The Cobweb Cage

by Marina Oliver

  'Oh, all right,' Sam complied, 'let's get on wi' it.'

  'Pay me first then. For all I know you haven't got sixpence.'

  *

  The following Saturday Marigold caught the train to Birmingham and walked across the centre of the city to meet the rest of the family before they caught the tram. This was a new experience for them all, and they liked it better than the petrol bus.

  'It's smelly,' Ivy complained. 'I want to go back by train.'

  Johnny and Lucy were married in a simple but moving ceremony at Lucy's chapel.

  Afterwards they all crowded into the Kelly house, a rather larger one than their own, with bay windows and an attic storey above the three bedrooms, the smallest of which was as large as Poppy's at home. Every room seemed full of people. Lucy's mother had, it seemed, a large number of relatives and neighbours who all had to be invited to Lucy's wedding.

  Poppy was even more convinced her future lay here in this thriving city, and went off once more into a dream, one that had palled lately, through apathy, of the house she would have at some nebulous time in the future.

  She no longer dreamed of a mansion. A modest house like this was, she finally admitted to herself, actually attainable. A spark of interest in life revived within her as she began to plot ways and means.

  The wedding had been at midday, and Johnny and Lucy, flushed with happiness, left at four o'clock for their journey to Blackpool.

  Lucy hugged Marigold after she had changed into her travelling costume, a dark green skirt and coat with a pale green blouse plus cheeky straw boater with flying green ribbons.

  'I'm so sorry we don't know one another better, it's all been such a rush. But afterwards, when – ' her lip trembled, and she took a deep breath, ' – when Johnny has enlisted, I'll come to Hednesford regularly, perhaps you'll be on the same train and we could travel together and talk.'

  'I'd like that,' Marigold managed to say.

  Would she be able to confide in Lucy as she couldn't in Polly? When she too was left alone, her beloved Richard facing danger and possible death, could she share some of the agony with her new sister-in-law?

  At least Lucy would understand her love, and would not condemn her.

  *

  Poppy heard the whimpering as she went to pick rhubarb. When she followed the noise she discovered a tiny, sharp-nosed puppy cowering against the wall of the hen-run. Despite the heat of the day he was shivering violently.

  'You poor little mite!' Poppy exclaimed, forgetting her own misery.

  She abandonned the rhubarb and picked up the tiny scrap, so thin she could feel his bones clearly. She carried him into the kitchen, found some rags, and wrapped him up in them. Then, hot as she was, she sat beside the fire with the puppy in her lap, stroking him and crooning until the shaking stopped, and a small wet tongue emerged, hesitantly licking her hand.

  'Let's get you some milk,' she said gently, and carried the puppy in the crook of her arm while she fetched a saucer and filled it with milk. 'There, how's that?'

  The puppy was starved. He guzzled the milk, clambering almost into the saucer in his eagerness to get at it. Then he licked up from the tiles the milk that in his uncoordinated enthusiasm he had splashed over the edge of the saucer, gave a huge sigh and curled up on the rags Poppy had put down, and went fast asleep.

  By the time Mary arrived from work he had made himself thoroughly at home, and Poppy for once was looking so cheerful Mary hadn't the heart to say she couldn't keep the tiny animal.

  'It's very small, yet old enough to lap milk and eat solid food,' she said to John in bed later. 'It won't grow very big. It can't be one of those big breeds like Mr Hodson's bloodhounds at Abnalls.'

  'I should hope not! More a mixture of a dozen breeds,' John grinned at her. He had also been fascinated by the puppy, and immediately began to carve a piece of wood with Scrap, as Poppy called it, as an undisciplined model.

  'It's my dog,' Poppy said fiercely the next day when Ivy came from school and wanted to take Scrap out on a lead. 'He's too small to go out yet.'

  Ivy shrugged. 'Don't ask me to take him out for you when you can't be bothered, then,' she retorted, and went off on her own.

