I knew just how hard it must have been for Mother to go out seeking work. I reached out and took hold of her hand. ‘Well done, Mother,’ I whispered.
‘No, it is not well done,’ she said, pulling away from me. ‘I’ve been unsuccessful. I’ve been to Beade and Chambers department store, Evelyn’s the draper’s, Maxwell’s the toyshop, Henley’s china emporium, practically every wretched shop in town, but without success. No one wants to take on a middle-aged lady with scarcely any experience. I even went to the Fairy Glen factory and asked for light work there, but they’re only taking on young girls.’
‘As if you could ever work in a factory, Mother,’ said Cassie fiercely, but Mother glared at her too.
‘We can’t take that attitude now, girls. We have to do what we can. So I’m going to be working at home making novelty rabbits for Porter’s toy factory. They’ll be delivering all the pieces on Monday. I’m to make three dozen a day.’
‘Three dozen?’
‘Apparently they have some women who manage up to a hundred, but even then I don’t think I’ll earn enough to pay the rent,’ said Mother, and a tear rolled down her cheek.
‘Don’t, Mother, I can’t bear it,’ said Cassie. ‘Look, I’ll get a job. Hang it, I’ll even work at Fairy Glen.’
I stared at my sister, amazed at her heroism.
‘No, Cassie, I won’t hear of it,’ said Mother. ‘You’re halfway through your apprenticeship. You’ll start earning next year. It would be madness to throw up your position now.’
Cassie slumped with relief.
‘But . . . what are we going to do?’ I said.
Mother bent her head, not looking at me. She stirred her tea, though it had gone lukewarm.
‘I think you’ll have to start at the factory, Opal,’ she said.
I was so shocked I could scarcely breathe.
‘Opal?’ gasped Cassie.
‘She’s fourteen. There’s many a lass of fourteen who goes to work,’ said Mother, still staring down at her teacup.
‘But I’ve got my scholarship!’ I said. ‘I’m going to stay on at school and take my exams. Father says I might even go to university.’
‘Yes, well, your father has no say in things now. And I can’t quite see the point of all that schooling – it doesn’t teach you anything useful. It’s time you started work, Opal. You can always catch up with your book learning later.’
‘Not at Fairy Glen, though!’ said Cassie. ‘Can’t Opal start an apprenticeship like me?’
‘No she can’t,’ Mother snapped. ‘She needs to start earning money.’
‘What about one of the shops in town?’
‘I’ve told you, there are no positions anywhere. The only place needing girls is the factory. So that’s where she’s going. Starting Monday,’ said Mother. ‘I’ve fixed it.’
‘But she’ll hate it. Opal will be so different from all the other girls,’ said Cassie.
‘It’s time she learned to fit in. Stop looking at me like that, both of you. I don’t want her to have to leave school. I tried to get a job at the factory myself, I keep telling you. There isn’t any other option. You’ll have to like it or lump it.’ Mother stirred her tea so violently that the cup tipped and spilled all over the green chenille cloth. She and Cassie mopped and wrung the cloth and dabbed at the wooden table underneath. I sat in a daze, tea all over my blouse and tunic.
‘Opal! Shift yourself! You’re sopping wet. It’s going to be the devil of a job to get those tea-stains out if you don’t soak those clothes immediately,’ Mother told me.
‘I don’t care. It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m not going to be wearing them again, am I?’ I said, and then I burst into tears.
I went up to my room, took off my uniform, and lay on my bed in my underwear, howling. How could Mother say I had to leave school? If Father knew, he’d be horrified. He’d been so proud of me when I won my scholarship. I’d worked hard. I might wind up old Mounty sometimes, but I was still top of the class in every subject except art – and that was simply my pride, because I wouldn’t work Miss Reed’s boring way. I was clever. I was going to go on and come top in every exam and go to university. Intelligence was my only asset. I was small and plain and prickly, with lank hair, weak eyes and a sharp tongue. I was nothing without my scholarship. I couldn’t give it all up! Especially not to work at the Fairy Glen factory!
