A Family Affair

by Nancy Carson

  He called on Jake next morning. He was drying glasses in the taproom with no other help, but already customers were sitting around, smoking, swearing and supping their drinks.

  ‘All right, young Tom? What can I get you? You’m early this morning. Not like you to be here at this time, eh?’

  So Ramona had evidently not prepared her father for what was to come.

  ‘I’d like a word if possible, Mr Tandy,’ Tom said solemnly.

  ‘Certainly, Tom. What can I do for you?’

  ‘In private, if it’s all the same to you.’

  ‘Mary Ann!’ Jake yelled. A few seconds later, Mary Ann appeared from the scullery. ‘Watch the taproom for me, Mary Ann. Young Tom here wants a word with me.’

  Mary Ann glanced at Tom with her usual measure of scorn and turned to Jake. ‘Be quick then. I got some chitterlings on the hob.’

  They went out into the sunshine of George Street. Jake thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and pressed downwards, putting strain on his braces. ‘What’s up then, Tom?’ He smiled affably, smoothed his great moustache and nodded a courteous good morning to Maisy Crowe and Araminta Marsh who were each pushing a hand-cart towards the coal yard.

  Tom scratched the back of his neck nervously and waited till the women were out of earshot. ‘It’s, er…It’s Ramona and me, Mr Tandy…We, er…Well, we want to get wed.’

  ‘You want to wed our Ramona?’ Jake queried with some surprise. He regarded Tom quizzically, half amused. ‘Am yer sure you’ve got the right wench? It ain’t bin that long since you got engaged to young Clover.’

  Tom, in turn, looked up to the clear blue sky as if seeking both forgiveness and inspiration. ‘I know…Funny how things change when you least expect it,’ he replied inadequately.

  He looked at Tom suspiciously now. ‘It’s a bit sudden, this, eh, Tom? I never even knew as you was a-courtin’ her serious…Mind you, it answers one or two questions if you am…’ The open rift between his daughter and his stepdaughter came immediately to mind. ‘Am you sure as you’m a-doing the right thing, Tom?’

  ‘In the circumstances, I can’t see any alternative.’

  ‘Circumstances? What circumstances? Christ! It’d pay yer not to have babbied the wench.’

  Tom looked suitably remorseful. ‘Well, she’s pregnant, Mr Tandy. She’s carrying my child.’

  Jake bridled yet looked mortified. ‘You bastard!…I’ve a good mind I’d—’

  Tom at once raised both hands in a gesture of submission. ‘I’m not going to fight you, Mr Tandy. I can understand how you feel.’

  ‘Understand how I feel? I’ll be buggered if you can! You ain’t got the first idea.’

  ‘All I can say is, I’m sorry. But it seems to me that we should try and make the best of a bad job. If you can just accept what’s happened, things will be so much simpler in the end. And there’s the welfare of a child at stake here. As I see it, the sooner we get married the better. If you prefer that we don’t…’ He shrugged. If only Jake would forbid it…

  Jake was visibly affected by all this news. He looked at Tom with both disbelief and anger in his eyes; disbelief that his one and only daughter could be seduced at all, anger that this…this smart-suited blackguard standing before him had abused his poor, innocent little Ramona, seduced her, taken advantage of the most amenable, the most sensitive little angel God ever graced the earth with.

  ‘You’ve made your bed, the pair of you, you can bloody well lie in it,’ he said brusquely. ‘So when do you intend getting married?’

  ‘We thought about this coming Friday – by special licence…’

  ‘By spec—’

  ‘To get it over and done with – quick.’

  ‘Oh, so folk won’t cotton on, eh? So tongues won’t wag. Well, think again, sonny!’ He stood looking at the ground for some seconds, shaking his head as if he was looking into a grave. ‘I don’t admire you for what you’ve done, Tom,’ he rasped. ‘When I think of you taking advantage of my young daughter like that – me only daughter…And you think getting married as soon as you can will absolve you of the mortal sins of seduction and fornication afore marriage? Well, it won’t and I hope you burn in hell. God! It’s a pity you ever showed up here in the fust place. I rue the day I engaged you to tek we photos when me and Mary Ann was wed.’

  ‘That’s all well and good, Mr Tandy,’ Tom replied, feeling he’d got the worst out of the way. ‘But you can’t alter what’s happened. And nobody knows that better than me.’

  ‘So where d’you intend to live?’

  ‘I intend to rent a house somewhere in Dudley. That’ll take a week or two to organise, I know that. And we’ll have to furnish it. Till then, we shall live with my folks in Stafford Street.’

