Page 8 of The Beautiful Ones

“You do not have to speak to Warren Dewey,” I said. “I will remain beside you.”

Cécile wrote again.

That is worse.

I frowned. “My company is so terrible?”

She shook her head and continued writing.

They see that I need someone. They know why you are there. Everyone knows. Why must I pretend?

I read the words twice.

Until that moment, I had believed my presence protected her. I had never considered that I might also be the sign announcing her weakness.

“I did not know,” I said.

Her anger disappeared. She reached for my hand and squeezed it.

From the gardens below came the sound of a workman calling to another. Carts rolled along the rear drive, carrying chairs and tables from one outbuilding to the next. The whole estate prepared for society while Cécile sat in her shift and I in my plain gray dress, holding hands like frightened children.

After a while, she released me and walked to the window.

The gardenias were blooming beneath it, filling the morning air with their rich perfume. Cécile leaned against the frame and looked down into the garden. Her lips moved, but no sound emerged. I wondered whether she was speaking to herself in the private place where words obeyed her.

Then she crossed to her writing table and took up a pencil.

Do you have these flowers in Sweden?

I read the question twice. Some English words still required time before they gave up their meaning.

“No,” I said at last. “Not these.”

She wrote another question.

What flowers grow there?

“I do not know all the English names.” I felt foolish admitting it. “There are small blue ones in spring. They grow in the forest when snow goes away.”

Cécile waited for more.

I searched for its English name, but found only the Swedish word my mother had taught me.

“Blåsippa.”

“That is what we call them,” I explained. “Blue flowers. Very small.”

Cécile wrote the unfamiliar word beneath her question, carefully copying each letter as I spelled it. When she finished, she turned the page toward me.

“Blåsippa.”

The sight of that Swedish word in her hand nearly undid me. It was the first piece of home I had seen in another person’s hand since leaving Sweden.

A shadow crossed the doorway.

Dinah stood there holding a breakfast tray. Her eyes moved from Cécile’s writing table to my face, but she asked no questions.

“Best eat while you’ve got the chance,” she said. “Once those people arrive, Madame Lebon will have this house spinning like a top.”