Opal Plumstead Read online

There were more gasps and also laughter. Mrs Roberts was white too. She started to say something, but Morgan stepped forward, stopping her this time.

  ‘That’s a fair point,’ he said, loud and clear. ‘It’s a question I’ve been asking myself this week. You’re absolutely right. I can’t possibly swan off to Oxford and expect you to do the fighting for me. I shall enlist too.’

  Mrs Roberts tried to say something again, but she couldn’t make herself heard above the new cheer – for Morgan this time.

  It rang in my ears and set me reeling. He couldn’t really mean it, could he? Morgan hated the whole idea of fighting. He’d told me he’d be a pacifist. What was he doing, letting poor jealous Freddy goad him into fighting a war he didn’t want?

  Mrs Roberts saw that she had lost control of the crowd and waved her arm distractedly, dismissing us. Everyone trooped back to work, chattering excitedly. I watched Freddy being clapped on the back by many of the men. I felt terrible. If I’d held my tongue about Morgan, maybe he wouldn’t have spoken out.

  My stomach lurched and I had to push my way through the crowd, running for the ladies’ cloakroom. I was horribly ill, carrying on retching long after I had no food left inside me.

  When I eventually crept back to the design room, I heard shouting coming from Mrs Roberts’ study. I couldn’t hear what she and Morgan were saying, but they both sounded in a terrible passion.

  The girls in the design room were agog.

  ‘Hark at them! Going at it hammer and tongs. She’s nearly demented, and he’s lost his rag too. Fancy, I’ve never even heard her raise her voice before.’

  ‘She lives for that son of hers. She’d sooner fight herself than let him go.’

  ‘Fancy young Freddy speaking like that! I’d never have thought he had it in him.’

  ‘He’s a cheeky young limb.’

  ‘Yes, but he’s got a point. He clearly hit home.’

  ‘So even precious Mr Morgan is off to be a soldier now.’

  ‘Be quiet!’ I cried.

  They stopped their silly gossip and stared at me. Then we heard hurried footsteps along the corridor. The door of the design room burst open. Mrs Roberts stood there, looking wild. She’d opened the neck of her dress to breathe more easily but she was still panting. She had tears rolling down her cheeks.

  ‘Opal?’ she called hoarsely.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Roberts?’ I said, jumping up.

  ‘Come here.’

  I ran to her while all the design girls gaped. She took hold of my wrist and tugged me out into the corridor.

  ‘Please! You talk him out of it,’ she said. ‘I can’t, though I’ve tried and tried. Morgan might listen to you.’

  I saw just what it cost her to ask me. I felt a little glow of pride amidst my fear and sorrow and pity. I might be Opal Plumstead, the upstart protégée ordered not to have any further communication with her son, yet here she was, begging me to talk to him.

  ‘I’ll try,’ I said.

  We both ran along the corridor, past Mr Beeston’s office and out into the yard. Mitchell was waiting in the car outside the gate, but there was no sign of Morgan.

  ‘Where’s Mr Morgan?’ Mrs Roberts cried. ‘Didn’t you stop him?’

  ‘I’m sorry, ma’am. He said he didn’t want a lift. He’s gone towards the town on foot. You’ve just missed him.’

  ‘Then we must follow him. Quickly, get into the motor car, Opal.’

  I did as I was told and we set off in pursuit. As soon as we turned the corner we saw Morgan loping along the pavement.

  ‘Hurry, catch him up!’

  Mitchell pulled the car up beside Morgan. Mrs Roberts hurled herself out before he’d stopped. She staggered, nearly falling.

  ‘Mother!’ Morgan clutched at her, holding her upright.

  ‘Please, Morgan, get in the car. Opal’s here. She wants to talk to you. I’m begging you. We can’t brawl in the street. Please,’ she cried.

  ‘Oh, Mother,’ he said helplessly. He handed her back into the car, while she clutched his arm with both hands. ‘Very well, I’ll go home with you. But I’m not changing my mind.’ He looked at me. ‘Oh, Opal, you too,’ he said, seeing my expression.

  He went to sit in the front.

  ‘Are you wanting to enlist, sir?’ Mitchell asked him. ‘Quite right too. I’m going to do the same, though Mrs Mitchell’s done her best to talk me out of it.’

  ‘That will be enough, Mitchell. Drive us home,’ said Mrs Roberts.

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Don’t worry, I’ll stay until you get yourself a new chauffeur. I wouldn’t want to let you down. But, please note, I’m going. You understand, don’t you, Mr Morgan?’

  Mrs Roberts sank back, covering her face with her hands. She was so distraught I wondered if I should try to put my arm round her, but I didn’t quite dare. She sobbed into her lace handkerchief and I sat stiffly beside her, while Morgan and Mitchell exchanged banal patriotic clichés in the front of the car.

  Mrs Roberts was in such a state that Mrs Evans had to help her upstairs to her room.

  ‘You won’t go, Morgan, will you?’ she kept crying. ‘You won’t sneak away?’

  ‘I won’t go anywhere without telling you, Mother, I promise,’ he said.

  Then he turned to me. ‘Let’s go into the garden, Opal.’

  We went out of the French windows. It was like stepping into a different world. There was a heady smell of honeysuckle and roses. Morgan took my hand and we walked along the path between the great rhododendron bushes, the little stream trickling beside us. We said nothing at all until we reached the Japanese house right at the end. Morgan sat down. I sat beside him, but he pulled me gently until I was sitting on his lap.

  ‘Oh, Morgan,’ I said.

  ‘I’m sorry, Opal,’ he said, his arms around me. ‘I’ve written you dozens of letters this week and then torn them up. I’ve been so undecided.’

  ‘About us?’

  ‘About everything. It’s so awful. All I want is peace, and yet it’s war, war, war. Mother was in a terrible state when I got home on Monday. She was threatening, pleading, crying. I’ve never seen her like that before. She was hysterical, saying the most terrible things. She said I was all she had and now I was breaking her heart. She said so many things. She knows me so well. She knows exactly what to say to make me feel dreadful. I started to promise her anything just to make her stop.’

  ‘Promise to stop seeing me?’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t mean it. So then I went back on my word the next morning. Then we heard we were at war, and that changed everything again.’

  ‘You really want to be a soldier and fight?’

  ‘No! No, of course not. I meant everything I said in Hastings. I hate the very idea of war. It’s not just the principle. I suppose I’m a rotten coward at heart. It’s not just that I’m scared of dying. I’m scared of killing someone else, I’m scared of the squalor, the stench, the sheer misery of it all.’

  ‘Then don’t go! Please, please don’t go. For your mother’s sake – and for mine.’

  ‘But I can’t go on being a coward. I can’t let other men fight for me.’

  ‘Take no notice of that stupid boy who shouted at you. He was saying it to get at me. I told him that you and I were friends. He was just being spiteful, making trouble, because once upon a time he was sweet on me. Please believe me, Morgan.’

  ‘All right, I do believe you, but it doesn’t change the truth of what he said. I’ve been in this terrible dilemma for days, wondering what I should do. I don’t want to fight, but I’m already trained – all that wretched army cadet malarkey. I should know what I’m doing, much more than poor Freddy. Mother’s spent a fortune on my education and now says I’m throwing it in her face, but the thing public school teaches you above all else is that you must do your duty as a gentleman.’

  ‘Oh, that’s such pompous nonsense,’ I said. ‘You can’t truly believe that, Morgan.’

  ‘I don’t know what I believe any more. That