The Cobweb Cage Read online

  He nodded miserably.

  'What will Mr Todd do? Shall I be sent to gaol?'

  'Do you promise me, on the Bible, never to steal again? Whatever the temptation?'

  'Oh yes, I didn't like doing it! I swear I didn't! It's not just getting caught,' he added with a pathetic attempt at recovering his dignity. 'I wanted to stop, deep down.'

  'Then I think I can persuade Mr Todd not to take it any further. But you'll lose your job, Johnny. He can't be expected to keep you on.'

  'Thanks, Mrs Nugent, thanks ever so!'

  He burst into tears again, tears of relief, emotion released by the removal of what must have been a terrible burden of guilt on the shoulders of a normally honest, if rather immature lad.

  'I'll pay him back some day, I really will!' he gasped through his sobs.

  'There won't be any need for that, Johnny.'

  'But I must! It'll be years, I expect, before I can earn enough to spare, but I'll go and ask for a job at the pit tomorrow and as soon as I can I'll start paying it back.'

  Mrs Nugent changed the subject. 'Do you want to work at the pit?' she asked instead.

  Johnny shrugged. 'What else is there? I don't know anybody at the works in Bridgetown to speak for me, and Mr Todd won't let any other shopkeeper take me on even if I wanted it.'

  'You've been driving the delivery cart?'

  He nodded, puzzled.

  'Do you want another driving job? I might know of someone who wants a coachman.'

  'Horses aren't what people'll want soon,' he replied, the first gleam of interest in something outside his own problems altering his face so that he almost smiled.

  'Do you mean we'll all have motor cars?' She smiled.

  'And trucks, for delivering stuff. Big ones, much bigger than even a dozen horses can pull!'

  'Would you like to work with motor cars?'

  The sheer bliss of such an incredible prospect took Johnny's breath away. He gaped at her, but his eyes, bright and eager, were answer enough.

  'How can he do that? Begging your pardon, Mrs Nugent, but what do you mean? He can't drive a motor car,' John said.

  'He could help make them. Would you like that, Johnny?'

  Wordlessly he nodded.

  Mrs Nugent laughed. 'Why are all men so fascinated by the internal combustion engine? My husband's the same. Then this is what we'll do. It will mean leaving Hednesford, Johnny. Do you mind that?'

  'Mary won't like it,' John said doubtfully, but Johnny turned such a look of despair on him he knew he would manage to allay her fears somehow.

  'John, however careful we are if Johnny's still here the story's bound to get out. That would upset Mary far more. And it wouldn't be so far away he couldn't come back home occasionally. Besides, there are no such jobs here.'

  'Then where – how can he do it?'

  'They make motor cars in Coventry,' Johnny broke in eagerly. 'And Oxford, though that's further away.'

  'I'll arrange it.' She turned to John, who was looking somewhat bemused. 'My brother is connected with Herbert Austin, who is making the contraptions at Longbridge, near Birmingham. He would be glad to take on an eager young fellow like Johnny. He'll arrange lodgings for him, and I can promise he'll earn enough in a short while to be able to send home something to help you here. Would you do that, Johnny?'

  'I'll send every penny home – every one I don't need for paying my keep,' Johnny declared. 'Mrs Nugent, thank you, I don't know how to – why you should help me!'

  'I'm very fond of your mother, Johnny, and you've all had a lot of misfortune. Now I'd best go home or you'll never be able to sleep. You have the bed in the front room, don't you?'

  'I won't sleep anyway,' he said with a shy smile. Just like John in his youth, Mrs Nugent mused. It was no wonder Mary had fallen in love with such a handsome fellow.

  'You needn't see Mr Todd again, but I'll come back after I've heard from my brother, the day after tomorrow. I want to see how your mother is, then we can make arrangements. It will be best if you go as soon as possible, by the end of the week.'

  'I don't know how to thank you,' John said, his voice thick with emotion. 'I can see it was all my fault.'

