‘Yes, Mother.’
Claudine and Penelope look at her expectantly. The three of them stand in Penelope’s dressing room, a sharp December wind cutting in through the loose window frame.
Claudine has been as good as her word: Cecilia will not have to report on Odette directly. It has all been arranged. She is to persuade Odette to visit the Jermyn Street Gallery, with the idea that such a familiar sort of environment may prompt some weakness in Odette that causes her to speak more freely. Penelope and Claudine will take up a position where they may wait unobserved; Cecilia is to draw Odette to this location and induce her to talk.
It is all so simple when they say it. Betrayal. Deception.Manipulation.
‘You have the tickets?’ asks Claudine.
‘Yes.’
‘And you know where we will be?’ Claudine’s gaze pins Cecilia like a specimen in a display case. There is nowhere for her to run.
‘Behind the screens in the third gallery,’ repeats Cecilia. She has had it explained enough times that she can close her eyes and picture the exact spot, the clack of heels on the parquet, the winter daylight through the high windows, the hum of voices.
‘Make sure you are there before you speak of anything serious,’ instructs Penelope. ‘If she spills her heart to you on the way or after, you must tell us, but it is most important to encourage her to talk when we can hear. Bring up her mother, her grief.’
‘I understand.’
‘Good.’ Penelope pats her shoulder. ‘Don’t dally. You must catch her quickly.’
They usher her out, and as she crosses the road to Odette’s house, she can feel them watching. Briefly, Cecilia hopes Odette has already gone out, slipped from the servants’ entrance where neither Penelope nor Claudine would have observed her. It would be better that way, with her failure at the task entirely natural.
But no. Odette is there in the hallway, again in her neat, closely fitted black, dark smudges beneath her eyes.
She is tugging on a pair of gloves when Cecilia enters. At first, Odette says nothing, only watches her, warily.
They have not properly spoken since their uneasy reunion at the cemetery a few days ago; it felt like a rupture, a discordant noise interrupting the melody of their love, and she is unsure where it leaves them both.
‘Good morning,’ she says to break the silence. ‘Did you sleep well?’
‘No.’
‘Neither did I.’
Oh God, how is she supposed to do this? Her mother and Claudine assume everything is so simple between them, that it is no harder than fitting a key to a lock for Cecilia to extract the truth from Odette. Once, before, she thought they had no secrets. Now, she knows herself to be as guilty as Odette. She cannot truly betray her, shewillnot – but there is no escaping her mother. She will have to go through with this and endeavour to fail.
‘I am sorry that we have not spoken properly since you came back. I think I went about things all wrong when we met at the cemetery, and I want to find a way to make it right.’
Odette busies herself with her gloves, yanking each finger in place with a rough motion. ‘There’s nothing to make right.’
‘There is a new exhibition at Mr King’s gallery. I thought you might like to go with me?’
‘No, thank you. I’ve had enough of all that.’
She cannot let it sting. Odette is in pain, she does not mean to hurt Cecilia. It is not a rejection of her, but of – of—
Cecilia reaches for and fails to find a satisfactory end.
‘Are you going somewhere else?’
She cannot give up so easily. Any failure must seem natural, it must seem as though she really did try.
Odette stares at her gloved hands. ‘I had not .?.?.’ She seems almost fragile, as though the tension within her has been wound so tight that one sharp movement will send her shattering to pieces. ‘I cannot rest here.’
‘Then come with me.’ Cecilia hooks their arms together. ‘We can laugh at all the women with blank faces and overly pert breasts. You enjoy that. And all the portraits of little dogs with ribbons.’
Odette cannot help but smile. ‘There are always so many ofthem. I suppose it could be diverting.’
