Opal Plumstead (30 page)

‘I thought your speech was excellent today, Mrs Pankhurst – very stirring. Young Opal here was particularly impressed. She is our newest and youngest member and a very ardent supporter,’ she said, pushing me forward.

‘Dear heavens, she’s just a little girl,’ said one of the fine ladies dismissively, and another couple tittered. They were almost as bad as Patty and her friends, for all they were so well-to-do. My own cheeks burned. But Mrs Pankhurst herself was a true lady.

‘Welcome to the Women’s Social and Political Union, Opal,’ she said, solemnly shaking my hand. ‘I’m so proud and happy that young women like you are joining us. You will be our fighters for the future.’

‘I shall fight very fiercely for the cause,’ I said seriously.

She did smile a little at that, but very sweetly. ‘What is your full name?’

‘Opal Plumstead.’

‘A distinctive name. You are a very distinctive girl,’ said Mrs Pankhurst. She looked as if she wanted to stay chatting to Mrs Roberts and me, but the Lady Rendlesham woman interrupted rudely.

‘My car is waiting at the front, Mrs Pankhurst. Allow me to assist you through the crowd.’

Mrs Pankhurst sighed. ‘Ah well, it seems I must go. But I hope to see you again, Opal Plumstead. I shall look out for you at future meetings,’ she said. ‘Goodbye, dear. Goodbye, Mrs Roberts. Thank you for bringing her.’

Mrs Roberts and I were left staring after her, both of us star-struck.

‘Oh, she’s quite wonderful,’ I said.

‘Isn’t she just,’ Mrs Roberts agreed. ‘I’m so glad you came, Opal. When you’re an old, old lady, you’ll be able to tell your great-grandchildren that you once met Mrs Pankhurst.’

‘I’m not going to have any great-grandchildren, Mrs Roberts. I shall stay single and fight for women’s rights,’ I said grandly.

She smiled at me. ‘Well, I suppose we’d better both go home for lunch.’

‘Yes.’ I nodded, though I couldn’t bear the thought of going back home just yet. I surreptitiously fingered the few coins in my pocket, wondering if I had enough for a bowl of soup in an ABC teashop.

I think Mrs Roberts saw me do this. She suddenly said, ‘Tell you what – why don’t you come home and have lunch with me?’

I was as astonished as if it were an invitation to Buckingham Palace. ‘Really?’ I said stupidly.

‘Really!’ said Mrs Roberts. ‘Come along, then.’ She put her hand lightly on my shoulder and steered me towards the door.

‘Oh my goodness, Opal Plumstead!’ Miss Mountbank stood in front of me. ‘Whatever are
you
doing here?’

‘Good afternoon, Miss Mountbank,’ I said. ‘I could ask the same of you.’

She looked outraged. It was so wonderful to realize that she had no power over me now. She could order me to do a thousand lines and I didn’t need to write a single word of them.

‘How dare you be so impertinent!’ said Miss Mountbank. She looked at Mrs Roberts. ‘This girl is incorrigible. She comes from a bad family.’

‘I disagree entirely,’ said Mrs Roberts. ‘Opal is my protégée. Excuse us, please.’ She led me out of the door.

I grinned at her in triumph. ‘Oh, Mrs Roberts, that was splendid of you. I can’t bear Miss Mountbank. She can’t bear me, either, as is obvious! She’s a teacher at my old school.’

‘I had similar teachers at
my
old school,’ said Mrs Roberts. ‘Still, she’s a sister supporter of the cause.’

‘I’m not sure I’d want to march shoulder to shoulder with Miss Mountbank,’ I said. ‘And she’s certainly not my friend.’

‘You’ve picked up our terminology already, Opal. Well done! You’re a bright girl, even though you were obviously the bane of Miss Mountbank’s life.’

‘I won’t be the bane of your life, Mrs Roberts, I promise. You’ve been wondrously fair to me,’ I said as we went outside.

There were several chauffeurs standing beside motor cars, waiting attentively. To my intense joy, one of these men came hurrying up to Mrs Roberts. ‘This way, madam. The car is just up here.’

I’d never been for a ride in a motor car before. Oh, wait till Cassie heard! Even her precious Mr Evandale didn’t own a car.

It was the most glorious fun to sit beside Mrs Roberts and drive off through the town. We went so fast too. I hadn’t secured my hat with enough pins, so I had to hang onto it with one hand, while clinging to the leather upholstery with the other to stop myself sliding into Mrs Roberts. Most of my hair escaped and flapped in my face, and my eyes watered in the wind so that I could hardly see where I was going. Mrs Roberts had a special veil that acted as a shield. She stayed immaculate throughout the journey.