  Poppy didn't care. Life was so much better now she had Scrap to talk to all day, as he scampered about round her heels, playing with an old ball she'd found.

  He flourished with her attention, filled out, and became her devoted shadow. Mary breathed a sigh of relief to see the girl happy for once, and blessed the day Scrap, by whatever means, for they never discovered his origins, had arrived in the garden.

  *

  On the next Wednesday afternoon Richard came once more to Oxford. Careless of being seen they wandered together round his old haunts in the city.

  'I'm terrified of the idea of your going up in an aeroplane,' Marigold confessed. 'They look so flimsy, far less well made than the motor car.'

  'They have to be light or they wouldn't lift off the ground,' he explained. 'But they're quite safe, really they are.'

  'What use will they be? They can't carry passengers, or supplies.'

  'Not yet, but perhaps one day they will. We have fewer than two hundred, but they'll be used to fly over enemy troops and see what's going on. Far better than a lookout climbing a tall tree and trying to make out what's happening several miles away. With the information we can collect it will be so much simpler to make plans, and hopefully carry them out successfully. Whatever Haig says about their uselessness, I can't see his precious cavalry being of much better value.'

  'It still sounds horribly dangerous.'

  'War is,' he said quietly. 'Both horrible and dangerous. But perhaps they are right who say it will all be over before Christmas,' he added in a determinedly cheerful tone. 'I may not have finished my training before then.'

  Restless and sad, both of them trying to conceal it from the other, they visited all Richard's favourite places and he told Marigold of the things he had done.

  Everywhere posters exhorted men to join the army. Schools and other buildings had been requisitioned to accommodate the reservists. Already the war was affecting the lives of everyone, not just the families of soldiers.

  They watched a troop of soldiers marching to the station from nearby barracks, and Marigold felt a stirring of reluctant pride. They looked so brave, so cheerful, so determined. Surely these experienced men, who had fought all over the world, in India and South Africa, could defeat any German army?

  Then she saw a straggle of women, babies clutched in their arms, older children clinging to their skirts, running to snatch a last despairing glimpse of their loved ones and she turned away, fighting her anguish. Tomorrow Richard would be marching away from her.

  Silently Richard took her arm and they turned towards Gordon Villa. He must leave, and she must return to her work, hide the agony she was feeling, suppress all hints that she too had a loved one at the wars. And she would not know where Richard was, what danger he was in, even if he were dead.

  Her heart rejected that, vehemently.

  Of course she would know, she would always know in some inexplicable way whether he lived or died. It was incomprehensible otherwise. Why had they loved, what purpose did their love serve, if space and time could rob them of the closeness they had?

  They didn't make love that day. It seemed somehow sacrilege to take pleasure in their bodies, when Richard's might soon be riddled with German bullets, his life draining from him.

  Instead they walked slowly back along the Woodstock Road, recalling the days they'd first met.

  'I knew you were special the moment I set eyes on you at that dinner party,' Richard said softly. 'I was making plans to get to know you better before we'd even spoken.'

  Marigold sighed. 'I never believed it would be possible that you would love me,' she said. 'I hadn't even thought of love.'

  'You were so young. You still are, my darling. Don't ever regret the love we've shared.'

  ***

  Chapter 8


  The next few days were, for Marigold, a numb void. Richard had gone home, and from there would vanish.

  He'd talked about a flying school on Salisbury Plain, but she barely knew where it was, and could not visualise it. It had never mattered when she could not picture him in his Oxford college or his home in North Staffordshire. Somehow they were enduring, he would always return to them. Salisbury Plain was a vast expanse in which he would be lost, disappearing into the sky, departing as did the migrating birds, becoming fainter like the morning star.

  And if he survived that he would have to face the uncertainties of France.

  The only certainty Marigold could comprehend was that she might never see Richard again.

  As the first numbness wore off and agonising shards of pain pierced her consciousness, sometimes immobilising her with their gripping ferocity, she marvelled she had become receptive to such agony. Nothing had prepared her for the intensity of feeling assailing her.

