Shadows of Ladenbrooke Manor (15 page)

“It’s not that . . .” The sternness in Lady Croft’s light-gray eyes flickered. She was several years older than Maggie and usually quite direct in her instructions and her answers.

Maggie persisted, frustrated at Lady Croft’s refusal to answer. “Have I done something wrong?”

Lady Croft shook her head, seeming to regain her composure. “Libby is much too old to follow you around.”

“She doesn’t just follow me. She sits and draws—”

“She acts like a toddler,” Lady Croft said.

Her simple activities made people like Lady Croft think she was simpleminded as well, but Libby was very bright and creative. “She doesn’t distract me from my job.”

Lady Croft drummed her manicured nails on the banister. “Perhaps not, but she is an inerrant distraction for my children.”

Maggie leaned back, focusing on the gardens through the immense window that mirrored the steps.

Now she understood what Lady Croft was refusing to say. Sarah, Lady Croft’s teenage daughter, attended a girls’ school in London, but even when she was home, Sarah Croft no longer cared whether or not Libby was in the house. The Croft’s son was much different. From the time Libby could walk, Oliver would trail her around the nursery, trying to make her smile. Even though he was eleven now, Oliver’s interest hadn’t waned.

His parents had sent him away to a boy’s school last year, but this term he was attending an exclusive school about a half hour from Bibury. When he returned home in the afternoons, he often searched for Libby and tried to pull her out of her make-believe world.

The nanny had been pleased about Oliver’s fascination with Libby when they were young—it kept him entertained—but as the children grew older, Oliver’s persistence irritated Libby even more than when she’d been in the nursery.

“Can she play in the gardens after school?” Maggie asked.

Lady Croft shook her head again.

“But she won’t hurt any—”

Lady Croft cut off her words. “I’m sorry, Maggie. You must respect my decision.”

Nodding, Maggie stepped away from her, and she bid goodnight to her ladyship before tears began to flood her cheeks. Then she walked slowly through the corridor to retrieve Libby from the library.

She needed this job, but even more than her work, she wanted her daughter to thrive.

Even though she hadn’t succeeded in her studies, Libby had adjusted to the rhythm of school. Still, Lady Croft’s gardens were her sanctuary. A place where she could dance with the butterflies and savor every color of the season. A place where no one teased her.

What would she do when Maggie told her she couldn’t return?

Oliver and Sarah thrived in both their studies and friendships, and Lady Croft thought all children should be as perfect as hers. Maggie was well acquainted with imperfection—in herself and her family. Instead of looking down at Libby or fearing what they didn’t understand, Maggie wished others could see the beauty in her daughter. The bright worlds she created when she was alone. The wonder at all of God’s creation.

Lady Croft may not respect Libby’s differences, but if she would take the time to get to know her, perhaps even she—like her son—would be fascinated by Libby’s enchantment with all things beautiful.

THE NEXT DAY, INSTEAD OF
eating lunch, Maggie rode a bus over to the Woolworths in Cirencester to purchase two trowels and two bags of tulip bulbs. Then she left her post a few minutes before Libby arrived from school and met her daughter by Ladenbrooke’s back gate. Instead of taking her up into the manor, Maggie guided her past Lady Croft’s gardens and into the garden that would become their own.

Libby had spent most of her childhood at Ladenbrooke, but she didn’t belong there. Instead, Maggie wanted her to appreciate her home, the place where she’d always be welcome.

Even though Maggie didn’t have much time or money to create an elaborate garden—nor could she and Walter hire a gardener like the Crofts did—she could plant some flowers alongside her plot of vegetables. In time the flowers would grow and then the butterflies would come. And perhaps Libby would be happy roaming in her own world behind their cottage.

Maggie handed Libby one of the trowels, and the two of them worked side by side for an hour, digging into the soft dirt and planting the bulbs. As she turned the soil, Maggie glanced over at her daughter and pointed down to the small hole Libby had dug. “You’re doing an excellent job.”

Libby flashed her a smile. “The butterflies need flowers.”

“Yes, they do, and you’re going to give them the most exquisite display in Bibury.”

Libby covered her bulb with dirt and patted it. “They will want to play here.”

“Every day,” Maggie said. “And you can play with them for as long as you’d like.”

“Forever,” Libby whispered.

“Forever, it is.”

Libby rarely expressed emotion, but Maggie knew she felt things, deeply. That’s what most people didn’t understand. Libby’s heart ran as deep as her imagination even though she guarded it with defenses that would make Her Majesty’s Armed Forces proud. Maggie feared an arrow might blaze through Libby’s defenses one day and pierce her heart, the entire fortress caving in upon itself.

She wished there was more she could do to protect her daughter.

Lady Croft wasn’t the only mother to critique her parenting. A few weeks ago, after church, one woman took it upon herself—like Mrs. Hoffman had four years ago—to lecture her about Libby’s need for more discipline. Then another mother pulled her aside at school recently and said that Libby clearly needed a mother who didn’t withhold affection from her. If Maggie expressed her love more freely, Libby would love other children.

Did she need to discipline Libby more? Love her more?

Doubt made her brain twist and twirl like the seawater during a storm. Guilt made her second-guess all of her decisions along with her present state of mind. Had she been withholding affection from the girl she loved?