  'Nonsense! I've never known such a family for trying to take the blame for every misfortune!' she said briskly, standing up and picking up her gloves. Johnny and his father hastened to stand up too, moving to open the door for her, but she hadn't finished. 'Mary says Marigold blames herself for Ivy's accident, now Johnny is trying to prove it was his fault, and both you and Mary want to claim culpability. We're none of us perfect, John, accidents happen, and we have to learn any lessons involved and then look forward. It's going to be of no use to Mary to have everyone wrapped up in their own misery. I'm sorry now I told her, but it wouldn't be any use trying to keep her in ignorance, so it's up to you both to put it all behind you and be cheerful for her sake? Do you promise?'

  Standing side by side, with the same blond hair that obstinately refused to lie down flat, they were absurdly alike in many ways. They nodded in unison, and she smiled. Johnny wasn't by any means a hardened criminal, and they would be all right.

  ***

  Chapter 3

  Hearing the kitchen door open, Marigold looked up, sitting back on her heels and pushing a vagrant lock of hair behind her ear.

  'Who – ? Oh, what are you doing at home in the morning, Pa?' she asked anxiously. 'I thought your leg was better this week? Watch the floor, I've just scrubbed the tiles.'

  John trod carefully across to a chair, tossing his cap onto the table.

  'The strike,' he said wearily. 'It's on. Just when I thought things were getting easier, and perhaps your Mom could give up work. It's a strain for her, two miles there and back each day, and up these hills too.'

  'I know, and I wanted to get a job,' Marigold replied, getting to her feet and sitting opposite him. 'I'm fourteen now, I could work full time, but she says she can earn more than I could. But when Poppy leaves school I can get a job, Poppy can do a few hours somewhere, and that might be enough with Johnny's money too.'

  'It's been difficult, getting out of debt since I was off work for so much,' he sighed. 'Now this, and no idea of how long it'll last. They're already talking of setting up soup kitchens to feed the little ones.'

  'Soup kitchens? Who'll organise that?'

  'All sorts of folk. Church and Chapel groups, some of the gentry – they don't all despise us. Mrs Nugent will probably do something or send some money. No doubt the Salvation Army will help. I remember when General Booth came to Hednesford to lay the foundation stone of their barracks. I was lodging here, in my first job. I was fifteen at the time, 1885 it was. That was something to remember.'

  'Is it him Booth Street's named after?'

  'Yes, he was a great man though I wonder sometimes if all this marching and singing hymns ever converted sinners!'

  'Well, the Temperance Band won't stop people drinking, though their carol concerts in Chasetown High Street are popular enough every Christmas morning.'

  'It's lively when they're about,' John agreed. 'Like the times the Territorial Army band plays.'

  'Their tunes are more exciting,' Marigold said. 'It's all the excitement some of them'll ever get, playing marching tunes. Can't see them being sent to India, and the trouble in Africa's finished.'

  John was silent for a while, and Marigold quietly finished scrubbing the tiled floor. She took off her sacking apron, got out her mixing bowl and flour, and began to mix bread dough. John watched, half asleep.

  'I wonder if I could make bread?' he said suddenly, and Marigold looked at him in surprise.

  'You?' she exclaimed. 'But baking's a woman's job.'

  'Not where the bread's made for selling. I suddenly thought of that chap Foster, at Heath Hayes. He and his family run a shop, a bakery, and he bakes the bread as well as working at the pit.'

  'So he's covered in white flour half the day, and coaldust the rest?' Marigold asked. 'That could make it confusing for h
im!'

  'I don't know how he's got the energy. But since I can't go to work I might as well do some digging. It's almost time to put the potatoes in.'

  He went outside and Marigold, as she kneaded the dough, worried about this setback. She knew the colliers wanted better wages, and when she saw a newspaper they always seemed to be full of strikes by one or other group of workers. They usually wanted more money, but she honestly couldn't see how it helped their families for men to stop work, sometimes for weeks on end. Even if they gained a shilling or so a week, how long would it take to earn the money lost while they'd been on strike?

  This would mean less food, worse food, for the lot of them, and she began to plan yet more economical meals. Through all their troubles they'd managed to keep a pig and some hens, and there was still part of a side of bacon hanging from a hook in the scullery. The pullets were coming into lay, and though at the end of March there weren't many vegetables in the garden except cabbages, she could use bread as a basis for many filling dishes like bread pudding and savoury pudding. She had suet and many dried herbs, and there were still some onions left. Dried peas, lentils, cabbages and swedes and turnips could be made appetising with shreds of bacon, or the occasional leftovers Mom brought home from the Andrews'.

