The Cobweb Cage

by Marina Oliver

  Mary lay back, smiling. Hyacinth was a lovely name, different, unusual. She'd seen it many years before when she'd been parlourmaid at Old Ridge Court, just outside Rugeley, and allowed to borrow books from Mr Nugent's Library there.

  John wasn't so sure. He'd had to stoke the almost dead fire and heat his own water, drag in the zinc bath which hung on the outside wall, and wash off the coal dust before he could go to Mary. She had the highest standards in the street, and was very particular about never taking his pit clothes past the kitchen. When Johnny assured him she was well he didn't like to break her rule even to see his new daughter.

  Normally Mary had his bath all ready for him. The baby hadn't been due for several more weeks, until the end of March. Then proper arrangements for his comfort would have been made. But he wasn't a harsh man and didn't resent this extra chore. Mary couldn't help it. Babies came when they would.

  He admitted to himself as he scrubbed the dirt off his face, and dunked his head to wash the coal dust out of his fair hair, that he'd have liked another son, a sturdy boy like young Johnny. But he wouldn't let Mary even suspect such a thing.

  His slight disappointment vanished when he finally went upstairs to find Mary sitting up in bed, the infant sucking greedily at her breast. She was so beautiful. How had he, plain John Smith, been lucky enough to find such a clever and pretty girl like Mary willing to marry him?

  She had vivid blue eyes, curly brown hair, and two neat dimples. Even after two children she'd regained her trim figure, and no doubt would after this baby too. She was brisk and competent about the house, quiet and submissive, although always cheerful, worked hard and spent his money wisely.

  It was thanks to her good management as well as his promotion to overman which enabled them to move from the single room they'd rented at first into this through house. Here they had two good bedrooms, a front parlour and kitchen. They even had their own scullery attached to the house, instead of sharing a brewhouse across the yard. In the scullery was a tap, and they shared a lavatory in the yard with only three other families, luxury compared with his own boyhood. One day, he vowed, as he looked down at his newest child, they'd have something better still.

  'Isn't she pretty?' Mary asked, wanting reassurance, for the child was far smaller than either of the others had been.

  'Not so pretty as her Mom. Were you all right?'

  'Yes, apart from her being early. Mrs Whitehouse came, and Mrs Tasker. They've taken the washing to do for me. They're good neighbours.'

  'They might have spared a thought for Marigold.'

  'It all happened so fast. I should have thought, asked, but somehow I expected they'd see to her. Is she all right?'

  'Seems so. Had a fright but that's all. Told me she thought there were wolves in the pantry. How does she get such ideas?'

  'Johnny was trying to frighten her one day.'

  'I'll frighten him! He's got to learn to look after his sisters. What do you want this one called?'

  Mary smiled to herself. She knew full well John had been hoping for a boy, and had chosen Edward after his own father.

  It had been taken for granted when Johnny was born that he would be called after his father, but she'd persuaded him to allow her first daughter a different name.

  'We can call him Johnny, and it's not muddling,' she'd explained. 'It would be different with another Mary in the house. Besides, I fancied something less ordinary, like Viola, or Primrose. I'd love to call her after a flower, she's so pretty and smells so sweet!'

  Since that labour had tired her more than the birth of Johnny, he reluctantly agreed. When Mary's sister suggested Marigold as a compromise which had Mary in it, he was reconciled.

  'I'd thought Hyacinth,' she said softly now. There was no use prevaricating with her John. It would irritate him. So did this suggestion.

  'What sort of outlandish rubbish is that?' he exploded, so loudly that the baby, startled, lost Mary's nipple and let out a howl of fright and frustration.

  Mary bent her head over the child, attempting to console it. She sighed. It had been nice to dream but obviously she wouldn't get her way.

  'Why not Eliza after your mother?' he asked, ignoring the screaming baby. 'Or perhaps Victoria?'

  'I'm not fond of Eliza, and there'll be a lot of girls named after the old Queen this year, now she's just died. Hush, now, lovey. They're old-fashioned names, and she's so bright looking.'

