. No matter what happened in the past, they had to work together now. If Lord and Lady Croft knew they had a grandchild, they might take Heather away, and it would destroy all they’d built, ripping their family apart from the inside out.

  Libby couldn’t tell Oliver about the baby.

  “She loves Heather, in her own way,” Maggie said. “And she loves Oliver.”

  Walter walked to the window, rubbing Heather’s back. “I’m not going to let her ruin this.”

  “It’s too late to find them now.”

  Walter turned back toward her. “I can try.”

  “We need to feed Heather first and we’re out of powdered milk.”

  He groaned. “The general store closed an hour ago.”

  “Daphne will let you borrow some.” Maggie rocked back and forth against the wall like the hand of a clock stuck on the wrong time. “He can’t take her away.”

  Walter took her face in one of his hands. “Maggie.”

  Her eyes found his face, and she stopped rocking.

  “I’m not going to let anyone take her.”

  He handed Heather back to her, and Maggie hugged the baby close, trying to comfort her. Then she reached over and clutched his hand, clinging to it for a moment before turning her attention back to their granddaughter.

  Outside he put his cap back on his head and hurried south toward the Westcott home.

  Whatever it took—he’d do anything to keep Heather safe.

  LIBBY WAITED FOR AN HOUR in the tower. Oliver had said he would come, and Oliver never, ever broke his promises.

  Perhaps he’d come earlier and left before she’d arrived. Or perhaps he’d forgotten they were meeting in the folly. He could be sitting beside their gate, wondering where she was.

  Through the open window, she watched the last traces of sunlight fold into the darkness, the green maze below turning into dark threads. In the past, she would have wandered in the moonlight, but she had no desire to dance or explore. Tonight her heart ached from missing Oliver and her breasts ached from the milk ballooning inside them.

  She must find Oliver and then return home to feed the baby.

  Quickly she ran down the steps and wove her way back toward the gardens, wanting to curse the lord from long ago for making his maze so complicated. Instead of taking the stone steps up the hill, she snuck behind bushes and under the lime bower so Henry wouldn’t see her.

  She must find another way to see Oliver. Tonight.

  At the rose garden, she moved toward the stone wall that separated the gardens from her cottage, but stopped at the edge of the bushes. Someone was near the wall, trudging down the slope instead of using the steps.

  Her heart leapt again. Was Oliver sneaking down to the folly? Or was Henry returning to insist that she leave?

  She mirrored the descent of the other person, taking care to hide in the shadows. It was a man in front of her, much too stout to be Oliver, and he was pushing a wheelbarrow as he descended the hill.

  Libby followed him to the edge of the gardens and then through the trees until he reached the river. Curious, she hid behind the branches of a tree, watching him and his wheelbarrow.

  A loud splash startled her, and she jumped back. At first, she thought the man had jumped into the river, but a scream rocked the night, as loud as the baby’s cries except this sound was angry. Like the roar of the lioness in Born Free.

  Then his anger turned to sobbing, and in it, Libby heard the pain of a heart ripping in two.

  She covered her
ears, closed her eyes, trying to block out the sound that tore through her as well, but she couldn’t seem to escape the crying—the cry of the baby or the cry of this man before her.

  Then she couldn’t hear the cries anymore.

  Slowly she removed her hands. There was a scraping noise now as the man began to push his wheelbarrow back up the hill.

  She waited a moment, to make sure he was gone, then she crept toward the riverbank to see what he’d thrown into the river.

  The moon shone down on the inky surface, and she gasped. There was a person in the water. Frozen in the current.

  The arms and legs should be flailing, struggling to get out. Instead the legs began to sink in the middle, into the deep place where people drowned.

  She clutched her arms around her chest, trying to rub away her fears. She needed to be strong right now. Brave. She needed to wade into the water and bring the man or woman to the bank before he or she was swept away.

  But what if the water swept her away too?

  The body shifted in the current, and the head began to tilt. In the moonlight, she saw a face. His face.

  Oliver.

  Terror swallowed up her fears, and she flung herself into the river. This time she didn’t feel the cold on her toes nor did she cling to willow branches. She didn’t slip on the stones or even think about them hurting her feet. Arms outstretched, she trudged forward in the current, struggling to reach for him.

  The hem of her skirt was under the water, but she still wasn’t close enough. Another step. A few more inches.

  The current raced over her knees as she clenched his shoulders.

  “Oliver!” she screamed, shaking him. His eyes were open, but they were focused on the moon above instead of on her.

  She curled her fingers under his shoulders and yanked them, trying to pull him toward the shore, but he was stuck on the rocks.

  His head—she had to keep his head out of the water so he could breathe.

  She swore at the water and whatever snared him beneath it. And she cried out from the pain that ripped through her chest.

  The river would not take Oliver away from her.

  She pulled harder on his shoulders, fighting against the current as her feet sank deeper in the mud, but she refused to let go of him. Water rushed over her arms, and she tugged again until she freed Oliver from the rocks.

  Her arms under his shoulders, she dragged Oliver backward toward the shore, into the shallow pools where the water wouldn’t swallow him. Then she knelt beside him, shaking his arms, his shoulders, crying out his name, but he wouldn’t wake.

  Why wouldn’t he wake?

  She shook him again until she saw something move in the trees. There was a man near the bank, walking toward her. She reached across Oliver, trying to protect him.

  “Libby?” the man whispered as he drew close.

  She pulled her arms back and crossed them over her chest. It was Walter. Her father had come to help Oliver.

  She didn’t move as Walter knelt beside her. His head dropped to Oliver’s chest, listening for the beat of life within him. When he looked back up at her, there was sadness in her father’s eyes. Sorrow.

  She clutched her hands over her heart. “No—”

  “Hush, Libby,” he said, placing his wet hand on her shoulder, steadying her. “You have to leave.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t leave him.”