It was at the south end of town, near the railway station, where the houses were terraced and tumbledown. The streets were so narrow the mothers slung their washing on lines across the cobbles and their children dodged in and out of the wet sheets, patterning them with sooty handprints. The women were big and blousy, with great swollen stomachs. The men wore cloth caps and shirts without collars and were drunk every night. I’d never seen them drunk of course, but Mother had given us dark warnings, especially about the young men. The young women were the most frightening – bold girls who wandered around with linked arms and whistled and shouted and swore. I had seen these girls. Once, when I was fetching shoes from the cobbler’s at the railway station, three brassy girls had mocked my accent and laughed at me. I’d done my best to ignore them, but I’d blushed furiously, and this had made them laugh even more.
Now Mother wanted me to work in the factory alongside awful girls like that!
‘I won’t, I won’t, I won’t!’ I muttered. ‘I hate Mother. I hate Father, because it’s all his stupid fault. I hate them.’
But that made me feel so bad I hated myself even more. I wanted to be good, to be mature and silently long-suffering. Perhaps I should go to the factory and earn enough to feed my family without complaint. I tried to stop crying and calm myself. I rehearsed it inside my head: I’d go downstairs, kiss Mother, and tell her not to worry any more. I knew it couldn’t be helped so I’d start earning my living and work hard. I’d be a dutiful daughter.
I couldn’t make myself do it. I lay there sobbing instead, though I was hurting my eyes and giving myself a thumping headache. After a long while Cassie came in and sat down on the edge of my bed.
‘You poor old thing,’ she said, and she put her cool hand on my burning forehead. ‘I’ve been arguing with Mother, you know. It really isn’t fair on you. It would be better for me to go to Fairy Glen, seeing as I’ve left school already, but she won’t hear of it. I mean, I quite like it at Madame Alouette’s. She’s not a bad old stick, and it’s fun being in the fashion world and I’m actually getting quite good at making all the hats – but it’s not as if I’m going to be doing it for the rest of my life. Catch me ending up a fussy old spinster like Madame herself. As soon as the right man comes along I’ll be off like a shot. But it’s different for you, Opie.’
‘So I’m clearly destined to be a fussy old spinster . . .’ I said, blowing my nose.
‘No, I didn’t mean that! But you want to be one of these new independent women who work and campaign and all that other boring stuff. You’re a brainy bluestocking already. It’s hateful that you have to throw away all your chances. How are you going to cope at Fairy Glen? Those girls will make mincemeat of you.’
‘Shut up, Cass,’ I said, but I gave her a big hug all the same.
I couldn’t come down and make my peace with Mother. When I eventually got to sleep, I had nightmares, dreaming of a vast rattling machine in a bleak factory. I was seized by a crowd of raucous girls and stuffed right inside it. I felt the machine crunching my bones, mangling me flat. I fought wildly and woke with my bed sheets tangled around my arms and legs.
I spent most of the weekend in my room, painting pictures of dark satanic mills with towering chimneys, though I knew perfectly well that the Fairy Glen factory was a squat, white-walled building with no Gothic features whatsoever.
I tried to read too, but for once I couldn’t concentrate on storybooks. My own life seemed to be veering outlandishly into melodrama, so that the troubled lives of the young David Copperfield and Jane Eyre seemed prosaic by comparison.
I wasn’t used
to having so much free time. I usually spent several hours studying. I’d been set a great deal of homework, but what was the point of doing it now? My schoolbooks stayed in my satchel. It was the oddest feeling knowing that I never needed to get them out again.
I thought of all the girls and how they’d gossip about me when they discovered I’d left school so abruptly and started work in a factory. I tried to pretend I didn’t care what any of them thought, but I did, dreadfully. I thought of Miss Laurel and all the teachers tutting and shaking their heads. Mounty and Miss Reed would cluck triumphantly, insisting that they’d always known I would get my comeuppance. I thought of Olivia, and at last this galvanized me into action.
I went downstairs and took my coat from the hall stand.
‘So you’ve stopped sulking at last,’ said Mother.
‘I wasn’t sulking. I was painting,’ I said.
‘I can see that. You’ve got brown paint all over your hands. Whatever does it look like, Opal!’
‘Oh stop fussing, Mother,’ I said, and I went to the front door.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m going to see my friend,’ I said, and slammed out of the house.
