The Glass Virgin

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Doing nicely, thank you, Madam.’

  She inclined her head towards him and smiled, and he smiled back at her before hurrying out.

  Lagrange looked at her, his eyebrows raised as he said, ‘I forgot you knew Bignall.’

  She could have answered him, ‘I knew Bignall before I knew you,’ but all she did was incline her head again.

  The manager came hurrying in, full of apologies, and the tour began.

  Edmund Lagrange knew his business, the business of glass-making, and if he had applied himself to it wholeheartedly he could have expanded and made it competitive, at least with the other glass works in the town. The making of glass needed strict supervision; each house needed a manager to oversee the blowers, founders, gatherers and flatteners, and the managers in their turn had to be ever watchful, not only concerning the quality of the sand, but of the figures in the ledgers.

  At this particular time France and Belgium were transporting glass to Britain, and it was of a better colour than the English glass, also cheaper and duty free. The foreigners could do this because they paid lower wages to their men and less for the materials they used, whereas the British glass makers were prohibited from selling in France and charged a high duty on their sales in Belgium. Many manufacturers had in the past to resort to fraud to avoid the Excise Duty. Those who gave the Government the tax they demanded often found themselves without a business. In short, the glass trade needed hard work and constant supervision, together with expert salesmen; especially had they to be expert when they tried to sell the dregs of the industry in Ireland; but above all, in order to survive, it needed men with . . . the touch . . .

  Out of dozens of young boys employed by any one firm the number that would eventually become expert blowers could be counted on one hand. It was nothing for a firm to entice blowers from another firm with the offer of bonuses and higher wages. Men had been offered as much as three pounds a week as blowers and thirty shillings a week as gatherers, while the usual rate for these expert craftsmen was twenty-eight shillings for blowers and twenty shillings for gatherers.

  Besides Annabella and Stephen, it was George Boston’s first sight of the interior of a glass works and he listened eagerly to all Lagrange had to say, but he barely covered his impatience when his host deferred to his daughter so that she could show off her learning. He didn’t want to listen to the child prattling her schoolroom facts, and when she bowed her head in front of the workmen and remained silent he thought it became her better than her jabbering would have done. He guessed rather than knew that a lot of the process here was rather old-fashioned. He understood that coal was now used for most furnaces, but this particular house was still getting its heat from wood.

  Lagrange was asking his daughter what the man was doing who was puddling clay with his bare feet inside a lead-lined bin, and again she hung her head until her mother spoke her name. ‘Annabella,’ she said; and then the child, still with head bowed, said, ‘He’s making pots, Papa.’

  ‘And what will he do with the pots when they’re finished?’ asked Lagrange.

  Her head came up a little as she answered, ‘He will put them into the pot arch, Papa, and bake them.’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ He nodded at her rather impatiently. ‘And then what happens? What goes into them?’

  ‘Glass, Papa. I mean the ingredients for glass. They . . . they dry sand and add lead to it, red lead and saltpetre and—’ she paused again, then looked up towards the domed ceiling before adding quickly, ‘if they want to make flint glass they add arsenic and . . . ’

  ‘Yes, one more thing.’ He prompted her with a nod of his head.

  ‘Borax, Papa.’

  ‘And something else for flint glass.’

  ‘Glass, broken glass, Papa.’

  She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly as Lagrange said, ‘There, what do you think of that?’ He looked around the company, which included four workmen and the man in the puddling bin, and the men smiled and jerked their heads and said, ‘Aye, aye; she’s a clever miss,’ and Lagrange, smiling at his daughter, said, ‘Indeed, indeed, she is a clever miss.’ Then taking her hand he proudly led the party from the shop and into the next one.

