Chapter 8
Cecilia
FROM HER VANTAGE POINT, high under the eaves of Herne House, Cecilia watches the carriage depart, the driver mopping sweat from beneath his hat, the horses’ tails twitching against the encroachment of flies.
Odette has left with Claudine.
Cecilia shoves her bitten fingers into the folds of her skirt and descends from the attic.
Lydia made good work painting today, and Cecilia is sure it will make a fine centrepiece for a show.
Odette’s mood is difficult to predict, but Cecilia is pleased with her own careful reading of it, the right word said at the right time, silence left when silence is needed.
There is only the bother of Claudine.
Cecilia worries at the scraps of her cuticles. Why have they gone off together? What if Odette likes Claudine after all? What if Odette changes her mind about everything and Cecilia is left all alone?
Nonsense. It is nonsense. Odette will never leave her.
At the panel to Claudine’s room, Cecilia waits, listening to the space beyond. Yes, it is empty. She knows the difference between the silence of a held breath and the noiselessness of a dead place.
The room has, of course, been cleaned since yesterday, and there are no tantalisingly obvious pieces of paper scattered to catch her eye.
It is a tidy room, redecorated in a sparse style a century before, and it is almost clinical with its pale yellow walls and polished boards.
It seems impossible for a place like this to harbour secrets.
But Cecilia knows how to be a quiet, small, sneaking thing.
She will wriggle beneath the bed, behind the chests of drawers and the bedside tables, ferreting out anything that has been lost or hidden.
There is more dust, the dried bodies of fallen insects, withered petals from long-rotten flowers, nothing, nothing, nothing – then there, a pale buff colour beneath the dressing table.
Cecilia wriggles her arm beneath it to pull it out.
Her elbow catches, and she knocks the table badly enough that a few scattered objects fall to the floor.
She turns her prize over eagerly in her hand.
The same paper with its soft, torn edges, and the same looping hand. Here, there is written only: art.
Penel. Penelope. Her mother.
Yes, yes, she knows that.
Art – some other name? Christian name or surname? Or a segment of a word – start? Part?
Frustration is sour in her mouth as she gathers up the things she has knocked over.
Amongst the cheap scent and combs and hairpins, there is one fine, glittering object: a silver bracelet with intricate workmanship, far more valuable than anything else.
And yet, there are harsh scratch marks along a flat inside piece that once bore an inscription.
To CH, forever yours – and here the second set of initials has been so badly scratched out that it has torn jagged edges into the metal.
Cecilia turns it over in her hand, uneasy.
An official document that has frightened her mother. A love token vandalised in anger.
She likes none of this. Clues placed before her that she would rather have never seen.
Nonsense again. What is it a clue to? Claudine has a past that Cecilia is not interested in, and this bracelet is nothing more than a sad memento kept by a woman who is not welcome in her sister’s home.
Cecilia tidies the table up, replaces everything as best she can remember seeing it and slips back into the walls.
Claudine needs to leave.
She will cause disruption – Cecilia can feel it – and disruption is something they can ill afford.
Lydia is in hand, at least for now.
All there is left for her to do is speak to her own mother.
She finds Penelope in her bedroom, standing in front of the full-length mirror, turning one way then the other, considering the dress she has chosen.
It is a jacquard-woven white silk, patterned with a shock of brightly painted oranges, which would be garish on many women, and it seems that Cecilia’s mother is deciding whether this includes her.
It would look well on Odette, Cecilia thinks.
On Penelope? She knows better than to offer an honest opinion.
‘The oranges are too large. Don’t you think?’ Penelope twists again, tugging the material of the skirt into one place and then another. ‘If they had made them a little smaller, it would look more tasteful.’
Cecilia sits on the end of her bed, twirling a length of ribbon between her fingers.
The first guests are arriving with the busy sound of shoes on flagstones, the barking of dogs, cases being carried by servants, raised voices and laughter.
It has all come too soon. Cecilia is not ready to share Herne House with the wider world, to share Odette.
‘Do you have time to change?’
‘Don’t cause me such worry – why would you do that? Terrible child.’ Her mother looks back at the mirror again, mouth turned down. ‘You think I am embarrassing myself. Well. It is hurtful to hear it from your own flesh and blood.’
‘I think you look lovely, Mother.’
It is partly the truth. Penelope has a fine bone structure that has aged well, though it is a sharp, self-conscious kind of prettiness that is better called handsome than beautiful.
Leo has it as well, but the squareness suits him better.
Cecilia touches her own cheeks sometimes, wondering if she has the same looks, but when she tries to see, her face blurs and twists in the mirror until she is a stranger, only a mass of skin and eyes and hair.
Is she pretty? She would like to be pretty.
‘You’re trying to make me feel better,’ says Penelope. ‘It won’t work. I feel quite distressed now.’
Cecilia goes to her mother’s side, carefully positioned so she will not be in the reflection. ‘It is very flattering. Bold and daring. You will put everyone else to shame.’
‘They all call themselves artists, but few of them have ever really lived art.’
‘Did they all know you, when you were on the stage?’ asks Cecilia lightly. She learnt long ago never to come at a subject head on with her mother. She must turn sideways, move unobserved.
Penelope pinches colour into her cheeks. ‘Some of them. George, of course, and Lydia; Eddie, too. Not that young creature Mr King, whom Eddie makes such a pet of – he is something of a late arrival.’
‘And Claudine?’
Her hands still only briefly. ‘Oh, yes, for a time. The rest are very interesting people – I would hardly take any notice of them if they were not – but they do have a tendency to complain, when they have never done a day of work in their lives.’
‘But you married Father when you were nineteen,’ said Cecilia. ‘You’ve not been on stage since then.’ How much does her mother know about work?
‘And I was the most beautiful girl in all the London theatres. Everyone said so, even if they thought me a fool for believing I would make something of myself. But I worked hard and was discovered by a brilliant man, as I knew I simply must be. Perhaps I will write a novel about my life; it would do very well, I think.’
She pauses for Cecilia to comment.
‘I should think so. It’s so romantic – and tragic.’
‘More romantic, I think. Yes, the oranges are a little large, but I think I can carry it off.’
Cecilia leans against the armoire, hands caught behind her back. ‘What were Aunt Lydia and Uncle George like back then?’ She bites the tip of her tongue. ‘And Claudine?’
Penelope looks at her sidelong, eyes narrowed. ‘Why are you asking about Claudine?’
Cecilia shrugs. ‘Why not?’
‘Curiosity is not an attractive quality in a girl. And don’t lean like that – stand up properly. I taught you good posture, so don’t pretend you don’t know how.’
Cecilia straightens. ‘When did Claudine go to Germany? It must have been some time ago.’
‘That is not a subject that concerns you.’
‘But—’
Penelope points a hairpin at her. ‘Leave it alone. It is not your business. Lydia may tolerate you bothering her with your nonsense, but I will not, and nor will Claudine, so know your place and behave yourself or I cannot be responsible for—’ Penelope cuts herself off and goes back to arranging the carefully dressed curls of her hair.
It is strange; Cecilia cannot imagine anyone intimidating her mother.
And yet, Claudine has done it.
‘Responsible for what?’
‘What do you mean, for what? Responsible for you, silly girl. That is your problem: too much imagination, not enough sense. Go on now. Get ready. You look a state.’
‘Yes, Mother.’
Penelope shoos her away. ‘Odette can afford to waste her youth on flights of fancy, but you cannot. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Mother.’
‘Don’t wear white,’ says Penelope, as Cecilia goes out the door. ‘Or yellow, or orange. Those are my colours today.’