Shadows of Ladenbrooke Manor (18 page)

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.

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.

The Crofts were supposed to padlock the gate, but some days the lock seemed to disappear and Libby would wander over as if she were the Lady of Ladenbrooke. She didn’t understand why she couldn’t be in the gardens. She’d practically grown up in the old manor house, freely roaming the grounds throughout her childhood. She didn’t seem to care about returning to visit the house, not like she cared about Lady Croft’s flowers. He and Maggie tried to contain her on their side of the wall, but they continued to fail at their attempts.

As she stood, Maggie tossed her handful of weeds into a pile. “I’ll find her.”

Walter shook his head. “I can do it this time.”

Maggie searched his face, as if trying to determine if he was sincere.

“I want to get her,” he said. “She needs to understand what the Crofts will do if she keeps trespassing.”

Maggie took off her gloves. “I don’t want to frighten her—”

“A little fear is better than having the Crofts dictate her future.” While he wanted to help her conquer her fears on one hand, when it came to the gardens at Ladenbrooke, he needed her to be afraid.

“Please be gentle with her,” Maggie said as he stepped away.

He didn’t respond. Gentleness wouldn’t help Libby understand the realities of life.

The gate in the wall was open, the padlock dangling from the handle on the opposite side. Walter glanced up at the grand house on the hillside. He didn’t see anyone on the lawn, so he descended down the path through the gardens. If he saw anyone, he hoped it would be the head gardener. He knew Henry from his mail route, and Libby knew him as well from her earlier years playing in the garden.

Libby wasn’t among the flowers in the formal garden or under the arbor of grapevines, so he moved down the terraces on the hill. She wouldn’t be too close to the river, but she might be hiding among the trees.

“Libby?” he called out.

Light danced on the leaves, shifting shadows over his path as the sun started to set. He called her name again as he stepped out of the trees, toward the old maze.

This time he heard her respond. “Shh . . .”

He followed the sound of her whisper until he found her sitting by the lily pond.

“We have to go,” he said.

She pointed at a moss-green butterfly with black spots, hovering above a bed of red and orange poppies. “She’s trying to find a home for the night.”

He eyed the butterfly. “How do you know?”

“Because she’s usually asleep by now.” Libby’s gaze remained on the creature. “Butterflies can’t fly at night, you know.”

He didn’t know—didn’t know anything about butterflies except what Libby told him.

“Their wings only work when they’re warm,” she explained. “They would die without sunlight.”

He held out his hand, trying to urge her to stand. “We can’t let the Crofts find you here.”

“Their wings move like this.” Instead of taking his hand, she shaped a figure eight in the air. “They fly back and forth so they don’t miss anything.”

“Your mum is going to start missing both of us if—”

“The poisonous ones don’t fly nearly as fast as the others.” Her hand slowed. “More like this.”

He wanted to grab her shoulders and shake them, jolting her back to reality.

“Some of the adult butterflies only live about a month,” she said wistfully. “Only a month to play in the gardens.”

“You need to stay in the gardens Mum planted for you.”

She finally acknowledged his words with a shake of her head. “It’s not the same.”

“Why not?”

“My friends don’t come into our garden.”

“The butterflies?” he asked.

When she nodded, he sighed. Perhaps it was hopeless to make her understand right now. Perhaps he simply had to play along. “Have you invited your friends into our garden?”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “They wouldn’t come.”

“Let’s try again,” he begged.

Before she replied, he heard a rustle on the other side of the hedge behind them. Then he saw a figure of someone moving between the tangled branches.

“Who’s there?” he called.

The person stopped moving.

“Who is it?” Walter called again, but no one answered as he stepped toward the tall hedge.

He heard rustling again, the sound of someone running. He wanted to pursue whoever was on the other side, but they would be long gone before he rounded the hedge.

When he glanced back at Libby, she didn’t seem worried about someone watching them.

He put his arm around her. “We have to get you home.”

She didn’t move, her eyes still on the butterfly. “I wish I could help her.”

“You can, Libby,” he said, searching quickly for a reason behind his declaration. “You can encourage her to fly away.”