  In this house they were just in time to see pots being opened. From a safe distance they watched the blower, or foot-maker, as he was called, gathering the metal on to his blowing iron. The man twisted the molten metal round on the end of the iron, much as a housewife would treat treacle on the end of a spoon. Again, and yet again he pushed the iron back into the furnace pot, gathering yet more molten glass on to it; then going to his chair he sat down, put the end of the pipe in his mouth and began to blow, and his catch of glass took on the elongated shape of a large bottle, the creation of which made Annabella feel excited.

  They now turned their attention to a second foot-maker, who was drawing from another pot in the same circle. This man lifted his catch of molten glass on to a polished steel slab and when he began to roll the metal along it, Edmund Lagrange, again looking at Annabella, said, ‘And now, my little expert, do you know what they call this process, eh?’

  Without hesitation she replied, ‘Marvering, Papa.’

  Stephen, bending down to her, laughed now and said in a teasing fashion, ‘Aren’t we clever!’ and as she laughed back at him and tapped his sleeve with her hand, Lagrange, turning almost angrily on the boy, said, ‘Could you answer any questions on glass, young man?’

  Slightly taken aback, Stephen stared at his uncle, then said frankly and, what was more annoying to Lagrange, fearlessly, ‘Not one, Sir.’

  ‘Well then, it behoves you not to deride those who can, doesn’t it?’

  Rosina turned away at this point and beckoned Stephen to accompany her out.

  As they made their way to the next shop a young man passed them carrying three long lengths of wood on his shoulder and Rosina’s glance was drawn to him because he was unusually tall, well over six foot, whereas all the men in the shops, both workers and clerks, were of small stature, the tallest being no more than five foot six. It was evident that the man was a foreigner; the glass trade more than any other was supported by a mixture of nationalities.

  The third shop was a very special shop where they were making sheet glass and they stayed quite a while in here as Mr Boston asked many questions. It was as they came out that Annabella saw the cat. It was an extremely large tortoiseshell cat and it was sauntering leisurely across the yard and she exclaimed, ‘Oh! look at the pussy, Mama. Isn’t it beautiful?’ As she made to go towards it, Rosina caught at her hand, saying, ‘We’re leaving now.’

  ‘But can’t I stroke it, Mama?’

  ‘It . . . it might scratch you.’ She didn’t add that it might be verminous.

  ‘It’s a big one,’ Stephen remarked, looking at the cat. ‘It’s likely a ratter. We’ve got one at school; it catches rats as big as himself.’

  On this information Rosina chided her nephew, saying, ‘Oh, Stephen!’ and he laughed at her as he replied, ‘It does, Aunt; it does really.’

  She looked fondly at him as she said, ‘Have you enjoyed your visit?’

  ‘Extremely. Yes, extremely.’

  Her glance remained on his open, frank face. He meant what he said. In spite of Edmund’s manner towards him he hadn’t taken offence. He was a dear boy, Stephen, such a dear boy; she hoped with all her heart that things would go the way she wished in the future, and they could do, for he was already very fond of Annabella and he was just the suitable number of years older than her.

  As they got into the carriage the foreign-looking young man passed with another pile of wood on his shoulder. He turned his head towards them and looked at them, one after the other, then looked away again and continued towards the stack that he was making.

  It was just when Reeves put the horses in motion that the dog c
ame through the open gate, saw the cat and raced towards it. The cat, which had been sitting down and about to wash itself, was startled into erratic flight and scampered straight across the horses’ path, with the dog only inches behind it. One horse, whose forefoot had been flicked by the dog’s tail, neighed loudly and reared upwards, and this affected its companion. Reeves was bellowing now and pulling on the reins, but without the slightest calming effect on the animals and the next minute they were galloping wildly out of step towards the open gates.

  The animals themselves might have got safely through the gates but the carriage, rocking from side to side as it was, would surely have been dashed against the brickwork if the horses hadn’t been drawn to a sliding slithering halt only yards from the gate itself.

