Chapter 3 #2
But then Lydia arrives in a burst of colour, timed, somehow, to a flare in the music as she steps through the French windows.
‘Darlings. How dare you have fun without me.’
She is sly, tipsy, posing against the doorframe as though she is Sarah Bernhardt in a photograph card. Behind her are several boxes of fabric and props that she has dragged from the studio.
‘I think we can make a few good scenes together, don’t you?’
There is something like a cheer, and wine is pressed into Lydia’s hands, and she is ushered into the circle, the boxes pulled after her and outfits handed out.
Odette blanches at the memory of this morning. It strikes her now that anyone who steps into the studio will see it, see her. When Claudine goes with Lydia’s next dose, there Odette will be. Exposed.
Tonight, Lydia is brilliant.
Quick, creative, light, charming.
Odette has seen this rarely – too rarely.
Like a sun that barely breaks through thick cloud, it will not last. It is easier for Lydia to do this if Odette fades into the background, she has learnt – and sometimes, it makes Odette wonder if she was the cloud that blotted out the light from her mother.
What was it like before Lydia was a mother? Perhaps it was better.
The first tableau vivant is a motley collection of scoundrels as the Pirates of Penzance, which quickly descends into an abysmal rendition of ‘I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General’.
Odette and Cecilia are dragged in to play the daughters, and then soon enough, the scene is changed again, and now they are Byron, Percy and Mary Shelley, Doctor Polidori, all gathered around the fireplace, telling stories in a Swiss thunderstorm.
Then, almost inevitably, comes the tableau of Shelley’s pyre on that lonely Italian beach. Odette has a mezzotint of the Fournier painting above her writing desk.
‘Someone be Trelawny and retrieve the heart,’ cries Eddie. ‘Here, Odette – you be Mary, and prepare to receive it.’
The new tableau is set, and Odette is handed a windfall apple in place of her lover’s heart.
‘Love surpasses death,’ says Lydia. ‘She kept his heart with her for the rest of her life.’
Claudine laughs. ‘Are you sure it was a token of love? It might have been proof he was dead.’
There is general protest and amusement at her statement, and quickly, it is lost.
But Odette is watching her mother’s face all the while.
And Lydia looks frightened.
The tableau changes, then changes again, and after a moment, Lydia regains herself.
Odette’s father sits to one side on a folding chair, enigmatic and quiet, speaking with one or two people who drift to his side, resting his chin on his hand with an air of mystery.
He watches her mother, and now and again, she directs her performance to him, but his eyes slide away each time she tries.
Her mother is hard to love, Odette understands this.
She must have been a different woman when he chose to marry her, the one who existed before Odette arrived and changed everything.
When Lydia does begin to flag, it is with a healthy colour in her cheeks, and Odette allows herself to feel hope. Lydia will get better. If she was truly sick, she would not exert herself like this, surely?
People are ill all the time, and they recover.
Odette cannot conceive of a world in which her mother will not get better.
The party winds down, and the guests make their way to bed. Odette waits where Cecilia has instructed her to, in another of her hiding places, and when the house is quiet, save for the sound of the servants, Cecilia appears.
‘Are you ready for your surprise?’
She leads her up through the hidden passages until they reach the attic, dim and dusty and hot under the pitched roof.
The place has been transformed. Once forgotten bookshelves have been righted and filled with an assortment of volumes.
A cloth has been put across a table with a vase of flowers, chairs set out as though waiting for someone to sit down to tea.
A bed has been made up from blankets and pillows, and Cecilia pulls her down into it at once.
‘My gift to you is one night of actual, absolute privacy,’ she says. ‘One night alone together, just as we will be in our little flat in Bloomsbury.’
Odette’s smile widens. ‘You are quite mad.’ She looks around and sees it: Cecilia’s vision, the home they might one day share.
‘I am not mad at all. Lydia has spoken to Mr King. Surely it is done.’
Odette squeezes her hand. ‘Yes. I suppose so.’
Cecilia rummages in the blankets and pulls out two books. ‘These are your actual presents.’
‘This is too much.’
‘Don’t complain; just say thank you.’
‘Thank you.’
Each is wrapped in cloth, and Odette removes it to reveal an edition of John Donne. She turns it over, unsure.
‘Don’t you like it?’ asks Cecilia. ‘I thought it was fitting.’
It is not that she dislikes the gifts, only that they are too close an echo of that morning.
‘I’ll take them back.’
‘No.’ Odette speaks reflexively. ‘I want them. It was only – nothing. It doesn’t matter.’
She leans over to kiss Cecilia softly. ‘Thank you.’
Cecilia tries to draw her into another kiss, but Odette cannot, not now, not after—
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t apologise.’ Instead, Cecilia brings her down to lie at her side, chaste and chivalrous. ‘I love you like this, too.’
Odette closes her eyes. She will not cry. Don’t leave me, she wants to say, but it feels unfair. No one can promise to stay forever. No one can promise to never change.
Dying is the only unbreakable promise.
The end is all there is.