The Glass Virgin

by Catherine Cookson

  She stared at him, her eyes wide with enquiry until he said, ‘The caravan.’

  ‘The caravan?’ Her eyebrows now moved upwards, and he nodded. ‘I went to the master and I put it to him. Would he sell me the caravan and old Dobbie. He had said Dobbie was finished and he was going to send her to market anyway. And you know what? He’s given them to me, caravan and horse. There’s kindness for you. And the lads have all offered to help me do it up, make it livable. And the missus is givin’ me stuff to make bed ticks and is hunting out old linen and odds and ends, pans and things; she’s all for it. And what’s more, the master’s given me four months’ full pay, and you the same. He needn’t give us a penny piece because we’re bonded for another two months or more, but he’s a good man. They’re all good, kind people. Now what do you say to that news?’

  She shook her head slowly and said, ‘It’s . . . it’s wonderful, Manuel, wonderful. We need never walk the road again, and there’ll always be shelter. It’s wonderful but—’ she paused and looked searchingly into his face as she said, ‘I remember you saying more than once that you wanted to live with these people for ever, and . . . and the more I hear of them the more I can understand that. Is it going to be a great wrench for you leaving here?’

  He smiled softly at her as he drew her once again into his arms and, his tone bantering now, he said, ‘You know, if the devil came tonight and said to you, “Annabella Lagrange, I’m going to take you to hell, there to stay forever,” I would say to him, “You don’t get her there without me.” And I’m tellin’ you that’s a big thing for an Irishman to say because there’s two things that frighten an Irishman: the thought of keeping company with the devil, an’ having a potato famine.’

  ‘Oh, Manuel! Manuel!’ She was laughing now, her hand over her mouth, as she was apt to do when she was happy, and he hugged her to him, saying, ‘There’s one thing I like to hear even better than the sound of the wind an’ that’s you laughin’.’

  Her eyes roamed over his face now as she said solemnly, ‘Manuel, I . . . I love you so very much. I’ve loved you since the day I first saw you, and I’ll go on loving you all of my life.’

  The end of Margee’s prophecy came to him. Hadn’t she said that he’d come to riches? Margee had always had a funny way of expressing herself, her words had double meanings. A field of buttercups, she’d call a golden rug; a light breeze was the flapping of the eider duck’s wing. Well, she had promised him wealth, and now he had it and in the only form he wanted it. Margee had been a seer all right, and God was good.

  BOOK FIVE

  WHITHER THOU GOEST

  One

  They had been on the road a week. They had driven through high winds, rain, snow and sleet, but each night when they pulled off the road into a field or by the side of a tumbling burn and Manuel had fed the horse and put him under the best cover he could find, they would sit in the caravan before the little iron stove and eat their evening meal, and after, he would hold her in his arms and ask her the same question. ‘You happy?’

  And always she would answer, ‘Oh, Manuel! Never, never in my life have I felt like this. If this is happiness then I could die of it.’ The question and answer might change slightly but their meaning remained the same. Then he would smoke his pipe and she would clear the table and bring from the shelf above the end bed the books which Mr Fairbairn had given her and would give him his lesson.

  She, even more than he now, was a stickler for the lesson. They had reached what she called – taking a pattern from Miss Howard’s teaching – syllabification, where she aimed that he should write and speak words of two and three syllables. They laughed a great deal over the lessons, about such things as when he termed syllabification ‘confuse-and-bemuseification’. But he was inwardly proud of his achievements so far, for now he could read on his own.

  On the seventh day he decided to make for Darlington. His idea was to find work in the town, perhaps at an ostler’s, and having no rent to pay they could save. And who knew, he might find a little cottage and a small piece of land going cheap, and there they could keep some chickens and a cow and grow their own food. The prospect was glowing.

  They passed through Winston and Gainford, and it was on a day of high winds and snow flurries that he decided early in the afternoon to call a halt, and so he drove the van off the road and into a field that formed the bottom of a little valley, and after doing his usual chores he went into the thick copse on the hillside to gather wood.

  It was about three in the afternoon when he left the caravan and when, half an hour later, he hadn’t returned Annabella stood on the top of the steps, her eyes fixed on the distant hill, waiting.

  When another half-hour had passed and he hadn’t returned a feeling of panic seized her. She now ran across the field and into the copse which formed a long narrow belt of trees, and began to call, ‘Manuel! Manuel!’ but there was no answer except from the rooks. She went on and out into the open again, then climbed to the top of a steep hill, falling on her hands and knees on the way owing to the slippery grass, and all the while her mind was in a turmoil – someone might have attacked him for his belt. But how would they know about the belt? He could have taken ill, but Manuel was never ill. He could have come across an inn and was drinking, but no, he had no need of drink now. No, he would not be drinking.

  When she reached the summit of the hill she stood panting and gripping the sides of her cape because the swirling wind was forming it into a balloon and threatening to take her from her feet. Below her stretched another valley with a wide bottom, and in it were houses and buildings. There was smoke coming from some of the buildings and there was something vaguely familiar about them, but she wasn’t interested in them. Where was Manuel? She saw three men come out of a doorway and stand talking; then one of them disengaged himself and moved away. He came across the flat bottom of the valley, and when he began to mount the hill she was flying down it, crying, ‘Manuel! Manuel!’

