“Oh, Mrs. Heath says she’s thinking out her book, she’s concentrating and doesn’t want to be distracted. Besides, she hasn’t been feeling very well.”
“But you could leave this place for a few hours, surely, just for a change of scene,” Vicki said.
“Mrs. Heath wants me with her. We’re busy enough. We keep house and cook—we brought a big supply of food in the car, and Mrs. Heath phones Mr. Potter when we need more. She tells him to leave it at the wall door, and she leaves payment for him in our mailbox. Mrs. Heath doesn’t like being bothered with deliveries. And, well, there’s the garden to take care of, we read, we chat. It sounds pretty dull, doesn’t it?” Lucy said uncertainly. She seemed to be reconsidering their routine. “Mrs. Heath has kept me busy doing some rather pointless research for her.”
“Hmm.” It was extraordinary, Vicki thought, that for a month Lucy had not seen nor talked with anyone except Mrs. Heath. “Don’t you get restless or lonesome?”
“Yes, I do! I wanted to call up a couple of my friends in San Francisco, but Mrs. Heath discouraged me from doing so. She won’t even let me answer the telephone, though it seldom rings. It’s in her bedroom, and she keeps her bedroom door locked.”
“But why locked?”
“Because of the valuables she keeps in there, she says.” Again Lucy seemed to reconsider. “It is odd, isn’t it?”
“Lucy, I want to say something which I hope won’t offend you. I know that you’re fond of Mrs. Heath—you’ve mistakenly made her almost a substitute for your own mother. Well, like her or not, it sounds to me as if Mrs. Heath is keeping you a prisoner here.”
Lucy remained silent and motionless. The moonlight had shifted, the room was darker now, so that Vicki could not read her expression. At last Lucy said:
“That’s a harsh thing for you to say. But—but I’ve once or twice thought the same thing. A prisoner.”