George’s voice is still low, but now he moves. Mattress springs – heavier footsteps.
He comes close enough that she can hear him clearly.
‘It will be something come loose and knocking in the wind.’
Odette cannot resist giving another three knocks in response.
‘There, it is steady – don’t you see? There will be a simple solution.’
‘It’s coming from her room,’ says Claudine, her voice strangled.
‘Maybe so. It is not being tended to, so it would be easy to overlook an open window or broken shutter.’
The footsteps move away and into the corridor. Odette keeps up her knocking, a steady siren, until the door to Lydia’s room opens and she stops at once.
They are here with her now.
She waits, imagines them pacing the room, inspecting chairs and tables for uneven legs knocking against the floor or checking for unsecured curtains at the window.
Will they hear her breathing? No, surely not, she is quiet as death.
She changes approach. With the heel of her foot, she stamps on the floorboards, a low and resonant sound that travels through the space, seeming to come from everywhere at once.
Claudine shrieks. ‘That is no broken shutter.’
George does not reply. He cannot dismiss the noises so confidently now.
The footsteps move around again – searching, Odette assumes – and she lets them stew in it. They will find nothing.
‘Houses settle,’ says George eventually. ‘The winter weathermeans the wood contracts—’
‘Don’t patronise me,’ snaps Claudine. ‘Someone is doing this.’
Odette freezes.
‘A disgruntled servant still loyal to their old mistress. It is common trickery.’
God – a reprieve – but if Claudine were to sniff out her hiding place—
‘Oh, well, now, I hardly think one of the staff would do something so unkind.’
‘How wonderful for you.’ Claudine’s voice drips bile.
‘It has stopped now. To bed, I think.’
Odette cannot make out what Claudine says in response, but both sets of footsteps recede.
The moment the door closes, she hammers as hard and as long as she can.
The door is flung open again, crashing against the wall, and footsteps march in.
‘Whoever you are,’ cries Claudine, ‘I will find you out, and the punishment will be severe!’
Odette crouches and taps rapidly along the base of the wall, as though something is approaching the bed where one of Lydia’s sketches hangs above the headboard.
‘Stop it!’ shrieks Claudine. ‘I order you to stop it!’
‘Darling, calm down,’ says George.
