The Animals at Lockwood Manor by Jane Healey

Author:Jane Healey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HMH Books

Twenty-Three

I was so busy talking to Lucy, nervously, quickly, trying to paper over the cruel talk of her mother in the kitchen by rambling on about coat camouflage in the polar circle, that I did not realize I was following her up to her own rooms before I entered the door behind her.

She set down her torch and took out a large box of matches, and I watched the quick, practiced motion of her hand, the flaring match and the splutter of the first candle she lit before moving to the next and the one after that. The embers of her fireplace were warm and there were candles scattered over every surface—desk, chair, tables, mantelpiece.

“It’s quite a lot of candles, isn’t it,” she said bashfully, noticing my stare. “I’ve always been deathly afraid of the dark, you see, so I have my own stores just in case.”

“That’s very wise,” I said, picking up the spare box of matches. “Let me help.” And with every match I lit, every flame that hissed into being, I felt an ease settle into my body.

“They were right, you know,” she said ruefully, as she stood on tiptoes to reach a candle on a high shelf. “My mother would have gone crazy if we had borrowed her furs. She was possessive about her belongings, and paranoid. She thought that if someone had a lock of her hair, they could make spells against her. She was so worried that something would happen to her, that she was in danger here.” Lucy rocked back on her heels and lit a fresh match. “And yet when death found her, she was elsewhere.”

“How did the accident happen?”

“They said she saw something, someone on the road, that she swerved and the car hit a tree. But if there was someone there that evening, they never came forward.” Her sigh made the flames on the mantelpiece flicker.

“I can’t imagine how terrible it must have been; I’m so sorry,” I said.

She put a hand on my shoulder in passing and sat down on the end of her bed, pulling the remaining pins from her hair so that it sprung free and curled around her neck and shoulders.

I finished lighting the last few candles and sat down opposite her on the gold pouffe.

“We haven’t spoken much recently, you and I, have we?” she said, one hand plucking at the silk of her bedspread.

“You’ve been . . . busy,” I said, not knowing how else to put it.

She laughed wryly. “I’ve cocooned myself away, you mean. I think that I’ve been embarrassed, about my nerves, about the nightmares you must have heard. At my age.” She shook her head. “I’ve suffered from nightmares since I was about eight or so, terrible ones, but they slowly lessened over the years, as any childhood affliction might, and yet my mother’s death has stirred them up again. I would understand if they frightened you, though, if I frightened you.”

“Nothing of the sort,” I said. “The only thing I felt when I heard you cry out was concern.

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