  'Red faced, as well as red haired,' John said with a laugh, as the tiny scrap continued to bawl. 'If you really want another flower name how about Poppy?'

  At that moment a silence fell as the baby's mouth once more found the breast, and Mary smiled up at John.

  'I like that,' she said slowly. 'Johnny's hair is brown like mine, Marigold's fair, she takes after you, but this one's going to be a redhead. Poppy? Look, John, she's waving her fist. Oh, yes, it must be Poppy.'

  *

  By the time Mary's third daughter was born, four years later, after she'd suffered two miscarriages, John was so relieved they'd both come safely through he lost all objections to floral names.

  'Look at the way her little fingers cling on to mine,' he said proudly. 'They look so tiny, yet they're strong. Like ivy. Now that would be a good name, Ivy.'

  Listlessly Mary agreed. It had been a difficult birth, more tiring than any of the others. Each one seemed to get worse, as if she had too little strength left to push the babies out into the world.

  Perhaps that accounted for the dream. Normally she slept soundly but a few hours after Ivy's appearance she woke, trembling, and had difficulty in suppressing her sobs. She mustn't wake John, he had to go to work in the morning. She turned over carefully, gasping as the blanket slipped and the freezing mid-winter air hit her bare neck. She'd left her nightgown untied so as to feed the baby more easily during the night.

  The baby. Suddenly she remembered and a surging anxiety swept over her. Careless now of waking John she twisted in the bed and leant out to where the baby slept in the drawer, placed right beside the big bed. With the aid of the tiny nightlight left burning, she could see the infant swaddled in the big shawl her mother had knitted for Johnny. She was breathing, a little noisily, but she was alive. And cosy, her cheeks rosy and warm to Mary's gentle exploratory finger.

  Sighing, Mary lay back in bed. She shivered and felt with her feet for the flannel-covered brick at the bottom of the bed, but it had lost all its heat and was no comfort.

  She never had nightmares. She could barely recall the occasional dreams she'd had as a child. She smiled ruefully. Now she thought they might have been daydreams since they almost always contained some mysterious, handsome stranger who would whisk her away from a life of drudgery and cosset her for ever after.

  Not like this dream where she'd been fighting off some smothering monster. She shuddered, and to ward off the memory began to count her blessings as the Minister was forever advising.

  John was a good husband. He'd been a handsome stranger once, so blond that in bright sunshine his hair looked white. Her life was not exactly drudgery, but it wasn't the fairytale palace she'd envisaged. He worked hard, gave her almost all his wages, never beat her, and promised one day he'd finish with the pits.

  'I'll find a job where you can be proud of me,' he'd said when they were first married.

  'I'm proud of you now,' she reassured him, but he smiled and shook his head.

  'A clean job, with no dirt and coal dust getting everywhere, and filthy old clothes,' he went on dreamily.

  She always smiled and agreed, but what else was there in Hednesford except the brick and tile works? They'd no influence to get a job on the railway, even though her father had been a platelayer before he died, just after her fifteenth birthday. He could work in the brickyards or the Edge Tool Works at Bridgetown, but that was no better than the pit, and he'd have to start at the bottom again.

  He'd risen to overman in the pit, after starting as an air door boy, and had already been a skip loader when the
y'd met. He'd risen by his own ability, for he'd had very little schooling, preferring to be out in the fields earning coppers by scaring birds, or catching rabbits on the Chase. Not like her, devouring every book she could get her hands on.

  Although John could write a careful letter and tot up his money, he didn't know enough to be a clerk. He was clever, he could learn, but after a day underground he didn't have the energy for going to an evening institute, or walking to Rawnsley to use the new Colliery Workmen's Reading Room there.

  The nightmare kept at bay for some weeks and Mary almost forgot. She was busy with the house and four young children, and with the sewing she took in to earn a few extra shillings.

  She'd always been clever with her needle, and embroidered initials on all the table-linen at Old Ridge Court when she'd worked there.

  'You could earn a living with your needle,' Mrs Nugent declared, and had given Mary her other linen to do. Now she brought all new items for Mary to embroider at home. And as camisoles and drawers and petticoats became even more elaborately frilled and trimmed with lace and ribbons, she asked Mary to make them too.

