They turn into Regent’s Park to take the Outer Circle north, then cross the canal by the Zoological Gardens. Penelope starts up some chatter, flattering Claudine’s choice of dishes at dinner, the elegant way she has adapted to running a household. Cecilia cannot listen to it.
She spends the rest of the day in silence. Sewing in her room, watching Odette’s window for her return. She is silent at dinner while Penelope and Leo chatter. Is it as easy for them both to cast off Lydia and Odette as it seems? How can they talk of the mutton and the new hat Leo thinks to buy, and the business of the journey to his office?
What of loyalty? What of love?
Perhaps Odette is right. No one grieves as she does. It is an inconvenience.
She sits silent, thinking.
The pieces lie before her, and she turns them about in her mind, considering how they might fit.
The weather has turned with a violence, a storm wind picking up and smacking the tree branches against her bedroom window. Cecilia sits on the end of her bed, shucking her shoes and stockings.
There are too many things she does not understand.
She does not understand Odette or what happened at the gallery. She does not understand why Claudine is so afraid of what Odette may be hiding.
Cecilia thinks of the bracelet she found with the initials scratched off. The scraps of paper with her mother’s name, and that mysterious fragment –art.She should have some theory about it, she thinks, but she can come up with nothing. Her mother displays her past through a careful curation of scenes placed on show. It is immaculate and perfectly done, and there is so little to gain some scrabbling foothold on. If a secret is there, it will be no simple thing to find it.
And what of Odette’s secret?
Claudine’s own past is hazy. Cecilia has never given that fact much thought, but perhaps within it lies something Claudine does not want to come to light.
Isthatwhat Odette is hiding?
No. Somehow, she does not think so. If it were, why would she not share that information with Cecilia?
She unbuttons her shirt and blouse, and hangs each item across the back of the chair by her nightstand. From her window, she can see Odette’s room more clearly now that winter has stripped the leaves from the trees. There is no light, no movement.
In her dressing gown, Cecilia goes to hover in her mother’s doorway. Penelope sits in front of her mirror, working cold cream into her skin.
‘What happened to Odette’s money?’ Cecilia asks.
Penelope gives no reaction, smoothing the cream into the skin of her neck with precise upward motions. ‘What money?’
‘The money from the sale of Lydia’s paintings.’ Cecilia shifts, biting the inside of her cheek against her rising frustration. ‘She was arranging an exhibition with Mr King. You must remember.’
‘Oh, yes. That.’
‘Did she not say anything about the money being for Odette? I thought it might come up in the will.’
Her mother pauses, in the act of removing an earring. ‘Don’t go snooping into that sort of thing. It is none of your business.’
‘It is Odette’s business.’
‘Then let Odette ask.’
‘I am only trying to help. She might not feel able to ask so freely now that—’
‘Not this again.’ Penelope shuts her jewellery box and rounds on her daughter. ‘Leave poor Claudine alone. No one likes to think of how she has suffered in all this, but she nursed her sister through her last weeks and was the only one of us present at the death itself. Let her enjoy this time as a new wife.’
‘But how does it affect Claudine for Odette to get the money she was promised?’
A cold wind snaps through Penelope, and in a flash, shegrasps Cecilia by the ear, fingers pinching painfully tight.
‘Are you deaf? Do you not listen to a single word I say? You will not help Odette cause trouble. Without Claudine, we areruined.’ She lets go of Cecilia’s ear and wraps her arms around her, as though drawing her in for a maternal embrace. ‘My sweet, silly, naive girl. I am doing all this for you, and you don’t even know it.’
Cecilia’s mouth and nose are muffled against Penelope’s bosom, the tickly stuff of her nightdress irritating her nose.