  Vainly searching for an explanation by recalling past griefs, she remembered when she had been told of the deaths of her Pa's parents. Mom's Pa had died long before she was born, and her Mom soon afterwards, she'd never known them. But she had been very young, and had known them only as remote figures seen once or twice a year. Death held no meaning for her then. Her father's mother had died just before Polly's birth, and for many years she had the muddled impression that her grandmother's soul had passed into the body of her sister.

  Childish hurts, cuts and bruises, were soon forgotten. Terrifying experiences such as when she had been shut into the dark pantry might have overwhelmed her then, but the terror had been mitigated by blessed oblivion.

  The worst agony she had so far suffered was seeing Ivy's pain when she was burnt, and the consequent remorse when she blamed herself bitterly for her sister's disfigurement.

  Now she had to endure loss, the dread that Richard would be injured or killed. She must face life with the probability she would never again see his beloved face, hold him in her arms, hear his voice murmur his love for her.

  There was no-one she could confide in.

  'You look pale,' Miss Baker said a few days after her return from Lucy's wedding.'

  'I – must be getting a cold,' Marigold lied.

  For the first time a twinge of anxiety about her behaviour struck Marigold. The first untruth could lead to others. If her parents discovered what had happened her father would never forgive her, and though her mother might continue to love her, the love would be tempered by deep disappointment. By her reckless passion for Richard she could forfeit the good opinion of her parents, and this further grief weighed heavily on her.

  Not that it would have altered her behaviour, she concluded. Nothing could come between her and her love for Richard.

  'Your brother will probably be used as a driver or a mechanic, so is unlikely to be in the front line,' Miss Baker said in an attempt to cheer Marigold. Perhaps it was fear for her brother that made her look so pale and wan.

  'I hadn't thought of that.'

  'This is to be a modern war, my brother says. All the new developments we've seen in the past few decades will be employed – motor cars, aeroplanes. I doubt if we'll see any more cavalry charges which have decided past battles so often.'

  'They're appealing for so many men.'

  'Most of the Regulars will be in France within weeks. Many have already gone. Mrs Roberts lent me two letters from her nephew, knowing I would be interested. You recall Edward Silverman?'

  'Yes.'

  How could she forget him, when in a way he had been the means of bringing her and Richard together.

  'You may read them after the children are abed. In his opinion, and he is a Regular officer, the line they have to defend is just too thinly stretched. When we have more men there we can hold the Germans back easily. The letters are not private, Mrs Roberts said, and it may reassure you about your brother when he has to go.'

  *

  Marigold picked up the first letter, which had clearly been folded and spent a considerable time in someone's pocket. On the outside was a streak of dirt, and it looked as though it had been in contact with water. She unfolded it and began to read.

  'My Dear Aunt,

  'I was sorry not to have been able to call and say my farewells in person, but as you may imagine the past few weeks have been exceedingly busy. I trust you and my uncle are both well. Pray give him my regards.

  'Well, we are here at last, after the politicians have been scurrying fruitlessly about their embassies. I'm just thankful not to have been left behind in England trying to knock the Johnnie Raws into shape. I pity the fellows who have that task. I hear most of their time is occupied exchanging hats and boots and so on for ones which fit more precisely! How men can be so concerned with irrelevancies at a time like this, when our country faces the biggest threat for hundreds of years, defeats me.

  'We spent a couple of nights in tents outside Newhaven, then crossed over in a rather unpleasantly crowded boat. Not at all like civilised trips to the South of France!

  'The French seem delighted to see us. They know we'll be saving their bacon for them. But they provide us with gifts of fruit and wine and cigarettes, poor quality, I fear, but better than many of our new recruits will ever have seen. There was a huge crowd lining the roads as we marched inland the first day, but we had problems that night.

