As she pins her hat, she is struck by the certainty of it: if they do not leave now, this will be the end of them.
Penelope catches her before she can go. ‘You look very well,’ she says, with an approving smile. ‘I am glad to see you taking more of an interest in your appearance. You are a pretty girl.’
‘Thank you, Mother.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Only on an errand or two.’ Cecilia hopes the lie is not obvious. She hardly thinks her mother would be keen for her to speak to Odette.
Some sentimental mood has clearly taken Penelope, and she draws Cecilia into the parlour to sit with her, clasping her handsin her own.
‘I am so sorry things have been so trying for you. You must believe that it has all been for the best.’
‘I am not sure how I can,’ says Cecilia, but she is unsettled to see real emotion on her mother’s face.
Penelope tucks a stray strand of hair behind Cecilia’s ear and cups her cheek. ‘Things are never clear when we are in the middle of them. I love you so very much, my girl. I have spent much of my life frightened and trying to pave a road ahead of myself. I do not want to see you reduced to the same.’
Cecilia thinks she should make some smart remark, reject her mother’s assessment of life, but she cannot. She is not that sort of daughter. Her motherdoeslove her; she knows it. This would all be so much easier if she did not.
‘There is nothing wrong with marrying a man who is boring but safe and living a small life.’
‘Mother—’
‘Adventure seems terribly exciting when you are young, but consequences will follow you into middle age, and it all seems much more foolish with hindsight.’
‘I am not so keen on adventure as you might think.’
Penelope smiles. ‘No? Odette is an adventure, is she not? My darling, I know how these passionate friendships can cut deeply, but you must not take it to heart. She can always be important to you, but you do not need to cleave your future to hers. I only want you to be safe and happy.’
Cecilia cannot help crying again. Penelope draws her in to rest her head on her bosom, and Cecilia curls into her gladly.
She thinks: this is what Odette has lost.
Perhaps it is so awful. Perhaps it is maddening.
Penelope strokes her hair, as Cecilia turns it all over in her mind.
Safe and happy.
Cecilia is not sure she can have both at once.
While she is within Claudine’s world, safe is not possible.
But perhaps there is still a chance left for her to be happy.
*
The air is wrong inside the Fairfax-Waughs’ house when Cecilia steps inside. It is like a subtle scent, some undertone of rot beneath the smart façade. It is tidier than usual, she realises. Some of the lamps and ornaments have been removed, rugs taken up from the floors, mirrors and artwork stripped from the walls.
She is let in by a distracted maid who pays her little mind. By the doors down to the kitchen, Cecilia spots one girl crying into her hands, another comforting her, before the door is rapidly closed to hide them. There are whispers she cannot catch, about noises in the night, about a photograph.
Raised voices come from the study, Claudine’s and George’s, so Cecilia slips past as quietly as she can and scurries upstairs to Odette’s room. There is only so much courage she can scrape together within herself, and she will need all of it to unfurl to Odette the secrets she has been holding.
Odette sits on the end of her bed, looking sightlessly into the corner of her room.
No, not quite sightlessly. She is focused on some point in the middle of the air, gaze fervent.
‘Odette?’ says Cecilia softly as she closes the door behind her. ‘It’s me.’