  ‘So why don’t you wait a week or two and get wed in church, like normal, decent folk? Do it right and proper. Give yourselves time to find a house to move straight into.’

  ‘Because that would entail having the banns read out for three weeks in two parishes. Ramona would like to get married straight away – quietly, with no fuss and no attention drawn to the fact.’

  Jake shook his head in despair. ‘You know, I’ve always wanted the best for my daughter. I always imagined sending her off with a decent wedding – no expense spared. But then some puffed-up bastard like you comes along, puts her in the family way and buggers the lot up. Well, I hope you’m satisfied.’

  ‘Well, we’re not the first, Mr Tandy, and I don’t suppose we’ll be the last.’

  ‘That’s no consolation. It don’t justify what you’ve done, neither. Men like you with little or no respect for young women should be bloody well neutered.’

  ‘Well, I suppose that’s easy to say, Mr Tandy,’ Tom replied calmly, though he was riled by such a comment which, coming from Jake, he knew to be hypocritical. ‘I daresay your first wife’s father felt exactly the same way when you told him you’d put his daughter in the family way…Eh, Mr Tandy?’ He looked Jake in the eye.

  ‘Why, you—’

  The thrum of a motor car’s engine reverberating off the terraced buildings on both sides of George Street drew their attention. The two men looked and saw Ned Brisco approaching.

  ‘Christ, that’s all we need,’ Jake exclaimed angrily. ‘Pontius bloody Pilot. All I need now is for him to tell me he’s put Clover in the family way.’

  Tom’s heart lurched at the thought while Ned pulled up outside the Jolly Collier. He greeted Jake with a tentative grin as he put on the brake, but ignored Tom.

  ‘How’s this?’ Jake enquired tartly. ‘No work?’

  ‘Holiday, Mr Tandy. It’s such a lovely day I thought I’d call for Clover and take her for a ride into the country.’ He glanced at Tom. ‘She’s having a few days’ holiday as well. I presumed you knew.’

  ‘Well, the women in this house don’t tell me much,’ he jibed and looked at Tom testily. ‘But Clover’s told me that. I’ll let her know as you’m here.’ Jake left the two men and went back inside the pub.

  Ned alighted from his vehicle and tightened the radiator cap on the motor car. Still he ignored Tom.

  It irked him. He said: ‘I take it that you don’t want to acknowledge me, Ned.’

  Ned’s eyes met Tom’s with an icy glare. ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘No, well, I suppose this thing over Clover has poisoned your mind, eh?’

  ‘Oh, my mind was poisoned about you long ago, Tom. Why she ever got mixed up with you in the first place I’ll never know.’

  ‘Ah! Do I detect some jealousy?’ he goaded, his mood growing blacker by the minute. ‘Well, let me tell you, Ned – if ever I get the chance to have Clover back I’ll grasp it with both hands. So make no mistake—’

  Ned, reddening, reached out with both hands and grabbed Tom by the lapels. ‘Just so much as look at her again,’ he hissed, his nose almost touching Tom’s, ‘and I’ll break your bloody neck!’

  Tom raised his arms and tried to shove Ned away. ‘Get your hands off me, yo
u damned great twerp. Who the hell do you think you are?’

  They overbalanced in their struggle and fell against the motor car. Passers-by stopped to witness this sudden scuffle between two grown men whom, they presumed, were sober at this time of day.

  Ned swung a fist at Tom but he was off-balance and Tom parried it easily.

  ‘Calm down you bloody idiot!’ Tom bellowed. ‘What purpose does it serve to fight like—’

  Smack! Ned hit him in the mouth, stood still and straightened his jacket as he watched Tom reel from the blow. ‘It gives me bloody pleasure, you crap ant,’ he yelled at his adversary. ‘Now sod off before I hit you again.’

  Tom touched his mouth gingerly, looked at his fingers and saw that Ned had drawn blood. He flicked his tongue around his teeth to make sure none were loosened.

  ‘Not before I clout you…’ Tom swung out and caught Ned who had remained still from utter amazement at what he’d done. He caught Ned under the eye. It felt good to release his pent-up feelings thus. Ned lurched after him, a swelling at once visible around his left eye. He flailed about, fists flying but going wildly astray in his uncontrolled anger.

  They both heard footsteps.

  ‘Stop it, you two!’ It was Clover. She pushed herself hurriedly between them, trying to keep them from each other, arms outstretched with one hand clutching Ned, the other clutching Tom. ‘God! Grown men! Stop it!’ she shrieked. ‘You’re both hurt, look.’

