Page 11 of The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge
‘Welcome to Dragonfly Lodge.’
‘What a lovely name. You’d never guess it was here,’ Stef said with delight as Nancy opened a low gate and they entered the front garden, where a line of flagstones led between rampant flowering shrubs to a door sheltered by a porch. Indeed one might pass that ‘Strictly Private’ sign many times without realizing where its forbidden path led.
‘That’s precisely its appeal.’ Nancy’s clipped reply gave Stef a jolt and she sensed as she had done at their first meeting that beneath the elegant charm there was steel. She remembered how her mother’s unbridled chattering had put Nancy on her guard. Stef would have to handle her carefully.
‘It does sometimes feel very remote,’ Nancy said as they paused in the shallow porch. She dug her fingers under a mat and brought out a large iron key, which she fitted into the lock.
‘Jackie said that you keep a car.’
‘I do. In an old barn at the edge of the reserve. That way.’ She gestured vaguely, then turned a handle and the door swung inwards. ‘Come in, do.’
Stef found herself in a tiny, musty hallway where a steep flight of stairs ran up to the first floor. Though gloomy, the hall felt cosy with thick rugs on the floor. Prints of birds and flowers studded the cream-painted walls. Nancy thrusther stick into an umbrella stand and laid the key on a console table.
‘Do you have a telephone out here?’ Stef thought to ask.
‘I’ve never been able to get them to run a cable. Aaron insisted I have a mobile, though, which is marvellous, but the signal is patchy. I was practically marooned during the last cold snap. The paths can be treacherous and I was frightened to drive. Luckily Josh brought supplies and I have a few good friends in the village. Sit yourself down in here’ – she pushed open a door to the right – ‘and I’ll make coffee. Won’t be a minute.’
Stef wandered into a cluttered, book-lined sitting room and sat down in one of a pair of fireside chairs. A tabby cat lay asleep in a basket on the hearthrug, only briefly opening its eyes at her entrance. Stef smiled at it, then turned her attention to the room, noticing the evidence of Nancy’s many tastes and interests. Daylight fell on the carpet in squares from a mullioned window that gave a view onto the wild front garden. It gleamed on the leaves of a cluster of potted plants occupying one side of the window seat and glinted off the brass fender. The fireplace had been swept clean, and a stack of logs lay ready in a box. On the wooden mantelpiece stood an array of ornaments, invitation cards, a vase of dried grasses, a photograph of the little girl, Livy, in a silver frame and a child’s drawing of a house with a rainbow arcing above.
A sofa against the wall opposite was piled with books and papers, and at the back of the room a large table with a reading lamp was being used as a desk. A microscope had been set up to one side, next to a stack of wooden displaycases, the size and shape of box files. A small upright piano near the window spoke of musical talents, and framed drawings, prints and a couple of pressed dried flower pictures filled up any wall space not already taken by books. The quiet beauty of the domestic scene, combined with its implication of human activity briefly abandoned, reminded Stef of a painting. A Gwen John, perhaps, with the chair and the umbrella and the open window.
A distant clatter and the scent of coffee drew her from her reverie. She stepped across to look at a shelf of outsized volumes with colourful spines next to the door, books about trees and flowers and animals. The shelf above these was dedicated to travel, containing faded tomes about the Swiss Alps, India and Italy. There was a memoir about the Cairngorms that Stef herself had bought for a walking holiday. Had Nancy visited all these places or merely dreamed of them?
She heard footsteps in the hall and hurried to clear a low table of a pile of birding magazines so that Nancy could set down her tray.
Nancy poured coffee from an old pewter pot into fragile cups decorated with blue dragons. ‘My mother’s,’ she said when Stef admired them. ‘They’re a very old design, dating from the 1820s, I believe, a wedding present.’
‘Were they given this set brand new, though?’
‘I believe so. My parents married in 1925. It was usual then to be given dinner services for best. I don’t know that young people go in for such things any more.’
Stef thought of the weddings she’d attended recently and felt the usual stab of self-pity. ‘Everyday crockery, yes, I’vegiven quite a few dinner plates in my time, but not posh ones, no. Unless I don’t know the right class of people!’
‘Well, I don’t know anyone grand.’ They smiled at one another. ‘My background was quite ordinary. Though I did have an exotic aunt. Dear Aunt Rhoda. Long dead, of course. My brother and sister are gone, too. I’m the only one left. Now, will you have a biscuit?’
Stef took a piece of shortbread and bit into its buttery sweetness. She wanted to ask about the intriguing Aunt Rhoda, but Nancy got in first.
‘I need to be straight with you, Stef, in case you think I’ve invited you here under false pretences. I’m not inclined to be part of any book you’re writing. My grandson Aaron is of a similar mind.’
‘Oh.’ She wondered what exactly Aaron had said. ‘Did he tell you that we’d met before?’ It would be best to explain.
‘Yes, but not where or how. Was it through work?’
‘No, it was actually quite embarrassing,’ Stef said and explained what had happened. ‘I was rather ashamed of myself.’
‘It must have been a stressful morning for you. Anyway, Aaron didn’t tell me that, but there was something more important. He looked you up on the internet when he was here and found out about your journalism and about the book you’d written. Which caused quite a stir, I gather. No.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t want any part in a book like that.’
‘I have to say that I was surprised myself by the strength of the reaction to it.’
Stef was dismayed by Nancy’s response. First her mothermust have put Nancy off her, and now it was Aaron. She slid the half-eaten biscuit onto the saucer, stared down at it, then said, ‘I thought that since you’d invited me here…’
‘I’m sorry to disappoint you’ – Nancy looked embarrassed – ‘but I wanted to tell you myself and I didn’t have your telephone number. I pride myself on politeness. People can be so unkind these days. Blanking each other and whatnot. So unnecessary.’ She paused, then went on. ‘And I suppose, too, that I wanted to meet you properly. I like interesting people. Life can be a bit lonely here.’
‘Thank you for the compliment. I’d like to have a chance to speak up for myself, to put my case. I feel I’ve rushed you. My mother… dear Mum… She must have been offputting, though she’d be horrified to think that she had… Then Aaron… I mean, of course he cares for you…’
‘My grandson is very protective.’
‘Let me tell you a little about my work. Although I’m a journalist, I only write for serious newspapers and magazines, so I’m not looking for sensation and scandal.’