  Tumbled together and gasping, the occupants of the carriage righted themselves and stared towards the figure spreadeagled between the two animals. The man’s arms were extended to their utmost, with the black, dirt-grimed hands gripping the bridles; for a full minute they stared and for a full minute they listened to him talking in a language no-one of them understood because the sounds he was making weren’t actually words, but a mixture of pleasant, deep grunts and sounds like long drawn-out notes picked haphazardly from a scale. His arms slackening, he brought his hands down the face of each sweating animal and they became still; then, looking at the people who were all staring at him, he stepped to the side and the spell was broken.

  Edmund Lagrange got hastily down from the carriage, followed by George Boston. Lagrange looked at the horses. They were more calm than they had been a few minutes ago when they had been pawing the ground impatient to be off; then he looked at the olive-skinned young fellow and said with sincerity, ‘Thank you. That was a very brave thing you did.’

  The young man stared back at him saying nothing.

  ‘You’ – Lagrange now glanced at the horses – ‘you understand horses, apparently?’

  ‘I like horses.’

  Lagrange’s eyes were brought quickly to the young man again for the simple reason that he had omitted the ‘Sir’.

  ‘Have you dealt with them before?’

  ‘Most of my life.’

  ‘You’re not from these parts, you’re Irish, aren’t you?’

  ‘I was brought up in Ireland, but I’m a Spaniard.’ The tone, a deep soft burr, was even, conversational, not that of a workman answering the master.

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Manuel Mendoza.’

  Lagrange narrowed his eyes at the man. ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘In the glass house?’ He jerked his head backwards. ‘Five weeks. In England, three months.’

  ‘And you’re settled, you like it?’

  ‘Not very much. I don’t think I’ll ever make a glass man, not cut out for it.’

  Lagrange’s feeling of gratitude was quickly turning to one of irritation; he did not like the fellow’s manner, it put him, strangely, at a disadvantage and that, of course, was wrong. He thrust his hands into his breeches’ pocket and, drawing out a soft kid purse, he extracted three sovereigns from it and, handing them towards the young man, said, ‘For your pains.’

  Manuel Mendoza did not lift his hands from his sides, but he looked at the money in the palm before him; then looking at the giver, he said, ‘Thank you all the same, but I don’t need payin’ for that, it was a sort of exercise; I was grateful for the chance.’ He now turned and looked towards the faces in the carriage and he smiled at them, and his eyes glinted darkly and his teeth showed white and even, then with a small downward movement of his head to the two men before him he turned away and walked towards the glass-house door, which was now crowded with workmen.

  Lagrange looked after him for a moment; then thrusting the money back into his purse, he looked at George Boston and remarked under his breath, ‘Odd customer,’ and George Boston replied, in a tone tinged with awe, ‘I’ve never seen anything like it; I mean the way he stopped them. For all his thinness he must be as strong as an ox.’ Then turning and looking towards the door through which the foreigner had disappeared with his workmates, he asked more of himself than Lagrange, ‘I wonder if he can use his fists?’ and to this Lagrange replied somewhat tartly, ‘He happens to be my man.’

  ‘Ah yes. But remember, he said he was no glass man,’ and on this Boston laughed at his scowling host and got up into the carriage.

  Her birthday was almost over. It had been a most exciting day. That wonderful ride through the towns of Jarrow and Shields, the children running by the carriage, and that pretty lady smiling at her. Then the tour of the glass works. She wouldn’t admit to herself that she had been disappointed in the works, but the visit had been made exciting by that brave, brave man, who had saved all their lives. The carriage would surely have been dashed between the walls of the gates and they would all have sustained serious injuries, her mama had told Alice, and she had also said he was a most unusual young man because he had refused money, and so few people refused money.

  Then there had been that wonderful dinner awaiting them, and for the very first time she had sat at a full meal in the dining room with both her parents and among guests. Later, when the elders were resting, she and Stephen and Miss Howard had gone into the park and played hide-and-seek and catch ball. In the early evening tea had been served in the drawing room and Harris had brought in the most beautiful cake, with her name and age written in coloured candy flowers on the top. Her mama said she must go personally and thank Cook, and after the tea she did this.

