Opal Plumstead Read online

‘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.

  ‘In we go,’ said Cassie. ‘You stay in the middle, Opie, so you don’t stick out too much.’

  The clerk at the door was so taken up with looking at Cassie and giving her instructions on how to reach the public gallery that he didn’t give Mother a second look, let alone me. I scurried past all the same and led the way up the stairs to the gallery. Because of its name I thought it would be teeming with members of the public, out for a spot of salacious entertainment, but it was half empty. Little clumps of people sat here and there with pale, anxious faces, clearly relatives as wound up and worried as we were.

  We stared down at the man in the dock, but it wasn’t Father. It was a poor cringing soul with a purple birth mark over half his face. We listened to a policeman in the witness box reading from his notebook. He’d seen the poor wretch run to the middle of the bridge over the Thames, haul himself up onto the parapet and then jump. The policeman had then dashed to the riverbank, removed his jacket and boots, and dived in to save him.

  ‘I didn’t want to be saved. I wanted to end it all,’ said the man in the dock, but the judge shouted, ‘Silence!’ and wouldn’t let him explain further.

  ‘Poor man!’ I whispered indignantly.

  ‘Shush!’ Mother hissed. ‘We’re not allowed to talk.’

  It was difficult to keep quiet, especially when the man was sentenced for the ‘crime’ of trying to commit suicide, but at least the judge was merciful and gave him just one week’s imprisonment.

  Perhaps Father might be sentenced to just one week too. Oh, how wonderful that would be!

  The next trial was a complicated robbery case, with a man and a woman in the dock. I tried to concentrate, but there were too many confusing stories, and too many witnesses giving conflicting evidence. I peered at the jury, wondering if they could seriously follow all the ins and outs of the case. At lunch time it still wasn’t anywhere near finished.

  ‘What if it goes on all day long?’ Cassie wondered as we sipped a bowl of soup in the small café across the road.

  ‘I can’t stomach this waiting,’ said Mother, laying down her spoon.

  ‘Well, imagine what it’s like for Father, locked up in some dingy cell,’ I said.

  ‘Eat, Mother. You need to keep your strength up,’ said Cassie. ‘And you watch that soup, Opie. I don’t want you slurping it all down my white blouse.’

  We carried on bickering throughout our hasty meal. The people in the café seemed to be watching us. I suppose it was easy to guess from our general demeanour that we had a loved one due to appear in court. We couldn’t stand their stares and left without finishing our soup.

  The robbery case continued for more than an hour, and then the jury deliberated, but they reached a verdict quickly and the judge sentenced the woman to a year’s penal servitude and the man to two years’ hard labour.

  ‘Hard labour?’ Cassie whispered. ‘What does that mean? It sounds horrible.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘Perhaps he has to do hard labour because he’s a hardened criminal. I suppose it’s working very hard with pickaxes.’

  Mother gave a little moan.

  ‘It’s all right, Mother. They won’t give Father hard labour – he’s a gentleman,’ I said, praying that this was true. ‘The robbery man knocked someone over and beat him unconscious. Father hasn’t hurt anyone. He just wrote out a cheque, for goodness’ sake. It’s a total travesty of justice that he’s had to spend all these weeks in prison. I’m sure the judge will see this and let him off with a caution.’ I thought if I said it firmly enough, over and over again, it might just possibly come true.

  Then, at last, Father’s case was announced and he was led into the courtroom. I thought at first they’d made a mistake and brought out the wrong prisoner. This was surely a very old man, a good decade older than Father, and his hair was all wrong – my father had a fine head of silky brown hair. This poor prisoner had white hair, and it was cut brutally short, almost to the scalp.

  ‘That’s not Father!’ I declared.

  I was immediately shushed by the clerk upstairs. ‘You!’ he hissed, pointing at me. ‘Silence, or I will have you evicted.’

  ‘It is Father,’ Cassie whispered in my ear. Tears were running down her cheeks. ‘Poor dear Father, what have they done to him?’

  Mother had her hands clasped and was rocking to and fro on her hard seat, her eyes shut.

  Another clerk was reading out the charge against Father. He spoke for a long time. I couldn’t understand what was happening. Father had simply written out one cheque, but now they seemed to be saying that he had done far more. They were talking about false entries in record books going back years, accusing him of serious long-term embezzlement, saying he’d pocketed vast sums.

  ‘No! Not Father!’ I said aloud, but quietly enough for the clerk upstairs to ignore me.

  ‘How do you plead?’

  Father scarcely seemed to be listening. He was peering around the court in a dazed fashion, perhaps wondering where he was and how he had got there. He had to be asked a second time.

  He jerked to attention. ‘Guilty!’ he said.

  ‘No! No, no, no – he’s just guilty of writing one cheque,’ I whispered desperately. I ran over to the clerk. ‘Please, there’s been a terrible mistake. My father isn’t guilty, not to all those charges. You must stop the trial and explain this to the judge.’

  The clerk held me by the arms. ‘Stop this nonsense. You cannot interrupt a trial. Now sit down and be quiet or I shall remove you from this courthouse