  It was strange walking down into the town to do what little shopping was essential, and see so many men loafing about the streets. Odd little huddles developed into impromptu meetings, and for the first day or so the beer houses did a roaring trade. Then it began to dawn on even the least perceptive that this wasn't just an extra holiday.

  'Mrs Whitehouse says we ought to go up to the tip and get the best coal,' Poppy reported one evening.

  'The place is crawling with folk picking over the rubbish,' John said. 'Carrying it home in buckets and baskets, even babies' prams. Perhaps I'd better go and get a permit tomorrow, or we'll miss our turn and all the stuff fit for burning'll be gone.'

  'Do you need to?' Mary asked, worried. 'We haven't a cart or a pram, and you'd not carry much in a couple of buckets.'

  'I'll help,' Marigold offered, but her father shook his head vehemently.

  'I'll not have you crawling over a slag heap, luv. Anyway, it'll be something for me to do, I'll feel useful.'

  The following day Poppy came home with even more exciting news.

  'The colliers have been rioting at Littleton!' she announced. 'And they've brought the Army to Cannock to stop them!'

  It was true, they discovered. John, disbelieving the wilder rumours, came back with the news that five hundred men from the West Yorkshire Regiment had been billeted in the town.

  'There doesn't seem to be any trouble, though,' he said. 'The Regimental band is playing on the bowling green every night.'

  'Let's go and watch,' Ivy suggested, and Poppy bounced up and down in excitement.

  'Yes, Mom, let's go! Pa, can we? Please?'

  'It's two miles each way,' Mary warned, but the children promised they'd not complain, and John confessed he'd like the chance to see a real army band. So the following afternoon, which was Mary's day off, they went on the long walk to Cannock, taking with them some pies Marigold had baked and a bottle of nettle pop, one of Mary's favourite brews, and making an outing of it.

  Mary put on her best white blouse and black serge skirt, with the straw hat Mrs Nugent had given her. She'd trimmed it with some blue ribbon, her favourite colour. John had on his Sunday bowler, and all the children seemed to be wearing their best pinafores.

  A steady stream of people was going the same way, and Poppy soon found friends to walk with. Ivy clung to John's hand, shaking her head when Mary asked if she wanted to walk with her school friends.

  'They don't like me,' she declared petulantly. 'But I don't care, I don't like them either.'

  In Cannock a large crowd congregated round the bowling green, and the band entertained them with a medley of both military and other music. Everyone, even a group of colliers from Littleton, where the trouble had erupted, was good humoured, and when the band played popular tunes the voices roared out in unison.

  Poppy gazed awestruck at the soldiers, and later than night, in bed, when Ivy was safely asleep, whispered to Marigold that she meant to marry a soldier.

  'Their uniforms are so smart!' she breathed softly.

  'You shouldn't be thinking of boys,' Marigold chided.

  'Why not? We'll all get married one day, and I mean to marry someone smart like that nice dark man on the outside playing the drum. Did you see what a big chest he had? Fancy being married to someone like that!'

  'He wouldn't wear his uniform all the time,' Marigold said warningly, and Poppy giggled.

  'I should hope not.'

  'I meant he might not be so smart without it – in other, ordinary clothes, I mean, so do stop sniggering like that! You'll wake Ivy, and then she'll cry and disturb Mom.'

  Poppy suppressed her giggles, and asked in a whisper, 'Wouldn't you like to marry a soldier, Marigold?'

  'No.'

  'Then who would you like to marry?'

  'How can I tell when I haven't met anyone? I'm not sure I want to marry anyway.'

  'I shall, but he'll have to be rich. With enough money to have at least a dozen servants, so I never have to do anything I don't want to.'

  'Where are you going to find someone like that in Hednesford?'

  'There's other places than Hednesford,' Poppy said dreamily, and to Marigold's relief, for talking of boyfriends and marriage always made her feel slightly uncomfortable and awkward, her sister turned over, gave a deep sigh, and lost herself in her dreams.