  The cook was new; she had only been with them a few months, she was pleasant and kindly looking, not like Blunt, who never smiled at her. All the servants in the kitchen had smiled at her today and wished her a very happy birthday.

  And now she was in bed and not the least tired. It was very warm but Miss Howard had insisted on tucking her in. She kicked down the bedclothes until her feet were showing, then lay looking at them as she wriggled her toes. Next year she would be eleven, and the following year twelve; then thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, then joy of joys sixteen, and by the time she was that great age she’d be able to dance correctly, and sing, and play the pianoforte, and have all the accomplishments that were required of a lady; but what was more important she’d be the age to go to London and attend balls and wear beautiful gowns and dance the quadrille.

  Her papa had said there were great regattas in London on the Thames between London Bridge and Hammersmith and paddle steamers, on which brass bands played, went up and down the river and people picnicked on the river banks, and at Putney there was a great fair where she would see fat ladies and performing pigs and giants and dwarfs, and everywhere people enjoying themselves. Sometimes she felt she couldn’t wait, she’d die with impatience before the time came when she could go to London and see all these wonders.

  Her mama never made any reference to her going to London and because of the certain feeling that existed between her mama and papa she was wise enough never to tell one what the other said.

  Still full of energy, she now jumped out of bed and ran to the window in the hope that she might see a carriage coming or going, but to her disappointment the drive was deserted; then she felt a wave of excitement when from out of the pagoda to the side of the drive she saw Stephen appear. His face was straight and he looked rather lonely.

  Her window was shut tight to prevent the night air entering, and it was much too heavy for her to attempt to open so she rapped hard on it with her knuckles, and when Stephen looked up she waved at him and he waved back. Then he came and stood under the window, and when she beckoned him up with a curl of her finger he laughed and nodded, then disappeared into the conservatory.

  Now she scrambled to the wardrobe and, taking down a housegown, she put it on over her nightgown, and when a few minutes later she heard Stephen come in through the nursery door she ran to
meet him, asking, ‘What were you doing in the garden? . . . I mean, why are you not with the gentlemen?’

  Smiling at her, he said, ‘Uncle and Mr Boston and the other two gentlemen are along in the Hall.’ He nodded his head to the side.

  ‘Oh,’ she said understandingly. Then laughing, she added, ‘I can’t sleep, I’m not tired; come and sit on the sill.’ She ran back into the bedroom, and he followed her at a distance, saying, ‘Where is Miss Howard?’

  She pointed towards the communicating door which led into Miss Howard’s room. ‘She’ll be back shortly, she’s downstairs having supper.’

  So they sat on the deep window sill, he with his legs dangling to the floor, she with hers curled under her, and she prattled on about the events of the day, although she had been over them several times before; and he found he was happy to sit there and listen to her and look at her for she was extraordinarily pretty. He saw very few girls, at least pretty ones. The maids at school were anything but pretty, most of them had very heavy buttocks and very thick ankles, and when he was home for the holidays his Uncle James and Aunt Emma never entertained anyone young. That was the reason, he supposed, why he liked coming to his Aunt Rosina’s, because even from a small child Annabella had been entertaining. Also, of course, he was very fond of his Aunt Rosina, so much so that he often wished she had been his mother. Even now, at this age, he missed not having parents; aunts and uncles were different somehow, they didn’t quite fit into the empty parts inside you. When he went to stay with his friend, Roger Bollard, the difference became very apparent. Parents, he felt, were necessary to happiness; and yet, was there any happiness in this house between his Uncle Edmund and Aunt Rosina? None at all, he would say; yet both, in their own ways, made Annabella’s life happy.

  As he stared at her it came to him with a kind of surprise that she was like neither parent, and he became lost in the process of comparing each of her features with those of his aunt and uncle, so when she grabbed his hand and shook it, he was slightly startled.