6
Odette
ODETTE SLINKS DOWNSTAIRS AS softly as she can in rubber-soled boots. She does not want to be caught leaving. She might be asked where she is going – and that she cannot answer. But at the morning-room door, she pauses, looks inside.
‘Who gave you that?’ she asks Claudine with a frown.
Claudine wears a shawl of lavender silk embroidered with white lilies.
She lets the shawl hang casually from her arms. ‘This? George thought I might like something of Lydia’s as a keepsake.’
‘It wasn’t enough that you took her husband – you had to take her clothes, too?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
Before Odette can reply, George steps into the hall and steers her away. ‘Oh dear,’ he says, smiling. ‘You two really are chalk and cheese, aren’t you?’
Odette stares at him, blank with shock. He cannot be serious, surely? ‘Chalk and cheese?’ As though they are simply two clashing personalities in a West End play.
‘Give it time and the two of you will find some common ground,’ he says, almost jovial in his tone. ‘You are unused to a mother like Claudine, so naturally it will not be easy.’
Odette bristles. ‘She is not my mother.’
‘No, perhaps you are too old for that.’
She steps away from his grasp. ‘I’m going out.’
‘May a father ask where?’
‘Only – out. With Cecilia.’
He smiles, glad of an easy way to please. ‘Of course. I’m glad to see you two getting on again.’
Another maddening statement. When did he think they fell out? What does he know of any of it? And yet he will tell her how it is, define the world for her.
Was he always like this? Did she simply not notice before? Or has it come with Claudine, this evasiveness? He has more to hide now, she imagines, and Odette loses patience with it. She cannot play this game anymore, she cannot work to uphold his narrative.
She thinks, abruptly, that now her mother is gone, there is no irrational figure to range themselves against, stood side by side. Her father must have an abject counterpart, so he can stay the steady one, the sane one. Who stands on the other side now?
It is her, Odette realises. It is her.
*
She rings the bell of the Gate House and waits on the doorstep, making a concerted effort to keep her hands still.
The maid brings Cecilia to the door. It is not their hours to be at home to callers, so Cecilia wears a loose house dress.
‘Odette!’
There is something closed and wary in Cecilia’s face that she cannot interpret, and it makes Odette feel so utterly, terribly alone. They have never been this alien to one another. ‘I have made an appointment,’ she says.
‘What sort of appointment?’
‘Would you hate me if I called it a surprise?’
Odette’s heart is racing, but she hopes her agitation is not too obvious. If she tells Cecilia what she has planned, she might say no, and that is unacceptable.
Cecilia hangs back, watching Odette a little warily. ‘I’m not dressed.’
‘There is time for you to do so.’ Odette has not seen her since their visit to the gallery yesterday, and she has made no apology for her behaviour. Should she? Maybe – but later. Right now she cannot find the words, it is all she can do to hold her nerve.
Cecilia hesitates for only a moment before nodding and disappearing inside.
Odette paces the small, tree-filled garden, sweat gathering beneath her heavy bombazine.
At last, Cecilia emerges, and they set off.
London is perpetually busy, with omnibuses and trams rattling past dressmakers and bakeries, dray carts delivering milk and vegetables and meat, shop awnings jostling for space, women with prams, children dashing about in mittens, men posting advertisements for music halls, auctions, boarding houses and temperance preachers.
They make it only a few streets before it begins to rain, so Odette hails a hansom cab.
Is this a bad omen? Is she making a terrible error?
The clatter of the wheels and horseshoes makes conversation difficult; Odette is grateful for the reprieve.
How odd that she does not know how to speak to Cecilia – Cecilia who is half her own mind, half her own heart.
She wants to reach for her, in this brief private space, but it is as though these next few hours are a test through which they must pass before she can be at ease around her again.
It is strange and unsettling, and Odette feels like she has missed a step on the stairs, is lurching out into the void.
‘Where are we going?’ asks Cecilia.
Odette evades the question. ‘You are quite sure you don’t believe in ghosts?’
‘You asked the same question in your letter. Why does it matter?’
‘Tell me. Please.’
‘Odette, you are frightening me.’
Odette is agitated, her leg bouncing. This must go as she hopes, or she will simply not survive it. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. It is just a question.’
Cecilia swallows. ‘Well, I suppose I cannot say for certain. I don’t think anyone can say for certain.’
Odette rounds on her, eyes narrowing. ‘But you were certain before.’