  Mary could have done far more. Mrs Nugent's friends clamoured for her services, but it was delicate work, needing clean hands and a room free of coal dust. There wasn't time during the day. It was only after the children were abed and John's bath cleared away that she could sit at the big table, the lamp close by, and ply her needle.

  'It's enough for now,' she explained to John. 'Perhaps when the children are all at school I could do some dressmaking.'

  Ivy was three months old, and a few signs of Spring were visible in the small back garden when the nightmare recurred. After that it came every few days, and each time details became clearer, though they varied.

  Sometimes she was in an orchard similar to the one at Old Ridge Court, or a wooded place like parts of the Chase she'd been to on the miners' annual outings. The trees were struggling for survival, almost hidden under the rampant, invasive growth of dark, impenetrable ivy. Occasionally, after rain, or when a gleam of sunlight strayed beneath the branches, the leaves shone. But it was not a friendly glossiness like the rich deep red of the mahogany dining table Mrs Nugent was so proud of, which had to be polished each day until you could see your face in it. It was slimy, secretly triumphant, repelling.

  At other times she was in a dark room, the windows only faintly discernable where the growth of ivy covered them, threatening, stretching out tendrils towards the cracks in the ancient glass. One day, Mary knew, the glass would break and the ivy would sweep into the room and smother her, imprisoning her in an embrace she could never escape.

  Awake, sweating yet bitterly cold inside, Mary wondered if the name they'd chosen influenced this dream. But it was too late, Ivy had already been christened at St Peter's, and it couldn't be the child's fault. It was just a name.

  It didn't conjure up bright, cheerful pictures like Marigold and Poppy did, that was all, she told herself.

  Then one day Mary saw a different ivy, a cultivated plant with lime green, yellow and cream leaves, and the nightmare receded. She sowed marigold and poppy seeds in a small patch in the narrow garden, where she could see them from the scullery window. Behind them, against the fence, she planted variegated ivy, and chided herself for being too fanciful.

  Every time she contemplated her daughters she tried to push away reflections on how appropriately they were named.

  All three plants were tenacious, thriving in the haze of coal dust which pervaded the town. They were tough, dependable, resilient. They all withstood the buffets of the weather. The marigolds always seemed to be smiling cheerfully, while the poppies were flamboyantly glorious, their petals vulnerable to each breath of wind, but renewing their promise a thousandfold each year as their seeds scattered and flourished.

  And the ivy, though now it clung to the fence, would in time become stronger than its present supporter.

  As the flowers survived, so would her daughters flourish despite their life just above the edge of poverty and degradation.

  When these thoughts failed to dispel her vague and formless fears she told herself she was being foolishly whimsical, and concentrated hard on the brightly glowing ivy growing slowly but confidently up the fence.

  Marigold was tall, sturdy and strong. A happy child, always cheerful and placid unless strongly moved by some injustice, she longed to be like her mother. She helped willingly with tasks Johnny should by rights have done like bringing in the coal or taking the swill to feed the pigs, even emptying the big copper in the scullery at the end of washday.

  Poppy, also tall, was slender, quick tempered and excitable. She wanted desperately to be loved by everyone and to please them. Yet she could be cruel and vicious when thwarted. Once Mary had found her smashing her doll angrily against the bedroom wall because the doll's dress had caught on something and wouldn't come over its head. Her red hair was always in a tangle, and when she was angry her freckles seemed more prominent.

  But Ivy was small and delicate, with big dark eyes and smooth dark hair which grew in a decided widow's peak, pale complexion and rosebud mouth. She was neat, almost finicky in her habits, and clung to everyone. Perhaps it was because she was the youngest. Poppy was four years older, and the others were at school. Ivy spent her days with Mary, preferring to follow her about than go and play with the other little ones in the yard or street.

  When her sisters were at home she trailed after them continuously, entwining herself remorselessly into their lives, demanding to be included in their games and pursuits.

  'She's just shy, Mom, don't fret,' Marigold said when Mary voiced her concern. They were folding sheets ready for ironing, while Poppy took down the smaller things from the line stretched up the garden path.

