‘.?.?. do you girls knownothingof nursing? It should not fall upon me to explain that bedsheets must be changedregularlyif used by an invalid, no matter how much extra laundry that might entail. And do not turn your nose up at washing a bedpan, because I know you have done much worse in your sordid little lives—’
‘Miss Moore.’
Cecilia turns to see Mr King coming down the stairs.
‘Mr King,’ she says, darting away from the door at which she has been listening.
‘I take it you have also come to pay your respects to Mrs Fairfax-Waugh?’
He is much as she remembers him: dark, appraising eyes, mouth ever on the edge of a smirk. She is struck that again she finds herself alone with him, and she dislikes it.
‘To support the family,’ she says simply. He does not need to know the intimacies of her life.
A door opens, and Claudine emerges behind them. ‘Mr King.How kind of you to call.’
He dips his head in acknowledgement.
‘Please, do join me.’ Claudine’s gaze turns to Cecilia finally. ‘Odette is upstairs.’
With that, Mr King brushes past her into the parlour, and the door shuts behind them. She is dismissed.
Cecilia takes the stairs slowly, her stomach clenching. What business does Mr King have with Claudine? He has come to take the paintings, surely, but is not Lydia too ill for the exhibition? And what business is it of Claudine’s?
Is there no one who can be trusted?
No one but Odette.
3
Cecilia
THE SHROUD IS ALMOST DONE.
Cecilia sews alone in Lydia’s abandoned studio, fixing a trailing line of flower blossoms, adding leaves and petals until the piece is a work of art.
Lydia should be buried with art. That feels important.
The doctor is here again. Each time he comes, Odette sinks further, retreating inside herself, away from Cecilia and into Lydia’s dead world. Sometimes, she will sit beside Cecilia, sewing the shroud, and speak not a word for hours.
The shroud is beautiful. Cecilia is strangely proud of it.
When Odette is not here, she will slip her arms into the sleeves – to judge the span of embroidery and the decoration to the chest, of course – and imagine what her own shroud might be like. She has a photo card of Sarah Bernhardt sleeping in a coffin, posed for some part or another. It must induce a special kind of madness to put yourself inside a coffin, to close your eyes and greet death early.
Cecilia touches the delicate embroidery and wonders whether it will be Odette who has to choose the trappings of her end. She cannot imagine outliving her. A world without Odette is no world at all.
Odette bursts through the door in a flurry of skirts, loose hair streaming behind her. ‘Ces! Ces, oh God, Ces.’ She throws herselfinto Cecilia’s arms and shakes, somewhere between a sob and laughter.
Cecilia holds her for a moment, then pulls them apart enough that she can look into Odette’s face and read whether this portends disaster or hope. ‘What is it?’
‘The doctor – he said she’s getting better.’
Cecilia cannot believe it. ‘What do you mean? What did he say?’
‘Too many things, which I did not understand the half of, but he said he washappywith her progress. Happy! Is that not the best thing you have ever heard?’
‘I don’t understand. What has changed?’
Odette is hardly listening. ‘He said her pulse is strong and she has a good colour. He has not said anything so positive in weeks. He even thinks she may have put on a little weight, which surely means her body is healing!’
