Cecilia presses her eye closer to the gap, shifting to see more of the room.
‘Whatever you think you have discovered, I can assure you, you are wrong.’
‘Oh, I really don’t think I am.’
‘Nonsense.’ Penelope hesitates for a moment, then rips the paper up into smaller and smaller pieces. She moves to toss the paper into the grate, but the fire is unlit, so instead she throws them at Claudine’s feet. ‘It is a fabrication.’
Claudine rises. Before, in the morning room, she seemed stiff; now she comes into focus, brought into sharp relief by purpose. There is a radiating sense of danger that Cecilia can hardly place.It is not that Claudine speaks threateningly, nor moves with violence, but it is as though some barely contained anger swells within her and fills the room with its scent.
‘Lydia told me everything, you know,’ says Claudine. ‘You called yourself my friend first, but you dropped me so quickly I could never quite understand it, until she told me exactly what she knew about you—’
‘Stop. Must you drag all this up again?’ Penelope backs up against the fireplace, one hand thrust out in protest. Cecilia has always understood her mother as the dancer she once was – a performer, a creature of shape and artifice – and even now, when her disquiet seems too real, Penelope finds a way to strike a pose.
‘I will not let you have your fun at my expense again,’ says Claudine. ‘This time, you will helpme, or I will tell everyone. You will be finished.’
Penelope wavers, a narrow opening that can be grasped, pried apart. ‘Help you with what?’
Claudine hooks their arms together. ‘Walk with me. There is much I would discuss.’
Penelope resists for only a moment before allowing herself to be led out.
Cecilia waits, breath held, palm flat against the door, for any sound of their return. Her heart beats in her chest like a hammer against the anvil of her ribs.
Noiselessly, she pushes the door open and scurries across the rug to pick up a fallen scrap. The creamy paper makes her think of the formal documents sent to her from Oxford.
There is only one piece of writing, in a looping hand:Penel.
Before she can reach for another piece, there are footsteps and voices, and in a flash, the secret door is closed. Cecilia races away along her mousehole, as though even this small discovery could be stolen from her.
4
Odette
HER MOTHER’S STUDIO IS HOT, despite the doors propped ajar and the windows wound open to their fullest. Though built as a conservatory, it does the job Lydia needs: every inch is bathed in natural light. Canvases are propped against the walls in varying stages of completion, broken easels stacked to be repaired or become firewood – whichever strikes Lydia as fitting – and oil paints scattered in the drawers of an index card cabinet. In the corners are piles of dresses, lengths of velvet and silk, swags of cloth flowers and leaves, vases, crowns, swords, jewels, arrows, coins, goblets, and a large standing mirror, like the prop room of some London theatre.
Odette’s mother is, as she suspected, on the chaise-longue tucked into a corner, alongside a short bookshelf and a card table. Lydia is still in her nightdress, a shawl tucked around her shoulders, her chestnut hair lank from lack of washing. Dotted on the table and shelves are apple cores dried to leather; a near-empty bottle of red wine is half hidden behind one table leg, and a fur of mould grows in the teacups littered about.
George always says that Lydia is too fragile to suffer the maids in her studio, though he likes to point out the mess, as though noticing is just as noble an act as doing anything to help.
‘Angel?’
Odette perches at her feet. ‘Mother. Are you well?’
Lydia closes her eyes in a grimace. ‘My headaches are like the Devil himself has fixed a belt around my temples and is squeezing me until I break. Nothing touches them.’ Lydia always has a headache, or a stomach ache, or her eyes are sensitive to the light, or she is too tired to come to dinner, or do whatever it is she has promised to do. ‘You always seem so bright and easy when you have a headache. I do not know how you do it.’ Odette plucks the fabric of her skirt.It is not a competition,she thinks, but she knows there is no use saying anything like that to her mother. Itisa competition, and Lydia will always make sure she is losing.
‘I found your sister in the morning room,’ says Odette, for want of a better way of broaching the matter.
She waits to see if her mother will respond, but Lydia only sinks further into the chaise-longue, as though she cannot bear to carry the burden of her own body.
Odette tries again. ‘I didn’t think you were speaking to each other.’
‘Ihave always been willing to speak to her,’ says Lydia, then stops herself. ‘It isn’t important. She is here now, and I don’t want to get in the way of you having your own relationship with her.’
This is such a baffling statement Odette does not at first know how to reply. What relationship? Her loyalty is to her mother, not this stranger.
‘Will she be staying that long?’ she asks.
Lydia doesn’t look at her. ‘Ask your father.’
