The Bright One (48 page)

‘I said, I shan't be working in Prince and Harper.'

Breda looked around at the circle of faces. On Mrs Prince's was an expression of confused disbelief. The two brothers, Breda thought, though surprised, looked not displeased, their wives non-committal. Henry Prince was flushed with a rage he made no attempt to conceal.

‘It's this painting nonsense! That's what it is, isn't it? You're all set to starve in a garret! Well, it won't work, and when it fails, don't come to me for help!'

‘It's nothing to do with painting, Father,' Graham said. ‘The truth is, Opal Carson has offered me a job, and I've decided to take it.'

‘Opal?' Henry spluttered. ‘She hasn't said a word to me! Why hasn't she consulted me?'

‘I imagine because the job was for me,' Graham said. ‘But she'll be in touch with you quite soon.'

‘I should damned well hope so,' Henry thundered. ‘So what is this job that you'll throw up a job in Prince and Harper for it?'

‘I'm afraid I can't give you the details just yet,' Graham said. ‘When you speak to Opal, perhaps she will.'

‘But darling, you can't live in
Akersfield
!' Miriam sounded shocked to the core.

‘Of course I can, Mother,' Graham said gently. ‘I've never been happier than in Akersfield. And it's not the end of the world, you know. And I'm not really needed in Prince and Harper. There's quite enough family there already.' He looked at Breda. His smile was so warm, so loving, that she felt as though he had touched her, embraced her. It gave her the strength she needed.

‘If you'll all excuse me,' she said. ‘I'll be going to bed.'

Mrs Prince's glance implored Breda. ‘Graham will never be happy in Yorkshire,' she said. ‘It's not what he's used to.'

‘I hope to make him happy, Mrs Prince,' Breda said. She felt surprisingly calm as she stood up and made for the door. Laura Prince caught hold of her hand as she went past. ‘Good-night, Breda! I've enjoyed meeting you.'

‘And haven't I enjoyed meeting you?' Breda said. ‘And when we are married and have a place of our own,' she added, ‘I hope you'll come up and stay with us.'

Graham had risen to his feet at the same time as Breda.

‘I'll also say good-night.'

‘But we have matters to discuss,' Henry protested. ‘You've hardly told us anything. Why are you doing this? I'm not at all sure that I agree with it.'

‘I'm sure you will when I'm able to tell you more about it,' Graham said. ‘You'll realize what a good chance it is for me. So no hard feelings, Father. And now if you don't mind, I
will
go to bed. It's been a long day. I'm quite tired, and I'm sure Breda is.'

He put his arm around her and they left together.

When they reached her bedroom he went in with her and closed the door behind them.

When Graham took her in his arms, Breda lifted a troubled face to his. ‘They think it's me! They think I'm taking you away. I'm not, am I?'

‘Let's put it this way, sweetheart,' Graham said. ‘Wherever you were, that's where I'd want to be. Yorkshire or the North Pole, it wouldn't matter!'

He pushed her onto the bed, her head against the pillows, and began to kiss and caress her. ‘Shall I tell you what I'd like to do with this dress, lovely though it is? I'd like to take it off. Please, Breda!'

She offered no resistance while he undid the buttons and pulled it from her. Resistance was beyond her now, and in no time at all she was caught up, as he was, in a frenzy of passion. She had not imagined it could be as sweet as this.

Then suddenly, with no warning at all, she pushed him away from her and sat bolt upright.

‘What in the world . . . ?'

He tried to push her down again but she would have none of it. ‘No!' she cried. ‘Not here! Not in your parents' house. Not the first time ever!'

She left the bed, took her dressing-gown from the hook behind the door and wrapped it around her.

‘Oh Graham, please understand!' she begged. ‘I couldn't do it here.'

He was white faced. She thought he was angry, but when he spoke his voice was gentle. ‘I do understand.'

‘And forgive?'

‘There's nothing to forgive,' Graham said.

‘I'm very tired,' Breda said. ‘I'd like to go to bed. I'd like to go to bed with you, my darling. You know that. And one day I will. But not now. We must say good-night.'