She seemed to consider his words before curling her fingers over the edge of a boulder and beginning to stand. The butterfly flittered toward the maze, and for a moment, he thought Libby might chase after it, but she remained at his side.

“She will find a safe place,” he assured her.

She looked up into his face, not quite meeting his eyes, and then slowly nodded, seemingly content in his certainty. He thought it strange that a girl so unaccustomed to anxiety would be concerned about this butterfly and not about the person on the other side of the yews.

They couldn’t go back up through the gardens and the gate now. Whoever had been watching them may already have alerted Lord or Lady Croft to their presence. They needed to find another way around the wall.

He eyed the forest that hid the river. While he wanted her to be afraid of the Crofts, he no longer wanted her to fear the water.

Perhaps this was the perfect opportunity to help her confront this fear of the river once and for all. Confront and conquer it. It was plenty warm enough for them to wade through the water. They only had to traverse about fifteen feet until they reached the shore on the other side of the wall.

“We have to hurry, Libby.”

She looked back at the flowers.

“If we don’t go now, you might never see your friends again.”

She rubbed her arms. “Like in Mr. McGregor’s garden?”

“Exactly,” he said. “Like Mr. McGregor and his garden.”

The sun had almost set, casting long shadows over them as she followed him down to the river. He reached for her hand, but she shook away his grasp as she always did when anyone except Maggie tried to touch her.

She studied the river and then looked down at her toes. Her voice trembled when she spoke again. “I don’t like the water.”

“I know,” he said. “I will carry you.”

She started to back away from the bank, and he decided it was time to be completely honest with her, to show her that she could be strong in the face of what she feared. “If the Crofts find you here tonight, they’ll have you sent away.”

“I don’t like the water,” she repeated.

“You won’t be able to live at the cottage with your mother and me anymore.”

She shivered.

“You won’t even be able to visit Mum’s garden,” he continued as he took off his shoes.

Her gaze fell to the current, swirling around in the center.

“But you’ll be safe if you let me carry you to the other side.”

When she looked back up at him, he could see the wavering in her eyes as she decided whether or not to go with him.

“You have to trust me, Libby, or some bad things might happen to all of us.”

She didn’t argue anymore.

He rolled up his trousers, and then with his shoes in one hand, he leaned over and swept his daughter off the ground. She was delicate. Fragile. More like the flowers she loved than the trees.

As he stepped into the water, she circled her arms around his neck and he held her close to his chest. She may not let him take her hand, but she freely gave affection on her own terms. Like when she was afraid.

Stones poked into his feet as they slipped around an overgrown bush. The cold current rushed around his ankles and then his shins, but he didn’t let either deter him.

He couldn’t remember a time, even when she was a toddler, that Libby had allowed him to hold her. Not that he had tried very hard. He’d allowed his own bitterness, his disappointment with life, to distract him from being a good father, and he feared it was too late to mend it. Yet Libby trusted him enough to let him carry her over her greatest fear. In her heart, she must know he wanted what was best for her.

The strands of leaves on the willow tree dangled over the water like the beads around Libby’s bed. He ducked under the canopy of leaves, and in the fading light, he could see the field in front of him. In seconds, they could move out of the river and onto the path that would lead them home.

He took another step, but this time he didn’t feel the smooth surface of a river rock under the water. This time a broken stick speared the sole of his foot.

His body reacted against his will, his foot recoiling back up above the surface as he leaned sideways, Libby’s screams piercing his ear. He tried to anchor himself again, but it was impossible on the slippery stones. Dropping his shoes, he reached behind to protect them both from a hard fall.

Water splashed over Libby as they landed in the river, water soaking through his trousers, across Libby’s lap.

She shoved away from him, her eyes wide in terror.

“I’m so sorry.” He quickly regained his footing and reached for her.

Shaking her head, Libby backed away even farther. Then she slipped on one of the rocks and screamed as she fell into the current.

He tried to help her out of the water, but she shook her head again, her tears mixing with the river. On her hands and knees, she crawled through the water until she reached the other side.

He retrieved his socks and the shoe that hadn’t been stolen away by the current. Then he climbed up the grassy bank beside her.