*
She rings the bell of the Gate House and waits on the doorstep, making a concerted effort to keep her hands still.
The maid brings Cecilia to the door. It is not their hours to be at home to callers, so Cecilia wears a loose house dress.
‘Odette!’
There is something closed and wary in Cecilia’s face that she cannot interpret, and it makes Odette feel so utterly, terribly alone. They have never been this alien to one another. ‘I have made an appointment,’ she says.
‘What sort of appointment?’
‘Would you hate me if I called it a surprise?’
Odette’s heart is racing, but she hopes her agitation is not too obvious. If she tells Cecilia what she has planned, she might sayno, and that is unacceptable.
Cecilia hangs back, watching Odette a little warily. ‘I’m not dressed.’
‘There is time for you to do so.’ Odette has not seen her since their visit to the gallery yesterday, and she has made no apology for her behaviour. Should she? Maybe – but later. Right now she cannot find the words, it is all she can do to hold her nerve.
Cecilia hesitates for only a moment before nodding and disappearing inside.
Odette paces the small, tree-filled garden, sweat gathering beneath her heavy bombazine.
At last, Cecilia emerges, and they set off.
London is perpetually busy, with omnibuses and trams rattling past dressmakers and bakeries, dray carts delivering milk and vegetables and meat, shop awnings jostling for space, women with prams, children dashing about in mittens, men posting advertisements for music halls, auctions, boarding houses and temperance preachers. They make it only a few streets before it begins to rain, so Odette hails a hansom cab. Is this a bad omen? Is she making a terrible error?
The clatter of the wheels and horseshoes makes conversation difficult; Odette is grateful for the reprieve. How odd that she does not know how to speak to Cecilia – Cecilia who is half her own mind, half her own heart. She wants to reach for her, in this brief private space, but it is as though these next few hours are a test through which they must pass before she can be at ease around her again. It is strange and unsettling, and Odette feels like she has missed a step on the stairs, is lurching out into the void.
‘Where are we going?’ asks Cecilia.
Odette evades the question. ‘You are quite sure you don’t believe in ghosts?’
‘You asked the same question in your letter. Why does itmatter?’
‘Tell me. Please.’
‘Odette, you are frightening me.’
Odette is agitated, her leg bouncing. This must go as she hopes, or she will simply not survive it. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. It is just a question.’
Cecilia swallows. ‘Well, I suppose I cannot say for certain. I don’t think anyone can say for certain.’
Odette rounds on her, eyes narrowing. ‘But you were certain before.’
‘Yes – I mean – as certain as I can be.’
‘But you might change your mind?’
Cecilia shrugs helplessly. ‘I suppose any of us may change our mind about anything.’
Odette can barely sit still; they crawl so slowly along the crowded streets it is as though she has been placed in fetters. She needs tomove.
‘We are attending a séance,’ she says plainly. ‘I suppose that will make it clear one way or another.’ Before Cecilia can reply, Odette bounces up. ‘For God’s sake, we will be late if this damned driver cannot do something more clever about this traffic.’
She lets down the window and hangs out to have a quick and caustic argument with the driver that results in a handful of coins being exchanged – near thrown – and Odette marches off with Cecilia in tow.
They are soon in the residential streets of Camden. Odette turns into one of the newer developments, built in the style of thirty years ago, long rows of flat-fronted townhouses with wrought-iron balconies along the first floor and the servants’ entrance down an alley to the side of each pair of houses. The plane trees planted at intervals along the pavement have shot up like weeds and will soon overshadow the fine buildings.
