Opal Plumstead (23 page)

‘Rapunzel. Cassie, you took down your
hair
?’

‘It was for the portrait. Daniel said I looked far too stiff and formal with my hair up. He didn’t want to paint me like some stuffy society lady.’

‘So how
did
he portray you? Like a young
Eve
?’

‘No! I was fully dressed – though not in my actual dress. He had this beautiful white frock he wanted me to wear, perhaps a little décolleté, but totally decent, I promise you, Miss Prim. It showed off my figure to perfection, even if I say so myself.’

‘You changed your dress in front of him?’ I squealed.

‘Shush! You’ll wake Mother. No, I went behind a Japanese screen. This is how artists work with their models. It’s all very proper and accepted, I assure you.’

‘You don’t know that. It’s just what he’s told you.’

‘Well, all right, then, I don’t know and I don’t care. All I know is that Daniel is the most heavenly man I’ve ever met and he’s totally smitten with me, Opie. He thinks I’m—’

‘A wretched English rose just coming into bloom – you’ve already told me,’ I said. ‘So he painted you all day long and half the evening too?’

‘Well, he painted me a lot of the time, but we had to have little breaks, of course. You’ve no idea how tiring it is, keeping the same pose all the time, though Daniel played us music. Some of the time it was shouty opera, but he made it quite interesting by telling me all the stories. Opera’s very sad, you know. They don’t seem to like happy endings. But then he played me some music-hall songs, and they were terribly comical. Daniel knew all the words and sang along. Do you know, if he wasn’t an artist I do believe he could go on the stage. He was astonished when I said I’d never been to a music hall. He said we should remedy that as soon as possible, which sounds very hopeful, doesn’t it?’

‘But Mother hates music halls. They’re very vulgar and the wrong sort of people go there.’ I was only parroting what Mother said, but I blushed to hear myself speak. I sounded so prim and disapproving. I didn’t really have any strong feelings about music halls. The strongest feeling I was experiencing now was envy.

‘Mother won’t know. I’ll make out I’m going somewhere else – with Philip,’ said Cassie.

‘You can’t keep this up for ever,’ I protested.

‘I can so – at least until Daniel proposes, and then Mother will be so thrilled she won’t mind that he’s a little older than me.’

‘Cassie, you’re living in cloud-cuckoo-land. He might well propose something to you, but it won’t be marriage. You’ll end up ruined, with a baby.’ I tried to make myself sound worldly wise, though I still only had a hazy idea of how this would happen. I’d gleaned a little information from books.
Tess of the d’Urbervilles
had been quite educational, but there hadn’t been any detailed descriptions.

‘Oh, you’re such a gloomy old fusspot, Opie. I’ll be fine, you’ll see. And one day – hopefully one day quite soon – there’ll be a ring on this finger.’ She rubbed the significant finger on her left hand as if she could magic a ring there by sheer willpower alone.

CASSIE SPENT EVERY
Sunday with Daniel Evandale. She said he often met her after work and took her off to tea as well. One evening he took her to the bar of the hotel and gave her champagne!

‘Champagne!’ I echoed. ‘Oh, what does it taste like, Cassie?’

‘Marvellous.’

‘Yes, but what
kind
of marvellous?’

‘It’s very bubbly and it tickles your nose.’

‘Like ginger beer?’

‘Well, a little, but much better. And we ate oysters.’

‘But you hate shellfish,’ I said. Cassie had screamed in disgust when Father once bought us a bag of whelks on a trip to the seaside.

‘I must admit they
look
disgusting, but Daniel showed me how to tip them down my throat and they were marvellous too,’ said Cassie.

‘If Daniel showed you how to tip a wriggly worm down your throat, you’d say it was marvellous,’ I said. ‘How is your portrait in the white dress progressing?’

‘Oh, that’s more or less finished. He works on all the background when I’m not there. He’s started another painting of me now.’

‘In another white dress?’

‘Without a dress this time.’ Cassie went into peals of laughter when she saw my face.

