The Animals At Lockwood Manor by Jane Healey

Fearing the German's wrath upon London, a museum's scientific collections and animal specimens are moved to a manor house in the country. With them comes a young caretaker, Hetty, who seeks recognition and advancement by maintaining the collection in pristine order which she is obsessive about. The manor is spooky enough with talk of a ghost and then strange things begin to happen to the specimens under Hetty's care. Fighting with the tyrannical owner of the manor, an illicit love affair with his fragile daughter and trying to solve the mystery of what and who is destroying the specimens seem a much bigger threat than anything the Luftwaffe can send. Moody and haunting with a touch of madness, this story follows a classic gothic footprint while the addition of Lucy and Hetty's relationship and the role of women shakes things up a bit.