The closest she can get is a view of the door.
At which she finds Penelope listening.
It is naive, perhaps, that her first instinct is to reveal herself.
‘Mother, what are you doing?’
Penelope startles, blushes. ‘What are you talking about? I’m not doing anything.’
The truth strikes Cecilia like a bolt: she is spying. What need would Penelope have to spy on her friend? Only if, for example,she had been instructed to by someone who was controlling her.
This is what Claudine has asked her mother to do, in exchange for the keeping of her secret.
Turn traitor, sell out her oldest friend.
And her mother has done it.
Penelope lets anger carry her through. ‘Don’t sneak up on people; it is dreadfully rude. And did I not tell you to get changed? Be off with you, at once.’
Cecilia lets herself be chivvied upstairs. There is no point arguing with her mother.
It is time she finds an ally of her own. She cannot burden Odette with this, not now, not with Lydia the way she is.
Leo is smoking in his room, looking down through the window at the Herne House crowd. The three of them spent far too long as children around Uncle George’s friends to ever truly walk amongst them as adults, but Cecilia knows Leo will not admit that. The few years he has on Odette and Cecilia is his prize to lord over them.
She hovers at the door, reaching the limit of her bravery.
How is she to do this? She trusts Leo in one way – but not in others – and it is so difficult to know where she will stand with him on this matter.
But who else is there? She must take this risk.
Leo peers at her, frowning. ‘You’re looking quite peaky. You’re not going to be ill like Lydia, are you?’
‘No.’
‘Good, there’s only so many invalids one house can tolerate.’
Her hands are slick with sweat, and she rubs them on her skirt. She does not know if she is brave enough to do what she means to.
‘Leo, can I tell you something? You must promise not to tell anyone else.’
His expression falls, a rare moment of seriousness. ‘What’swrong? Has someone done something to you?’ His fingers flex, as though preparing to reach for some throat.
She blushes with the expected pleasure of the attention. She is right to trust Leo. He is her brother, and that must count for something.
‘It’s not me, it’s—’ She stumbles over the words. ‘It’s Mother.’
At once his demeanour changes. ‘I’m not weighing in on some disagreement. I know she’s a frightful menace, but you will simply have to find a way to rub along together.’
‘No, Leo, listen to me.’ She comes inside and shuts the door behind her. ‘It’s about Claudine. I overheard something of a row between them when she first arrived.’
‘Been spying again, Mousy?’
Cecilia wrinkles her nose in annoyance, then stops at the thought of the image it conjures.
‘You’re so nosy, Mousy. No one is going to like you at Oxford if you keep it up.’ Leo stubs out his cigarette and begins to change his collar.
Always that name. It shouldn’t upset her anymore, and yet it does, and of course that is why Leo uses it. She has never found a way to wound him so neatly in return. Would he like her better if she could?
