Page 44 of The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge
She must have slept deeply because the next thing she knew was Lauren’s arrival at eight. The rain had stopped. By the time she was up and dressed, Nancy was eating breakfast from a tray on the sofa and Lauren was making the bed. Nancy glanced up anxiously as Stef entered and Stef noticed that her hair, though combed, wasn’t elegantly tied back, but hung around her shoulders. She returned Stef’s good morning, though, then said, ‘I’m worried about the cat. She hasn’t come in for her food.’
Stef frowned. ‘I let her out before I went to bed, but haven’t seen her since.’ She went outside to look, but though she called repeatedly the only sign of life was the singing of the birds in the trees.
After Lauren left with a promise to return that evening, Stef helped Nancy to visit the outhouse to feed and check on the wildlife, then put the kettle on for coffee. While she was waiting for the water to boil, she heard Nancy’s phone ring and Nancy answer it.
‘That was Aaron,’ Nancy informed Stef when she carried in the coffee. ‘Livy is much improved, thank heavens, but not well enough to return to school. I told him to stay in London, but he’s insisting on coming. They’ll be arriving soon after lunch.’ Her eyes shone and she looked much stronger than she had earlier. ‘That’s marvellous. And it means we’ll have some time to chat this morning. If you’re happy to stay, that is.’
‘If you feel up to it.’
‘I certainly do.’
Stef quickly rang her mother to say that she’d be home early in the afternoon, then she and Nancy settled down with the tape recorder running, and Nancy began to talk, picking up where she’d left off.
Twenty-Five
London
July 1950
The summer after she graduated was a time of great happiness for Nancy. At the start of July, a little nephew, Andrew, was born and Nancy accompanied her parents to the hospital for a brief first viewing. The tiny, red wrinkled baby yelled the whole time and Helen looked pale and puffy under her make-up, her fair prettiness quite gone.
Poor Helen went through ‘the baby blues’. She stayed in hospital crying for days after the milk came in, until she was sent home, where her doctor gave her ‘a good talking to’. After that, she got herself up and dressed to make Bobby’s breakfast every morning, ‘as was only right’. But Mrs Foster, visiting, reported that ‘her eyes looked dead’ and she was worried about her. Bobby’s mother was ‘making things worse’ because she kept ‘giving unwantedadvice’ and her high standards were ‘impossible’ for her daughter-in-law to meet.
After she’d handed in her project, Nancy visited Helen and Bobby’s new house in the South London suburbs on several occasions. She learned how to hold little Andrew without dropping him and became quite fond of him. She enjoyed taking him out in the big Silver Cross pram Aunt Rhoda had bought but baulked at changing nappies. Thankfully her mother and Bobby’s were often in evidence to do this and various household tasks, glaring at one another territorially over the twin tub when their visits coincided.
Nancy felt sorry for her sister, but her attention was elsewhere. Aunt Rhoda had found her a holiday job working in the stockroom at Liberty’s. This occupied her days and enabled her to save some money.
At the end of July, an official-looking letter arrived addressed to her. She opened it with trembling hands and gave a cry of joy. She had been awarded a first-class degree! Shortly after this came another piece of good news – her application for a grant to continue her studies had been successful. Now, at last, she could afford to leave home. Grown-up life would begin.
Towards the end of August, a letter from Professor Briggs caused her momentary disquiet. Although he’d agreed to be her supervisor and she was allocated space in a lab at the college to start work on her doctorate in the autumn, the letter advised her that there would be a point, as yet unknown, when she would be required to move out of London to a research station in Hertfordshire. Brandingfield Park, the place was called.
Nancy had heard about the professor’s pet project before, the whole department had, but she hadn’t realized that the plans were so advanced. This was the one that would make his name. The gossip was that it was where much of the money – student fees and grants – was being channelled. The professor’s letter confirmed that it involved a partnership with the chemical company ICP, who would also be using the building.Interesting, she thought, folding the missive away. She wondered what her own role would be there, whether her research might feed into some bigger project. That might be exciting. The upheaval of moving would be a nuisance and she might have to find digs nearby, but it was too soon to worry about that yet. She would begin her doctorate at Prince’s College.
One sunny Saturday in mid-September, her brother helped her move into the graduate hostel opposite the college.
‘I don’t think that policeman likes Daddy’s car being left there,’ Nancy remarked from the window seat to Roger, who’d arrived out of breath after climbing the stairs with yet another box of her books. She was gazing down at the busy street.
‘I’ll shift it in a moment,’ he said shortly. ‘There we are, lazybones.’ He dumped the box on the floor.
‘I’ll start unpacking,’ she called after him as he marched out to bring the next load.
Her room in the women’s hostel faced the gateway of the college. The four-storeyed, white stuccoed building had once been a grand house for a large family with manyservants, but was now a rabbit warren of odd-shaped student bedrooms. Nancy’s, up two flights of the elegant staircase, was high-ceilinged with shelved alcoves on either side of a handsome marble mantlepiece, where a modern gas fire had replaced the old grate. The room was simply furnished with a mahogany wardrobe that smelled of camphor, a plywood desk and chair and a chest whose drawers had jammed. A note left above the hand basin by the previous inhabitant explained the idiosyncrasies of the hot water geyser. Despite these glitches, the room was twice the size of her bedroom at home and she already loved it.
She watched Roger below for a moment, arguing with the police constable, then stepped down from her perch and started pulling books out of boxes and piling them on the wooden floor. She’d arrange them properly later, she thought, hearing Roger’s heavy tread on the stairs. And beg a bit of candle from the kitchens to rub on the drawer runners to ease them fully open so that she could unpack her clothes.
‘This is it,’ Roger gasped, dumping two bulging suitcases. ‘I’ll shift the car to please PC Plod, then let’s get some lunch.’
‘Thanks, Rog. See you downstairs in a moment. I must just see if Anne’s moved in.’
Anne Durban, she’d already discovered from Mrs Cherry, the hostel warden, had, by a happy coincidence, been allocated Room 21, two doors down from Nancy.
‘So we’re neighbours!’ she exclaimed when she found Anne sitting at an identical desk to her own, writing a letter to her aunt.
‘Must dash this off, as my uncle will be back in a moment. He gave me ten pounds from her. Awfully generous.’
‘I won’t stay. Roger’s giving me lunch. He’s been offered articles with a solicitors’ firm in the Strand and wants to treat me.’ Nancy glanced round Anne’s room, thinking how tidy everything was – the books and clothes already put away, framed photographs arrayed on the mantelpiece. Anne was still scribbling, so Nancy stepped closer to see who they were. Her parents – Nancy had met the genteel vicar and his wife once or twice when they’d come to see Anne – and a snapshot from some college field trip. It was of Anne laughing, a frog sitting on her upheld palm. And close by her, Nancy saw, feeling suddenly wan, was the brooding figure of James.
‘Where was that taken?’ she said lightly.
