Chapter 11
Odette
ODETTE PUTS ON A CORSET the next day.
The heat has finally broken in a great, thrashing storm that batters against the windows and whistles down the chimney.
Clothes are not something she ever thinks about too deeply. It is the joy of Herne House and summer with Cecilia to pay no mind to manners or mores, to dress how she pleases, in shifts and loose tea-gowns, shirtwaists and skirts tucked up.
The night before comes back into her mind over and over: the scramble for her nightdress, the bobbing light approaching, Claudine’s look of disgust.
It had not occurred to her before that anyone other than Cecilia could see her body and have thoughts about it – as though they lived in a world apart.
Foolish.
She dresses quickly, angrily. Corset. Plain dress. Conventional.
The breakfast room is already noisy with the morning crowd, and without thinking, Odette steers away from it and towards the studio.
Her mother sits before the half-finished painting of Elaine and Lancelot.
The shape of Cecilia and Odette is sketched out in the centre of the canvas with a solemnity and carefulness that comes through even in the simple work.
Around it, the scenery is blocked out in swathes of colour and shape.
They will have to pose again, more than once, for Lydia to capture the detail of the scene, and Odette finds herself suddenly longing for it.
‘Mother?’
Lydia looks round. There are dark circles under her eyes and no colour in her cheeks, but she seems alert, present. ‘Darling.’
Odette sits on the floor beside her and rests her head against her mother’s thigh. A hand comes to settle on Odette’s loose hair, stroking the strands behind her ear.
‘It’s wonderful,’ she says of the painting, and means it entirely. Her mother’s brilliance is undeniable, and Odette cannot begrudge her it.
‘I will finish it before the summer is out.’
Not so far away, a boom of thunder rolls in, and a cheer rises from the breakfast room.
Odette lets herself be soothed by the running of fingers across her hair, by the warmth of her mother’s body, a childish instinct that has never deserted her.
‘Did you always know you loved Father?’ she asks. ‘Did you always know you wanted to be together, no matter what?’
Her mother does not answer at once. ‘Oh yes. Always. Long before he ever looked at me. Far more than he ever loved me.’
‘But he loves you now.’
Lydia tuts. ‘Why all these questions?’
Odette does not rightly know. Instead she asks, ‘Will you be all right when I go away to university?’
Lydia thinks awhile before speaking. ‘Of course. I am so very proud of you for going. I have let so much keep me scared. You are much braver than me.’
‘I’m not brave,’ she says reflexively.
‘You are. And whenever you want to come back, you know you will always have a place with me.’
‘I know.’ Odette turns her face to press it into the stuff of her mother’s skirt.
There is no one who knows her better. No one who loves her so unconditionally, so boundlessly that her love becomes shapeless, indistinct.
Cecilia may love her, but she knows it comes with conditions, that Cecilia needs things from her she fears she may not be fit to give, and that gap between them will only grow and fester.
Her mother has no world but Odette.
If she ever lost her mother – she thinks that unobserved by her, she might cease to exist.
Lydia says nothing, but she keeps smoothing her hair over her crown. Rain clatters against the glass, loud enough to drown out her own breathing. A flash of lightning is followed by thunder so closely that the storm must be right overhead.
Odette cannot explain herself. She is crying. There is a sense of some foreboding that has taken root in her heart, and it makes her sick – as though there is something she must do, if only she can think of what it is.
Her mother’s cool fingers find her neck, soothing against her hot skin.
‘You should eat something,’ Lydia says when Odette is done crying and has mopped her face with a handkerchief.
‘Will you come with me?’ Odette looks up at her, open-faced.
Lydia baulks, then seems to catch herself, and forces a smile. ‘All right.’
Odette rises, brushes down her skirts, wipes her eyes again.
But when Lydia stands, she stumbles. Steadies herself against the easel.
Then doubles over, retching up red blood.