Page 67 of The Secrets of Dragonfly Lodge
If Nancy had ever complained about being lonely and isolated in her lab, she regretted doing so now. Over the next few weeks, she found it both a pleasure and a pain to accommodate James. He wasn’t a constant presence. Being right at the beginning of his studies, he’d not yet assembled all his equipment, but when he did appear she found herself unable to concentrate, for he’d either loiter, engaging her in conversation about his work or hers, or sit sighing over his notebooks and shuffling about. His experience of National Service had changed him, she thought, but she couldn’t put her finger onhow. He seemed older, definitely. His thin figure had filled out, and he’d lost something of his boyish freshness.
She didn’t know whether to be flattered at his interest in her locust project or be alarmed by it, but on the whole she was pleased, for sometimes he offered an astute suggestion or drew her attention to some new article he’d read.
Of his own interests she learned little. Briggs had fixed up for him to study a particular group of grasshoppers. This faintly troubled Nancy, it being close to her own subject, but she tried to assure herself that any overlap would probably be helpful, and anyway, James was a year behind her, so it would be more likely that she could advise him about avenues that were a waste of time, for instance. Yes, a collaborative approach would forward the progress of scientific knowledge and Professor Briggs had always said that this was important to the success of Brandingfield.
But there was something else. Even when James was absent from the room and there was peace and quiet to concentrate on her observations and record her careful measurements, she longed for his presence.Like a dog waiting for its master to come home,she berated herself. And James’ was a very animal presence. With his restlessness and the way he fixed his intense dark gaze upon her, he seemed to dominate the room. He had her cat Bonnie’s way of prowling about, touched things or rolled them between his long, sensitive fingers. She wished she didn’t keep imagining those fingers touching her, hated the way that he filled her dreams.
‘Could you not do that?’ she snapped once. She was poring over some figures that wouldn’t make sense.
‘Do what?’
‘That tapping noise with your pen. It goes right through my head.’
‘Sorry.’ The noise stopped, but a minute or two later it started again.
‘James! I’m trying to think.’
Their eyes met and his twinkled. ‘Sorry,’ he said again, making a mournful face. ‘I genuinely didn’t know I was doing it.’
‘Yes, well.’
‘What are you doing, anyway?’ He limped across to her side. He rarely used the stick inside now, though he’d unhook it from the rack for the walk to the station. He was still living at home with his parents, but now he was starting to pore over the local paper, looking for digs.
‘These figures are not what I’d expect.’ She showed him, explaining her method, and he pointed out a variable she’d forgotten. Suddenly, everything made sense and she thanked him. ‘If I’d known how important maths was in this work,’ she moaned, ‘I’d have tried harder in sixth form.’
‘You girls are soft about maths,’ he teased, returning to his seat.
She glared at him, then picked up a rubber and threw it so it bounced off the back of his head.
‘Ow, that hurt,’ he laughed, rescuing it from the floor and tossing it at her, and soon they were throwing it back and forth until it hit Nancy’s tank, causing the locusts to thud about in alarm. This stopped the game in its tracks.
Thirty-Nine
One morning, she was setting up some new equipment when there was a commotion in the corridor outside. She raised her head as the door burst open and James entered, his face hidden by a giant cardboard box he was carrying.
‘The project begins!’ he cried, hefting it onto the worktop. Later, the technician joined him and they spent an hour assembling a complex edifice of equipment. After they’d finished, Nancy examined it, bending to see inside an empty tank that was similar to her own and tracing the muddle of glass tubes and funnels that led from it.
‘A veritable Heath Robinson contraption,’ she said in admiration. ‘What does it do?’
‘It’s a feeding tract. Saves one opening the lid. I’ve ordered the inhabitants, but God knows when they’ll arrive.’
A box of special grasshoppers arrived a week later and soon the tank was full of the softly rustling, tapping insects. Nancy liked them better than the locusts. ‘Theyseem more friendly,’ she explained, which made James roar with laughter.
‘Friendly? They’re insects, Nance, not pets. You shouldn’t get emotional about them.’
‘Don’t call me Nance,’ she said crossly. She was dismayed by his laughter, feeling put down. Dorothy or Anne, she thought, would know exactly what she meant by preferring grasshoppers. Surely she wasn’t being unscientific when she expressed such feelings.
More serious than such attacks on her dignity was a rumour that began to circulate. She didn’t know where it came from or what she’d done to inspire it. She first suspected something unpleasant was at work when she entered the staff common room and a pair of women broke off their conversation and stared at her like a couple of guilty-looking sheep. A cold feeling seeped through her. They’d been talking about her.
The following day, she encountered one of the secretaries in the entrance hall, hailing her cheerily because they’d always been friendly, but the older woman only gave a nod and hurried past her, averting her eyes. Nancy stopped and stared after her, a tender lump swelling in her throat.
It was Dorothy who explained, an angry Dorothy. ‘What is it about some women? They think you’re having an affair. Well, actually, two affairs. Apparently you’ve been seeing Edmund, but now you’ve dumped him in favour of James. Or you haven’t dumped him, you’re “riding two horses at once”. All rubbish, of course.’ She paused, shamefaced. ‘It is rubbish, isn’t it?’
‘Of course it’s rubbish!’ Nancy stared at her in rage anddisbelief. ‘Anyway, what business is it of anyone’s? It’s not as if either man is married. I mean, Edmund was, but he isn’t now.’
Dorothy rolled her eyes. ‘Honestly, you’re awfully innocent.’
‘But I’ve not done anything. Iaminnocent.’
