Chapter 1
Cecilia
‘ODETTE, ODETTE.’
Cecilia scrambles down the pitch-dark steps, following the sound of Odette’s feet, and bursts into the too-bright hallway of the medium’s house. The front door is open, and Odette is just out of sight, skirts flashing down the winter London street.
She catches Odette halfway to Camden Road station and places a hand on her arm, half expecting to be shaken off.
‘What happened?’ asks Cecilia.
She is not sure herself what she thinks happened. The séance was a sick charade – she knew it would be. Penelope dallied in them once or twice when Cecilia was a child, and she can still remember the sickly smell of the medium’s heavy violet perfume, the obvious trickery of the performance.
There was something uniquely sinister this time.
It began with the same old tricks, but this medium seemed to have some particular skill at deception – perhaps a background in the theatre – and her sleights of hand frightened Cecilia.
She is angry at herself for not stopping Odette from going through with it, and it has only ended in heartbreak and horror as she feared.
‘I can’t talk here,’ says Odette. ‘Not – in public.’ Her hair is escaping its pins, and she is breathing too hard; they are drawing attention.
Cecilia nods, mouth tight, but loops their arms together, leads them into the station, buying two tickets so that they can go down to the platform and walk along to a quiet end. She sits on a bench, but Odette does not join her.
She does not pace, seemingly too fractured for even that much co-ordinated action.
Instead, she flutters around, first holding onto a pole, then the back of the bench, then going right up to the edge of the platform and back again.
As before, her gaze is always drawn back to someone Cecilia cannot see.
Cecilia does nothing, says nothing, hoping patience will go some measure towards reassurance.
Eventually, Odette stops before her. ‘What did you experience?’ she asks at last. ‘You promised me your true and honest account.’
Cecilia’s mouth twists – she has never been good at hiding her expression. A train rattles into the station, and she waits for the alighting passengers to thread their way to the exit before she speaks.
‘I am not sure what to make of any of it. It was quite – strange.’
‘Yes? What was strange?’
‘All of it. You could have warned me.’
‘If I warned you, would you have come?’
‘No.’ She pauses. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You would have tried to persuade me not to go, at least, and I had to go because—’
Odette stares over Cecilia’s shoulder, face distorted with grief. Cecilia reaches for her hand, but Odette does not react when she takes it. It is as though Odette has stepped through to another world and left Cecilia all alone.
‘I understand,’ Cecilia says quietly.
Finally, Odette looks at her, eyes shadowed and glinting. ‘No. You do not.’
This again. Cecilia feels an unkind flare of frustration. Does Odette really think she is the only person to have experienced a grief so devastating? Perhaps she meant it when she told Odette she was taking out her pain on others. It is blunt, but perhaps it is true.
‘They cannot—’ She stops to choose her words. ‘I do not believe they can reach your mother, if that is what you wanted to know.’
‘That is not what I wanted.’
Cecilia’s frustration boils over. ‘Then what was it? Why did you leave like that? I am trying to help you, but you will never tell me what is going on. You leave me in the dark.’
‘Answer me first,’ urges Odette. ‘What happened back there, for you? The truth – not what you think I want to hear.’
It is a low blow, a little too well observed, and Cecilia does her best not to crumple from it.
‘Nothing. Nothing happened. We went to a dark room, they did a few tricks, then you gave such an awful cry and ran away, and I thought someone must have hurt you, and now you will not tell me what the matter is.’ Cecilia pulls up short, a little breathless. ‘There it is. My honest account.’
Odette does not speak.
For a long while, they stay in silence, trains rushing into the platform, disgorging passengers and swallowing them up again. The day is cold, and Cecilia shivers despite her gloves and coat.
‘Then I have my answer,’ says Odette. ‘You cannot understand me. I am alone.’
Cecilia stands abruptly, unsure what to do with her anger. ‘Only because you choose to be. I am right here, Odette. I am not dead. I love you. But that does not seem to matter to you anymore.’
Another train pulls in. Cecilia loses her nerve.
‘I will see you at home.’
She turns quickly before Odette can speak, steps onto the train and closes herself into a compartment. A cloud of steam obscures the platform, and then they are moving, splitting, as far divided as they have ever been.
*
Penelope catches Cecilia as soon as she sets foot inside the Gate House.
‘There you are. Come in here and help me with my wardrobe. There is so much that needs altering that I cannot possibly manage it myself. Of course there is no immediate question of leaving this house, but it is wise to be prepared. You would learn that if you were to become a wife. There are a few things that can be sold, just to be sensible of course . . .’ Penelope trails off, chattering to herself, always smoothing, arranging, schooling the world to suit the story she must believe.
Cecilia is too jumbled up from the events of the morning to refuse, and she finds her arms full with a mound of dresses and skirts and blouses and jackets, all of which must be examined for wear, for style, for fashion, for what is unbecoming, what is passé.
Penelope chatters through it, discussing Leo’s prestige at his firm, the shows she wants to see in town, the poem she thinks Mr Wrexham will write about her.
Once that is done, Cecilia is tasked with sorting through Penelope’s writing desk, piles of correspondence, albums, diaries, pens, cards.
Amongst them is a worn photograph album of red leather that Cecilia has not looked at in at least a year.
It shows all their summers at Herne House.
She opens the cover and leafs through the images that have become as familiar as Lydia’s paintings: Odette and Cecilia in their school uniforms, lined up together at the front door; a sprawling party on the back lawn, George dressed up as Nelson and Leo a diminutive Wellington; George stood proudly by a shy Odette presenting a school prize book; Penelope and Lydia arm in arm in front of a wall overgrown with honeysuckle.
