Now listen up because this is no once upon a time spun-gold tissue of lies. In this story clocks tick and money talks. It’s serious stuff. It’s about a curse.
This is the curse: by day she’s a girl just like any other, but when the shadows lengthen in the valley and night falls down, she turns into a spider.
It’s a dreadful secret and she keeps it well, locking herself in her room from dusk to dawn. Every night it happens, and every morning like clockwork her father asks: ‘Sleep well, our Ethel?’
Well she’s a dutiful daughter and hates to give pain to those she loves, so ‘Like a top, Da,’ she replies, though in truth she sleeps never a wink.
Each night she crawls across her bedspread, climbs the wall and paces the ceiling. Each night she dangles amongst the curtains, watching the moon. Each night the moon seems deliberately to spin out the darkness to as long as it can be.
And always the spider’s mind is spinning away at her troubles. It’s all ‘Woe and pity’s me. What a state for a poor lass to pass the night as a gert hairy spider, when she should be snoring in bed.’
So her thoughts chase themselves, backwards and forwards like a shuttle, until at last she’s full-grown – as big, black and evil-looking a spider as ever you might see. Then one night, she’s struck by a happy thought, quite out of the blue.
‘If I must be a spider, why then I shall spin, thinks she. ‘T’will help while away the dreary hours. I shall make lacy spider’s goods for my Da and other kinsfolk.’ Without more ado, she sets to. She works all night, without a light, save for a few moonbeams that slip in at the window. Her eight hands serve as needles, and her own homespun spider’s silk serves as thread.
Hard the spider works, with eyes only for the flashing needles, the gleaming silk and the simple pattern of cabbages and chamber pots she knits with them.
Down in the kitchen, the next morning, Ethel slaps some black pudding in the pan and a pair of gloves on the table in front of her Da.
‘They’re for you,’ says she. Well Da’s a miner who spends all day in the pit howking out coal. He can’t see what use he’ll find for a pair of lacy lady’s mits.
‘Very nice, our Ethel. Very nice indeed,’ he says, turning them over with his finger ends, for his hands are ingrained with coal dust and he fears he’ll soil them. He peers shortsightedly at the patterned lace. ‘Punch bowls and roses, is it?’
Ethel stiffens as she pours the tea, but if Da wants to see punch bowls in chamber pots, so be it. She says not a word.
Meanwhile Da’s thinking that he’ll sell the gloves to the owner’s wife, meaning of course the wife of the owner of the pit. ‘She’s bound to have a liking for finely worked lacy goods,’ thinks he, while out loud he says, ‘Very pretty Ethel. I’d no idea you were so nimble with your hands.’
Well, then Ethel looks at her hands which are as broad as spades and thinks perhaps being a spider’s not all bad.
‘Tonight I’ll fashion a pair o’ silk stockings,’ she thinks, and smiles to herself as she scours the greasy breakfast pan, for she’s hit upon the happy idea of decorating them with fried eggs and strings of sausages.
Well that day the father sells the gloves for eleven shillings, which is more than a week’s wages for those who labour underground. It’s dark when he stumbles in at the kitchen door, for he’s come home by way of the pub, due to the eleven kings’ heads in his pocket having dry throats.
On his way up to bed, Da stops outside his daughter’s room. ‘Ethel,’ he calls out, and gives a loud rat-tat upon the door. ‘Do you sleep, lass, or are you working on the lace?’
‘On the lace, Da,’ returns the girl, in a swift, clicking voice that sounds like the tick-tack of needles. ‘I’m making stockings,’ and there’s a world of pride there, when she says the words.
‘That’s my girl,’ says Da, and smiles an inward smile. He’s thinking perhaps he’ll take a holiday tomorrow, as he staggers off to bed.
‘Suns and moons! Ethel, you’re a wonder,’ he says the next day when Ethel hands over the stockings for inspection. ‘Well, that should please madam high and mighty owner’s wife!’ He sits there, stirring his tea and chuckling to himself. ‘Suns and moons! Now where do you get your fancy ideas?’
Well Ethel’s getting a bit sick of Da mistaking her patterns, but she swallows her artistic pride and turns back to the frying pan. ‘Sell them if you like, Da,’ she says; so off he trots up to the owner’s house, to see if anyone there fancies a fine pair of lady’s stockings.