  'We halted to bivouack in a barn, but the farmer was most inhospitable. He complained bitterly that we would ruin the hay for his horses. Fortunate still to have horses, no doubt if they can carry a man they'll soon be requisitioned for the Cavalry or for transporting supplies.

  'Since intelligence is as yet sparse, and we have little idea of the whereabouts of the German armies, we posted double sentries. One of them woke us all up when he challenged the farmer's son, returning from some assignation with a local trollop no doubt, and the fool ran off screaming as though banshees were after him. If that's the quality of the French men we will have problems stiffening their resolve.

  'The women are another matter. On the second day we were passing through a small town early in the morning, and the enticing smell of new-baked bread assailed our nostrils. In the market square was a small shop, the window full of fresh loaves. The men had broken their fast some hours earlier, at dawn, and were hungry, so the order to fall out was given. You would have thought the baker would have been anxious to feed his deliverers, and left to himself he might, but a very harridan of a woman, weighing twenty stones, I vow, came and stood in the doorway, filling it completely, and screamed abuse at us. It appeared she wanted us to pay for the bread, and was prepared to resist to her last breath.

  'There were two ways of stopping the infernal noise – paying her or bayonetting her. The latter would not have unblocked the doorway, so we submitted to our admiration of her valour and paid what she demanded. Afterwards I learned she had asked for double the normal price of a loaf.

  'We arrived at our position on the third day here, and the men were instantly set to digging trenches.

  The Germans are not far away to the north-east, it is reported, and we shall no doubt be seeing some action soon. The French seem very disorganised, it is as well for them we have joined in. 'We can hear sporadic gunfire on our right, but for days now we have done nothing but dig trenches. The men are complaining bitterly. I will finish now, as I must take my turn in supervising this tedious activity. I never expected, when I signed on, to find myself a sort of head gardener in the wilds of Flanders!

  'My regards to you all. I hope to be able to send this soon, but so far the postal services have been somewhat erratic. No doubt matters will improve once we have settled in and begun to enjoy proper organisation.'

  Marigold turned to the second letter. This was fresher, and showed no signs of a protracted sojourn in someone's pocket, but it was less neat, obviously written more hastily.

  'My Dear Aunt,

  'What a lot has taken place in just two days! We are somewhere
north of Amiens, a bleak plain with few pleasant features. There has been a continual bombardment, and in some places the lines have given way slightly. This appears to be a normal adjustment, as the various regiments take their places. A few of the chaps have been killed or injured, but none of my special friends, thank God.

  'The French seem to know very little about the management of war, and the Belgians even less! Instead of keeping out of the way thousands of women and children, and some cowardly men, are leaving their villages to the mercy of the ravening hordes and fleeing south. They are a confounded nuisance, clogging up the roads and making the supply lines less efficient. Even worse, they are spreading stories of millions of Germans on their trail, and I fear some of the ignorant men are prone to believe them. It does not make for good discipline.

  'However, we discount any real threat. We need more men to secure the defences more thoroughly, but only because the French are overconcerned with attacking the Germans on their eastern borders. They are blind to everything but the opportunity, as they see it, of recovering Alsace and Lorraine, when their real concern should be to prevent the march southwards from Belgium. I have no doubt that as soon as more of our recruits can be sent out to join us, and however ill-prepared they are, we can lead them in an assault which will push the Huns back into their own territory, and destroy once and for all the Kaiser's overweening ambition.

  'I must finish, the men are digging trenches during all the hours of daylight and beyond, so we have to take long spells of duty keeping them hard at it.'

  Marigold sat back, feeling for the first time a spark of interest in what was going on across the Channel.

  Until now her only concern had been what would happen to Richard. Reading these letters made her see that if she knew something about the background, and how matters were progressing, she would have a better chance of understanding what he was doing.

  She ran swiftly down to the kitchen but Jim Dangerfield was on duty in the dining room, and she had to wait until he had finished before she could ask him if she might read his copies of The Times.