Chapter 6
Cecilia
THE MORNING SUN COMES early and golden through the open curtains of Odette’s window, picking out flashes of Lydia’s chestnut in her hair. Cecilia lies beside her, watching the rise and fall of her chest as she sleeps, like a worshipper at the adoration of the cross.
Not for the first time, she wishes she had any of Lydia’s skill.
If she knew how, she would capture Odette on paper or canvas, freeze her in place to keep her forever.
It is so hard to love a living being. There is always change.
Always the unknown. The harder Cecilia grasps, the more Odette seems to shift and retreat.
There – a soft tap at the door, and the maid comes in, waking Odette.
She makes no remark on Cecilia’s presence.
It is not so unusual to share a bed for warmth or company, and Cecilia is glad of how obtuse everyone seems. If she takes Odette’s arm, kisses her cheek, sleeps in her bed, they will only ever be good friends.
As they wash and dress, they talk through the day ahead.
Odette is doubtful of Lydia’s resolve, but Cecilia sees no other way but to hold her hand steady and make this promise come true.
There is, at least to her mind, a practical way to do this.
Keep Lydia painting. Keep her focused. And when Eddie Rutherford and the other guests arrive, encourage the show.
There are complications, of course.
She has not told Odette about what she overheard between her mother and Claudine yesterday, and she feels a worm for concealing it.
‘What will you do about Claudine?’ she asks Odette as she plaits the length of her hair and wraps it around her crown.
‘Endure, I suppose. I can ask Father how long she intends to stay. Surely it will not be so long.’
Cecilia passes the brush over her own hair.
Claudine is a mystery that bothers her more than she would like.
She cannot shake the look of panic on her mother’s face.
That scrap of paper – Penel. For Penelope, surely.
Of course this secret had to do with her mother, that much was clear.
But what sort of secret? What could be so awful that it frightened a woman like her mother?
She cannot allow this matter to disrupt their escape. Let her go back into her own mousehole and see what she can find. If Claudine wants to wield secrets like power, then maybe Cecilia can pull them out into the light and strip them of it.
There is no need to worry Odette about something they will soon leave behind.
But she must make sure.
Everyone is at breakfast when they arrive in the small room off the main hall; it is one of the oldest parts of the house and here crooked wood panelling turns even the summer day dark and the flags beneath temper the heat.
Uncle George is hidden behind The Times, Aunt Lydia beside him, cutting up fruit with a penknife.
Cecilia’s mother sits opposite, scraping butter thinly across her toast, and Claudine guards a cup of hot water and lemon.
It is only Leo who has a plate full of everything from the sideboard: kedgeree next to cold lamb chops from last night’s dinner, a boiled egg and three slices of toast and a pot of jam set directly before him.
Odette slides in beside Cecilia with her own plate of toast and marmalade, a few slices of cold ham, and a cup of coffee.
‘How terrible,’ says Penelope, scanning the local paper. ‘A little girl over in Bures has drowned in the Stour.’
‘You know, I read in some case documents the other week that a child can drown in total silence,’ says Leo. ‘Obvious, really, when you think about it – if you’re struggling to breathe, you hardly have the opportunity to cry out.’
‘Leonard, really, what a thing to say at the breakfast table,’ clucks Penelope.
‘This place all belongs to water,’ says Lydia. ‘The moat could really have been one. The angles are so regular and the sides so straight.’
‘Or a drainage ditch,’ says Leo, neatly puncturing the fantasy.
Lydia does not notice, only nods earnestly. ‘Yes, absolutely. People have been draining the land for centuries, but it is not a battle we will win. The coast is eroding by several feet a year. We’re only one large storm away from losing another village.’
‘Aren’t you going to berate Aunt Lydia for being sinister?’ Leo says to Penelope. ‘Or is it only me who has to keep chipper?’
Penelope tuts but does not intervene.
‘Will you paint today, Aunt Lydia?’ asks Cecilia. ‘The light seems perfect for it.’ She glances at Odette to catch her eye, but Odette has her head down, looking at her toast.
Lydia seems taken aback to be asked directly. ‘Yes. Perhaps.’
‘You’ve spoken so often about starting Elaine – why not today?’ Cecilia sticks her elbow into Odette’s side.
Finally, Odette joins in. ‘I’d like to sit for it today. It would be nice to spend the time together.’
Of course, Odette knows the right thing to say, and Lydia comes alive with a mix of hope and guilt and relief.
‘In that case, we must.’ She pushes her plate away and stands. ‘I’ll see you girls in the studio.’
Cecilia is flushed with relief. Odette worries too much. Lydia will paint. She will hold a show. All they need do is keep her mind on her promise and smooth the path before her. If Cecilia must hold out hope for the both of them, then so be it.
