The Story of Lucy Gault

‘It’s only the child, sir.’

‘Dr Carney’s account will be sent to me, Bridget. We’ve spoken about that.’ Mr Sullivan paused. ‘Would it be too much to ask you to continue for a while with things as they are now? For the time being, Bridget?’

‘With things as they are, sir?’

‘Only for the time being.’

‘Is it Henry and myself staying on in the rooms above? You’re saying that, sir?’

‘I’m saying that as matters stand, now that she’s back here, it might be better to let the child stop in the house. If you wouldn’t mind, on balance I’d say it would be better than taking her up to the gate-lodge.’

With no prediction of how long the time being he had spoken of would last, Mr Sullivan conjectured that moving out of the house and passing so often its boarded windows and locked doors would be more upsetting for the child who’d caused all the trouble than remaining in her familiar surroundings. He was aware of his own presumption that the men who had once come in the night would have by now lost interest in what they had intended. He drew attention to this in case he was imposing a degree of disquiet without wishing to.

‘They’ll leave us in peace is what Henry says, sir, on account of they’ve driven the master and mistress out. There’s enough in that, Henry says.’

Mr Sullivan agreed, but did not comment. Henry had heard something, he deduced; and if he hadn’t, his instinct could be trusted. Despite the wounding of the youth, the trail of events since the night of the incident might indeed be regarded as vengeance enough.

‘We have the gate-lodge locked up at the minute, sir. We’ll leave it till they come back so.’

‘And what does our friend make of that particular eventuality?’

‘Which friend’s that, Mr Sullivan?’

‘I mean the child. How does she view the return of her father and her mother? And will she go quietly with them this time?’

‘Mightn’t they decide to stop on though, once they’re back? The way she was so upset in herself, mightn’t they?’

‘It would be my hope too, Bridget.’

‘Isn’t the fighting done with by what you’d hear?’

‘We can have hope in that direction also. At least we can have hope.’ Mr Sullivan stood up. ‘I should see the child.’

‘You’ll notice she’s docile, sir.’

Mr Sullivan sighed, keeping to himself the observation that in the circumstances docility was not out of place.

‘There’s a thing you mightn’t know, sir. The way the bone came together while she lay there it will leave her with the limp she has.’

‘I do know, Bridget. Dr Carney came in to break that to me.’

He rose as he spoke, and made his way through the darkened house to the yard. The child they’d spoken of was sitting on the step of an outhouse that over the years had become Henry’s own. Across the yard, beneath the pear tree on the wall, two young sheepdogs were stretched out in the sun. They raised their heads when the solicitor appeared, their hackles stiffening. One growled, but neither moved. They settled down again, with their noses flat on the cobbles.

Through the open doorway of Henry’s workshed Mr Sullivan could see a bench with vices, beneath rows of carpenter’s tools – hammers, chisels, planes, mallet, spokeshave, pliers, spirit-levels, screwdrivers, wrenches. Two tea-chests were crammed with short pieces of timber of different widths and lengths. Saws and coils of wire, a much-used ball of string, and a sickle, hung on hooks.

Seated on the step beside the child, Henry was painting a wooden aeroplane white. About a foot in length, with a double set of wings but no propeller yet, it was balanced on a jampot. Matchsticks joined the wings, their positioning and angles copied from a torn-out newspaper photograph that was on the step also.

‘Lucy,’ Mr Sullivan said.

She did not respond. Henry did not say anything either. The paintbrush – too big and too unwieldy for the task – continued to cover the rough wood with what seemed to the solicitor to be whitewash.

‘Well now, Lucy,’ he said.

‘That’s a great day, Mr Sullivan,’ Henry remarked when there was still no reply.

‘It is, Henry. It is. Now, Lucy, I want to ask you a question or two.’

Had she ever heard her parents speak of travels they would like to go on? Had she heard them talking about cities they would like to visit? Was there a particular country they spoke of?

In mute denial, the child shook her head, acknowledging each question with a motion a little more vehement than the last, her fair hair thrown about. The features Mr Sullivan looked down on were almost her mother’s, the eyes, the nose, the firm outline of the lips. One day there would be beauty there too; and he wondered if that, at last, would be a compensation for time as it was passing now.

‘You’ll tell Bridget or Henry if anything comes back to you, Lucy? You’ll do that for me?’

There was a plea in his voice that he knew was not related to the request he made but begged the child to smile as he remembered her smiling in the past. ‘Oh, Lucy, Lucy,’ he murmured on his way back to the drawing-room.