  *

  'Poppy, go and pull some rhubarb. I can stew it to go with what's left of the tapioca pudding.'

  'Ugh, it's too hot for tapioca. And anyway I'm writing to Johnny,' Poppy objected.

  'You can finish that later, and take it to post after tea. It'll still get there in the morning. I need the table anyway. Mom and Pa'll be home from work soon, and I've still got to heat the water for his bath, and try and finish the ironing,' Marigold said briskly, hiding her impatience with difficulty.

  Poppy looked mutinous, but she got up from the table and went into the garden, where a root of rhubarb flourished in the corner behind the henrun. She sat and trimmed the sticks with no more complaint than several heaving sighs, and even helped Marigold lift the heavy kettles onto the hob, ready for John's bath.

  'It's time Ivy did some of this,' she muttered as she put the knives and forks on the table. 'I was doing far more than she does when I was seven.'

  'She's delicate,' Marigold automatically defended her youngest sister.

  'When it suits her,' Poppy snapped. 'She's never too ill to go on Sunday School treats, or to do her everlasting drawing. Just when there's something to do she doesn't like.'

  Marigold refused to be drawn into the argument Poppy was obviously hoping for. Every few weeks she would have this sort of mood, and niggle away until someone else lost their temper, after which she was back to her normal self.

  That wasn't exactly peace and light, Marigold smiled to herself. Poppy lived up to her red hair, and was for ever letting fly with her sharp tongue. But her rages and tempers were normally over and forgotten almost as soon as they started. Only these fits of petty fussing disturbed the pattern.

  She began to think about Poppy's remarks. Ivy did seem to suffer with lots of colds, and was forever complaining of toothache or earache. She was thin and pale, but privately Marigold thought that was because she never wanted to play outside with the other children. Always she had a pencil in her hand, and the whole family scrounged any scraps of paper they could to provide her with material for her drawing.

  If there was no paper she would take a piece of chalk, or coal, and scribble over the bricks of the outside walls. She had stopped doing it on the whitewash of the passage and the lavatory when Mary, for the only time in Ivy's life, had slapped her hands enough to hurt.

  She didn't pretend, though, Marigold reassured herself.
When she was ill she really did look poorly. Like today, when she'd been complaining of a sore throat.

  'I wonder if she'll feel well enough to come downstairs for tea?' she said now, but at the sceptical look on Poppy's face decided she'd better not send her upstairs to Ivy.

  Ivy was sitting up in the middle of the big bed, drawing on the back of the last letter Johnny had sent from Longbridge. She did feel flushed, Marigold thought as she put her hand on Ivy's forehead.

  'Feeling any better?' she asked.

  'Yes. I've nearly finished this drawing of Johnny,' she said, holding it out for inspection.

  'That's really good.'

  Marigold couldn't draw a recognisable picture of anything, but she was aware Ivy had a startling talent for one so young. The drawing of Johnny was a bit lopsided, and his head was too big, but in some strange way Ivy had reproduced the features and the untidy hair so typical of her brother accurately enough for someone who knew him well to recognise the resemblance.

  'Do you want to come down for tea?'

  Ivy nodded, and Marigold helped her pull on her clothes and plaited her hair for her. She left Ivy buttoning her boots while she went down to heave the bath from the hook outside and start filling it with the hot water.

  'I've cleared the table and done the rhubarb,' Poppy said sulkily. 'What else?'

  'Be a love and scrub the potatoes.'

  With a huge sigh Poppy went out to the scullery. Marigold spread the sheets over the table, then went to lift one of the irons she'd put to heat on the hob.

  'I want the table, I want to draw!' Ivy said from behind her, pausing on the last step before coming into the kitchen.

  'Not yet. Look, go into the front room, you can draw in there so long as it's just with a pencil, until I've finished the ironing. Just a few minutes, while Dad has his bath and I finish these sheets.' An hour later tea was over, cold meat Mary had brought home from the Andrews', pickle and potatoes, then the rhubarb and tapioca. Poppy and Marigold cleared away and washed up, while Mary got out her sewing and John slumped in the fireside chair, Ivy perched on his knees.

  'Phew, it's hot today!' Marigold said as she came in and sat down to her own sewing. 'It's never been this hot before.'