Cecilia turns it over in her hand, uneasy.
An official document that has frightened her mother. A love token vandalised in anger.
She likes none of this. Clues placed before her that she would rather have never seen.
Nonsense again. What is it a clue to? Claudine has a past that Cecilia is not interested in, and this bracelet is nothing more than a sad memento kept by a woman who is not welcome in her sister’s home.
Cecilia tidies the table up, replaces everything as best she can remember seeing it and slips back into the walls.
Claudine needs to leave.
She will cause disruption – Cecilia can feel it – and disruption is something they can ill afford.
Lydia is in hand, at least for now.
All there is left for her to do is speak to her own mother.
She finds Penelope in her bedroom, standing in front of the full-length mirror, turning one way then the other, considering the dress she has chosen. It is a jacquard-woven white silk, patterned with a shock of brightly painted oranges, which would be garish on many women, and it seems that Cecilia’s mother is deciding whether this includes her.
It would look well on Odette, Cecilia thinks.
On Penelope? She knows better than to offer an honest opinion.
‘The oranges are too large. Don’t you think?’ Penelope twists again, tugging the material of the skirt into one place and then another. ‘If they had made them a little smaller, it would look more tasteful.’
Cecilia sits on the end of her bed, twirling a length of ribbon between her fingers. The first guests are arriving with the busy sound of shoes on flagstones, the barking of dogs, cases being carried by servants, raised voices and laughter. It has all come too soon. Cecilia is not ready to share Herne House with the wider world, to share Odette.
‘Do you have time to change?’
‘Don’t cause me such worry – why would you do that? Terrible child.’ Her mother looks back at the mirror again,mouth turned down. ‘You think I am embarrassing myself. Well. It is hurtful to hear it from your own flesh and blood.’
‘I think you look lovely, Mother.’
It is partly the truth. Penelope has a fine bone structure that has aged well, though it is a sharp, self-conscious kind of prettiness that is better calledhandsomethan beautiful.Leo has it as well, but the squareness suits him better. Cecilia touches her own cheeks sometimes, wondering if she has the same looks, but when she tries to see, her face blurs and twists in the mirror until she is a stranger, only a mass of skin and eyes and hair. Is she pretty? She would like to be pretty.
‘You’re trying to make me feel better,’ says Penelope. ‘It won’t work. I feel quite distressed now.’
Cecilia goes to her mother’s side, carefully positioned so she will not be in the reflection. ‘It is very flattering. Bold and daring. You will put everyone else to shame.’
‘They all call themselves artists, but few of them have ever reallylivedart.’
‘Did they all know you, when you were on the stage?’ asks Cecilia lightly. She learnt long ago never to come at a subject head on with her mother. She must turn sideways, move unobserved.
Penelope pinches colour into her cheeks. ‘Some of them. George, of course, and Lydia; Eddie, too. Not that young creature Mr King, whom Eddie makes such a pet of – he is something of a late arrival.’
‘And Claudine?’
Her hands still only briefly. ‘Oh, yes, for a time. The rest are very interesting people – I would hardly take any notice of them if they were not – but they do have a tendency to complain, when they have never done a day of work in their lives.’
‘But you married Father when you were nineteen,’ said Cecilia. ‘You’ve not been on stage since then.’ How much doesher mother know about work?
‘And I was the most beautiful girl in all the London theatres. Everyone said so, even if they thought me a fool for believing I would make something of myself. But I worked hard and was discovered by a brilliant man, as I knew I simply must be. Perhaps I will write a novel about my life; it would do very well, I think.’
She pauses for Cecilia to comment.
‘I should think so. It’s so romantic – and tragic.’
‘More romantic, I think. Yes, the oranges are a little large, but I think I can carry it off.’
