The Soft Whisper of Dreams

by Christina Courtenay

  ‘Hmmph.’ Maddie crossed her arms over her chest. ‘If you weren’t here there wouldn’t be anyone to put me in a temper.’

  Alex just chuckled again. He’d discovered how much he enjoyed teasing her and as it seemed the only way to communicate with her at the moment, it would have to do.

  But not for much longer.

  They parked in front of Wisteria Lodge this time and stopped to look up at the house.

  ‘Must be a lovely view of the sea from the top floor,’ Alex mused and shaded his eyes with one hand. ‘This house is quite high up on the hill.’

  ‘Yes, it’s beautiful, isn’t it,’ Maddie agreed. ‘A happy house,’ she added quietly to herself. Just like the one in her dream.

  Alex went towards the gate, but Maddie stopped him. ‘No, we have to go round the back. Mr Ruthven said there was something wrong with the front door.’

  ‘Oh, okay.’ He followed her towards the fence and this time he helped her with a steadying hand before vaulting over himself.

  Maddie strode off through the field towards the back, but stopped to wait for Alex before rounding the hedge. Her heart was hammering inside her chest and now the time had come she was afraid. Alex must have noticed that something was wrong, because he took her hand as he came up to her.

  ‘What’s the matter, Maddie?’ He scanned her eyes with a serious expression on his face.

  ‘I … well, it’s really silly, but I’m scared. I’m afraid of what I will find out, but I’m also afraid I won’t find anything out. Does that make sense?’

  He gathered her close and wrapped his strong arms around her in a comforting hug. She didn’t resist, she needed his strength right now. ‘Don’t worry. Whatever it is, it’s always better to know. You’ll be fine.’

  ‘I guess so.’ She leaned into him for a moment, breathing in the clean, masculine scent of him in deep, calming breaths. Finally she pushed him slowly away. ‘Okay, let’s go slay my dragons.’

  They rounded the hedge and Maddie was faced once more with her dream vision – the back of the house, the profusion of climbing plants and roses and the swing. She swallowed and clenched her fists by her side before approaching the gate. Alex opened it for her and she entered slowly, taking it all in.

  ‘It’s a lovely garden,’ Alex commented. ‘I can see why you would want to dream about it.’

  She gave him a small, tight smile. He was trying to put her at ease and she appreciated his efforts, but right now she was too apprehensive to be calmed by small-talk. She walked over to the swing and reached out to touch the rough hemp ropes and the wooden seat, grey with age. Every fibre of her being cried out that it belonged to her and she wanted to shout it out loud. This is my swing! But of course she didn’t. She simply stared at it, lost in her dream.

  ‘Ah, Ms Browne, there you are.’ Maddie swung around in time to see a man emerge from the back door of the house and walk towards them with a smile on his face. A red-haired man with a beard.

  All of a sudden Maddie had trouble breathing. It was as if something was attempting to squeeze the air out of her lungs. No matter how much she struggled, she couldn’t pull in a breath. Her eyes blurred and a sliver of darkness obscured her vision, growing ever larger until she couldn’t see anything at all. She heard herself moan, then there was nothing ...

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ‘Maddie, please wake up, love.’ Alex’s voice, calling to her from afar, came closer and Maddie fought her way through the enveloping darkness to the bright surface. Her eyelids fluttered open, and she squinted into the sun, then flung up a hand to shield her eyes.

  ‘Alex?’ she croaked. She found that she was lying down on a hard bench and tried to sit up, but a hand pushed her firmly down again.

  ‘Don’t try to sit up yet, you’ll probably feel nauseous. Mr Ruthven has gone to fetch you a glass of water.’

  ‘Mr Ruthven?’ She frowned, and then it all came flooding back to her. The red-haired man. The man from her dream. She sat bolt upright and discovered that Alex had been right. Her head swam abominably, but she ignored it and looked around wildly. There was no one there. Had she been dreaming again? ‘Where is he?’

