Shadows of Ladenbrooke Manor (13 page)

When Walter stopped walking, Maggie glimpsed over to see Libby sitting under one of the giant trees that overlooked the river, her copy of J.M. Barre’s
Peter Pan
clutched in her lap. She took a deep breath, relieved that Libby hadn’t wandered too far this time.

She’d read
Peter Pan
to Libby at least a hundred times. Libby couldn’t read yet, but she knew sections of the book by heart—the parts about Wendy’s love and Peter’s shadow, the fact that fairies were so small they only had room for one feeling at a time.

But even more than the story, Libby liked to immerse herself in the pictures. The magic. Sometimes it seemed as if the book world became Libby’s reality. Maggie didn’t understand Libby’s need to escape; her real life was good and safe. But Maggie loved her daughter with all her heart, and even though Walter could be stern, Maggie knew he cared about her too. If these pictures made Libby happy, then Maggie wanted to embrace them with her.

“Libby,” Walter called as he stepped forward to retrieve her.

She didn’t respond.

“Please,” Maggie said, resolute. “Let her be.”

If Walter tried to force her into the throngs of children, Libby’s contentment would unravel. Then she would wail, embarrassing all of them like she had last month when Walter tried to force her to swing at the park.

He studied Libby, sitting above the riverbank. “She needs to exercise.”

“She’s exercising her brain.”

“She must learn to play with the others—”

“But not today,” Maggie said, tugging on his sleeve. “I fear—”

He shook his head. “We can’t keep living in fear.”

“I’ll tell her we’re leaving soon.”

“Maggie—”

“Please,” she begged.

“She’ll never learn if we don’t help her,” he said.

She shook her head. “This isn’t the way to help.”

He rubbed his temples, his forehead creased with frustration. But he relented, sighing before he retreated back through the trees. Maggie turned and watched Libby for another moment.

On one hand, she thought they should learn to appreciate Libby’s uniqueness—there was nothing wrong with playing quietly by oneself. On the other hand, she wanted Libby to have the childhood the Nazis had stolen away from her and her brother. She wanted Libby to have friends, a host of them, who would come for tea parties and to play dolls and whatever else girls did these days. Maggie had spent most of her childhood—most of her life—afraid, but Libby and the other children in this village had nothing to fear. They didn’t have to worry about bombs crashing into their home or being shipped off to strangers who lived far away or losing their parents to war.

Her books said mothering came naturally to women, but sometimes it didn’t feel natural to her at all. If only her mother had lived. She could have taught Maggie the proper way to care for a child.

As Maggie sat down by her daughter, Libby pointed to a picture speckled with pixie dust. “It’s magic,” she said.

“Indeed,” Maggie agreed. “Beautiful magic.”

She turned the page to a colorful illustration of Peter Pan with Tinker Bell fluttering at his side. “Mummy?”

Maggie glanced over and met her daughter’s earnest gaze.

“Tinker Bell can fly,” Libby whispered as if it were a grand secret.

“Yes, she can.”

“Someday I’m going to fly.”

Maggie whispered back. “One day, I think you just might.”

IN THE FIRST MONTH AFTER
Libby started primary school, her teacher telephoned three times, demanding that Maggie come down to her classroom. When Mrs. Hoffman called this afternoon, she said Libby was inconsolable. That she was screaming and flailing and acting like a two-year-old. Again.

Maggie cringed at the disdain in the teacher’s voice.

She rushed out of the head housekeeper’s office in Ladenbrooke, past a gallery of marble busts and family portraits, then through the pantry and kitchen until she reached the servant’s door. Outside she hurried through the gardens and the wrought-iron gate hinged between the manor and her cottage.

Her bicycle was in the cottage shed, and she quickly retrieved it before speeding down the long hill into Bibury.