  “There’s nothing you can do to help him now.”

  Her chest bowed over her knees, her hair dangling in the water. She knew Oliver was gone, his wings broken for good, but she couldn’t bear to say good-bye.

  “You must go home,” he said, his voice more urgent now. “At once.”

  But even as he spoke, the words seemed muffled in her ears. Walter was afraid, and he wasn’t supposed to be afraid of anything.

  He shook her shoulder. “Libby—”

  She tilted her head back up to look at him.

  “Do you understand me?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she whispered, closing her eyes so she couldn’t see the fear in Walter’s gaze. Or the emptiness in Oliver’s face.

  He stood and took her hand. She followed him to the wall; then he lifted her out of the water and carried her, back to the trees on the other side.

  This time she wished he would drop her. So the river could take her too.

  “I’ll meet you at home,” he said. “Don’t tell your mum or anyone that Oliver is gone.”

  She nodded slowly. He needn’t worry about her telling anyone, but he was wrong about Oliver.

  Oliver Croft wasn’t gone. Would never be gone.

  No matter what happened, Oliver would always be alive in her heart.

  The sun was fading behind the churchyard outside Bibury, but Heather didn’t want to wait until tomorrow to visit the cemetery. Kneeling beside the headstone for Margaret Emerson Doyle, she traced her hand over the epitaph.

  Her mum had lied to her about Libby and about Christopher. She must have thought she’d been doing the right thing to protect her, but the ripples from her lies had redirected the course of Heather’s life.

  She glanced over at her father’s new headstone.

  Part of her wanted to be angry at both of them for collaborating against her, but more than anger, she understood exactly why they had done it. Years later, she had lied to her daughter as well.

  She’d intended to tell Ella the truth about her father—one day—but the untruths grew and became their own reality over the years, until it seemed impossible to untangle it all.

  Now was the time to straighten it out, before it was too late. She wanted to stop the deception from filtering again from one generation to the next.

  Mrs. Westcott had left her home several hours ago, tears in her eyes. She thought Heather would be angry at her parents—and at her—for keeping this secret, but Heather felt more relief than anger. It explained so much—why her parents had loomed over her as a teenager, why they’d sent her away to a girls-only school when she’d wanted to stay home, and why they’d insisted she attend college.

  Her parents had loved her; she knew that without a doubt. And her heart was filled with gratefulness—at the sacrifices they made to raise the child who was technically their granddaughter. It still hurt that her dad had been so distant in his later years, but she knew she’d disappointed him when she’d married Jeffery.

  It saddened her as well that Mrs. Westcott—and not her parents—had been the one to tell her the truth about Libby. Perhaps if she’d known about her birth mother, she wouldn’t have felt so alone during the years she’d spent as a single mom.

  Mrs. Westcott asked her forgiveness for keeping the secrets, and Heather had given it freely. Christopher’s mother had helped give her life, and she’d done what she thought best to protect her son. If Heather didn’t forgive her, then she had no right to ask the same of Ella.

  After their conversation ended, Heather had retreated down to the basement and dug through several more of Libby’s boxes, searching instead of sorting this time until she found dozens of envelopes addressed to Oliver Croft, to a house in Woldingham. Inside were hand-drawn pictures of a tower and gardens and the backs of a boy and a girl, sitting hand in hand by a pond—a purple butterfly instead of a signature on every one.

  As she sat now on the grass between the gravestones, Heather flipped through the butterfly book in her hands again, trying to grasp understanding from the magical pictures, the unique lines and colors of an artist who captured butterflies on paper.

  Libby wasn’t her sister, but she couldn’t quite process the fact that the couple she’d thought to be her parents were actually her grandparents. Even though the truth of her past might have shifted, her heart had not, could not. In spite of the lies, Walter and Maggie Doyle had sacrificed to send her to a good school, away from the rumors in Bibury. They’d loved and protected her from someone they thought might neglect or even harm her.

  Mrs. Westcott said Libby
ran away soon after Heather was born. But where did she run?

  Heather closed her eyes.

  The last time she’d been inside the parish church was for her dad’s memorial service. The day was a messy blur in her mind. People from town had filled the sanctuary to pay tribute to the man who’d sorted and delivered their mail for thirty years. The rector asked her to read from the Scriptures during the service and she’d selected Psalm 23. When she’d stepped up to the podium, she scanned the crowd and saw a woman standing at the back. It was impossible to miss her—she wore a pale-blue dress while everyone else wore black, and the copper tones of her long hair glowed in the sunlight that filtered through the stained glass.

  After she finished reading from Psalms, Heather had looked again toward the back of the room, but the woman was gone.

  She’d thought it strange at the time—and even stranger was the sense of déjà vu she’d felt with the woman’s presence, almost as if she’d seen her before in a dream. But like a dream, the memory of the woman faded in the hours after the service.

  Was it possible that Libby had come to say good-bye to her father as well?

  In the quiet churchyard, sitting among the bluebells, Heather decided she wouldn’t leave England until she discovered what happened to Libby. If Mrs. Westcott’s story was accurate, forty-five years had passed since she’d left home. It might seem like an impossibility to find her now, especially if she didn’t want to be found, but if Libby had loved Oliver, perhaps someone in Oliver’s family would have an idea where she’d gone.

  A quick text to Brie requested the Crofts’ contact info, and seconds later, Heather received a return text with the phone number and address for Lord Croft, the same address from Libby’s letters.

  But before she contacted the Crofts, she decided it was time to put an end to her own secrets as well. For too long, she’d thought she was protecting Ella, but looking back, it had been cowardly of her to wait twenty-five years to have this talk. The secrets meant to protect her daughter were really shielding Heather from her own shame. A fortress for her pride and a shoddy tourniquet for her wounds.