  As if in a trance, she saw the man come out of the house once more, through the door she knew so well, carrying a tray of cold drinks. He was a giant of a man with red hair, shot with silver, curling wildly around his head. His neatly trimmed beard was of a slightly darker hue and also had strands of grey, but was still very red. He smiled as he came closer and put the tray down on a table near the bench on which she had been lying. Then he brought her a glass and knelt in front of her.

  ‘So, you’ve decided to come back at last, Sorcha,’ he said as he handed her the drink. Maddie took it automatically and continued to stare at him, mesmerised.

  ‘Come back?’ she repeated, parrot-fashion. Her mind appeared to be full of cotton wool and refused to function properly.

  ‘Yes. You’ve been here before. You said you remembered, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I remembered the house, but I thought I’d only dreamed of being here.’ He was still kneeling in front of her and without thinking she put out a hand to touch his cheek and the rough beard which felt scratchy against her fingers.

  He smiled again. ‘Oh, aye?’

  ‘You called me Sorcha, so you must have known me when I was a baby. Did my mother and I used to visit you here, Mr Ruthven?’

  This time he grinned broadly. ‘You could say that, but I would rather you didn’t call me “Mr Ruthven”.’

  She frowned. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’d much prefer it if you called me “Dad”, but if not, Brian will do.’

  Both Maddie and Alex gasped and looked at each other and Maddie wondered if she was about to faint again. The dizziness had returned with a vengeance, but somehow the man’s words were not really a surprise and she managed to control her spinning head. A part of her had known the truth of it as soon as she saw him come through that door.

  ‘No, don’t pass out on me again, my girl, you’re much too big to be carried around these days.’

  ‘You’re Maddie’s father?’ Alex was the first to find his voice.

  ‘Indeed I am.’

  ‘How do we know you’re telling the truth?’ Alex spoke again, voicing the question that had hovered on Maddie’s tongue as well, although truth be told, she had a gut feeling this man wasn’t lying. He really was her father.

  ‘Well, look at us – same hair, similar features, both tall. Don’t you think?’

  Alex nodded. ‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean you’re her father. You could be related some other way.’

  The man shrugged. ‘I’d be very happy to do a DNA test, if that’s what you want. In fact, I think it’s a very good idea for both our sakes.’ He turned back to Maddie. ‘Is Maddie the name they gave you?’ She nodded and he said, ‘Hmph, they could at least have let you keep your name.’

  ‘Please, Mr ... I mean, er, could you explain to me what happened? I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.’ Maddie was close to tears again, but it was pure joyful emotion this time, not sadness. ‘I only found out a short while ago that I was adopted and when I finally traced my real mother, Ruth that is, she was too ill to tell me the whole story.’

  ‘Ruth is ill?’ She saw instant concern on her father’s face and hastened to reassure him.

  ‘No, no, she’s all right now. Although she’s had an accident as well so she’s in hospital, but the doctor says she’ll be fine. Never mind, I’ll tell you about that later, only please won’t you explain?’

  ‘Very well.’ Her father went to sit down on a garden chair nearby and Alex took Maddie’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. She plaited her fingers with his and hung on for dear life. She needed his strength again and was grateful for his support. Thank goodness he came with me after all!

  ‘I don’t really know where to start. At the beginning I suppose.’ Her father took a deep breath and stared into the distance as if seeki
ng the right words. ‘I come from Scotland originally, as you probably guessed, but I moved down here about thirty years ago in order to paint. The light is so remarkable here, it makes for extraordinary paintings, but that’s irrelevant ... Anyway, a year or so after I arrived, Ruth, your mother, was visiting friends here in this village one summer, a couple of years after her marriage to that Blake-Jones fellow. We met at a party and it was love at first sight, I think for both of us. You might wonder how she could fall in love with someone else so soon, but you see she found out immediately after she married him what sort of man Blake-Jones was and she was very unhappy. Here in the village she could be herself and I suppose she was desperate to have some fun while she was away from him and his bullying ways. I knew nothing of the marriage and she didn’t tell me until much later.’ He paused to take a sip of his drink.

