‘Good morning, my angel.’ Lydia stops and surveys Odette. ‘And what an angel you are. You look so much better with a bit ofweight on you.’
Odette ignores the flush of shame. ‘Does this mean you feel well today?’
‘Well? Well? Who amongst us is well?’ She pulls open another drawer in the index card cabinet where the paints are stored, to reveal a scatter of different peach tones. ‘I feel as though someone is driving knives through my stomach and has let all the air out of my head, but you know, they give me very good medicine.’ She lifts her skirt up to use as a basket to carry the paints over to her easel.
Odette picks through the mess spread about the floor.
There is a present waiting on the stool, wrapped beautifully in marbled paper and tied up with ribbons.
‘Is this for me?’
Lydia diminishes a little. ‘Oh. Yes. You may not like it, and you must say at once if you don’t; it is only a trifle and really very unimportant. Happy birthday.’
Delicately, Odette unwraps the object that is unmistakably a book.
It is a copy ofPersuasion– a first edition, she sees when she turns to the title page, in a brown leather binding with a maroon and black-banded spine. The pages are lightly speckled and the edges soft where they have been clipped and turned countless times.
Her mother watches her hopefully.
‘It is wonderful,’ says Odette.
And it is.
‘You like it?’
‘Very much.’
‘I thought you might find Anne’s story a comfort.’
Odette’s smile is fixed. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘It is her best work, I think,’ says Lydia, as though Odette has not spoken. ‘Her most mature.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Now. Come here.’ She gestures for Odette to stand in front of the canvas, as though she is to sit for another painting. ‘I have an idea. It’s quite, quite brilliant. It will simplymakethe show. I cannot imagine making any work public without it.’
Odette’s breath catches. ‘Then it is settled? You will show at the Jermyn Street Gallery with Mr King and sell the paintings?’
Again, Lydia continues, disregarding her. ‘Mr King said it is a busy market and we must find a way to draw attention – something that will get the press interested. Publicity, he called it. And I have just the thing.’
‘What is it? Shall I fetch Cecilia and Leo?’
‘Oh no, this one is quite special. I want only you.’
That warm flush of pleasure. What it is to be wanted. ‘Of course, Mama. I’ll sit for anything you want.’
Lydia takes up a pencil and begins to consider angles, shapes. ‘Help me lift this.’
Her mother indicates a small square trellis that is interwoven with cloth flowers. Odette remembers it from a work ofTristan and Iseultthat she and Cecilia sat for last year, and fromLa Belle Dame sans Mercithat Cecilia and Leo modelled the year before. The sittings would go on so long, the three of them came up with games to play, The Minister’s Cat or I Spy: silly, childish parlour games. One year, Leo had insisted that the minister’s cat was a frabjous cat, and argued that as it had been published in a poem, that made it a real word. The resulting argument had derailed Lydia’s work and they had been banned from any mention of Lewis Carroll for the rest of the summer.
It was a beautiful time. They had so many beautiful times.
It cannot be possible that this is the last summer they will spend like this.
Together, they position the trellis where Lydia wants it, and Odette waits in anticipation. It is so rare that Lydia asks herto model alone. She would sketch her often as a child, while Odette was reading or concentrating on her needlework, but her paintings are all grand pieces with multiple characters.
‘Strip down,’ Lydia orders.