And so it goes, each night the eight-legged lace-maker knits her garments, and each day Da sells them to the wife of the owner up on the hill.
Now Ethel and Da don’t know it, but the owner’s wife is selling the lace on to fine folk in London, for ten times the price she pays to Da, and of course there comes a day when she thinks why not cut Da out of his share. Also, she’s getting curious about the fine-fingered lass who does the work. So she sends for the girl, and here comes Ethel to the house on the hill, dolled up in a white frock of her own design, that’s all over pork pies and radishes.
‘Tear drops and crowns,’ exclaims the owner’s wife, shaking her head in wonder. ‘Oh Ethel, where do you get your inspiration?’ Before Ethel can tell her, the owner’s wife sweeps on: all this and thats and ‘such a lovely dress’.
‘Of course, Ethel,’ she says, ‘You may be a common labourer’s daughter but you have taste and finesse. I’m certain we could make something of you…’
The words rain down on Ethel’s head like blows from a fist. She’s dizzy and has to sit down. Meanwhile the owner’s wife calls for her son to come admire Ethel’s frock, and take tea with them in the drawing room. Somehow, before the afternoon’s out, the wedding date’s set.
‘Now that’s a fine mangle I stuffed myself into,’ says Ethel, as she stumbles back down the hill. She’s running because it’s dusk already and she should be in her room. ‘I can’t marry the owner’s son. He’ll find out my secret as sure as eggs is eggs and people eat them.’
But Da’s greatly pleased by the match. He calls it ‘the pinnacle of all his desires’ and these are words he’s never used before. So what can Ethel do? At night, when the spider-shape’s upon her, she works upon her wedding dress. It’s the largest piece she’s ever made, and she’s given it a great deal of thought. The design, from collar to cuffs, from bodice to base, is all over shovels and swedes.
‘Love hearts and arrows! Ethel, how sweet…’. The owner’s wife’s quite overcome with sentiment. She’s complimenting Ethel on her dress as they stand outside the chapel. Then they all go in, the deed’s done and off they set for the big house.
Poor Ethel, she’s wringing her purple hands inside their lacy mits. The mits are worked all over with wooden spoons. How Ethel wishes she’s standing in Da’s kitchen stirring the porridge with her hands on a true wooden spoon, not clutching at false lacy ones that everyone takes to be tulips. Oh to be anywhere else in the world but here, hobnobbing with ladies and gentlemen in the owner’s drawing room, while the sunset sends up warning flares outside the window.
‘Call of nature,’ cries Ethel unexpectedly and hurtles headlong for the door. Out the room she scurries, and down the passage, but before she’s reached the privy door she’s nothing more than a creeping crawling creature.
‘Well that’s torn it,’ thinks Ethel, backing into a dusty corner. ‘I expect now the maid will knock me flat with a broom.’
To avoid just such a calamity, she climbs the wall to the place where it meets the ceiling and there she stays, watching and waiting, and spinning herself a shroud to pass the time. It’s a scrap of lace, spider sized, with a pattern of bluebottles upon it. When she has finished, she casts it off, and the cobweb wafts slowly to the floor.
Now look, the party’s breaking up, and here’s her husband come to find her. He spots her dress all crumpled on the floor, and a lace square that he takes to be a handkerchief.
‘Angels,’ he whispers, gazing at the flimsy web, all dewy eyed. ‘My darling wipes her nose on angels.’ Then up he springs and charges through the house on heavy feet, calling for her.
Ethel thinks that he has feet like frying pans, but it doesn’t help her love him more. One thing she’s certain of: her eight legs are itching to walk straight out of here. Down the wall they carry her, under the front door and out of the house.
‘I’ll away home to Da, and make a clean breast of it,’ thinks she, stepping out into the night. The moon speeds across the sky, while down below our Ethel creeps into the valley and in at Da’s cottage, by way of the gap under the door.
For the first time she notices that the door hangs awry on its hinges. Of course, the mine runs underneath the village and the house has settled and sunk a little to one side. So the doorway tilts to the left and the window frame also… but what’s this? Da’s at the kitchen table, hunched over, sobbing like a babe. It’s only the wine he downed at the wedding bursting out, but it makes Ethel climb the wall to see him so, it makes her walk the ceiling.
