Page 39 of The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge
‘And I’m sure you’re a good journalist, dear.’
Stef gathered up the empty mugs and plates and took them out to the kitchen. The cat came and wrapped itself round her ankles, so she shook some kibble from a sack into its bowl and watched it crouch down stiffly to eat. Poor thing. Like its mistress, it was feeling its age.
The carer arrived. Lauren appeared to be a competent young woman. She claimed to be used to far-flung visits in the countryside and unfazed by the remoteness of Nancy’s cottage. While she was helping Nancy wash and change into her nightclothes, Stef investigated the arrangements upstairs. She’d agreed with Nancy that it would be easiest to change the sheets on one of the big old single bedsteads in Aaron’s room. She chose the one nearer the window. Judging by the unicorns on the duvet cover, this must be where Livy slept. A seasoned traveller, Aaron had left nothing visible of his or Livy’s possessions, but the room had a faint woody scent of soap or aftershave as though he’d been there only a moment ago.
After she’d changed Livy’s bed linen for a duvet set with a rose pattern and found a towel, Stef lay down on the bed for a moment to think, alert to the sounds of the house and the cheerful exchange of Nancy and Lauren’s voices below.
Outside it was still light, but the rain fell relentlessly and being here, warm and dry in the cottage, far from the world, made her feel safe. Then she remembered why she was here – the threatening letter – and that made her feel less safe. She could understand Nancy not wanting to be out here on the reserve, injured and alone.
She gazed around the bedroom. It was odd being in the room where Aaron and Livy slept, intimate even, yet she couldn’t pretend that she knew them. Still, the bed felt soft and unless Nancy needed help during the night, she should sleep well.
Footsteps; then, ‘Stef?’ Lauren called up the stairs.
‘Coming!’
She hurried down to the sitting room to find Nancy in her dressing gown on the sofa with a cup of tea to hand, the fire stoked up and Lauren ready to depart. ‘She’s comfortable, aren’t you, Nancy? Just a little dizziness, that’s all.’
‘Don’t listen to her. I’m perfectly all right,’ Nancy said curtly. Lauren merely smiled and said her goodbyes.
‘People do fuss,’ Nancy complained after the front door closed, ‘but I really am all right.’
Stef thought she looked frail, but kept this to herself.
‘I have to say that I’m glad you’re here, though.’ The old lady’s eyes twinkled. ‘Very glad. Now, did you sort out where you’re to sleep?’
Stef assured her that she had.
‘Good. Well, if you’d like to prepare yourself something hot to drink, perhaps we could make good use of the evening and I’ll tell you the next part of my story.’
‘Are you sure?’ Stef asked. ‘I don’t want to tire you.’
‘It’s odd, but now I’ve started and it’s all in my head, I don’t want to stop. Does that make sense?’
Stef nodded enthusiastically.
Twenty-One
January 1950
The third year of her undergraduate degree was a hard one for Nancy. Final exams were approaching at Easter, followed by a term to write a special research thesis that was to contribute to her final mark. Nancy decided that her topic would be badgers, because she’d been so bewitched by them on the field trip at the end of their first year. This would necessitate further visits to the New Forest, but all that would have to wait until after the Easter holidays and there was much to focus on before that.
Their new subjects of study in the autumn term had included the anatomy, habitat and behaviour of mammals. All the students had found it fascinating to study this class of complex and familiar creatures to which they themselves belonged.
At the same time, Nancy despaired when Anne Southgateclaimed mammals to be her ‘favourite’ aspect of their studies because ‘you could have relationships with them’. The girl even used her family Jack Russell’s barking habit as an example of territorial behaviour in one of her assignments. The essay attracted a low mark, to Anne’s dismay, but when Anne showed her the work in the refectory one Wednesday lunchtime in January, Nancy wasn’t surprised, for phrases like ‘Joey’s annoying behaviour’ and ‘Mother says he’s a naughty boy’ were hardly evidence of a scholarly approach. Seeing James enter the refectory and anticipating his joining them at the table where she, the Annes and Peggy were sitting, Nancy pushed the wretched paper back to Anne, urging her to ‘put it away, quickly’. She hated seeing the pain in Anne’s eyes, but knew that if James got hold of the work he’d ridicule it mercilessly. They’d all learned from humiliating experience that James could spot academic weakness at a glance and skewer it without pity.
‘What’s up with you girls?’ James said as he sat down with his tray, his plate heaped with extra-large portions of meat stew, boiled cabbage and mashed potato, swathed in gravy. ‘You’re not going to cry, Southgate, are you?’
‘Honestly, James, all that food – you must have hollow legs,’ Nancy remarked to deflect his attention.
James merely grinned and picked up his knife and fork. Having finished his first course, he attacked the generous slice of jam roly-poly, while the girls chatted. It being Wednesday and Games Afternoon, some of their cohort were off playing for the various college teams. Lectures and practicals continued regardless, however, those whoweren’t sporty being expected to share their notes with absentees.
That particular afternoon, though, something strange and unpleasant happened that was to darken Nancy’s memories of her time at Prince’s. At the end of the two o’clock Zoology lecture, Dr Hillman announced that there had been an electrical fire in their usual first-floor lab. Though it had quickly been put out, the room was still being aired and the damage assessed, and thus the afternoon’s practical session would take place in a lab on the ground floor that was usually the preserve of postgraduates.
Accordingly, Nancy, Peggy, Raj and James trailed down the main stairs from the lecture room and turned left along the ground floor corridor, past several closed doors, stopping from time to time to check the room numbers.
Raj sniffed. ‘It smells nasty down here.’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘Perhaps something has died.’
‘That’s a bit obvious in a Zoology department,’ James said, his lip curling, ‘but you’re right, it’s vile.’ The others agreed.