I ran most of the way to Olivia’s, suddenly desperate to see her. She was my dear, funny best friend, and she’d been so kind and comforting to me when I’d told her about Father. I wanted her to hold me and rock me again. She’d be devastated when I told her I had to leave school. How would she manage without me? We sat together, we ate lunch together, we walked home together. Olivia wasn’t very good at managing by herself. She often needed my whispered help in lessons, and I frequently did her homework.
I started to feel almost as sorry for Olivia as I did for myself. When I got to her house, I banged eagerly on the door. I had to knock several times. Then the young servant girl, Jane, opened it, her cap crooked, a coal smear all down her apron.
‘Hello, Jane,’ I said, starting to go in, but she gave a little squeal and put out her hand to stop me.
‘Sorry, miss, I have to ask the missus,’ she blurted out.
‘What? But I’ve not come to see your missus, I’ve come to see Olivia.’
‘I’m not sure it’s allowed, miss,’ said Jane, looking terribly flustered.
Then Mrs Brand herself came into the hallway. She was holding a newspaper. She actually shook it at me. ‘You’ve got a nerve coming here, Opal Plumstead,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry, I – I don’t know what you mean,’ I stammered, though the sight of the newspaper filled me with dread.
‘Of course you know! It’s written here in black and white,’ she said, stabbing at the newsprint. ‘Your father’s total disgrace!’
I swallowed, feeling dizzy. ‘I’m sorry,’ I mumbled. ‘Could I – could I just see Olivia please?’
‘No you could not!’
‘But I need to explain, to tell her that I can’t come back to school,’ I said.
‘Of course you can’t! St Margaret’s is for the daughters of gentlemen.’
‘My father might be a thief, but he is still a gentleman,’ I said.
I heard a scuffle on the stairs and got a glimpse of Olivia hanging over the banisters, looking stricken.
‘Please come down, Olivia – I must talk to you,’ I called desperately. But she scuttled back across the landing into her bedroom.
‘Olivia isn’t allowed to talk to you any more,’ said Mrs Brand. ‘Now go home at once. Shut the door on her, Jane.’
Jane started to close the door, her white face creased with misery. ‘I’m sorry, miss,’ she whispered, and then she slammed the door shut.
ON MONDAY MORNING I walked to the Fairy Glen factory, so frightened I could barely put one foot in front of the other. As I got near, I became part of a milling throng of jostling girls, burly men walking three or four abreast, and larky boys dashing about, laughing and joking. I felt like a hopeless alien in a foreign country. When I got to the tall factory gates, I stopped in my tracks, grasping the railings, not sure I could go through with it.
Then the factory clock struck eight. There was a last surge of workers, and I got swept along with them, across the yard and in through a dark doorway. They rushed off purposefully in different directions. I stood dithering, not having a clue where to go or what to do. It was far worse than my first day at school. I had to struggle not to dissolve into tears like a five-year-old.
‘Can I help you, missy?’ A plump man in a white coat came out of his office and looked at me kindly.
‘Oh please!’ I said. ‘I’m new and I don’t know where to go.’
‘You’re coming to work here? We don’t take on little girls! How old are you? Ten? Twelve?’
I wasn’t sure whether he was serious. ‘I’m fourteen,’ I said, trying to sound dignified.
‘Oh I say, quite the little lady,’ he said. ‘What’s your name, dear?’
‘Opal Plumstead.’
‘My goodness, that’s a name and a half. Well, Opal Plumstead, we’d better get you kitted out and then I’ll give you a grand tour of the factory. I’m Mr Beeston. I’m the floor manager. Your boss. So mind your “p”s and “q”s when you’re talking to me, and give me a curtsy to show you know your place.’ His eyes were twinkling. I was pretty sure he was teasing me, but I bobbed him a curtsy all the same.
He shook his head at me, chuckling. ‘You’re a caution, Opal Plumstead. Right, first we have to get you a cap and overall. I’ll have to ask you to pin that pretty pigtail out of sight. We’re very hygiene conscious at Fairy Glen.’ He took me to a storeroom and gave me a floppy white cap and a starched white overall and showed me the door of the ladies’ cloakroom.