He looked at her long and uncertainly. Then he said, ‘You don't know how hard it is, Breda. Nevertheless, good-night.'

Breda slept fitfully, longing for Graham, and was glad when morning came. They were to leave after breakfast.

‘I hope you know what you're doing, my boy,' Henry Prince said grimly.

‘I think I do, Father. And I'll keep in touch.'

At the door, Miriam Prince bade a loving farewell to Graham. Her eyes were bright with tears she would not allow herself to shed. Then she turned to Breda. ‘We must all keep in touch,' she said. ‘Please come again. You'll be welcome.'

‘Thank you,' Breda said. ‘I will. And I hope you'll come to Yorkshire.'

‘I will,' Miriam said.

She hesitated, as if she wanted to say something and couldn't find the words. Then she said, ‘I'm sure you're going to make Graham happy.'

Plans for the opening of Opal's of Hebghyll under its new management moved with the speed of light. It would start with a bang on New Year's Day, with a grand clearance sale.

‘A clean sweep,' Opal said to George Soames. ‘Everything that's old or tatty or out of date goes in that sale. I want a fresh start, with everything clean and bright and up to date.'

She would have liked, with a few exceptions, to have made a clean sweep of the staff, but it was not on the cards. There was not enough time to recruit new staff, even if they were to be had.

‘In any case, it wouldn't do,' George warned her. ‘What sort of an image would you have in the town if you started off by sacking people?'

‘Oh, you're quite right,' Opal agreed. ‘It was never anything more than wishful thinking. Anyway, they can't all be as bad as they seem. They've just been allowed to get slack. Perhaps what they need is a good shaking up.'

A few members of staff had already decided to leave, not liking the thought of a new broom which looked ready to sweep everything thoroughly clean, and none of it under the carpet. They were mostly the older ones, some due for retirement, some already well past that age. Opal and George Soames between them had drawn up pension plans which were more than generous.

‘The rest will weed themselves out without any help from me, once the retraining scheme starts,' Opal said.

In the meantime she would manage with the addition of the hand-picked team from Leasfield – although its members could only be spared for a short time – and a few new assistants she had been able to get locally. ‘We shall
have
to manage,' she said firmly. ‘No two ways about it. If it means we all have to work harder, so be it!'

How much harder they could all work George was not sure. The team from Leasfield was at full stretch behind the scenes, putting in evenings and weekends when the place was closed. George had also managed to recruit some of the Hebghyll staff, who were keen for the changes as well as pleased to earn extra money, to work overtime.

Within ten days of returning from the visit to his parents Graham had left Leasfield for good. He had expected to travel to and from his new job each day, but Opal had insisted that he found lodgings in Hebghyll.

‘Let's face it,' she said, ‘as Deputy Manager you have a lot to learn, and it's best learned by putting in the hours on the spot. It will also do you no harm to be seen around the town. Let people know who you are, what you're doing.'

For Breda it was another matter. She was sent to Hebghyll, together with Jim Sutcliffe – only the two of them could be spared, as it was coming up to Christmas – at the same time as Graham, but for the moment she must travel daily. Miss Opal paid her fares, but there was no question of her financing lodgings, which Breda would have preferred but couldn't afford.

She and Jim Sutcliffe were put to work with the two existing members of Hebghyll Display, but with Jim firmly in charge, his word to be law, his decisions, though he would listen to the others, to be the final ones. Miss Opal had made this quite plain. It was not a popular ruling with the Hebghyll faction.

‘So what will it be like when you go back to Leasfield and I'm left here?' Breda asked Jim after a particularly argumentative session.

‘You'll be all right,' Jim assured her. ‘I'll back you to hold your own any day of the week.' He had watched her growing confidence ever since she'd started to work under him. And she was certainly talented. He'd be sorry to lose her from Leasfield.

Then, as the weeks rushed by towards the end of the year, Breda was so busy, there was so much work to be got through if the appearance of the store was to be changed to fit Miss Opal's idea – and they were not all Miss Opal's ideas; some of her own had been accepted – that she had no time to worry about dissensions and pinpricks.