  ‘So, the inevitable happened and you were conceived that summer, but Ruth went back to her husband believing she could fool him into thinking you were his. Unfortunately for her, she had terrible morning sickness almost from day one and he soon cottoned on to what was happening. He sent her to stay with relatives in Wiltshire until you were born and told her to have you adopted at birth. That was when she turned to me.’ He cleared his throat and looked at Maddie.

  ‘I’ve always loved children, so it seemed like the perfect solution for me to take care of you by myself and from the moment I first laid eyes on you, I adored you.’ Maddie’s heart constricted and she swallowed a sob. ‘Ruth told her husband you’d been adopted and from time to time she managed to come and see you. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but she refused to leave her husband and I never knew why until much later. At the time I thought she’d decided she loved him after all. I was too busy with you to worry about that.’

  ‘So I did live here,’ Maddie whispered. ‘It was my swing. I knew it.’

  Her father smiled. ‘Indeed. You loved that swing. I could have pushed you all day and you would still not have tired of it. Those were happy days.’ He grew serious. ‘It didn’t last though. That bastard Blake-Jones became suspicious and followed Ruth and of course he discovered her secret. One afternoon when I was busy inside the house, you were playing here in the garden. He must have sneaked round the back and snatched you as quick as a flash. When I came out to bring you in for tea, you were gone.’ He passed a hand across his brow. ‘I can’t tell you how I felt that day. Despair, utter despair hardly comes close to describing it. I guessed, of course, what had happened. What I didn’t know was what he would do to you. I feared the worst.’

  ‘What did he do? I have dreams of being kidnapped and in one of them he put me in the boot of his car, but I don’t remember anything after that. It’s as if I have blocked it out.’ Maddie frowned, trying once again to recall more details.

  ‘Perhaps that was just as well for your sake. I searched everywhere, I called the police, I even went to Ruth’s house, but it was no use. He denied point blank ever having been near this house and said that neither he, nor Ruth, knew who I was. Ruth was so terrified of him, she agreed with everything he said. I was furious, but helpless.’

  ‘So what happened then? Did you ever find out?’

  ‘Ruth eventually told me he had forced her to sign adoption papers for you, but she didn’t know where you were. When I tried to approach the authorities, I was met by a blank wall. Because I wasn’t named as your father on the birth certificate, they refused to give me any information about your whereabouts or to return you to me. Blake-Jones had done his work well and I couldn’t prove a thing.’ A bleak look settled over his features. ‘Believe me, I tried everything.’

  ‘Oh, how awful ...’ Maddie put out her hand to touch his arm and he put his large one on top of hers.

  ‘Yes. I even hired a private investigator, but he couldn’t come up with anything useful, so in the end I had to give up. There was nothing I could do. I tried to put the whole episode out of my mind and travelled abroad. I even married and had two more children, both boys thankfully as I didn’t want any girl other than you, but I never forgot you and I always returned to this house. I couldn’t bring myself to sell it. You see, I hoped that when you grew up you would come looking for your roots and I was determined to be here when you did. But the years passed and you never came. In fact, I was thinking of selling up only last month. I’m divorced now and thought I’d go back to Scotland.’

  ‘I didn’t know.’ Maddie shook her head, sadness churning in her gut. ‘My parents never told me I was adopted. Perhaps that horrid man had made it a condition, or perhaps they simply didn’t want me to know. Either way, I only found out when they died in a car crash a couple of months ago.’

  ‘Oh, sweetheart. What a mess …’ They both sat quietly for a while, thinking about all the time that had been lost. Finally Brian took a deep breath and asked, ‘What made you come here, then, if you didn’t know about me?’

  Maddie told him about the dream and how she had recognised the house as they were driving past, and her father smiled.

  ‘It must be fate. You were meant to come back to me and I can’t tell you how happy I am. You will visit again, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course I will. We’ll have to get to know each other all over again. Did you say that you’re an artist?’

  ‘Yes. Not a brilliant one, but I get by.’

  ‘Maddie paints too,’ Alex, who had until that point remained silent, entered the conversation. ‘She’s very good.’

  ‘Really? It must have been in your genes. Excellent, I’d love to see some of your drawings.’

  ‘No, no, I’m not very good at all. Alex is exaggerating,’ Maddie said hurriedly.