‘Naked?’

‘Not exactly.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘I’m wearing my stockings and my hat.’

‘Nothing in between?’

‘It’s a very artistic pose,’ said Cassie.

‘You really take all your clothes off?
Your corset and your drawers?
’

‘I
said
it’s artistic. Goodness, you’ve seen all those pictures in art books.’

‘I could no more take my clothes off in front of a man than fly!’ I declared. I imagined undressing in front of Freddy or Geoff, or Mr Beeston or dear Mr Andrews, and blushed at the very thought. Cassie seemed to have stepped onto an entirely different planet. It was bizarre thinking of her being so grown up and daring when she was still my own sister, scratching herself and humming maddeningly and yelping like a hyena if anything amused her. ‘Don’t you feel dreadful standing there with him staring at you?’

‘Well, to be truthful, I felt terribly anxious the first time I took off my dress and all my other things. I wouldn’t come out from behind the screen for ages and ages. Daniel had to coax me out, and then, when I did, I blushed all over. It was so embarrassing. But Daniel said such lovely things. He was so gentle and reassuring, and admiring too, that I soon calmed down. I don’t turn a hair now.’

Cassie managed to give an entirely fictional account of her Sunday activities to Mother, elaborating endlessly on life at Madame Alouette’s. Mother was extremely inquisitive, listening attentively, her mouth slightly open like a child hearing a bedtime story. She and Cassie grew closer than ever. I felt terribly left out.

I wrote to Father – long letters in which I bared my soul and told him everything. I fretted over Cassie’s secret trysting and fumed over my wretched lot at Fairy Glen. I didn’t
send
these letters, of course. I folded them up into tiny squares and hid them in my fondant fancy treasure box. I wrote him conventional real letters, submitting them for Mother’s approval, and he sent one in return. It was very short and uninformative. I was still simply addressed as ‘and Opal’.

But then we received another letter, brief and to the point.

My dearest Lou, Cassie and Opal
,

I have been told my trial is at Kingtown Assizes on 5th December. Pray God they will be lenient with me.

Your own loving husband and father,

Ernest

Mother read the letter through, and then collapsed in tears. It was as though she’d been able to put Father right out of her mind while she was concentrating on Cassie’s fictional social success with Madame Alouette’s family. Now she seemed steeped in despair all over again.

‘Oh, Mother, you will go to the trial, won’t you? It’s so important that Father sees you there,’ I said.

‘I don’t know whether I can bear it,’ she sobbed.

‘What about
Father
? We must think of him. Well,
I
shall go. I look much older now I’m out at work,’ I said determinedly.

‘Don’t wash the starch out of your hair – that’ll help!’ said Cassie.

‘How can you joke at a time like this? Oh Lord, I shall die if it’s all over the papers again,’ said Mother. ‘What if any of my customers see? And – oh, horrors – what about Madame Alouette? She’ll never want her nephew consorting with the daughter of a convicted prisoner.’

‘He’s not convicted yet, Mother. He might still be let off with some kind of penalty or fine,’ I said, though I did not really think it was possible.

‘Madame Alouette only reads the fashion journals,’ said Cassie.

‘But what about Philip?’ Mother wailed.

‘Oh, bother Philip,’ said Cassie, forgetting herself. ‘Listen, I’m coming to the trial too. I’ll make out to Madame that I’ve had hideous toothache or some such thing.’

‘You mustn’t! I can’t have either of you girls jeopardizing your jobs,’ said Mother, but she was no match for the two of us together.

I hugged Cassie when we were on our own. ‘I’m so glad you’re coming too,’ I said.

‘I feel so bad that I didn’t come to the magistrate’s court, but this time we’ll go together.’

‘Perhaps you can help me dress up a little? I looked like a clown when I tried last time.’

‘Of course I’ll help, silly. Oh dear, why ever did I start this Philip nonsense? The wretched man’s getting on my nerves and I don’t even know him!’

‘Cass, what about Mr Evandale? What will you do if he reads about Father in the newspaper?’ I said.