The school was located next to St. Mary’s Church, and as Maggie leaned her bicycle against the ivy-covered building, she heard laughter from one of the classrooms. But Libby wasn’t laughing. She found her daughter on the sticky tile floor of the dining hall, chunks of macaroni clumped in her hair and beans mashed around her feet. Libby was clenched up in a ball, her blouse soaked. Mrs. Hoffman sat primly on the bench across from her with her hands neatly folded on the lines of her long, brown skirt.

As Maggie knelt on the floor, she saw a bruise on her daughter’s arm. Fury twisted in her stomach. Who had done this? And why wasn’t the teacher caring for her?

“Libby,” Maggie whispered gently beside her.

Instead of responding, Libby rocked back and forth, murmuring something to herself as she clutched one of her legs. Maggie leaned close to her daughter’s lips to hear her words.

“Stop,” Libby moaned as she rocked. “Stop—”

“They’ve stopped, sweetheart.” Maggie put her hand on Libby’s shoulder, trying to reassure her, but Libby flinched. Maggie placed her hand back in her lap. “Mummy is here.”

Maggie looked at Mrs. Hoffman and saw contempt instead of compassion on the woman’s face. She had so hoped Libby’s teacher would understand. “What happened?” Maggie demanded.

“Libby threw her lunch and several of the children reciprocated.” Mrs. Hoffman didn’t show an ounce of emotion.

Maggie struggled to contain herself. “Libby’s hurt.”

“She’s angry, Mrs. Doyle. Not hurt.”

Anger surged through her, the same anger perhaps that Walter felt when he slammed his fist into Elliot’s face. She wanted to slap every inch of condescension off the teacher’s face, but she clutched her hands together instead. Her gaze fell back to her daughter’s face, the lips pressed together in fear, eyes clenched shut as if she could block out the world. “I’m afraid you’re wrong, Mrs. Hoffman.”

“Some of the other children were irritated as well—”

“Irritated?” Maggie’s voice climbed, and she struggled to keep from screaming at the woman in front of her. “My daughter is a little more than irritated.”

Mrs. Hoffman stood. “There are better ways for her to get attention.”

Maggie gently rubbed her daughter’s arm. Libby cringed again, but then she began to relax. “She isn’t trying to get attention.”

The teacher didn’t seem to hear her. “Libby doesn’t just need love, Mrs. Doyle, she needs some discipline. Starting at home.”

The woman’s words burned, as if she’d branded her.
Failure
. For the past five years, Maggie had studied and searched for the right ways to care for her daughter, discipline her even on the rare times she deemed it necessary, but clearly she was still doing something wrong.

Her stomach turned again.

Or maybe there was nothing she could do. Perhaps in that moment when she’d leaned over the railing in Clevedon, she had cursed Libby for life. If only she’d known the future—she never would have contemplated harming her beautiful girl. Libby was her child, and she would fight for her as long and hard as she must.

Mrs. Hoffman towered over them, her hands on her hips. “She hit another student, on her head.”

Maggie’s anger flared again. “Was that student throwing food at her?”

“Libby started the fight,” Mrs. Hoffman said, stepping back. “And I will expect an apology tomorrow.”

Maggie rubbed both of Libby’s arms and her daughter slowly melted into her, hiding her face in Maggie’s shoulder. “And I will expect the child who did this to her to apologize as well.”

“I can’t promise—”

“Then Libby will not be apologizing for hitting someone when she clearly asked her to stop.”

“The other child’s parents will be upset.”

Maggie scanned the cafeteria. “I don’t see the other child curled up in fear.”

“No, Libby is the only one who seems to have a flair for drama.”

Maggie tightened her grip around her daughter. “The other child’s parents aren’t my responsibility, Mrs. Hoffman. God has only given me one child, and I am responsible before Him to protect her from harm.”

The disdain on the teacher’s face dissolved into something more like pity, but the pity angered Maggie even more. They didn’t need to pity her. She and Libby would be fine. And one day her daughter would learn to be stronger.

Maggie sat straighter. “I need a towel.”

