The Bright One (41 page)

She shuffled through a pile of papers on her desk. ‘I have a report from every department you've worked in – well, you didn't suppose I wouldn't have, did you? They are all reasonably good but it seems, as you've indicated yourself, that your strengths lie on the financial side, and in organization. What I'd appreciate is a written report from you about how you found things. I want something I can show your father. It will be a help to him when he's placing you in Prince and Harper. Will you do that for me? It needn't be long.'

‘I will,' Graham promised.

‘Do you feel ready to go into your father's store?' Miss Opal asked.

Graham hesitated. ‘I dare say my father told you I didn't want to go into the retail business. I wanted to be a painter.'

‘He did tell me. It was a familiar story to me. I have a son in the same situation, except that he flatly refused to come into Opal's. And he was right, as it happens. He's earning a modest living as a painter in London and he's a very happy man, though I don't think your father would thank me for saying this! Anyway, are you still of the same mind?'

‘Not quite,' Graham said. ‘Things have changed in the last year.'

‘Oh! In what way?'

‘There's something I want to tell you, Miss Opal. I came in here determined to tell you, but it has to be in confidence.'

‘I see. Or rather, I don't. I'll do my best, unless it's something I have to tell your father. In any case, whatever it is, it's best for
you
to tell him, not me.'

‘I'm engaged to be married!'

She looked hard at him, trying not to show her feelings. She didn't need to ask to whom. She had observed the attraction between him and the red-haired Irish girl months ago, but since they had taken to going around with a crowd, joining in things, she had found it easier to put it out of her mind.

‘You don't want to know who?' Graham asked.

‘I dare say I can guess! It's Miss O'Connor, isn't it?'

‘Yes.'

‘Are you wise?'

‘I think so. I dare say it's store policy, but I hope you won't dismiss her because we're engaged. If you do, Miss Opal, I have to say that I would go too!'

She raised her eyebrows. The beginnings of a smile caught the corners of her mouth. He looked suddenly so young, so defiant. She remembered Daniel looking exactly like this.

‘No-one knows except you,' Graham said quickly. ‘Nor will they, just yet.'

‘Well, I hadn't got anywhere near to thinking of dismissals,' Miss Opal said. ‘And I have to say that if I had to choose it wouldn't be Miss O'Connor I'd want to lose. She's far too valuable. She's done some very good work in Display, and will do more. No, Graham, if I had to lose one of you, I'm afraid it would be you!'

Graham stared at her open-mouthed, and then, suddenly, a broad smile spread over his face. ‘Then that's all right!' he said.

‘For the time being,' Miss Opal agreed. ‘But what am I to tell your father?'

‘Nothing, yet!'

‘And how does this alter your attitude to going into the retail trade – if that's what you're thinking?'

‘Because I have to earn some money,' Graham said. ‘I can't wait to be married until I can make a living as a painter. As for my father, I intend to tell him about Breda as soon as my year here is up, as soon as I see him. I don't intend to wait after that.'

Miss Opal picked up a letter from her desk. ‘Then, my dear Graham, you won't have to wait long! Your father's coming here tomorrow. He has a business meeting in Leeds. That was one of the things I had to tell you. I thought you might have heard from him yourself.'

There was a knock at the door and George Soames put his head inside the room. ‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘I didn't realize you were engaged.'

‘Come in,' Opal said. ‘Mr Prince is just going. Have you brought me good news?'

‘I reckon so,' George Soames said.

‘Please excuse me,' Opal said to Graham. ‘I'll speak to you later about your father's visit.'

When Graham reached his lodgings that evening his landlady, Mrs Hartopp, handed him a letter.

‘It came not ten minutes after you'd left this morning,' she told him.

She hovered, hoping to hear who it was from and what it was about. He was a young man who didn't receive many letters, and since she scarcely had any at all it was quite an event for the postman to call.

Graham quickly put her out of her misery. ‘It's from my father. He has a meeting in Leeds today, so he's coming to Opal's tomorrow morning to see me.'