Besides, wasn't Graham there? What else mattered beside that? Since the store was small, and his job took him into every part of it, she saw him often, even if only in passing. In business hours they spoke to each other only when work made it necessary, but he was there. She was aware of his presence and it lightened her life.

The only fly in the ointment was that she saw so little of him outside work – there
was
so little life outside work. Almost their only time together was when they had both finished for the day and he would walk her to the station to catch her train. The nights were cold and dark, but the darkness meant that they could walk with their arms around each other, stopping to kiss, and as for the cold, held close to Graham Ereda felt nothing of it. Only when she left him, watching out of the carriage window as long as ever she could discern his shape on the dimly lit platform, did Breda begin to shiver, and feel the cold all the way until she was safely inside her aunt's house in Waterloo Terrace.

Two nights before Christmas the weather was particularly nasty, with a strong wind from the north and showers of icy rain. Josephine, hearing Breda's step on the path, opened the door to meet her.

‘This is ridiculous!' she protested. ‘You look perished! Come into the warm at once. I've got some cocoa ready. How long is it since you had a bite to eat?'

‘I had a sandwich at tea time,' Breda said. It seemed an age ago, and she
was
hungry, but even more she was cold and tired. What she wanted above everything was to thaw her chilled body and go to bed.

‘Well, I'll not have you going to bed on an empty stomach,' Josephine said. ‘I've saved some potatoes and onions to fry up for you. They'll not take a minute. What I want to know is, how long is this state of affairs going to go on?'

‘I suppose until we take over properly in the New Year,' Breda said. ‘We might get back to normal shop hours then.' And I'd be able to see Graham in Hebghyll in the evenings, so I'd be home just as late, but it wouldn't matter then, she thought.

Josephine moved the potato mixture around in the frying pan, turning up the gas to get it crisp and brown. The savoury smell teased at Breda's nostrils and suddenly she was famished.

‘Well, I never thought to hear myself say it,' Josephine remarked, ‘and it's not that I want to lose you, but I do think it'd be a sight better if you could take lodgings in Hebghyll. You could still come home at the weekends.'

She thought of her house as being Breda's home. She had grown so used to her, so fond of her. She felt towards her almost as she did towards her own daughters.

She served the potatoes and onions onto a large plate and placed it in front of Breda.

‘Get that down you!' she said. ‘It'll do you no harm – though goodness knows it would half kill me with indigestion! But at your age I don't suppose you know what indigestion is.'

‘I don't,' Breda said. ‘And as for going into lodgings and coming home at weekends, I couldn't afford it. It's been hinted I'll get a raise in the New Year, so it might be possible then. I wouldn't want to leave you, Auntie Josie, but . . . '

‘But you'd like to see more of Graham! Well, that's understandable, love.'

If only we could be married, Breda thought with longing. They had done everything that was required of them. There was nothing now except to wait. How much longer?

‘Have patience, love,' Josephine said, reading her niece's thoughts.

On the morning of Christmas Eve Opal drove straight from her home to Hebghyll.

‘I'm not staying long,' she told George Soames. ‘As you know, Daniel's coming up from London to spend Christmas at home, and not for the world would I be elsewhere when he arrives. He comes north all too seldom.'

‘In fact, I hardly expected to see you today,' George said.

‘Oh, I told you I'd be here, but I also have to go into Leasfield. I couldn't fail to visit my own store on Christmas Eve. I just wanted to check how things were here and to have a word with a few people. Especially I want to see those who are leaving. Will you arrange for them to come in turn to my office, starting in half an hour? Give me ten minutes with each one. Tell the switchboard I don't want any interruptions.'

The short time she spent with each of the leavers seemed, to them, totally unhurried, since her whole interest was concentrated on each one in turn, enquiring about their plans, wishing them well for the future. To those who were leaving after long service she presented gifts – bracelets for the women and gold tiepins to the men. When the ten minutes were up she rose leisurely to her feet, came around to the front of her desk, and shook hands. ‘I hope you'll come into the store often,' she said. ‘We shall value your custom, but if not to buy, then just to look around.'