From up there above Da’s balding pate, things look different again. Why, what a little crooked man Da is. He’s all doubled up with crouching in small spaces underground. And crying too, bless him, so proud and sad to lose his only child.
Ethel thinks she will make him a Sunday shirt all over pickled eggs and pickaxes. ‘I shall start tomorrow night,’ thinks she. ‘And this time my picks and eggs will look like nothing more or less than what they are. I’ll knit them large so even Da cannot mistake them.’
Meanwhile Da’s dries his eyes and turns his thoughts to brighter things. He puffs out his chest, throws back his head and looks to the day when he’ll be mister high and mighty owner’s granddad. ‘Meet the grandson, lads,’ he exclaims, rehearsing like, for the great event. ‘Step back, caps off and hands off the baby-carriage. Show some respect for the owner-to-be.’
‘Grandson! What grandson?’ thinks Ethel and clicks her eight feet one by one on the ceiling in irritation. She’s got a word or two to say about grandsons, has Ethel, and she spins a length of thread the better to dangle above Da’s nose and say it. She’s halfway down the silvery skein when Da spots her. He rubs his eyes, peers again then strikes the table a mighty blow.
‘Enough of this airy-fairy flim-flam!’ he roars. ‘Ethel, you minx! You’re a respectable woman, now. Get your feet on the ground and behave like one!’
Since he puts it like that Ethel can’t help but obey. She’s shocked to lose her spider shape so suddenly, but she plants her two feet on the floor, her two hands on her hips and comes up fighting.
‘Da, you old fox!’ she exclaims, ‘How did you know it was me?’
‘A man can recognise his own daughter, can’t he?’ snaps Da. ‘Even if she is hanging upside down, making an exhibition of herself.’
‘But I’m a spider!’ objects Ethel. ‘It’s my nature to hang upside down.’
‘Not any more it’s not,’ Da says. ‘It’s not a suitable occupation for a lady.’
At this Ethel sets about the kitchen as if it’s a pot of potatoes she’s got to mash. Into the frying pan goes the lard, onto the fire goes the pan. ‘But I like being a spider,’ cries she. ‘Nothing satisfies my heart like making lace.’
But Da’s got sense on his side, and a tongue well-oiled with wine to speak it. ‘Look lass,’ he spells it out. ‘You’ve got your feet under the table up at the house…. Forget that spun-moonshine spider stuff. There’s no call for it.’
‘Cowpats!’ splutters Ethel, hurling rashers at the pan. ‘Cowpats and cauliflowers, that’s the kind of thing I use for my designs. Very spun moonshine, I don’t think.’
‘Now girl, don’t get headstrong with me,’ shouts Da, whose own head is aching fit to burst what with all the drink inside it. ‘Owners sons’ wives don’t mess with cowpats. Silver salvers and serviettes, yes. Cowpats and cauliflowers, no.’
‘But I like them,’ cries Ethel, ‘they’re what I know about,’ and the tears spout from her eyes like tea from a pot. Well, Da’s no hard-hearted wretch and he can’t abide to see his daughter weep. He rises quite out of his chair to fetch the mushrooms from the top shelf in the pantry and to set his own place at the table.
‘Now Ethel,’ says he, when all’s made ready. ‘Don’t upset yourself.’ Then he pitches in with knife and fork, pausing only to preach between mouthfuls.
‘I dare say you’ll find the odd minute for lace-making,’ says he, ‘between icing fairy cakes and organising fetes. But don’t be turning spiderish. It’s not decent and the owner wouldn’t like it.’
Here he stops to wag his fork at her. ‘What you must understand, our Ethel, is that life don’t depend on the spinning of lace.’
So then Ethel does try to understand… and what she chiefly understands is that her life does depend on the spinning of lace. But what’s her life after all, when there’s Da to think of? And difficulties up at the big house… and babies, maybe, that she doesn’t plan for but she’d die for? She hums and haws and stacks the dirty dishes.
‘I’ll never again knit with eight hands,’ she whispers, ‘but with two like everyone else.’
‘That’s my girl!’ crows Da and straightway nods off in his chair, for all that it’s morning now, and the air’s alive with birdsong and the grunting of pigs.
As for Ethel, she scrubs the table, sets all to rights, and afterwards returns up the hill to crochet doilies with patterns of lovers’ knots and other falsehoods, that satisfy her heart not at all.