I was very curious to see where her house was. I thought it might be one of the grander ones overlooking the park. I was taken aback when the chauffeur drove right through the town, up a hill, and then down a little wooded lane, practically in the countryside. We went along this lane more slowly, pebbles rattling under the wheels, until we came to a pair of great ornamental gates. The chauffeur jumped out and unlocked them with a flourish, then drove along a narrow sandy path surrounded on either side by dark green bushes.

‘My rhododendrons,’ said Mrs Roberts. ‘They are an absolute picture in spring – such splendid pinks and purples and crimsons.’

‘It’s as if you live in a real fairy glen,’ I said.

The house was certainly like an enchanted palace. It even had turrets and a round tower.

‘A medieval castle!’ I breathed, knowing nothing of architecture.

‘Hardly,’ said Mrs Roberts. ‘It’s Victorian Gothic, built for my father-in-law. I married his only son, so now it’s mine.’

‘Do you live here all alone, Mrs Roberts?’

‘I have my dear son, but he is away at school during term time. He is in his last year and will go up to Oxford for the Michaelmas term.’

‘My father went to Oxford,’ I said eagerly. ‘He always hoped I might go there too.’

‘Would you like to, Opal?’

‘I used to think so. But my circumstances are very different now, as you know,’ I said. ‘I was very cast down, but now that I can paint all day, I am happy.’

It was becoming a little tedious painting the same designs day after day. I’d had more than enough of butterflies, meadows and roses. When I closed my eyes at night, butterflies fluttered about the room, the lino turned into meadow grass and roses bloomed around my pillow. But I didn’t want to tell Mrs Roberts this in case she thought me ungrateful. I knew she’d given me a remarkable opportunity. Miss Lily had impressed upon me that she’d never promoted any other girls from the factory floor to the design room.

The chauffeur opened the car door for us. I jumped out and gazed up the stone steps. The name of the house was engraved in the stone of the porch –
Fairy Glen
, just like the factory. The sea-green front door had a brass serpent knocker.

‘I love your door-knocker! Can I give it a big rap?’ I asked.

‘Feel free,’ said Mrs Roberts.

I thumped hard. After a little while the door opened and a servant stood there, looking surprised. She was a middle-aged woman, not a little girl like Jane – a stout grey-haired person in a black dress and an old-fashioned crisp white hat and apron. She looked very smart, apart from the strange greyish carpet slippers on her feet. I learned later that she had trouble with her bunions, and Mrs Roberts was happy to let her walk around in comfort.

‘Hello, Mrs Evans. You were urgently summoned because I have an eager young guest,’ said Mrs Roberts.

Mrs Evans shook her head at me, but still managed to look welcoming. ‘In you come, miss,’ she said, opening the door wide.

‘Welcome to another Fairy Glen,’ said Mrs Roberts, leading me inside.

The hallway was extraordinarily light because of a high atrium, with sunlight streaming downwards. There were palms in great brass pots and paintings beautifully displayed on both walls, just like an art gallery: pale maidens drifting in drapery, lounging beside pools or wanly embracing lovers.

‘Very Pre-Raphaelite,’ I said, showing off.

‘Indeed,’ said Mrs Roberts, amused. ‘In fact, the one over there, the moonlit girl, is a Burne-Jones.’

‘Oh my goodness, a
real
one!’ I said, gazing at it in awe. I knew that Mrs Roberts was wealthy, but hadn’t realized she was rich enough to own proper art.

I wanted to linger in the hall, poring over every painting, but Mrs Evans took my hat and coat and then ushered me into another lovely light room with a crackling log fire in the peacock-tiled fireplace.

‘Let’s get warm,’ said Mrs Roberts, sitting in a velvet chair and holding her hands in front of the fire. ‘Mrs Evans, perhaps you could be an angel and fix us a kind of picnic lunch so we could have it here in comfort rather than in the chilly dining room?’

‘Certainly, madam,’ she said. ‘I’ll rustle up a few savouries – and would the young lady fancy cake, or a fruit pie?’

‘I think perhaps both,’ said Mrs Roberts.