With a pang of regret, Cecilia wishes she had a photograph of Odette’s nineteenth birthday to add to the collection. She should have documented those last moments before they were parted.
At the end of the album, the pictures become older, showing summers from her mother’s youth, which have little interested her before.
The only ones she has ever paid attention to are the ones of her father – the man who died before she was born.
Her favourite is one of him leaning against the fireplace in the smoking room in Herne House, wearing a waistcoat that she can tell from the pattern must have been brightly coloured.
It is only a little detail to hold onto, but it is to Cecilia as though she can conjure a whole man from one small trace.
‘Did you never want to marry again?’ she asks.
Penelope does not look up from the dressing table where she is sorting through her jewellery, but there is a sharpness to the set of her shoulders, a sadness in her voice. ‘No. I loved once and lost it. When you know a love like that, you know there is no love after it.’
Cecilia thinks of Odette and knows that what her mother says is true. If she lost Odette, there would be nothing else left for her. It would be the end of her life.
On the opposite page is a picture of George and Lydia, looking extremely young. Lydia is sitting on George’s lap, and George is kissing her cheek.
Cecilia looks again and stops.
No, it is not Lydia.
She would have thought it was before, when there was no reason to ever doubt it.
But now she has seen Claudine, she has observed the clear differences between the two women.
Claudine is sitting on George’s lap.
Claudine is being kissed by George.
The previous engagement. The estrangement.
Claudine must have been engaged to George, until it was abruptly called off and she went abroad. After that, she was estranged from her sister.
Her sister Lydia, who married George.
Suddenly, Cecilia feels very cold and very frightened of Claudine.
Before Cecilia can lose her nerve, she speaks. ‘Odette mentioned that a shopkeeper in town said Claudine used to be engaged. Years ago, before she went to Europe. Before she became estranged from Lydia.’
Her mother looks at her sharply. ‘Yes. Well. It happens.’
Cecilia’s heart is a painful pressure in her chest. ‘She was engaged to George, wasn’t she?’
Penelope changes in a breath, face distorting into a mask of fear and anger. ‘Never say that again. You have no idea what you are talking about.’
‘It’s true, isn’t it?’
‘What happened in the past doesn’t matter.’
‘If it doesn’t matter, why was it kept secret? What do you know about it?’
For a moment, Cecilia thinks her mother might throw the perfume vials across the room or smash the mirror on the table.
‘Be quiet this instant,’ she hisses. ‘You overstep. You know nothing about what is going on, and believe me, my girl, you are better off that way. Do not trifle with Claudine – it will not serve you well, trust me. Ask fewer questions, and do what you’re told.’
Cecilia’s bravery is washed away in the face of her mother’s fury. ‘I’m sorry. I just wanted to know the truth.’
Penelope ignores her, pacing before the bed, then lighting upon a pin on the table.
‘Your appearance is shabby, and I won’t have it,’ she declares.
‘You run about like a child but play at being an adult, going off to university. You won’t even pierce your ears.
I am still your mother and what I decide is law.
Silly modern notions.’ She advances on Cecilia, who backs away.
‘I’m sorry. I won’t ask any more questions.’
‘Keep still.’
‘Mama – don’t—’
Penelope has backed her against the bed.
‘I don’t want to change my body for fashion,’ says Cecilia, choosing the words Odette used when they agreed they would be like the suffragettes and new women and spurn piercing.
Penelope laughs. ‘You’re a hypocrite, my girl. You wear a corset and shoes with a heel, curl your hair and pinch your cheeks red. You cannot opt out of living in the world, and the world will not let go of you so easily.’
‘No – I don’t want to,’ says Cecilia, her eyes fixed on the pin in her mother’s hand.
‘Stay still. This will only hurt if you make a fuss about it.’
Penelope pushes her flat on the bed, puts a cork behind Cecilia’s earlobe and pushes the pin through.
There is a pressure against her ear and then a tearing sensation, like paper ripping. Then the pain and shock hit her body. She is hot and cold at once, shaking and about to cry.
Penelope leans across her to the other side, repeats the action.
This time, Cecilia’s body is braced for pain, and the needle is sharp enough that she feels as though her whole head is being stuck through with it.
Penelope pushes stud earrings through the holes and fixes them in place. ‘There. Leave those in.’
She gets up and goes back to organising her jewellery, the anger seemingly expended from her body.
Cecilia lies flat on the bed, staring at the ceiling. She thinks she is crying. Her head throbs on both sides, like a pulsing noise too big to think around.
Penelope looks over at her and tuts. ‘Stop crying – that was nothing. Sit up.’
Cecilia sits.
‘Would it hurt you to look up from your books once or twice while you are at Oxford?’ She takes in her daughter. ‘There will be any number of young men around, and I am sure many of them will be in want of a wife.’
Cecilia says nothing.
‘Of course, I do not encourage you to any indiscretion, but it is no crime to flutter your eyelashes at a boy or two. They are quite simple, really; they want to feel wanted. Smile, ask them questions and listen and don’t talk about yourself too much, and you will find no trouble gathering suitors. ’
‘I suppose.’
‘You think I don’t understand that you have a different life planned to the one I lived, but you are wrong. Life is not the easy thing it seems at nineteen, and I would not see you drowned for want of learning how to swim. So put on a nice dress and, for God’s sake, smile. Do you understand?’
Cecilia looks at the floor. ‘Yes, Mother.’