Cecilia and her mother are sorting through a pile of condolence letters when Odette comes out the drawing room to fetch her. Her face is drawn and pinched, her sleep-bruised eyes sunk deep below her brows.
‘There you are,’ she says to Cecilia. ‘They’re starting.’
Penelope lays a hand on Cecilia’s knee beneath the table to fix her in place.
Odette extends her hand.
For now, at least, Odette has authority here.
Cecilia wriggles out of her mother’s grasp and lets Odette lead her through to where the undertaker has laid out examples of wood and handles and name plates. Claudine stands by the fireplace, stiff-backed and watching. Uncle George joins them, and the truth is so clear in the way Claudine’s eyes track him around the room, assessing, possessive. His studied disregard is a little too overdone, even for him. It is almost unfathomable to Cecilia that this is the same man she has known half her life, that the man she always believed to be benevolent and wise could seemingly so lightly do something so grotesque. And yet now she knows, she can see it in his every gesture. Odette seems oblivious to it all, but surely she cannot be. She lives in this house; this is her father, her aunt. Shemustbe able to see what is now so obvious to Cecilia.
‘I want whatever is best. What do you think?’ Odette asks the undertaker.
He coughs delicately and indicates a shining plaque in bronzewith an elaborate engraving of lilies around the border. ‘We find this design suits a more refined, sensitive taste.’
‘Then we must have that one. And four coaches, at least, with ostrich feathers for all.’
Claudine makes a noise that she smothers quickly.
‘Do you have a comment?’ snaps Odette.
‘An elaborate funeral is old-fashioned. Your mother would have wanted something small, for true friends only.’
Odette laughs, short and harsh. ‘She would not have wanted anything of the sort.’
The truth, Cecilia thinks, is that Lydia would not have been able to make any decision at all about what she wanted. None of this is about Lydia, but then no funeral is ever about the dead.
They all turn to George, King Solomon sat in judgement.
He shifts in his seat. ‘Ah. Well. Ritual has an important role to play.’
Cecilia always wonders how he manages to say so very little of meaning. It always seemed a little eccentric before, charming in some sort of inaccessible, academic way, but now it feels flat, so clearly inadequate. For the first time, Cecilia finds herself angry at him. Odette deserves more.Lydiadeserves more.
Claudine is clearly displeased, but she can say nothing more than, ‘Very well. But we must do it quickly. It is no good to linger over these things.’
Indeed, they do not linger at all. The funeral arrangements are decided in a rush of activity over the next day and a half; food is ordered for the wake, the coffin measured and bought, velvet lining and brass handles chosen, a service planned, and a plot paid for.
The coffin arrives the morning of the viewing, and they all gather around to watch as Lydia is lifted from the dining table and placed gently inside the silk and velvet lining like a ring into a jeweller’s box. Odette clutches onto Cecilia so tightly it leavesfinger marks. She wonders how much Odette is sleeping – if she sleeps at all – for she jumps at the tapping of the maid knocking the stub of a candle from its holder.
There is a distinct smell starting to rise from the body. The staff breathe through their mouths as they come near Lydia, and even Leo coughs into his handkerchief before excusing himself.
‘Flowers,’ declares Cecilia. ‘Should there not be flowers?’
Odette rouses herself. ‘Yes. Flowers. There were always flowers.’
They leave the rest of the household to prepare for the visitors who have been invited to view the body, and go into the garden, with a large basket and a pair of secateurs.
The sky is broad and beautiful, with the glory of a late-September sky when the air is fresh and strong but still made rich from the last of the light. The dahlia beds are a prism of colour, delicate asters and late-blooming clematis spilling down across the trellis. They place the basket on the lawn and begin their work.
Cecilia kneels beside Odette, reaching out to each stem and snipping it cleanly. On the wooden fence before her, a deathwatch beetle crawls from its hole and along the grain. A bee alights upon a hedge stake.
‘I’m leaving for Oxford on Saturday,’ she says. She wants to bring the future into the present, bring Odette onto this road she has chosen. ‘When is your train to Cambridge now?’
Odette holds the stem of a pale mauve autumn crocus in her lap. ‘I am not sure.’
‘Have you the ticket already? I can go to the ticket office if you need.’
‘I mean, I’m not sure that I am going at all.’
