Praise for William Trevor

“Often spoken of in the same breath as Joyce and Chekov, Trevor shares both writers’ subtlety and, like them, is able to create distinct and mysterious worlds.”

—National Post

“One of the greatest writers alive.”

—The Chronicle-Herald (Halifax)

“The greatest living writer in English is an Anglo-Irishman named William Trevor.… It might seem presumptuous to speak about Trevor in Shakespearean terms, but he is among the few contemporary writers who warrant the comparison.… [He is] the reigning lion of fiction in English.”

—The Globe and Mail

“An extraordinary mellifluous writer, seemingly incapable of composing an ungraceful sentence.”

—The New York Times Book Review

“One of the pre-eminent writers of his generation. He is arguably the finest story writer from the era that may have seen the form reach its apex.… Trevor’s stories always seem effortless … but their easy grace belies an incredible amount of writerly craft.”

—Toronto Star

“[Trevor] is more worth reading than practically any other novelist now writing in English.”

—The Guardian (U.K.)

“One of the very best writers of our era.”

—The Washington Post Book World

By the Same Author

NOVELS

The Old Boys

The Boarding-House

The Love Department

Mrs. Eckdorf in O’Neills Hotel

Miss Gomez and the Brethren

Elizabeth Alone

The Children of Dynmouth

Other People’s Worlds

Fools of Fortune

The Silence in the Garden

Felicia’s Journey

Death in Summer

NOVELLAS

Nights at the Alexandra

Two Lives

SHORT STORIES

The Day We Got Drunk on Cake

The Ballroom of Romance

Angels at the Ritz

Lovers of Their Time

Beyond the Pale

The News from Ireland

Family Sins

The Collected Stories

After Rain

The Hill Bachelors

PLAY

Scenes from an Album

NON-FICTION

A Writer’s Ireland

Excursions in the Real World

FOR CHILDREN

Juliet’s Story

VINTAGE CANADA EDITION, 2003

Copyright © 2002 William Trevor

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published in Canada by Vintage Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in Canada by Alfred A. Knopf Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, and simultaneously in the United States of America by Viking books, New York. Distributed by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

Vintage Canada and colophon are registered trademarks of

Random House of Canada Limited.

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Trevor, William, 1928–

The story of Lucy Gault / William Trevor.

eISBN: 978-0-307-36604-7

I. Title.

PR6070.R4S76 2003A    823.′914    C2003-902241-2

www.randomhouse.ca

v3.1

For Jane

CONTENTS

Cover

Other Books by this Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Part 1 - ONE

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Part 2 - TWO

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Part 3 - THREE

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Part 4 - FOUR

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Part 5 - FIVE

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Part 6 - SIX

ONE

1

Captain Everard Gault wounded the boy in the right shoulder on the night of June the twenty-first, nineteen twenty-one. Aiming above the trespassers’ heads in the darkness, he fired the single shot from an upstairs window and then watched the three figures scuttling off, the wounded one assisted by his companions.