George puts down his paper, and it signals the end of the meal.
Leo joins him on a ride, despite the heat, and Cecilia’s mother disappears immediately, saying she has correspondence to deal with.
Claudine has said nothing throughout breakfast, but Cecilia is all too aware of the quiet way she has paid attention to each exchange.
She worries for a moment that Claudine will try to speak to her and Odette, but instead she corners the housekeeper and talks of the preparations for the guests arriving today.
In the studio, Lydia is bent over a pile of costumes, sorting through dresses until she comes to one it seems she likes.
‘Elaine is a much overdone subject,’ she says.
Her hair is looped up on top of her head in a chaotic Gibson knot, and she wears a loose emerald-green aesthetic dress with a stained painter’s smock thrown over the top.
‘I do not want some wistful scene in a tower with a loom or some maundering girl in a boat. The pathos is at the end of the story, the moment of reunion with Lancelot. For all his good intentions, it is too late. Elaine is lost. For all Elaine’s hope, she is nothing but one part of his much larger story – and yet it is the ruination of hers. ’
Lydia straightens and holds up a pale blue dress. ‘Now fair knight and courteous knight, have mercy upon me, and suffer me not to die for thy love. But she will die. He will bear that sorrow for the rest of his life. She gets no life at all.’
Cecilia’s stomach dips as Lydia thrusts the dress at her.
‘You will be Elaine of Astolat.’ Next, Lydia takes a sword and a helmet and gives them to Odette.
‘And you must be Lancelot. I would rather it be Leo, but he won’t sit for me anymore.
I suppose you’ll do.’ She digs in another box to hand Odette a length of cloth.
‘Bind your chest and put on the mail. You know where it is.’
Odette’s jaw tightens, but she does not protest. She does not like playing the male parts – Cecilia knows this – but she likes it less when Leo usurps her place in the tableaux.
The stage has been set: on a dais painted grey to look like stone or cobbles or flags – whatever it is that the scene calls for – is a bathtub that will stand as a boat. Around it lie heaping flowers, some dried, some dyed silk, and swags of golden cloth and jewels.
Cecilia slips on the dress, tying it snugly around her waist with a chain belt. Odette returns in the mail and helmet, her breasts bound as flat as they can be. She moves stiffly, whether from the weight of the mail or the constriction around her chest, Cecilia does not know.
‘Right,’ says Lydia, hands on her hips and a collection of brushes stuffed into the pocket of her smock. ‘Lancelot is here. Guilty, heartbroken. You did this. It is your fault.’ She chivvies Odette into position on the dais, kneeling over the bath-boat. ‘And Elaine, here.’ She indicates the bath.
It is, unexpectedly, half filled with water.
‘I’m afraid it is cold, but there is nothing to be done about that.’
Odette frowns beneath her raised visor. ‘But Elaine’s boat does not sink. She is sailed down to Camelot; Malory mentions the man steering.’
Lydia’s face grows soft with hurt. ‘I am no great artist, but I thought the scene should look well. Elaine is sunk by her love, the boat unable to bear her great sorrow.’
‘It will be so touching,’ says Cecilia quickly. She does not want the spell broken. Without another word from either, she climbs into the bath and bites her tongue to stop herself from exclaiming at the shock.
Odette protests no more and takes up the position given to her. Lydia seems pleased, twittering about the studio, arranging the flowers, considering the golden light that pours in.
At last, she comes to Cecilia with a folded and sealed piece of paper. ‘And while my body is hot let this letter be put in my right hand, and my hand bound fast with the letter until that I be cold.’
Cecilia takes it and lies back, lets her hair float loose.
If she stays still, it is tolerable. The temperature of the water becomes familiar, almost pleasant, as though it has warmed to her body – or her body cooled down to match it.
She cannot see Lydia at the easel, but she can hear the sounds of brushstrokes and small metal tubes of paint being opened and squeezed.
A little numb now, dreamy and soft, she cannot feel her feet or the hand that drifts beside her.
Cecilia is loosened, opened, stepping out of herself and into something more beautiful, more certain, more simple.
It is a gift, this other life, this world inside her mind.
Odette is the only one who will step through with her.
They move and think in harmony, one shared mind, and never need trouble themselves with the cruel, cold world of others.
A faltering, then. A speck of rain falling from a blue sky. The turn of rot at the centre of the fruit.
This might end.
Claudine has come and changed everything, so subtly – a single flat note played in a great, swelling chord.
Odette’s hand slipping from hers, her own cold, bare palm grasping nothing but night sky.
One day, this could all be only a memory.
And then, what will she do?