Opal Plumstead Read Online Free PDF

whereas Cassie in her plain white nightgown showed it off effortlessly.
    ‘Don’t you want to look pretty, Opie?’ said Cassie. She said it softly, but there was a tinge of smugness in her tone. She knew that all the fine dresses in the world would never make me pretty. Part of me wanted to kick her right out of bed – but it was so comfortable, the two of us curled up together.
    ‘I don’t want to look pretty, I want to look artistic,’ I said. This gave me an idea. ‘Perhaps I shall go to Liberty in Regent Street. I’ve seen their advertisements in the newspaper. They have long flowing dresses in beautiful fabrics.’
    ‘No, you don’t want one of
those
– you’ll look weird,’ said Cassie.
    ‘Then I’ll stick to my tunic.’
    ‘Honestly! I don’t know how you can bear still being at school – and St Margaret’s is such a frightful school too, all lumpy girls and old-maid teachers. I wouldn’t have gone there for all the tea in China.’
    Cassie
couldn’t
have gone there because she’d never have passed the scholarship examination, and Father wasn’t rich enough to pay – well, until now.
    ‘You don’t want Father to pay for you to go back to school?’ I said. ‘Or you could go to a special girls’ college and learn to cook and arrange flowers and how to dress.’
    ‘What nonsense! I don’t want to cook, I can make flowers and I know very well how I want to dress.’
    ‘So you want to stay on at Madame Alouette’s?’
    ‘Not for ever.’ Cassie stretched out in bed, nearly tipping me out. ‘I’ll meet some fine gentleman—’
    ‘Rich, and foolish enough to be very indulgent, I suppose,’ I said.
    ‘Not foolish. I want someone who can master me,’ said Cassie.
    ‘You’ve been reading too many trashy romance novels,’ I told her. ‘Do you picture yourself lying on a tiger skin like Elinor Glyn?’
    ‘Oh yes!’ she said. ‘That would be thrilling.’
    ‘And your dark lover will thrust you upon his white stallion and ride off with you into the desert . . .’
    ‘
Yes!
Oh, go on, Opal, this is good! Tell it like a story.’
    I made up a whole load of nonsense, though it kept Cassie enthralled. I floundered a little when I came to describing actual embraces, but Cassie didn’t know much more than me about the mysteries of the bedroom, for all she pretended to be so worldly wise. We ended up giggling helplessly and went to sleep with our arms around each other.
    It was strange feeling close to Cassie when we usually fought like cat and dog. It was as if a spell had been cast over our whole family. Breakfast was usually a sullen, hasty affair, with Mother, still in her nightgown, nagging at us to get a move on. Poor Father would have trudged off to the railway station breakfast-less long before.
    Breakfast the next morning was very different. Mother was neatly dressed but with her hair still down, which made her look strangely young and girlish. There were eggshells and toast crumbs and a tea-stained cup at Father’s place, so she’d obviously got up early and made him a meal. She made Cassie and me breakfast too – just tea and bread and butter, but she sprinkled sugar on our slices too, which had always been a long-ago little-girl treat.
    I set off for school with a new spring in my step. I usually made up stories in my head to entertain myself on the long walk through the town, blush-making fantasies of living in an alternative family where I was the prettiest and most popular sister, but I didn’t feel the need to do that today. I was happy to daydream about my own family now.
    In the playground I seized hold of Olivia and said excitedly, ‘You’ll never guess what! My father’s going to be a published author! Yes, he really, really is. Imagine – in a matter of months we’ll be able to go into a bookshop or a library and see his name on a book jacket!’
    ‘How lovely,’ said Olivia, but she sounded more polite than genuinely thrilled.
    I suppose it was because