  ‘What is it? What is it?’

  She had almost overbalanced him, and now she was clinging to him and between gasps crying, ‘I . . . I didn’t know what had happened to you; I . . . I thought all kinds of things. I, I . . . ’

  ‘But I haven’t been away all that long, about half an hour.’

  ‘Oh no, no, well over an hour.’

  He held her from him now and looked at her. Then with a quick movement he pulled her fiercely to him and there on the open hillside he kissed her as he had never kissed her before, not only because of the wonder of their love for each other but because in the last half an hour he had settled their future. Now, swinging her round and pointing down to the valley, he said, ‘What’s that place down there?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know. A factory? Oh yes.’ She turned to him, her face alight now, her eyes wide. ‘It could be a glass works.’

  ‘It is a glass works.’

  ‘But who would think of putting a glass works out here?’

  ‘It’s nearer the town than you think, on the other side. And hold on to me tightly while I tell you . . . I’ve started work.’

  ‘NO! Manuel.’

  ‘Yes, just like that.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘An’ I’ll tell you something more; there’s a house to go with it. There are four workmen’s houses down there, only two of them filled, one by a Frenchman. Oh, you’ll come in handy down there with the lingo. And the man, the owner, a Mr Carpenter, he’s nice, one of the nicest, very civil like Mr Fairbairn, only different in person. He’s a man you can talk straight to, an’ I did, I told him I had no experience of glass-making only what I had picked up in the few months back in Shields, an’ I told him I had with me the woman I was going to marry and I was looking for a place where we could settle and call the banns. And you know, he seemed interested, he’s that kind of a man. And he was honest on his side an’ all, because he said he was having trouble in finding
good workmen; once they earned a bit of money they went off. He said it was the erratic hours of the work that they didn’t like, and would I mind what time of the day I started and stopped? And I said I wouldn’t.’

  She was staring at him now, her face straight, and she said, ‘Manuel, you told me you never liked working in the glass works.’

  ‘Well, a man can change his mind, can’t he?’ He touched her cheek. ‘About some things anyway. I get a feeling about people. I think he’s a man I’d get on with; I had the same feeling about Mr Fairbairn. I might as well tell you, Annabella, I never had that feeling back in the House. The only one I ever got on with in that place was Armorer and young Dinning, the others weren’t my kind of folk, but’ – he smiled widely – ‘I know you’ll like this man. And he says bring the van round; there’s a field beyond the cottages where we can settle it and, better still, there’s an old stable that will shelter Dobbie. Come on with you, let’s get away.’ And so saying, he ran her up the hill then down the other side, and he laughed as he ran.

  When Manuel presented Annabella to Mr Carpenter they both took stock of each other. Mr Carpenter, Annabella saw, was an old man, with white hair, white moustache and kindly features. He wasn’t what her mama would have termed a gentleman, more a man of commerce; but it didn’t matter what he was, he had taken to Manuel and therefore she liked him.

  Mr Carpenter, on the other hand, had in his early days travelled much and met all types of people. He was, as he laughingly termed himself at times, a student of human nature, that was why he had immediately sensed the honesty of the man who gave the Spanish sounding name and who indeed looked a typical Spaniard, but his association with this young woman he found strange, for she, from manner and speech, was no travelling tinker’s mate. He was further surprised, in fact he was astounded, when, showing them round the small factory, she spoke of processes, qualities of sand; she used words such as whimsey, ponty and cullet. She stood before a block of wood that they used in place of a table and she watched a boy blowing down a pipe that a gatherer held on to while he turned the molten glass, and she remarked that the marver had seen some work. There was no forcing of her knowledge, it came out naturally in the course of conversation, and it intrigued Mr Carpenter. Never had he met a woman who could talk glass before.

  Outside the glass house he asked her pointedly, ‘Where did you come by your knowledge Miss . . . ?’ and she replied simply, ‘My relatives had a factory; there were a lot of books in the house concerning glass.’

  ‘And where are your relatives now? And where was the factory?’

  She paused a while before answering, and then stumbled, ‘They, they’re dead, and, and the factory was on the Tyne but I’m afraid it went bankrupt.’

  ‘Oh, that’s easily done with glass these days. Still, I mustn’t grumble; this is not a big place but I’ve got very good trading alleys.’

  ‘Do you export much?’

  ‘Not much, because that means employing agents, but I do very nicely roundabout.’ Then nodding at her, he said, ‘If you would like to refresh your memory about glass there’s a number of books in my house; you are at liberty to take the loan of what you want.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘And now you’d better see your house. I understand you are going to be married.’ He looked at one and then the other, and Manuel left Annabella to answer, ‘Yes, as soon as we’ve been resident for the required time, and can find a church.’

