Opal Plumstead Read online

  It was late and I only had a stump of candle that gave off very poor light, but I tried to sketch a quick portrait of myself. I managed a reasonable likeness in about fifteen minutes, and then stared at it intensely. I didn’t have a portrait from before to compare it with. I’d always hated the idea of drawing myself and had only ever achieved a miserable caricature, which I’d always torn up. I realized I used to tilt my chin in a rather aggressive manner and often had a pinched line between my eyebrows. This was smoothed out now, which made a lot of difference. My face was still thin but not so taut. It seemed less cocksure, more confident.

  However, I felt anything but confident the next Saturday at the prospect of meeting Mr Evandale with Cassie. She’d wailed all Friday at Alouette’s, and Madame herself had told her to attend an emergency dentist on Saturday instead of coming to work. Cassie didn’t try the same tale with Mother, who might well have bound Cassie’s jaw up and marched her off to a dentist herself. She simply told Mother that Philip had begged his aunt to allow him to take Cassie up to London on Saturday morning, to make the most of the shops and the sights, and Madame Alouette was so fond of Cassie that she had agreed just this once.

  So Mother understood when, after breakfast, Cassie got herself up in all her green finery. But she frowned at me when she saw that I was wearing Cassie’s grey costume and white blouse.

  ‘And where are you off to, missy? Mixing with those dreadful suffragettes again? You’re going to get yourself into terrible trouble. All decent folk think those women want horse-whipping. The destruction they’ve caused! All the shop windows broken, policemen and politicians assaulted. Someone’s going to get killed soon, you mark my words.’

  ‘Someone already has been killed – Emily Davison was trampled to death at Epsom under the King’s horse,’ I declared. ‘And pretty soon some of the poor brave women stuck in prison and tortured with force feeding will die soon too. People say Mrs Pankhurst herself is in danger.’

  ‘They bring it on themselves with their silly hysterics.’

  ‘They’re hysterical on our behalf, Mother. They want better rights for women. Once we have the vote, then everything will change.’

  ‘I wouldn’t vote if you paid me. Women have no business in the polling booths. We know nothing about politics or running the wretched country.’

  ‘So we need to educate ourselves until we do,’ I insisted passionately yet again. I felt boiling hot in my flannel costume and throttled by the high neck of my blouse.

  ‘Oh, do stop getting so het up, both of you,’ said Cassie.

  ‘You’d vote if you had the opportunity, wouldn’t you, Cass?’ I appealed to her.

  ‘Oh, of course I would. I’d vote for any candidate who was handsome. It seems to be a rule that all politicians are ugly. And then I’d want all the laws changed. I’d have everyone only working one hour a day, and I’d give all women a very generous dress allowance, but all millinery will be extremely expensive so Alouette’s makes five times the profit.’

  ‘But how could that possibly be economically viable?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, you’re such a pain, Opie. I’m not serious. Now do stop getting so agitated. I have to be off now to meet Philip, and you don’t want to be late for your boring old meeting, so let’s say goodbye to Mother now and be on our way.’

  I let Cassie hustle me out of the house.

  ‘Dear goodness!’ she said as we were hurrying down the street. ‘If you start all this suffragette nonsense with Daniel, he’ll tease you unmercifully, I warn you.’

  ‘It’s not nonsense,’ I said crossly, and proceeded to tell her why women needed the vote until she actually put her hands over her ears as we walked along. But the nearer we got to the railway station where we were to meet Mr Evandale, the less assertive I became.

  I didn’t need Cassie to point him out when we got there. He stood idly reading a newspaper, taller and broader than most men, a large soft trilby on his dark unruly hair. He was wearing a greatcoat left unbuttoned and a long purple scarf draped round and round his neck, contrasting vividly with the cherry red of his velvet waistcoat. His clothes were made of soft materials in girlish colours, but he still looked the most masculine man I’d ever seen.

  ‘Oh my, isn’t he wonderful?’ Cassie breathed proudly.

  She went rushing forward and peeped round his newspaper to surprise him. He laughed and took her hand. There was nothing especially intimate about their greeting, and yet somehow it seemed as if they were embracing. I felt myself going pink.

  ‘Daniel, dear, this is my sister, Opal,’ said Cassie. ‘Opie, this is my Daniel.’

  I quivered a little that she should call this man ‘my Daniel’. It was clear that they were far more than friends.

  ‘I’m delighted to meet you, Opal. The child wonder who has set the whole of Fairy Glen a-twittering with the wonder of her fairy designs,’ said Mr Evandale.

  I couldn’t decide if he was being serious or sarcastic. I felt even more gauche than usual, stuck out my hand stiffly, and then recoiled at the warmth and vigour of his grasp as we shook hands.

  ‘Cassie has told me so much about her brilliant little sister,’ he said.

  ‘I am hardly brilliant,’ I said gruffly.

  ‘Yes you are,’ said Cassie. ‘My Lord, you should have heard her this morning, Daniel, sounding off about women’s suffrage and all sorts of dreary political stuff until I thought I should scream.’

  ‘Really, Opal? Perhaps you’d care to enlighten me too while we journey up to London,’ he suggested.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ I said, because even I could see that this would not be sensible.

  The journey took less than an hour, but it seemed interminable. Mr Evandale was determined to draw me out, asking me all sorts of questions, seeming to flatter me – but I became more and more awkwardly monosyllabic.

  ‘Don’t be shy, Opie,’ Cassie said, trying to encourage me. She was certainly the opposite of shy. Now that we were in an enclosed carriage, just the three of us, she snuggled up close to Daniel Evandale, tucking her hand under his arm and gazing up at him adoringly. He smiled at her every now and then, sometimes patting her absentmindedly, as if she were a little lapdog. I would have found such an attitude deeply offensive, but Cassie was clearly in seventh heaven.

  I was starting to wish I had never agreed to come. I even hatched a wild plan to push off by myself when we reached Waterloo, but Mr Evandale swept Cassie and me into a cab. This was a novelty I didn’t want to miss. It felt so grand to be swooping along through the busy traffic to Trafalgar Square. I’d never been there before, though I’d seen pictures of the huge Landseer lions and Nelson on his column. Little urchins were swarming all over the lions. It looked such fun that I longed to lift up my hobbling skirts and join them, but of course I refrained.

  There were vast flocks of pigeons hopping and fluttering about the square. An old man was selling bags of birdseed to the children at a penny a time. Mr Evandale saw me looking at them and laughed. He handed me a penny from his trouser pocket.

  ‘You don’t want to feed those nasty flappy things, do you?’ said Cassie. ‘Aren’t you afraid of getting pecked?’

  ‘They’re not eagles, Cassie,’ I said.

  I took great delight in feeding the birds. I didn’t have to encourage them at all. They positively mobbed me the moment they saw the bag in my hand. It was wonderful when their little claws fastened confidently on my shoulders and their soft wings brushed my face. One even perched on top of my head, artistically posing on my hat, a living decoration to my grey outfit.

  ‘Mind it doesn’t mess on that hat!’ said Cassie, shuddering. ‘It’s mine, remember.’

  ‘Anyone would think you didn’t like birds, Cassie,’ said Mr Evandale.

  ‘I don’t mind pretty coloured ones in cages,’ she replied.

  We looked at each other, remembering poor lost Billy and Happy Days. My eyes filled with tears, and Cassie’s did too.

  ‘Come, girls – the