‘He already knows about Father,’ said Cassie.

‘Oh my goodness, how did he find out?’

‘I told him, silly.’

‘And he didn’t
mind
?’ I thought of Olivia and the pain of never being able to see her again.

‘He found it intriguing. I wasn’t going to breathe a word, but he was teasing me about being – what was it? – a bourgeois little girl from the suburbs. It was because I was so shy about taking my clothes off. It annoyed me, and so I declared I wasn’t at
all
bourgeois – how could I be with a father in prison? Then he got frightfully interested. He’s one of those chaps who loves to mix with what he calls “low life”, but I don’t think he knows any real criminals.
Now
he knows a criminal’s daughter,’ said Cassie.

‘Don’t! Father isn’t a real true criminal. Maybe the judge will realize that,’ I said.

‘Opal, he’s pleading guilty.’

‘Yes, but that shows he’s really
honest
,’ I said desperately.

‘You’re not using your famous intellect now. But I suppose it’s understandable. You do love Father so,’ said Cassie.

‘Don’t
you
love him?’

‘Of course I do, but I could shake him for being such a fool.’

‘He just wanted to please us, to please Mother.’

‘I know, you keep saying that. But that’s not the way to do it. He should have stood up to Mother more, been a little more manly. That’s the way to please a woman,’ said Cassie, as if she’d suddenly become a world expert on affairs of the heart.

We were all up very early on the fifth of December. We couldn’t face any breakfast, apart from strong cups of tea, but we spent a long time getting ready. I submitted to Cassie’s ministrations. She swept my hair up in an elaborate style, marshalling it determinedly into place with a whole army of steel pins. My face looked very stark and exposed and my spectacles very prominent.

‘Oh dear, I look like a schoolmarm,’ I said in dismay.

‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it? Schoolmarms are old,’ Cassie pointed out. ‘Now, let’s see . . . What shall you wear?’ She searched in her wardrobe and produced the old grey suit Mother had bought her when she first went to work at Madame Alouette’s. Cassie had always hated it and called it ‘the elephant’ because she said it was so wrinkled and plain.

‘Do
I
have to wear the elephant?’ I said.

‘Try it. I think it will be tremendously ageing,’ said Cassie.

‘It’s tremendously
enormous
,’ I said, struggling into the voluminous skirt.

‘You can wear my high-necked white blouse underneath the jacket. That will have to hang loose, but we’ll pin the skirt here and there.’ Cassie pinched the sagging waistband and pinned it into place. When she’d finished, she made me peer into the looking glass.

‘There!’ she said proudly.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. All I had to do was grow my nose and I’d be a dead ringer for Miss Mountbank. But I certainly looked older, and that was really all that mattered today, so I gave Cassie a kiss. She looked splendid herself, though a little more subdued than usual, in her black velvet two-piece. She normally wore it with a pink blouse, a pink silk rosette pinned on the jacket, and a pink ribbon threaded through her hair – ‘But I don’t want to look too frivolous today,’ she said.

Mother wore black too: her best winter coat with a black and grey striped skirt. Cassie needed to pin this at the waist too, because she’d lost a lot of weight since Father was arrested.

We looked as if we were going to a funeral. Certainly that was the way it felt. When we set out to get the bus, everyone in the street stared at us curiously. Some might simply have been wondering where we going looking so smart and sombre, but others nudged each other and whispered, and it was clear they knew our destination. The terrible Mrs Liversedge came rushing out of her house, calling loudly, ‘Off to court, dears? Well, I wish you luck. Maybe he’ll get a light sentence.’

We ignored her and hurried on down the road.

‘Or maybe he’ll be locked up for life,’ she called after us.

Mother gave a little gasp.

‘Take no notice. She’s being ridiculous. You don’t get locked up for life for embezzlement,’ I said fiercely.

It took longer than we’d expected to get to the courthouse where the quarter sessions were heard. It was gone ten o’clock when we arrived. We stared up at the forbidding building and clasped hands.