Opal Plumstead (41 page)

I worked extra hard, trying to be newly inventive with each box lid. As soon as the summer seaside scene hit the shops in June, there was an immense demand.

‘Perhaps we might try several summer scenes,’ said Mrs Roberts. ‘We always go to Scotland in the summer. Perhaps you could try a Scottish scene, Opal – misty mountains and deer, and you could give your fairies little tartan dresses and wings.’ She laughed at her idea. I wasn’t sure if she were being serious or merely fanciful. I could only concentrate on one sentence:
We always go to Scotland in the summer
.

We?
Did she mean Morgan too? Why hadn’t he told me? Neither of us had specifically mentioned the summer, but I’d made so many plans in my head. I knew that Morgan would be finishing school and not going up to Oxford until October. I’d thought of all those Saturdays and Sundays we might spend together. I had a week’s holiday due too. All day long, painting my fairies, I’d planned what we would do. Every night when I went to sleep, I pictured us walking hand in hand, going round art galleries, paddling in streams, picnicking beside a lake, walking along a cliff top . . .

My next letter to Morgan was terse and to the point.

Dear Morgan
,

I was talking to your mother at the factory today and she said you always go to Scotland for the summer. Is this really true? Won’t you be here at all? Why didn’t you tell me?

I usually signed my letter
With great affection, your dear friend Opal
.

I signed this latest letter with just my name.

Morgan’s reply was far more effusive, and immensely apologetic.

Dearest Opal
,

Oh dear, I’m such a coward. I know I should have told you about Scotland ages ago. We have a holiday house there, a converted farmhouse. We still have the farmland too, but this is managed for us. I’ve been wondering what on earth to do this year. I know Mother loves our Scottish summers – and yet of course I want to spend time with you.

I could simply not go with Mother, but I’m afraid this would upset her dreadfully, even though she has friends up in Scotland and wouldn’t be too lonely, I’m sure. But then I’d have to find somewhere to stay. Mother shuts up Fairy Glen for the summer – dustsheets everywhere – and Mrs Evans and Mitchell and the maids all come to Scotland with us. But this is certainly not insurmountable. Some of the chaps at school don’t live too far away, so perhaps I could stay with their folks – or I could stay in a hotel – that would be quite jolly. I know, perhaps I’ll stay at The Royal, and every evening you can come and dine with me – on honeydew and roast chicken and raspberry meringues, of course. Then we’ll sit in our own little parlour and play games and have a truly splendid time.

I don’t think I’ve ever had such a perfect day as that Saturday we spent together. Didn’t we talk and talk and talk! I talk all day to the chaps here, but it’s always in the most trivial boring way. We’re mostly ragging each other or discussing cricket or telling stupid stories. We don’t ever say anything meaningful. And as I told you already, my conversations with other girls have been such nonsense, silly flirtations to make one squirm. You are so different, Opal – closer than a sister.

I stopped reading then. I didn’t want him to think of me as a sister! And for all his seeming joy that we could say what we really meant to each other, Morgan seemed artfully evasive in his letter. He indicated he
might
not go to Scotland with his mother, he
might
stay with friends, he
might
stay in a hotel. Why wasn’t he more definite? Why couldn’t he stay with me? Or indeed, why couldn’t I be invited up to Scotland too?

I was being evasive myself. I knew why. Oh, it would be perfectly respectable for a young man to come and stay for the summer in my house. Cassie’s room was empty, and Mother would be a vigilant chaperone. I could invite a young man like Freddy and no one would turn a hair. But Morgan was a gentleman. I couldn’t imagine him in our house, going out to the privy in the back yard, making do with one bath a week in the old chipped tub, eating bread and dripping for breakfast.

It was even harder imagining Mrs Roberts saying, ‘Do come and stay with us for the summer, Opal. Never mind work – you deserve a long holiday. You’ll be such a delightful companion for Morgan. I’m so happy the two of you have such a close friendship.’

She clearly hated Morgan and me liking each other. She had been truly kind to me and I’d always be grateful that she’d taken me under her wing and given me my chance in the design room. She had looked after me at WSPU meetings (until I dared question their actions), and invited me for lunch. She’d been so charming and encouraging – until Morgan came home. Then she made it plain that though I might be good enough to be her little protégée, this didn’t make me good enough to be friends with her precious son. She wanted me to know my place. I wasn’t sure what my place was any more.