‘Oh, well then! That'll be nice for you,' she said.

Will it, Graham wondered? He doubted it, in the circumstances.

‘So I dare say you'll not be in to your dinner?'

He almost always came home to his dinner on early closing day and she tried to give him something nice, something a bit special.

‘I don't suppose I shall,' Graham agreed.

‘Well it's a pity, because the butcher's promised me a nice bit of kidney and I was going to make you one of my steak-and-kidney puddings. But there you go, I expect you'll be living it up with dinner at the King's Hotel!'

If his meeting with his father went badly, Graham thought, he might not get any dinner at all. His father was capable of simply catching the next train back to London. He was not a man who liked to be crossed.

When Graham had left Miss Opal's office earlier in the day he had sought out Breda.

‘Can you come for a coffee and a sandwich with me at lunch time?' he asked her. ‘Not the canteen today. I want to talk to you.'

She scarcely tasted her sandwich while he described what had taken place.

‘But I'm glad you told her,' she said. ‘About us, I mean. I'm glad to have that bit out of the way, and pleased I'm not going to be sacked!'

‘So tomorrow you'll meet my father,' Graham said.

‘Oh Graham! Oh Graham, I'm so nervous! Do you think we should – just yet, I mean?'

‘Of course we should. There's no point in putting it off. And you mustn't be nervous. He can't eat you. And you can hardly marry me without meeting my family, now can you?'

‘I wish I could,' Breda said. ‘Sure, I wish there was no-one to think about except you and me. Supposing he doesn't like me?'

‘Of course he'll like you!' He spoke with more confidence than he felt, not because of Breda, but because his father was an awkward man, unpredictable.

‘Well there's one thing certain,' Breda said. ‘You've told Miss Opal, tomorrow aren't you going to tell your father, so I absolutely must tell Auntie Josie. Hasn't it been the most terrible thing for me, keeping it from her all this time?'

‘I know. Of course you must.'

‘And tonight. I'm not going to meet your father and leave Auntie Josie in the dark.'

‘Shall I come with you, and we'll do it together?'

‘No. I'll be best alone, so.' She knew her aunt would voice objections. She didn't want Graham to hear them.

‘She can't stop you, you know,' Graham said. ‘Remember that. Nobody can stop us being engaged.'

‘Don't I know that? But she's been kind to me and I don't look forward to upsetting her.'

Wasn't it lucky, Breda thought, back at Waterloo Terrace, eating her tea, that for once there was only her aunt and uncle at the table, no other member of the family. Grandma Maguire had been collected to take part in a church outing to Harrogate by coach, and wouldn't be back for another hour or more.

‘Have another scone, Breda love,' Josephine said. ‘You're not eating much.'

‘I'm not very hungry,' Breda said.

‘Are you not well?' Josephine enquired. ‘You usually whip right through my scones.'

‘'Tis not that. 'Tis . . . ' Breda faltered, then took a deep breath and came out with it. ‘Graham and I are engaged to be married!'

Brendan all but choked on the piece of scone he had just bitten off. Josephine, raising a cup of tea to her lips, put it down again on the table. They stared at Breda. Brendan was the first to recover. ‘Engaged, is it? So aren't you the dark horse, then – but congratulations, love!'

‘What are you saying, Brendan?' Josephine interrupted sharply.

‘I'm saying congratulations! Hasn't the girl told us she's engaged to be married? What else would I be saying?'

‘If your wits hadn't deserted you for the moment you'd be telling her it was highly unsuitable. You'd be giving her some fatherly advice, as she hasn't got a father of her own to do so.'

Brendan looked at his wife in astonishment. ‘Unsuitable? You like Graham! We all like the lad.'

‘Of course we do. That's not the point – and our Breda knows it's not. We've discussed this before. And didn't you . . . ' She turned to Breda and spoke accusingly. ‘Didn't you tell me there was nothing in it? You knew that wasn't the truth, didn't you?'