There was a girl standing at the mirror, brushing her long black hair in a leisurely way, as if she were in her own bedroom. She saw me staring at her and stuck out her tongue.
I didn’t know whether to stick mine out at her, or not. I turned away and struggled into the overall. It was far too big for me, the hem brushing the floor, the cuffs reaching to my fingertips.
The girl burst out laughing. ‘Well, you look a right guy!’ she said, expertly twisting her hair up into a thick knot on top of her head. She crammed her cap on over it and sauntered off.
I struggled hard to force my own limp hair into a knot, but I didn’t have a brush or enough pins so it kept collapsing. I pulled the cap on as low as possible so that it contained all the loose ends. I looked ridiculous with it resting on my eyebrows, but it couldn’t be helped.
‘That’s a good lass,’ said Mr Beeston when I crept out again. He looked me up and down. ‘Bit tight on you, seeing as you’re such a big girl!’
I stared and then gave a timid snigger at his joke.
‘That’s right, girly. Have a little laugh. You don’t want to walk about as if you’ve got the collywobbles. Now come with me and I’ll show you around. It’s a sight for sore eyes, I’m telling you!’
He led me down a corridor and then opened a heavy door. Immediately there was an extraordinary jammy, sugary smell, so strong that it made my head swim.
‘Mmm, yes – delicious, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Follow me, then, little Opal Plumstead.’
We entered the vast hot room. Workers in white overalls were toiling at great copper pans. Mr Beeston took me by the elbow to stand beside a large burly man who was tending a huge copper cradle, rocking it like a baby and stirring the contents with intense concentration.
‘What is he cooking?’ I whispered.
‘Take a peep,’ said Mr Beeston.
I peered in cautiously and saw that he was stirring almonds, gently browning them.
‘Ready now! Sharp with the syrup, young Davey,’ called the burly man.
‘Young’ Davey was a thin, wizened man in his fifties, but his sinewy arms were strong enough to lift a two-handled copper pan full of sugar syrup. He propped the pan on an iron frame by the cradle, taking over the rocking, while the burly man dipped a big ladle into the thick syrup and then flung it ove
r the hot almonds. I watched carefully as a glaze formed around each one.
‘Oh my goodness. So . . . are these sugared almonds?’ I said.
‘Well done, Opal Plumstead. Ten out of ten for you. No, nine out of ten, for they’re not sugared almonds just yet. The first coating has to dry – then what do you think will happen?’
‘He’ll pour another ladleful in?’ I said.
Mr Beeston nodded. ‘The whole process is repeated for an hour or more until each almond has several coats. Next time you bite into one, missy, see how they crackle into little layers, thin as paper. Try counting how many layers each one has. Then you’ll know how many ladlefuls have gone into the whole process. Magical, isn’t it?’
‘Yes it is! Can I take a turn with the ladle?’ I said, wanting to show willing.
‘Not for a long while, lass,’ said the burly man. ‘It’s skilled work. We can’t trust a peck or two of Jordan almonds to a little kid still wet behind the ears.’
Mr Beeston smiled at me. ‘Still, we like’em keen. Here’s another process you’ll want to try your hand at, missy, but you’ll have to get trained up for this one too.’
He steered me down aisles to where another man was boiling up more syrup in a great copper kettle. ‘This is Alfred. Alfred the Great,’ he told me.
‘Is that sugar you’re boiling, Mr Alfred?’ I asked timidly.
‘Sugar and water. We make all sorts of sweets that way, with different shapes and flavours,’ said Alfred.
We watched him pick up a basin of cold water.
‘Aha! You look carefully, missy,’ said Mr Beeston.
The man chilled his hand in the water for a few seconds, and then, astonishingly, thrust it into the boiling syrup, scooped some out, then plunged it back into the cold water. It was caked all over with light yellow flakes of brittle sugar.
‘It’s just like a magic trick!’ I exclaimed.
‘No, no, this is the magic part,’ said Mr Beeston as Alfred buttered a large marble slab. He tested the syrup again with his extraordinary hand-and-cold-water trial, and then poured the contents onto the marble. It spread rapidly, but then cooled so quickly that it was easily contained within little iron bars.