I went to see Cassie to ask her advice. She was actually fully dressed this time, in a splendid midnight-blue robe stitched with silver stars.

‘My goodness, Cassie, you look amazing. Is this the latest fashion?’

‘Of course not, you silly! I made it specially for Daniel’s new portrait. I am the Queen of the Night – and look, here are my night jewels.’ She lowered the neck of her velvet robe to show me a dazzling blue and white necklace around her beautiful white throat.

‘Sapphires and diamonds!’ I said.

‘Hardly. Daniel’s not
that
rich! They’re glass. I threaded them myself. I’ve got glass bead bracelets and anklets to wear too, but I’m not bothering just now because Daniel’s painting my top half first. It’s a special commission – a thousand pounds, can you believe it! Maybe I’ll get a real sapphire or diamond when it’s paid for. And do you know why Daniel’s got all this work? It’s all because of your silly suffragettes. Did you not read about it in the newspaper? Some woman was inspired by the slashing of the Rokeby Venus and went along to the Royal Academy. She saw Daniel’s portrait of me and went
hack, hack, hack
with her little axe!’

‘Oh no! Was it ruined?’

‘Not really. Her axe must have been very blunt. It barely made a mark. Daniel touched it up, and made it as good as new. But it was in the papers, so people flocked to see it – to see
me
, Opie. Daniel’s been commissioned to do two more Venuses, which will be a bit of a bore, but he’s willing enough. Then this old buffer, rich as Croesus, wants me being the Queen of the Night to hang in his bedroom right above his lordship’s bed. He’s a
real
lord, Opie – fancy that!’

‘Eew! Don’t you mind?’

‘Of course not. I mean, it’s not me in person. Come and have a peep at it. It’s truly marvellous. Everyone says Daniel’s never painted so well – and it’s all because of me.’ Cassie paused and flung her hair back dramatically. ‘I am his muse,’ she declared.

I sighed. I was truly pleased that things were working out well for Cassie, but she was pretty insufferable in this mood.

‘Wait a minute, Cass. I want to ask you something. It’s about Morgan, Mrs Roberts’ son.’

I suddenly had Cassie’s full attention.

‘I thought you hadn’t seen him since Easter . . .’

‘I haven’t, but we’ve been writing to each other every day.’

‘My goodness, Opal! Every
day
?’

‘He writes such wonderful letters.’

‘Love letters?’

‘Not exactly. They’re full of his thoughts, his feelings, his ideas about the books he’s reading, his nature observations.’

Cassie wrinkled her nose. ‘No lovey-dovey bits at all?’

‘He says I mean the whole world to him.’

‘Ah, that’s better. What does Mrs Roberts have to say about it?’

‘She doesn’t know.’

‘Oh, you sly minx.’

‘I don’t want to be sly, but she doesn’t seem to approve of Morgan and me.’

‘I’m not surprised!’

‘But the thing is, I’d so hoped to see Morgan this summer before he goes to university, and now I’ve found out that his mother goes up to Scotland for six whole weeks!’

‘And he’s going too?’

‘Well, he says he’ll try to stay here, but he doesn’t sound very convincing. The thing is, Cassie, if he truly wished to see me, don’t you think he would make a real effort? He says he doesn’t want to upset his mother, but that sounds a little lame to me. I mean, we both upset
our
mother all the time, don’t we!’

‘I’ll say. But our ma isn’t as powerful as Mrs Roberts – she doesn’t own a whole blooming factory that we’ll inherit one day. I can see why your Morgan doesn’t want to upset her. Can’t he compromise a little? Go up to Scotland with Mama like a dutiful son, but make several day trips to see you at weekends?’

Cassie’s grasp of geography was abysmal. She clearly thought that Scotland was only a short way from London.

‘That’s not physically feasible, you dunce. And I don’t care for compromises anyway. I’m an all-or-nothing sort of girl,’ I said.

‘You don’t have to tell me that,’ said Cassie, pulling my plait.

It turned out that fate itself decided on compromise.

Dearest Opal
, Morgan wrote.

Change of plan! Mother’s been chin-wagging with various top men and she’s a bit worried about leaving the factory to its own devices all summer. There’s a possibility the trade union fellows will target some of our workers, so we’re only going to Scotland for a month, hurray hurray! I will be back at the end of July and we’ll have the whole of August and September. I hope you’ll be able to wangle some time off work.