‘Yes – I mean – as certain as I can be.’
‘But you might change your mind?’
Cecilia shrugs helplessly. ‘I suppose any of us may change our mind about anything.’
Odette can barely sit still; they crawl so slowly along the crowded streets it is as though she has been placed in fetters. She needs to move.
‘We are attending a séance,’ she says plainly. ‘I suppose that will make it clear one way or another.’ Before Cecilia can reply, Odette bounces up. ‘For God’s sake, we will be late if this damned driver cannot do something more clever about this traffic.’
She lets down the window and hangs out to have a quick and caustic argument with the driver that results in a handful of coins being exchanged – near thrown – and Odette marches off with Cecilia in tow.
They are soon in the residential streets of Camden.
Odette turns into one of the newer developments, built in the style of thirty years ago, long rows of flat-fronted townhouses with wrought-iron balconies along the first floor and the servants’ entrance down an alley to the side of each pair of houses.
The plane trees planted at intervals along the pavement have shot up like weeds and will soon overshadow the fine buildings.
Cecilia catches up at last. ‘You cannot simply tell me we are going to a séance and run off.’
‘I didn’t run off.’
‘Why did you keep it a secret?’
Odette hesitates beside a tree, pressing a hand to the trunk to steady herself, and for the first time, she feels real, horrible doubt. What is she doing? Why bring Cecilia into this?
Still. They are here now. Cecilia is watching her.
She schools her nerves, straightens. ‘I thought you might not come.’
Cecilia looks at her reproachfully. ‘Don’t you know I would follow you anywhere?’
If they were not in the open street, she would kiss her. She must not lose Cecilia. Who would she be without her?
But Odette has no words for any of it.
‘We’re late,’ she says instead.
Cecilia must see for herself. If the ghost is real, then it must show itself at a séance, surely?
It would be a relief to know she is not mad. That she is not alone.
Odette checks the house number in her notebook and mounts the steps to a nondescript front door.
There is no sign or plaque explaining what this place is; through the window, she can see only a very ordinary parlour with a fire burning in the grate.
A maid shows them inside, and they wait a moment before there is the sound of footsteps descending the stairs.
Odette squeezes Cecilia’s hand so tightly she knows it must be painful.
‘Whatever you see, whatever you hear, you must promise to report it to me faithfully,’ she says. ‘However mad it may seem. I must hear your complete and truthful account of it. Do you understand?’
All Cecilia has time to do is nod before a plain, friendly-looking woman comes into the room.
‘Miss Fairfax-Waugh.’ She takes Odette’s hand in an overly familiar way.
‘I feel as if I already know you.’ Then she turns to Cecilia.
‘And Miss Moore. I am Mrs Emilia Weston. Thank you both for joining me in my home. I hope that today I may offer two grieving souls some small comfort. The spirits are always with us, my dears, and it is my greatest joy to reunite love lost too soon.’
‘Thank you for seeing us,’ says Odette mechanically.
Cecilia says nothing, only takes a step closer to Odette.
In the hallway is a slender girl whom Odette would have assumed to be one of the staff, if not for the smartness of her dress and the clean pink of her hands.
‘This is Rosina, my assistant.’ Mrs Weston waves her in. ‘This will be our little party for today. Tea first? I find my clients often welcome a moment to remember their dear departed before we begin.’
‘No,’ says Odette abruptly. ‘Let’s get on with it.’
Mrs Weston falters but smooths it over quickly. ‘Of course. Please come this way.’ She indicates for the group to move from the parlour.
Odette and Cecilia are led past the main staircase to a door at the back of the house. It is murky with shadows, but Mrs Weston guides Odette’s hand to a rope that hangs on the wall and ushers them in.
As they are closed into the darkness, Cecilia leans forwards to speak into Odette’s ear. The light breath against her neck is all too familiar. ‘I don’t like this. Say the word and we can leave.’
‘Please. I have to,’ is all Odette can say.
Cecilia touches one hand to her back, in a gesture of comfort.
They stumble along the corridor, clutching the rope, the wall, and the immense sense of vulnerability feels too much. Odette stubs her toe on a step and gropes her way up a set of stairs that are narrow and steep.
This is not safe.
What is she doing? Oh God. Please let this be worth it.
The stairs level out, and the rope takes them through another doorway and to a table.
Odette fumbles into a chair, and there is the brief press of an arm against her shoulder as Cecilia takes the chair to her left.