Page 18 of The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge
Stef had heard her say this before. ‘It’s different these days, Mum. Anyway, there were things about Sam… he cared too much about money was one. Oh, I don’t want to talk about it.’
‘I wish you would settle down with someone.’
‘So do I, but there’s no one on the horizon so that’s that. What about your paintings? Have you had any luck with local galleries?’
‘I did have one useful conversation with a man in Blakeney. I showed him some of my past work and he said he’d like to see some local scenes.’
‘That’s hopeful.’
‘Yes. I must take you to the exhibition in the village hallwhere I met Nancy. I like to support these things, though they’re only amateur. There are a few good pieces, you might like to see. In fact, I put one of mine in and it’s sold!’
‘Who’s bought it? Not Ted.’
‘No, a couple from London who are doing up the old rectory.’
‘Sorry.’ Stef reached and touched her mother’s hand. ‘The fish and chips will be my treat.’ It was the least she could do to make amends.
‘Thank you. Are you still planning to leave tomorrow? I wish you’d stay longer.’
‘Maybe I will.’ Stef had thought, guiltily, of returning to London the next morning, but since she’d managed to work well this afternoon perhaps she’d stay on another day or so. Her thoughts ran on. Could she try to see Nancy Foster again? She was more disappointed than she’d realized about Nancy’s refusal to be interviewed. There was a story there, she was sure, but it would look pushy to try to see her again so soon. And Aaron was likely to be around, like a grumpy guard dog. No, she’d have to leave it. The book proposal would simply have to proceed without Nancy.
Ten
While Stef and Cara were eating fish and chips in the back garden of Springfield Cottage, Nancy had been checking on the menagerie in her outhouse at Dragonfly Lodge. She’d released one of the hedgehogs earlier and her heart warmed at the memory of it running off into the undergrowth.
Now she bolted the outhouse door against predators and returned to the kitchen, where she changed into her slippers and wandered through to the sitting room. Aaron’s headphones and laptop lay on the sofa. He’d been here for supper as promised, had cooked a noodle dish she’d privately found a little too spicy, but now he’d gone out for the evening to meet a mate for a drink.
Nancy felt tired tonight and the morning’s dizziness still bothered her. It wasn’t bad, just annoying. The cat was asleep on one of the fireside armchairs, so she sat down in the other and wondered what to do with herself. Not much. A warm bath and go to bed early with a library book. Aaron wouldlet himself in. For now, it was pleasant just to sit and recover from a busy day.
Her thoughts roamed back to her conversation with Stef. She’d told Aaron about it, how she’d liked Stef, found her sympathetic, but Aaron had not been impressed. ‘You don’t want to stir things up again,’ he’d warned. But things had already been stirred up – in her mind, at least. Her gaze drifted to the bookcase near the door where she kept her old university textbooks. Out of date now, of course, but the drawings in them were useful if she was identifying some insect or plant. There were some exercise books, too. She hadn’t looked at them for years. She stood up and picked one out at random. It was from her last year at school, its paper cover furry with age. She sat and turned the pages, smiling at her own carefully labelled drawings of flowers and leaves. Sixth-form Botany with the eccentric Miss Reeves, that had been a hoot! And the years rolled back.
February 1945
‘Nancy Foster. Don’t dillydally, girl, come on in.’ Miss Everard, her thin figure straight-backed behind the mahogany desk, made a tick on her register, then removed her spectacles to regard the dark-haired fifteen-year-old hovering by the door. ‘Take a seat,’ she said with a gracious sweep of her hand.
Despite the fire crackling in the grate, the gloomy office felt chilly and was haunted by a dank, Victorian smell. Nancy sat down on the hard chair before the desk and licked her drylips. Her wary eye met Miss Everard’s cool, direct gaze. The headmistress of Northburton School for Girls was past her prime and her faded English beauty and commanding presence inspired admiration rather than love. She’d been a VAD in Belgium in the Great War and a rumour persisted that after the loss of her fiancé, a French doctor, she’d sworn never to marry but to dedicate her life to the service of others. Nobody knew if this was true, but it sounded awfully romantic.
‘As you know, Nancy, I like to invite each of the girls in the School Certificate year for a little talk about their future.’
Nancy coughed nervously. ‘I understand.’ After the public exams, some would choose to stay on into sixth form, but others would be leaving in the summer to make their way in the world. Her sister Helen had been on the brink of leaving, but Aunt Rhoda had stepped in, insisting on paying for her to stay till eighteen, and she was now in the upper sixth with a place at secretarial college planned for September.
‘This year’s reports confirm that you are one of our brightest, Nancy. Full marks all year across the board. Very commendable.’
Nancy felt herself blush.
‘Which makes up for your sometimes… shall we say… unladylike behaviour.’
Nancy straightened in indignation.
‘You have a tendency, it appears, to be strident.’
‘Miss Everard, I—’
‘Allow me to continue. Several of the mistresses have complained about you interrupting them in lessons and asking unnecessary questions. It’s all very well to be curious,of course. We like to encourage our girls to have enquiring minds, but there is a time and a place. It isn’t fair to draw too much attention to yourself or to monopolize your teachers, who have the other girls to think of, too. And contradiction comes across as rudeness. Miss Bodily, for instance, was quite upset by a recent occasion on which I gather you persistently asked why it was necessary to perform a particular scientific experiment.’
‘She gave me a detention for it,’ Nancy burst out. ‘It was so unfair. I simply wanted to understand.’ It had been a physics experiment to determine the speed of marbles running down an old curtain track. Miss Bodily had written a mathematical formula on the blackboard beforehand to help them work out the answer but had not explained why the findings were useful. Nancy had thought a whole lesson devoted to timing the descent of marbles utterly boring unless there was a wider point to it. Worst of all, she secretly suspected that Miss Bodily didn’t know the purpose of it herself. Or if she did, was not sufficiently interested to try to enthuse her pupils.
‘You must learn to be more respectful of your elders and betters. Speech is silver, but silence is golden. Now, enough of that. You have, after all, been punished. I see here…’ She replaced her spectacles and consulted a form at the top of a pile. ‘You wish to study Chemistry, Physics, Biology and Mathematics in the sixth form. Admirable… if a little dry.’ She perused Nancy over her spectacles. ‘You intend a career in medicine perhaps? An excellent option for a bright young woman such as yourself, though not easy to combine with having a family.’