Her heart ached for her child, but whatever happened, she would not send her away to one of the homes for children who struggled with their mental capabilities. She regretted so much in her life, but she didn’t regret giving Libby life. She knew well that it wasn’t God’s perfect will for her to become pregnant before she married, but Jesus loved children. He loved Libby too, no matter who her father was. And He understood Libby even more than Maggie did.

She only wished He would tell her how to mother her daughter well.

She dug deep into the dirt and planted her bulb, her anger driving her to work even harder. Libby mimicked Maggie’s digging and planting, and then she whispered to each tulip as she planted it, coaxing it to grow. Maggie was keenly aware that Libby would never be like the Croft children, but she didn’t really want her to be like anyone else. She wanted Libby to be exactly who God created her to be.

An hour later, Walter came home and found them still digging in the old flower beds, trying to make them new. Libby ran to him, wrapping her dirt-plastered hands around his sleeve to tug him toward the gardens.

He stuck his hands in his pockets as he examined their work. “What are you doing?”

“We’re making flowers!”

He glanced back and forth with curiosity between Maggie and her. “You
grow
flowers, sweetheart—”

“Not our daughter,” Maggie explained. “Libby makes them.”

It probably seemed like the most minor of points, a simple technicality in word choice, but Maggie knew it meant everything to Libby. In her was the innate desire to create.

Libby pointed at a small mound. “This one will be blue,” she said then pointed to another mound. “And that one will be red.”

She skipped around the flower bed, naming all the colors for him.

Walter kissed her on the head. “They will be spectacular.”

In his gaze, Maggie saw the growing love he had for her. Perhaps Libby disappointed him at times, but she didn’t think Walter had ever stopped caring about her.

“Your flowers will be the most beautiful in all of England,” Walter said, stepping into her imaginary world.

Libby gave him a curious look, and he blinked hard as if he were fighting back tears. Maggie couldn’t stop her own tears from falling, but wiped them off quickly with the back of her glove.

“The flowers are thirsty,” Libby said before she bounded toward the house to fill her watering can.

Both Maggie and Walter watched her rush away. “She loves you so much,” Maggie said.

He looked back at the messy mounds of dirt. “She’s going to be okay, isn’t she?”

“She needs to make things. Just like you used to do.”

He met her gaze. “Writing is different.”

Maggie watched Libby hop onto the back patio. “I don’t think so.”

“She’ll be disappointed when the colors are different than she imagined.”

“Or maybe she’ll embrace the colors that the flowers chose on their own.”

Walter was silent for a moment before he spoke again. “You’re a good mother, Maggie.”

Her insecurities about her parenting skills began to subside as she smiled up at him. “And you’re a good father.”

“But I’m not her fa—”

She stood up and reached for his hand, silencing his doubts as he had silenced hers. “Yes, you are.”

He gave the slightest nod and her heart warmed when she saw the hint of a smile.

Libby had become much more than an obligation to him, and she had no doubt he loved her.

Not a single one.

JUNE 1968, LADENBROOKE MANOR

A
wooden seat circled the turret that overlooked Ladenbrooke’s gardens. Oliver sat on the bench, binoculars in hand, his eyes focused soundly on the girl who roamed among the yellow and purple iris below. He didn’t like being anyplace else in the house—the portraits of his ancestors were creepy, their eyes seeming to follow him wherever he went, and everything was
valuable
, as his mother liked to say.

V-a-l-u-a-b-le.

Sometimes she spelled it out just like that, as if he were six instead of almost sixteen.

He took every opportunity to avoid being in the house, and when he was home on holiday, he spent most of his time in the village, playing cricket or rugby with the other boys in town. Anything to keep from wandering the halls of a house that seemed to be falling apart over their heads.

In recent years, he’d noticed some of the
v-a-l-u-a-b-l-e-s
disappearing as well—porcelain vases, tapestries, marble busts. More than twenty years after the war, his parents were still struggling to keep the manor intact. Money didn’t flow like it once had, and his parents had even begun selling off some of their property. His father sold the old bothy to the Doyle family several years back, and Oliver was thankful for that. Libby no longer came to the house after school, but at least she could still sneak into the gardens.

Sometimes she explored in the afternoons and sometimes she came in the evenings, right before the darkness conquered the light. Once the sun went down, he couldn’t see her anymore, and on those evenings he was highly annoyed at the sun for giving up the fight.

His mother’s flowers won all sorts of prizes for their beauty, but he thought Libby, with her brilliant copper-streaked hair and striking blue eyes, was more beautiful than anything found in a garden. She was an enchanting princess, reigning over a comely court.

He’d known Libby was a princess since they were children. She’d captivated him long before he started school, and for years, he’d been trying to win her attention. Some people thought she was crazy, but she wasn’t. She was ethereal. Magical. Like a fairy or butterfly.

If only he could be like her. Happy and free.

She seemed to understand what so many people did not. That happiness was not found in trying to pigeonhole one’s self into another’s ideal. Happiness was found in embracing all you were created to be.

She twirled again in the twilight.

Libby seemed to draw energy from the flowers. She didn’t hurt the gardens or the butterflies, but his mother still didn’t want her on their property. Earlier this summer, his mother directed Henry to padlock the gate between the cottage and manor, but in the afternoons, when Mother was overseeing one of her many committees, Oliver removed the gardener’s lock. And after Libby left for the night, he’d lock up the gate again.