Page 41 of The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge
‘How should I know? I imagine not, though, surely.’
They stared at one another in horror. There must be rules about this, or if there weren’t there should be. Nancy had once asked Mrs Hall about the small animals, rabbits and frogs, that they dissected in practicals and had been assured that they were obtained from reputable sources and killed humanely. None of them liked the idea of any animal suffering, but detailed examination of specimens was the way that Zoology, Biology and Medicine had to be taught. Cats, though, that was horrible on another level. And kept in such dreadful conditions.
‘Look,’ Nancy said fiercely, ‘I’m going to do something.’
‘You know I’ve always wanted a cat?’ she said to her mother a few days later.
‘No, you’ve never said that.’ Her mother was preparing supper in the kitchen. ‘A dog, you wanted a dog at one point and the answer’s still no.’
Nancy shook her head. ‘A dog, a cat, a pet of some sort.’
‘We had rabbits and chickens during the war. That was more than enough work for me.’
‘They weren’t pets. We ate them. Anyway, we’ve got a cat now.’ She opened her satchel and a skinny black cat, little more than a kitten, leapt out onto the table and looked about, dazed.
‘Nancy! Get it off!’
‘She’s called Bonnie and I’ll pay for her food.’ Nancy picked up Bonnie gently, aware of a sore on the little cat’s side.
‘Absolutely not!’ She’d rarely seen her mother so cross. ‘We can’t possibly have a cat. Who’ll look after it? Especially now when we’re getting a houseful again.’
Nancy had to acknowledge that her timing was poor. Her sister Helen had arrived pale-faced the weekend before to ask if she could move back home and bring Bobby with her. ‘Bobby’s parents are impossible,’ she’d sobbed. ‘His mother treats me like a servant. She makes me clean the house every day and never lets Bobby lift a finger. And you’ll never believe it, she opens my letters from Sadie! She thought my penfriend was an American GI! She’s mad!’
Mr and Mrs Foster had looked at one another in dismay.
‘And I’m having a babeeee!’ Helen burst into fresh tears.
‘A baby! Two extra adults to feed and a baby?’ Mrs Foster covered her face with her hands.
Bewildered by her mother’s reaction to news of her first grandchild, Helen stopped crying and stared at her.
In the end, it was agreed that Helen and Bobby would move in temporarily, but only for as long as it took the couple to find somewhere of their own.
Nancy’s cat was the last straw.
‘It is not staying.’
‘She is.’ Mother and daughter locked eyes across the kitchen table. ‘I rescued her and she trusts me. She’s got nowhere else to go.’ She’d told her parents about finding the cats but hadn’t thought what would happen to them if they were rescued.
Bonnie snuggled into Nancy’s lap and stared appealingly at Mrs Foster with unblinking blue eyes. Though alarmingly thin and with the sore patch, she had fur like black velvet and was very pretty. When the cats had been freed at the behest of Professor Briggs, Nancy knew deep-down she had to have one and Mrs Hall had brought her Bonnie in a cardboard box. She’d told Nancy that a local vet had arrived in a van to take the dozen others. He’d assured Mrs Hall that homes would be found, but from the expression on the assistant technician’s face, Nancy feared otherwise. Some might be too poorly to survive. As she’d set off for home with Bonnie, another piece of jigsaw fell into place. Outside the college, she watched the unpleasant man from the basementhefting his possessions into a taxi. The news was that he’d been dismissed.
The foul miasma in the basement of the Zoology building might have lifted and the disgraceful episode be over, but Nancy had not acquitted herself well with the head of the department. Professor Briggs had been outraged when Nancy had presented herself in his office and criticized the running of his fiefdom. She had had to speak quite strictly to persuade him to follow her down to the depths of the building. It was plain that he’d never been there before, but then why would he? There was only a boiler room down there, or maybe storerooms, he grumbled, not a research laboratory. And the long way down the steep flight of stairs was gruelling for a portly older man like himself. He was puffing like a steam train by the time they reached the bottom.
When he saw the cats, though, Nancy felt justified, for he, too, was horrified. However, rather than apologizing for disbelieving her, he told her sharply, ‘I will deal with this, Miss Foster. Please do not mention it to anyone or the department might be brought into disrepute. If the matter gets out, I will know who to blame.’
Though incensed by his rudeness, she realized with relief that he would do something about the cats. Still, he might have thanked her, she thought as she left him.
In the end, Nancy also won the battle to keep Bonnie. Beaten by her daughter’s stubbornness, her mother admitted that the dainty cat was ‘quite sweet’ and she was allowed to stay. Nancy often found them together in the evenings, her mother laughing as Bonnie played with the wool forthe matinee jacket she was knitting for Helen’s baby, while Helen herself slumped sick and exhausted next to Bobby on the sofa. Bobby’s eyes were red and streaming. Such a shame that he was allergic to cats.
Twenty-Three
The spring term was passing at an alarming rate. As well as Nancy being given stacks of new work, revision for finals was pressing. If not attending lectures or practical sessions, she retreated to the library surrounded by books. When she and the others gathered for lunch, the talk was of their studies. At home, she shut herself in her bedroom and tried to ignore the sounds of Bobby and Helen arguing on the other side of the thin wall. Bobby was still adamant that they should save up for a deposit to buy a house, not waste money on rent, but this would take longer to achieve. Nancy knew that he wasn’t paying his in-laws enough towards their keep, but that her parents had decided not to complain in the hope that it would help the couple to leave sooner. Helen was urging him to take a job in a firm that paid better, but he liked the one he had. The tension in the house was electric.
After the final exam, in the last week of the Easter term, the students were surprised, but not displeased, to find in theirpigeonholes an invitation from Professor and Mrs Briggs to a supper party at their home the following Saturday. This was new. The professor had shown little interest in them up to now. Official social activities in the department had been limited to a drinks party each Christmas in one of the lecture rooms, an informal event to which the entire Zoo student body and all the staff were invited. It was a good-natured occasion with plenty of bread and cheese to soak up the wine, and Christmas crackers containing paper crowns and toy whistles, which led to silliness.
‘I didn’t even know there was a Mrs Briggs. Do you suppose it’s going to be frightfully formal?’ Anne Durban asked the others when they met in the bar. ‘Only someone spilled red wine on my only good dress last weekend.’
‘Oh, I shouldn’t worry about what to wear.’ Diana eyed her empty wineglass. ‘He’s hardly likely to throw you off the course now on a point of etiquette.’ She reached for the bottle and slopped in some more. ‘I’m drinking to forget,’ she told the generality. ‘That physiology paper was bloody.’