  ‘Well’ – he smiled at them – ‘there should be no difficulty in that, you can have your choice. There’s a little church at Denton over there, or one across the border in Yorkshire at Piercebridge. I would say Denton; it’s a nice little village and I know the minister.’ He stopped in his walk now and said, ‘My wife and I were married there, I mean my first wife, but both my wives are buried there.’ He moved on again now, adding, ‘I have a stepson. He comes over at times from Hartlepool; he’s a sea captain.’ He glanced now at Manuel. ‘He couldn’t stand glass. Some men can’t, you know, and others can’t live without it. Most intriguing thing on earth, glass.’ He shook his head in wonder. ‘I hope that you both will come to think that way too.’

  They didn’t make any answer to this as he was walking ahead into the house, but they looked at each other and Manuel thought, Life’s funny. I thought I’d finish up a farm labourer, at best with my own little plot, but here I am starting in glass and who knows where it’ll lead. Why shouldn’t I become a gatherer? If that lot in there can do it, I can.

  And Annabella thought, The tide is surely turning, everything from now on will go well for us. And I can be of use here, I know I can. I wonder who does the books and the accounts? I saw no clerk.

  The following day Annabella found out who did the books and accounts; Mr Carpenter himself, and a very muddled job he made of them. And he admitted that he had hoped his stepson would take to that side of the business besides managing the works, but, as he had said, he had no taste for it.

  But it took Mr Carpenter a full week to make up his mind about employing a woman. The men from Darlington mightn’t like it. There were guilds, and these new unions coming up; but when the men were approached they laughed and said, ‘Why not? She’s a nice miss, ornamental,’ and Jacques Furnier, the Frenchman, had the last word. ‘She speaks my tongue,’ he said. ‘Not my patois, but an understandable French all right. Yes, yes, indeed.’

  So Annabella was employed at the surprising wage of ten shillings a week, only half of what Manuel was to receive, but their joint earnings had the effect on them of sudden riches . . .

  Annabella certainly gave value for the money she received, for not only did she keep the books but she took on self-enforced tasks of checking the glasses and goblets and the assortment of bottles that the little works turned out. And in the evenings she and Manuel would sit in their new house – not as cosy as the Fairbairns’ cottage but a place with possibilities and where, as yet, she alone slept – and to the background of raised French voices coming through the wall from next door, she would take him through Mr Carpenter’s books on glass, making him conversant with the different types of crucibles and furnaces. And as he listened to her his eyes would stray from the diagrams and he would see her in an entirely new light, and he would become slightly awed by her knowledge. And since he didn’t like this feeling he applied himself more and more to the lessons in hand.

  But as his reading became more difficult because many of the words were strange he wondered at times if this book knowledge was really going to help him in the long run. It was practice only he felt that would make a glass man. But still he persevered and knew a strange pride when she, acting as a teacher, would question him on such basic points as types of glass and he would answer like a child repeating a lesson: ‘From hollow ware you get blown glass and pressed glass, and from blown glass you get bottled glass, tube and lamp glass; then from flat ware you get sheet and crown and mosaic glass, and plate and optical glass.’

  In the third week of their stay she was setting him questions such as: ‘What ingredients are necessary to form glass? What must you add to the rudiments to make finer quality glasses? Describe a kiln. How would you recognise good flint glass? What effect do you get when you add an excess of soda in the making of flint glass?’ Until one night, suddenly closing one of the books with a bang, he put his hand on it and said, ‘Enough!’ and she raised surprised eyes to him, saying, ‘What do you mean, Manuel, enough?’

  And turning to her he said seriously, ‘I could never do all these things myself. It isn’t necessary to know all this to be a flattener or even a blower. I could have all this in me head and more, but it’s the handling of the tools that matters as far as I can see from watching.’

  She looked at him a long while before she said, ‘Some men are made for work, Manuel, and some for managing. You have a way with people, a way with men. You can get on with any
one you like, you know you can, and I’m not seeing you as a flattener or a blower, I’m . . . I’m seeing you as a manager. You can read and write and reckon up. You have memorised as much about glass in two weeks as I did in two years or more. I told Mr Carpenter that you’re studying hard and he seemed very . . . ’

  He whirled her up from the table and, clasping her in no gentle way to him, he narrowed his eyes and shook his head slowly as he said, ‘You calculating woman you! You’ve got it all planned out, haven’t you?’ And she, her face tantalisingly prim, said, ‘Yes, Manuel, to the last detail.’

  Then they burst out laughing and, holding tightly, they swayed together. And now he said, ‘Come out and let’s breathe the air.’

  Outside, the wind was blowing and the evening was cold but they both drew it in like perfume, especially Manuel. Taking it deep down into his lungs he held it before letting it free again. After years of working outside the hot atmosphere of the glass houses was a trial to him, but a minor one, which he told himself he would get used to in time.

  They made their way to the field where Dobbie and the caravan were housed. With a stable to shelter in at night and a field of luscious new grass and no work to do he must, Manuel said, think that he had died and arrived in heaven.

  At their approach the horse ambled across towards them, and they petted him and gave him some crusts of bread; and then they went into the caravan and Annabella, touching the dead stove and the faded painted woodwork, said, ‘We mustn’t part with it,’ and Manuel, his arm around her waist again, added, ‘Part with it? I should think not! It’s going to be put to the same use as it was at the Fairbairns’ I hope.’