  ‘Don’t listen to her, Mr Ruthven, she’s too modest.’

  ‘Call me Brian. Any friend of Sorcha’s is my friend.’ Maddie’s father held out his hand and Alex shook it.

  ‘Thank you. I’m Alex Marcombe.’

  ‘Are you now? I’ve heard of your lovely house.’

  ‘It’s my brother’s actually, but yes, it is beautiful. You must come and visit. Paint it maybe?’

  ‘I’d like that.’

  They continued to chat for what seemed like hours and Brian served them tea in the garden with home-made scones. ‘I hope you remember what a good cook I am,’ he joked and Maddie smiled back.

  As the shadows lengthened she realised it was time to go. She didn’t want to leave now that she had finally found her father, but they had a lifetime to become acquainted and Kayla would be worried about her. Reluctantly she said, ‘Well, I suppose we’d better be on our way.’

  ‘I hope you’ll come back soon,’ Brian said and stood up to put his cup on the tray.

  ‘How about tomorrow?’ Maddie suggested and went over to give the big man a tentative hug. He returned it with a bear hug and when she looked up she thought she saw tears in his eyes, but he quickly blinked them away.

  ‘Tomorrow will do just fine. Bring your paintings, please, I’d really like to see them.’

  ‘Okay, er, Dad.’ It felt strange, but right, to call him that. ‘See you then.’

  They turned to leave the way they had come, through the back gate, but before they had taken more than a few steps, a shot rang out.

  Almost in slow motion, Maddie watched in horror and disbelief as her father fell onto the grass with a scream of agony, clutching his leg, and she turned to confront their attacker. She wasn’t surprised to catch a glimpse of the Reverend Blake-Jones crouching behind the fence with a shotgun aimed straight at them. A black fury welled up inside her. He had taken away her father once, she wouldn’t let him do it again.

  ‘You bastard,’ she screamed and ran towards him, heedless of the danger.

  ‘Maddie, no!’ Alex shouted and jumped on her, pulling her to the ground.

  ‘Sorcha, for God’s sake ...’ her father groaned.

  Blake-Jones stood up and sneered. ‘I’m not the bastard around here,’ he spat. ‘You’re the bastard and you should never have been born. Now come ov
er here, nice and slow, or I’ll shoot your precious friends. Don’t think I won’t do it.’

  Maddie looked at Alex. Did she have a choice? He shook his head as if to say, ‘don’t go’, but she made up her mind. She couldn’t let Blake-Jones hurt her father or Alex. She would have to do as he said and hope she could escape from him later. Slowly she got to her feet.

  ‘No, Maddie, there must be another way,’ Alex hissed.

  ‘No tricks now, or I’ll shoot you all anyway,’ Blake-Jones called.

  ‘I must, Alex,’ she whispered. He held on to her hand, but she shook it off. It was her the madman wanted, so it was up to her to think of a way out.

  Blake-Jones opened the gate, came into the garden and stopped near the swing. When Maddie reached him he grabbed her arm and yanked on it roughly so that she spun away from him and faced the others. His arm snaked around her, holding her tight and Maddie felt the familiar panic building up inside her. The scenario was almost identical to that of her dream. She was by her beloved swing and he was forcing her away. If she glanced over her shoulder she could see his dark, evil face and when she tried to scream nothing happened. A strangled sob escaped her.

  Maddie closed her eyes. It was the nightmare all over again.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Maddie tried to kick-start her brain. There must be something she could do. Anything!

  Then it dawned on her. This wasn’t a dream and she was no longer a little girl. She was a grown-up and almost as tall as Blake-Jones, who was average size for a man. And she had taken self-defence classes. This realisation banished the sensations of panic and gave her the faith she needed. I can fight back this time and I damn well will. Holding on to that thought, she jabbed the hateful man in the stomach as hard as she could with a sharp elbow and had the satisfaction of hearing him grunt in surprise and pain. Before he had time to recover, she flung away from him and kicked at the hand which held the shotgun and he screamed out as her foot connected with it. The weapon clattered to the ground.