  'Look at her now, tagging after Poppy when she knows she can't reach the pegs. If Poppy doesn't lift her up to do some she sulks. And she wants to go everywhere with you. You'll not be wanting her along for ever.'

  'She's no trouble, honest. She's small enough to be carried when she gets tired, and she's not very strong since she had scarlet fever. I think some of the others frighten her, especially that nasty little Janie Whitehouse.'

  Mary tried to believe Marigold was right. As Ivy grew taller, too heavy even for Marigold to carry, she seemed more willing to stay indoors. She sought no company apart from that of her sisters. Mary began to worry how she would behave when she started at the school on Church Hill.

  *

  John whistled as he strode along towards the pit head. It was still pitch dark, just the gas lamps to guide him, but there was a steady sound of heavy boots and clogs as the men tramped towards the shafts ready for their descent into the deep underground maze of passages and caverns.

  'That you, John?'

  'Bert? Thought you were on night shift?'

  'Changed wi' owd Danny. 'E's no family left, so Christmas don't mean much ter 'im now. Said 'e di'n't mind not 'aving a sleep.'

  'How old is he?'

  'Gettin' on fer eighty. Danged if I'd still want ter be pushin' skips at 'is age.'

  'I suppose he's got nothing else to do, it's company. And he'd have to leave his house if he stopped. He's no children to take him in either.'

  'What us wants is dacent pensions when us gets ter seventy. Not the privilege of workin' under as long's us can.'

  'It'll come. We get better wages here in Cannock pits than most colliers, Bert.'

  'Aye, s'pose so. An' it's good clane 'ousecoal, an' plenty new shafts, lots o' jobs.'

  They walked along in silence for a while. John was recalling something he'd been told recently, about the ten yard seams in the Dudley and Tipton mines, and why the Chase coalfield was made of thinner seams, deeper down.

  'Have you heard of the Bentley Fault?' he asked suddenly.

  'Summat that breaks up seams, aint it?'

  'Yes, between Wolverhampton and Walsall. That's what makes their seams thick, easier to get out.'

  'I worked t
here once. Pulled it down, they did, an' left great big caverns. Not so safe, more ter 'old up, like.'

  'But we don't have so much gas and fires like they had at Hamstead this year. Wasn't it two dozen men lost?'

  'There could 'a bin that many lost when Coppice at Brereton were flooded back in February. 'Twere a blessin' 'twere night shift, or more'n three 'ud 'a gone.'

  'Things are a sight better than even twenty years back. We've got cutting machines, the haulage is better, and the lifting.'

  'An' could be better still. Comin' ter Union meetin' next week?'

  John sighed. 'I might.'

  'Well, see yer at the King's Arms, per'aps, ternight. I wants ter find out if Mr Coulthwaite's got another National winner over at Rawnsley, like that Eremon two year ago.'

  The sky was lighter now, lit by the glow from the lamphouse. The headgear, sombre and skeletal, stood outlined against it. The cage was waiting, and men were standing round, some sullen and silent, still comatose from the Christmas revels, others cracking jokes. John got his lamp and joined them.

  'Got yer pig salted?' one asked.

  'Weeks ago. Got a couple of young piglets now. If you've built your sty in time, Barny, I'll sell you one!'

  The others roared with laughter. Barny had been going to build himself a sty and raise his own pig for at least five years, but had got no further than marking out where it was to go.

  They were still jeering at him when it was their turn to squash into the cage.

  'Hey, you there, lad!' John suddenly shouted out urgently. 'Come into the middle.'

  The boy he spoke to was small and skinny, with fair hair which would be black by the end of the shift.

  The lad gulped and nodded, but didn't move. Then he cried out in alarm as one of the men grabbed his arm and jerked him forward.

  'It's all right, lad,' John said calmly. 'Thanks, Ted. It's your first day, isn't it?' he asked gently. 'You see, lad, you'd got your hand on the outside of the cage. It could have been crushed if the cage had swung against the wall of the shaft. We had a broken arm last week just because someone was careless.'