Chapter 9
Cecilia
‘EDDIE!’ UNCLE GEORGE’S VOICE rises up the staircase towards Cecilia. ‘Looking sprightly, old boy. Always good to give into your tailor and allow him to take out your waistbands.’
‘Very funny, Fairfax. So funny your hairline seems to be running away in mirth.’
Cecilia grips the newel post and denies herself the moment to peer over the banisters like a child. She does not want to be seen or heard or thought of, just for a short while. The voices carry easily in this echoing space, with its stone flags and too-high ceilings.
‘Allow me to introduce Mr King,’ says Eddie. ‘Curator of the Jermyn Street Gallery.’
‘How do you do?’ says Mr King. ‘I think we met briefly at the opening of the summer show at the Slade – was it last year?’
Cecilia is alive at once. Mr King – the Jermyn Street Gallery. This is it: Eddie, his friends, the show.
‘Yes, of course. You will remember my wife.’
‘I have admired your work for a long time, Mrs Fairfax-Waugh.’
‘Oh – well – thank you,’ says Lydia.
‘Truly superlative.’
No, that is not the way to do it at all. Cecilia wants to run down the stairs and shake this Mr King and tell him that Lydia is not one for direct praise. She is not Penelope; she wilts in the light, unless it is angled just so.
The voices recede as they move from the entrance hall.
It is all she can think of now. She must find Mr King and align him to their cause.
In her room, a dress has already been selected for her, laid out on the bed like the shadow of a body.
She strips her stained shirtwaist, changes into the new frock, a red dotted Swiss fabric with small leg-of-mutton sleeves and a ribbon-belted waist, then neatens her hair and applies a little scent.
Her confidence falters at the prospect of approaching Mr King alone.
That is not the role she plays. She is the shadow, not the light.
The echo, not the noise itself. What will she say to him?
What will he think of her? Will Odette be disappointed if she makes a misstep?
She needs Odette. She needs an anchor, some ballast to steady her in the storm.
Odette is not yet back.
Lightly, she slips into the dining room, a grand place with red silk wall hangings and paintings of battles from the ancient world, where an array of bottles has been laid out on the sideboard; music comes from the drawing room, the clink of glasses, laughter from some unheard joke.
Cecilia pours herself a cup of lemonade to have something to hold.
Light hands on her waist shift her to one side. ‘Excuse me, my dear.’
Mr King’s voice shocks her into silence.
He stands a little too close as he examines the selection of alcoholic drinks.
A man closer to thirty than Leo, middle height, handsome and with the tense athleticism of some kind of prowling animal, he is quite the different type to the usual sort in their parents’ crowd.
Cecilia thinks, abruptly, that this is not a man who has been comfortable.
He does not move with the unthinking entitlement of Uncle George and his friends, but with a far keener awareness, alert and assessing.
His shirt sleeves are rolled up, his dark hair is tousled loose from its pomade; when he knocks over a bottle, Cecilia realises he is already drunk.
It cannot be so easy.
Together, they right the bottles that have fallen like ten-pins.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says, for want of anything better. ‘Am I in your way?’
‘Not at all.’ He seems to stop, taking Cecilia in properly for the first time. ‘Melusine,’ he says. ‘It is you. My God – your face. I have seen it a thousand times.’
Melusine. A water spirit. It was the first painting for which Lydia used her as a model, sitting her inside a water butt in the grounds of Herne House, Odette nearby as Pressine, Melusine’s mother, banishing her daughter from Avalon.
There, she should speak now – tell him who Lydia really is, how he can get what he wants, what they both want – but the words stick in her throat.
Mr King takes her in with his hungry gaze. ‘Quite remarkable. You are even more arresting in person.’
He steps forwards, and she steps back without thinking, catching her heel on the foot of the sideboard.
Before she can fall, Mr King’s hands are on her waist again, steadying her.
He does not remove them. They are close enough that she can see the red veins at the corners of his eyes and the speckle of stubble caught in the fold of skin below his nose.
‘I’ve met many artists’ models, and few are as beautiful when painted only by God’s simple hand.
’ His breath smells of port, sweet and decaying, and she looks anywhere but at him: the floor, his shoulder, a point on the ceiling.
‘Your look is so fresh and pure. I can see why artists desire to possess it.’ His hand creeps up her bodice to her breast. ‘Tell me, does she have you in your shift in the water, or are you naked?’
Cecilia freezes.
She is at once very far away from herself, very quiet and small and hidden.
Any thought in her head is gone like dandelion seed.
Before he can press his hand further, Eddie comes through the door. ‘Charles! Where are you hiding? Come on – old Fairfax-Waugh says she’ll show us the goods.’
Mr King does not remove himself. Cecilia fears he will feel her shaking from the effort of holding herself still.
Eddie stops dead. ‘What are you doing?’
For a moment, Cecilia’s heart rises.
‘Hiding by the wine – you’re far too predictable,’ Eddie continues, and Cecilia’s foolishness is laid bare. No one is coming to save her. ‘Let go of Miss Moore. She’s a family friend, you know, not a regular model.’
Mr King at last steps back, releasing Cecilia to sag against the sideboard.
‘My mistake.’ His eyes do not leave her face.
‘Lord, Charles – can’t leave you alone for a moment.’ Eddie slings his arm around Mr King’s shoulder and steers him back to the party.
There is the bang of the front door flying open again, more voices – and this time, Cecilia hears Odette. Thank God – she is back.
Cecilia has failed her here. Miscalculated. Or – well, misunderstood.
She is out of her depth.
She will not fail Odette again.
At the last moment, Mr King looks back at her, like she is Melusine, naked in the water, painted and pinned up on the wall.