Page 14 of The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge
‘Josh will have taken them off to the bird hides, I expect, but I’m ready for their return. How did you find Nancy?’
‘I enjoyed meeting her,’ Stef said, taken aback by the direct question.
‘Such a pity she’ll have to leave.’ Jackie’s eyes were bright with interest.
‘Will she?’ Stef’s reply was cautious, though she remembered what the soldierly man at church had said about pressure from Nancy’s landlord.
‘I heard it was on the cards.’ Jackie looked flustered. ‘But perhaps I’m wrong.’
Nancy had given no indication of it, Stef thought, as she began the walk back to the village. And Jackie was a bit of a gossip. It really had been the most peculiar morning. Ultimately a frustrating one, because she’d been most beguiled by Nancy, but Nancy had made it all too clear that she didn’t want to divulge her secrets.
Eight
Nancy, too, felt peculiar. After she’d closed the door on Stef, she hesitated in the hall, her hand on the wall for support. She felt a little dizzy. It wasn’t just a physical dizziness but a sense of being overwhelmed.
She’d liked Stef, liked her more than she’d expected after first meeting her on Saturday evening, when she’d found her rather hard-edged, as if cross about something. And Aaron had warned Nancy off her. But Stef hadn’t been as inquisitive as she’d feared a journalist would be, nor had she asked manipulative questions. She’d caught the young woman looking at her books while she was out of the room, but that was a natural thing to do, not like nosing around on her desk, which she felt sure she hadn’t done. Instead, she’d been respectful, politely interested and genuinely charmed by the cottage and its surroundings.
Having decided not to reveal anything about her past, Nancy had found herself starting to tell Stef certain details.She’d almost invited her to supper that evening, but had stopped herself in time. Aaron clearly hadn’t taken to Stef, and Stef had explained that they’d had some silly spat. Nancy sighed. What was next? Lunch, she supposed, setting off for the kitchen. Bread and cheese and the last portion of bagged salad. Making food for oneself could be so tiresome, she thought, opening the fridge.
Once she’d prepared lunch, she took the plate to the table. She always made herself sit down properly, laying out a placemat and the right cutlery, a glass of water. It didn’t do to let oneself go. Her mother would have insisted on a linen napkin in a silver ring, but that was going too far. Her poor mother, long dead. Did they have napkin rings in heaven? Nancy smiled at the thought as she buttered her bread.
Sometimes her mother’s voice was as fresh in her head as though it were yesterday and she was still a child. Nancy felt very young and childlike sometimes. She’d spent so much of her childhood trying to avoid what her mother wanted her to do. She’d loved the woman very much, but they had never understood one another.
North London, 1935
‘Nancy? Coo-ee! Nancy!’ Her mother’s high-pitched tones reached her at the bottom of the garden, but Nancy took no notice. It was a hot summer’s day and she was lying on her tummy in the long grass near the back gate, watching a ladybird climb a buttercup stem. She liked ladybirds. Thisone she’d decided to call Ann after the one that hid under the frying pan in the nursery rhyme, though now that she was six she was too old for nursery rhymes. She had a favourite pair of pyjamas with ladybirds all over them, and some picture books with a ladybird on the front.
She’d never examined a real ladybird close up before. It was very pretty, but also interesting and clever, the way it negotiated the fragile stalk, though being so broad in shape by rights it ought to fall off. This ladybird had seven spots on its back, but some of the ones on her pyjamas had only two. As she watched, it flexed its red wing cases.Ann’s going to fly!She waited, but it changed its mind and refolded them. She stayed as still as she could and wondered if it would try again. Yes. Its wing cases spread to reveal a pair of gauzy brown wings underneath and there, it was off with a buzz, a clumsy aircraft lifting through the air, its wings a whirring haze, the cases like black-spotted red parachutes keeping it buoyant. She watched it land on a daisy as her mother called again, ‘Nancy. Don’t think I can’t see you. Come in right away. Your Aunt Rhoda’s here.’
Aunt Rhoda! Marvellous!Goodbye, Ann, she breathed as she scrambled to her feet. Her mother was waiting a few yards away, frowning, arms crossed, yet so pretty with her short, light-brown hair newly waved, her cotton frock of a blue like a piece of the sky, its round collar and cuffs as white as the fluffy clouds overhead. Nancy smiled with love for her.
‘Oh, look at you, girl, you’re filthy. Why can’t you be more like your sister?’
Nancy glanced down at herself, seeing with dismay that her beautiful smocked party dress was smeared with greenand grass seed clung to her ruched white ankle socks. Her mother bent and picked off the seed, then seized her by the hand. The French doors stood wide and Nancy could see her elegant aunt in the drawing room beyond, speaking to her father, one graceful hand on her hip. Rhoda turned her head, saw Nancy and broke off, smiling. She stepped swiftly to the threshold, her arms wide in greeting.
‘Here’s the birthday girl. Happy birthday, darling!’
‘She’s already spoiled her dress, Rhoda.’
Nancy shook off her mother’s hand and raced towards her aunt but tripped on a step. Rhoda bent and caught her. ‘Dear girl,’ she cried and led her inside.
‘The child’s so clumsy,’ she heard her mother sigh behind her, but Nancy didn’t care for Aunt Rhoda was here, in a stylish navy suit she hadn’t seen before, her clipped dark hair smooth against her neat head, the beauty spot on her upper lip accentuated by the reddest lipstick Nancy had seen. Her mother disapproved of Rhoda’s make-up, her high heels and her diamond-studded cigarette holder. Above all, she was sniffy that her husband’s sister was single and a career girl. Nancy had overheard her mother tell her friend Mrs Armitage these things when Mrs Armitage had come for tea recently. Nancy had been loitering on account of Mrs Armitage’s Jack Russell, which did tricks in return for the biscuits Nancy fed her.
‘I didn’t know you were coming,’ she told Rhoda excitedly. ‘I’m having a party this afternoon, with games and a cake.’
‘You lucky girl! How marvellous!’ Rhoda’s brown eyes widened.
‘A chocolate cake with jelly sweets on top.’ Roger, Nancy’s ten-year-old brother, sauntered in, hands in trouser pockets. ‘Mummy let me scrape the bowl.’
‘Don’t spoil the surprise, Roger.’ Their peacemaking sister Helen rose from a chair where she’d been quietly listening.
‘Five little girls are coming at three,’ her mother sighed. ‘You can stay if you like, Rhoda, but I would not recommend it.’
Rhoda laughed. ‘I’d love to, Marjorie, but unfortunately I’m due at Liberty’s to show my new range. I just came by to wish my niece a happy birthday and to give her this.’ She delved into a paper carrier bag and handed Nancy a large wrapped box tied with a big red bow.
‘Oh my!’ Nancy breathed, taking it. She sat down on the floor, undid the ribbon and wrestled with the flowery paper.
‘Don’t tear it, girl. We can use it again,’ her mother said, but too late.