Didn’t he know how his own factory was run? You were only entitled to a week, plus days off for Christmas and bank holidays. If I went to Mrs Roberts and said, ‘Excuse me, I need to take weeks and weeks off so I can go around with your son,’ I was one hundred per cent certain of her response.

But the rest of Morgan’s letter was incredibly endearing, telling me just how much he was missing me. He also wanted to make plans for the summer.

I think we should definitely make a special trip to the seaside. Which part of the coast do you care for most? Where did you used to go on holiday when you were small? Well, you’re still small now, Opal – but where did you take your bucket and spade and go paddling when you were five or six or seven? I can just see you, dress hitched up, big sunhat, funny little plaits
 . . .

He went on for a page or two imagining me when I was a little girl. He got it all completely wrong. He clearly thought that our straitened circumstances had started when Father went to prison. In actual fact my earnings of twenty-one shillings a week as a design artist meant that our family was better off than we’d ever been. Father had earned piteously little as a clerk, and nothing at all from his writing. He’d had his own week off work every summer, but we didn’t go anywhere because we couldn’t afford to travel or stay in a boarding house.

We
did
manage a day trip to Brighton one summer. Cassie and I had been wildly excited for weeks beforehand, but the actual day was a sad disappointment. It was drizzling when we set off. The rain increased until, by midday, it was torrential. I still couldn’t wait to see the sea, and skipped down the hill from the railway station, determinedly ignoring the rain. My first glimpse of it was baffling. I had seen coloured lithographs in my picturebook and thought it was always azure blue, and the sand custard-yellow. This Brighton sea was a steely grey, heaving itself against the railings – and what had happened to the golden sand? It was grey again, hard pebbles that hurt my feet when Father suggested we have a little run along the beach. There were bathing machines, but no one was foolish enough to go into such a turbulent sea. We ended up hunched in a fried fish parlour for a couple of hours. Even the fish didn’t taste good because it had been doused in malt vinegar.

Dear Morgan
,

I am so pleased we will be able to spend time together later in the summer.
[I decided not to carp on about the whole month in Scotland because I knew it wouldn’t get me anywhere.]
I would simply love to go to the seaside with you. I will even tuck my dress up and wear a big sunhat to amuse you. I do not mind where we go. I find most seasides delightful – though I think Brighton is perhaps a little overrated.

So it was decided. I would see Morgan in August. I didn’t know whether he had actually made this clear to Mrs Roberts. She seemed very excited when she made her last factory visit before Scotland.

‘I can’t wait to breathe in that wonderful air,’ she told me, her cheeks flushed at the very thought. ‘Morgan adores Scotland too. He joins in all the village fun. He even had a go at tossing the caber last year. We always hold a ceilidh too – that’s a special dance, and it’s such fun. The Dashing White Sergeant, the Gay Gordons, such wonderful dances. Morgan wears the kilt, of course, and looks splendid. All the little local lasses set their caps at him, but of course they have to understand that Morgan needs to marry a young lady from his own background.’ She said it softly, smiling at me, but her beautiful eyes were steely.

I disliked her warning me off in this indirect manner, but I managed to smile back serenely. ‘I’m sure you’ll have a lovely time, Mrs Roberts,’ I said evenly.

I did not have a lovely time in July. It seemed to go on for ever. I couldn’t write to Morgan in Scotland. He had expressly asked me not to do so.

It will be dreadful not to be in touch with you, dearest Opal, but I fear it would upset Mother unduly. I will still write to you of course – as often as possible.

This wasn’t as often as I’d have liked. He sent several wonderful long letters at the beginning of July, telling me how much he was missing me. He said Penicraig simply didn’t seem the same now and he was very bored. But then his letters became shorter and more sporadic. He resorted to postcards: a picture of lucky heather, a mountain glen, and a comical Scot blowing the bagpipes. I didn’t need to hide the messages from Mother. They were terse and casual.

I lay awake at night imagining Morgan dancing with all those local lasses. I was so wrapped up in myself that I didn’t look at any newspapers or listen to the talk on the factory floor. I wasn’t aware of what had been going on since the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo. I didn’t even know where this was, for all that I felt myself so superior when it came to geography. I didn’t realize that when Austria declared war on Serbia at the end of July, it meant everyone in England would be affected.