‘Hold on, Josie!' Brendan remonstrated. ‘Don't be so fierce with the girl. What's got into you?'

‘Worry's got into me, that's what,' Josephine snapped.

‘Auntie Josie, I'm sorry!' Breda said. ‘I didn't mean to deceive you, I didn't want to, ever. But I couldn't tell you because of Graham's father, and he might have taken Graham away, and now he's coming tomorrow and I've got to meet him and I'm so scared, and if you're going to be cross with me I just don't know what I'm going to do except that I'll never give up Graham, nor he me, no matter what anyone says! We love each other and that's all there is to it!'

She ran out of breath. She had known it wouldn't be easy but she hadn't thought it would be quite so awful.

Josephine stretched across the table and took her hand. ‘I'm sorry I was so sharp with you, love, but you're in my care. And you see, that
isn't
all there is to it. He's not a Catholic and he's not your class, nor you his. That's a lot of trouble to take on your shoulders.'

‘We can take it,' Breda said firmly. ‘We love each other. It won't be the first mixed marriage in the world and 'tis unlikely to be the last. We'll work it out. And I know I'm not in his class . . . '

‘There's no need to let that worry you,' Brendan broke in. ‘You'll manage that all right. You have it in you, and don't let your aunt or anyone else tell you otherwise. I'll say here and now, I don't agree with your aunt on any of this. I'm on your side!'

Who would have supposed, Breda thought, a few months ago, that Uncle Brendan would be on my side in anything? Or that Auntie Josie would be against me?

‘We're not taking sides,' Josephine said. ‘And I've said my say. You know my views, and I can't do any less than give them. That much is my duty. But in the end it's your choice, Breda, and you'll be the one who has to abide by it!'

‘And I will!' Breda said. ‘But please don't be against me, Auntie. I need your support. Haven't I got to meet Graham's father tomorrow?'

Sitting in the train on the short journey from Leeds to Leasfield, Henry Prince thought about the meeting he was to have with Opal Carson, and then afterwards with his son. He had known Opal a long time; she was a remarkable woman. How unusual it was that a store so far from London, so far from the centre of things, should be known and respected throughout the retail fashion trade; and even more so that its owner – who had not inherited her business as he had Prince and Harper – was a woman in a man's world? He took off his hat to her. There was no-one he would choose above Opal to train his son in the groundwork. Opal's was a model of how a store should be run.

About his son he was less sure. Graham had gone to Opal's under protest. All
he
had wanted was to go to the Slade and paint. If I'd offered to support him in that, which I could well have done, Henry Prince thought, he'd never have looked at the retail trade. He'd have been lost to me, we'd have been in two different worlds, and I don't want that.

From the railway station he walked the mile to Opal's store. He needed the exercise, but apart from that he had always made a practice of walking through the streets around his own store. You learned more that way than sitting in the back of a taxi cab. He had not been to Opal's since the beginning of the war. The buildings looked shabbier, in need of a lick of paint, some of them, but there was none of the bomb damage which had so changed the area around his own store.

He reached the main door, but before going in he walked around the windows, studying the displays. Very good, he thought. Not too far short of London standards.

Ten minutes later he was being shown into Opal's office. She came from behind her desk and held out both hands to him. He thought how attractive she looked. Her black hair was beginning to grey at the sides, but her fresh skin and her trim figure were those of a woman fifteen years younger than he knew her to be.

‘My, but it's good to see you, Henry! How are you? Would you like some coffee?' He was putting on weight, she thought. But with his height, he could carry it.

‘I'm very well,' he said. ‘I won't have coffee just yet. I had a good north-country breakfast at the hotel.'

‘And how is Miriam? It's a long time since I saw her. And the family?'

‘All well. And yours?'

‘Also all well. Daniel, as you know, is in London. Emmeline has just gone off to her very first Guide camp.'

‘And Edgar?'