She thinks, for a while, that Odette might apologise. There is such a torturous look of despair and shame on her face that Cecilia cannot imagine that any other thoughts occupy her mind.
Eventually, she speaks. ‘It – went too far,’ she says haltingly. ‘I am sorry.’
Cecilia finds, abruptly, that she is furious. ‘I never thought you would hurt me. I never thought I would be scared of you.’
Odette buries her face in her hands. ‘You don’t know how it pains me to hear you say that.’
‘No, I don’t. If you did truly feel pain over the way you’ve treated me, you would have stayed your hand long before now.’
‘I couldn’t! You don’t understand. This isn’t about you – it’s—’She cuts herself off.
‘What is it about, Odette? I have been begging you to tell me, begging you to let me help you, and instead you make wild accusations and turn your back on me, take a knife to everything we have held dear between us. Why? For God’s sake, Odette – why?’
Odette grinds the heels of her hands into her eyes, taking several ragged breaths. ‘All right. All right, I’ll tell you.’
Cecilia’s breath catches in her throat.
It is like some different creature lifts its head from Odette’s hands, a ruined, ancient thing.
‘I have seen my mother’s ghost,’ says Odette, voice low and flat.
Cecilia searches her face. ‘You mean – you meanreally?’
‘Yes. I thought I was mad at first, but she has haunted me since the day of her funeral. It’s real.’
‘Is that why you took me to the séance?’
‘Yes. I wanted you to see her for yourself.’
Cecilia does not speak for a while, turning it over in her mind.
‘I see.’
‘She told me Claudine murdered her and I must seek revenge. I have been frantic with it. It is true – don’t you see? I have to get Claudine to confess. There – that is all of it. Do you believe me?’
There is a long, cold silence. The room is so quiet and so dark, and Cecilia feels herself sinking, sinking.
This cannot be.
‘You mock me,’ she says softly. For what else can it be?
How can she trust Odette now?
‘I do not mock you. Cecilia, please—’
‘Do not,’ she cuts her off, sharp and shaking. ‘Do not ask me to make a fool of myself for you again. I have stood by you through all of this – this—’
‘Madness?’ says Odette.
‘Yes! Perhaps.’
‘So you side with them.’
‘For God’s sake Odette, you know I do not. I told you today that I have been trying to find the money your mother promised you so we can escape. What I do not understand above all is why you are being socruel.’
What escape is left to them now? They cannot escape what they have said to each other. What Odette has done. Perhaps she should tell her now about George and Claudine’s past engagement, but what would be the point? Odette needs no more fuel on the fire of her obsession.
Odette slumps back against the wall, and a hard mask falls across her face, mouth pulling into a tight line.