I sat down on the chair beside her, but I couldn’t stop my head swivelling round to take in the rest of the room. It was all so light and airy and elegant. It made me realize how cramped and poky our own parlour was. Even the chairs and chaise longue had style, sleek and simple in subtle shades of soft blue and dove grey, compared with our over-stuffed crimson sofas. There was a large black Japanese screen in one corner, with gold cranes flying across it. On one wall I saw Japanese embroidered silks showing strange mountains and streams, with more cranes standing on one leg as if taking part in a dance.

In pride of place in an alcove lit with a beautiful purple, green and white lamp was an illuminated scroll with three angels at the top.

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

‘I was presented with the scroll when I came out of prison. I’d been on hunger strike and had to endure the horrors of force-feeding.’

‘Oh goodness,’ I said.

I had seen illustrations in the papers of women being held down while terrible tubes were forced down their throats. The depiction of the process had always made me shudder. I’d no idea that Mrs Roberts had been quite so militant and so extremely brave.

‘You may go and look at it properly if you like,’ she said.

I went to examine it, awed. But then I became distracted by a quartet of smaller paintings in gold frames. I couldn’t work out the subject matter, but they were very brightly coloured and intriguing.

I peered closer and saw that they were the most enchanting fairy paintings. The first was of a fairy wedding, with a diminutive bride and groom, and robin, blue-tit and butterfly guests. The second was a fairy school, with small elfin creatures sitting at toadstool desks. The third was a fairy nursery, with babes hanging in walnut-shell cradles from lavender spikes. The fourth was a fairy race, with little jockeys on saddled grasshoppers.

‘They’re wonderful!’ I said, gazing at each one.

‘They were my wedding present when I came to live at Fairy Glen,’ said Mrs Roberts. ‘I’ve always thought them a little whimsical, but Morgan adores them. He used to play the most elaborate fairy games when he was little. He fashioned his own fairies out of pipe cleaners and scraps of silk and made fairy houses out of boxes. He took such pains. He lined them with moss and picked fresh flowers for them every day.’

‘Morgan?’

‘My son.’ Mrs Roberts pointed to a portrait above the fireplace.

It was of a solemn little boy in a sailor suit, with big brown eyes and a mop of fair curls like the boy in the ‘Bubbles’ advertisement.

‘He’s lovely too,’ I said.

‘Yes, he is,’ said Mrs Roberts. ‘I miss him terribly when he’s away. When he finishes university, he will take over the running of the factory.’

I considered the luxury of being born Morgan Roberts, able to go to Oxford and then run his own factory!

Then I was diverted by Mrs Evans’ picnic. When Cassie and I had picnics, we ate bread and dripping, then bread and jam, and a slice of seed cake if we were lucky. Mrs Evans brought us truly fairy food: little mushroom tartlets, oyster patties, miniature veal-and-ham pies, a sliced tomato and carrot salad, a purple plum pie with a large jug of cream, and a marmalade sponge cake with crystallized oranges on top. We had home-made sweetened lemonade to drink in glorious glass goblets.

I ate and drank with immense gusto while Mrs Roberts nibbled and sipped. When I was finished at last, she told me to put my coat on again because she wanted to take me on a tour of her garden before I went home.

I was rather disappointed. I wanted to stay much longer. In fact, I never ever wanted to leave this amazing house. I’d seen the garden, hadn’t I? – two very formal flowerbeds with ornate ankle-high hedges forming a crisscross design.

But she led me further down the hallway, through the dining room and out through the French windows into what suddenly seemed like fairyland itself. Mrs Roberts’ back garden was bigger than a whole park, but it wasn’t laid out formally. It meandered up and down as far as the eye could see, with more rhododendron bushes and azaleas and magnolias, and many other trees and shrubs I didn’t recognize. A stream trickled through all the greenery, crossed in several places by little bridges like the ones on willow-pattern plates. When we’d walked the entire length of the garden, I saw a small Japanese summerhouse decorated with orange lanterns.

‘Oh, it’s so beautiful!’

‘It is, especially in spring and summer.’

‘How wonderful to have inherited such a garden.’

‘I didn’t. Well, I inherited the land, but it wasn’t a garden at all. There were flowerbeds and a lawn at the back of the house, but this was mostly meadow land when I came here as a young bride. I cultivated it all myself. It’s taken many years to get to this stage.’

‘You made it all? You planted all the trees and bushes?’ I said, gazing at slender Mrs Roberts and her smooth white hands.

‘I
did
plant a lot of the bushes, but I had a little troop of gardeners to do the really heavy digging. Three are still with me now. We’ve all matured together, along with the garden. I have to leave its care to them now, because I must run the factory too, but I try to have a stroll in my garden every day, winter as well as summer.’