Minutes after Mrs. Hoffman left, one of her pupils returned with a washcloth, and Maggie gently sponged off Libby’s face while the other student looked on with curiosity. “You can return to your classroom,” she told him.

“Mrs. Hoffman said to wait until you’re finished.”

She tossed the washcloth to him, then she lifted Libby and carried her frail body outside. Dark clouds clung to the sky above Bibury, preparing to soak them both if they dared walk back up the hill. She took Libby down the street, toward the post office that shared space with the village store, but before they reached it, the window of sky opened. Libby dug her face into Maggie’s sleeve as the icy rain drenched them.

Maggie had never felt so alone.

A small car pulled to the curb beside them, and in the driver’s seat, she recognized Daphne, one of the Sunday school teachers at the parish church they attended outside of town. A teacher who seemed to like Libby.

Daphne stepped out of her car, her hazel eyes burdened with concern. “Can I take you home?”

Maggie glanced over at the post office and then nodded. She had to get Libby out of the rain.

As Daphne drove up the hill, Maggie held Libby in her lap, and when they reached the cottage, she quickly carried her daughter inside. As she helped Libby change into dry clothes, she saw not only a bruise on Libby’s arm but also one on the back of her leg.

Her heart felt as if it might rip in two. Sometimes Libby couldn’t seem to remember what happened when she lost control, but the only time her daughter had harmed someone was when she’d felt threatened.

What had the other children been doing to her?

Downstairs, Daphne had started a fire in the sitting room. Maggie placed Libby on the couch before she collapsed onto one of the chairs, blinking back her tears as rain pelted the windows. Libby stared at the embers like the bruises hadn’t happened. Like she couldn’t feel pain.

Maggie felt plenty of it for both of them.

Daphne slipped
The Tale of Peter Rabbit
off the bookshelf. “Do you mind if I read to her?”

Maggie shook her head slowly, and the young woman sat down beside her daughter and began to read the words of wise Mrs. Rabbit: “You may go into the fields or down the lane, but don’t go into Mr. McGregor’s garden.”

As Daphne told the story of the good bunnies—Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail—Libby looked at the pictures. Maggie silently begged God to take out His wrath on her and not her daughter. She’d never seen Libby provoke a fight, but if one of the other children had teased her—

She would never send Libby to a mental home, but she wished they could afford to send her to one of the independent schools. Right away. And she wished for a friend she could be honest with about herself and her daughter.

Quietly she slipped into the kitchen to make tea for her and Daphne.

Every morning for the past three years, she’d faithfully made the Croft family beds and polished brass and completed every other task the head housekeeper assigned her. And when the Crofts were in town, she did her best to stay out of sight.

Part of her wanted to pack up the car and run again, but the cottage was a good home for their family, and even if neither she nor Walter particularly liked their work, no one here knew about their past. Walter often worked late at his job though sometimes she wondered if his late nights were more about avoiding the realities at home than the comings and goings of mail in Bibury.

Still, Walter hadn’t left her, even after all she’d done, and she was grateful for that. If only he would step up and care for Libby as he had done in those first months of her life. Libby needed someone to protect her from the kids—and adults—who belittled her for her differences, almost as if it were a sport they were guaranteed to win.

But teasing her daughter wasn’t the same as cricket or croquet.

When Maggie returned, carrying two cups of hot tea, Libby had fallen asleep in Daphne’s lap. “She doesn’t take to many people.”

Daphne’s dark-brown hair lay straight over her shoulders, and the dimples on her cheeks deepened with her smile. “We’ve been friends at church since she was three.”

“Thank you for reading to her,” Maggie whispered as she set down the cups.

“I like her.” Daphne gently pushed the hair out of Libby’s eyes. “She sees things that other people miss.”

Maggie wanted to hug her. “That’s true.”

“And she doesn’t seem to care what anyone else thinks of her.” Her smile faded. “She reminds me of one of my cousins.”

“Where is your cousin?”

“He’s ill,” Daphne said, her eyes sad. “His parents had to send him away to a special home when I was younger.”