  ‘I’ll kill him,’ Ned howled. ‘I’ll kill him for the way he treated you.’

  ‘Leave him be, Ned,’ she decreed, and felt the intensity and rage drain away from both men at her timely appearance, for neither wanted to upset her more than they had already done. She looked penetratingly into Tom’s eyes, but addressed the other man. ‘I think you’ll find, Ned, that Tom has already had his comeuppance.’

  ‘Word soon gets around,’ Tom said sardonically, still looking at Ned with a glare enough to shrivel him. ‘I’m sorry, Clover. I’m so sorry…’

  Clover stepped up onto the front passenger seat, trying to control her trembling. ‘Let’s get away from here, Ned,’ she said as she watched Tom disappear irrevocably from her life, from her future.

  ‘Suits me.’ Ned ceased his posturing and jumped into the motor car.

  ‘That’s going to be a tidy black eye,’ she commented. ‘You ought to bathe it in cold water.’

  He fingered it carefully. ‘Mmm. It’ll keep. To tell you the truth, it was worth it just to get a poke at Tom Doubleday.’

  She did not reply.

  ‘Do you still want to go out, Clover? You seem a bit upset. I’ll understand if you don’t.’

  ‘I am upset. And not just at you two stupid idiots…Come on, let’s get away from here.’

  Ned jumped down again and cranked the engine. It fired into life, he took his seat once more and they were on their way. ‘Where shall we go?’

  ‘Anywhere. I don’t care. Just get away from here…But don’t go down Cross Guns. Tom’s gone that way.’

  ‘What did you mean when you said Tom has already had his comeuppance?…Clover…What did you mean?’

  She said nothing.

  He looked at her and saw tears streaming down her face.

  ‘Clover…’

  She broke down in a turmoil of tears, sobbing, her chest heaving with distress.

  ‘Clover, are you going to tell me?…Look, do you want me to stop?’

  She shook her head. As they pressed forward, tears were being blown about her face by the oncoming wind. Never in her life had she felt so miserable. What she’d just heard was worse than being kicked in the belly. She had to get away from that house while the inevitable inquest was in progress.

  ‘I’ll drive to the top of Oakham, shall I? We’ll go to the top of Rough Hill where we used to fly the Gull. I’ll pull up there and you can tell me what’s so wrong. All right?’

  She nodded.

  In a few minutes they had arrived. Ned drew his vehicle to a halt at the side of the lane, stopped the engine and got down. He went round to Clover’s side and offered his hand. She held onto it with a shuddering sigh as she alighted.

  ‘Come on, let’s walk into the field and look at the view,’ Ned said kindly. ‘We can put this on the ground to sit on…’ He picked up his car rug from the rear seat and they began walking.

  Clover took out a handkerchief and mopped her eyes. He opened the gate and allowed her to go first and they walked in silence through the uncultivated field. He watched her apprehensively. At what he considered a suitable spot he stopped, placed the car rug on the grass and gestured for her to sit down. The sun was high in the sky and high cloud signalled settled weather.

  ‘Now tell me what you meant, Clover,’ he said gently as he sat down beside her.

  With hazy eyes, she scanned the landscape below, seeing nothing. She looked at Ned. ‘You’ve got a lovely black eye. I’ve never known such a pair of fools.’

  ‘Never mind me and him, Clover. Tell me what you meant when you said he’d had his comeuppance.’

  A blackbird landed, cocked his head to one side then tugged at a worm. Triumphantly, he flew away with it securely in his beak.

  Clover sighed again and wiped her nose. The heat of the sun did not warm her, the sunshine did not lighten the darkness within her. ‘He’s marrying Ramona…On Friday…He’s made her pregnant.’

  ‘He’s made—’ Ned looked scandalised. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure. I wish to God it wasn’t true, but it is. That’s why he was there. To tell Jake.’

  ‘I imagine Jake’s none too pleased then?’

  She sighed again. ‘Nor my mother. You should have heard her. She screamed at Jake for being too soft, then called Ramona a dirty whore. She told her it’s a good job she’s moving out so soon else she’d throw her out. She says she wants nothing to do with her any more.’

  ‘And what did Jake have to say?’

  ‘When he could get a word in, he agreed with Mother. Oh, it was pandemonium, Ned. I just had to get out. I left them to it. I couldn’t stand it.’

  ‘So how do you feel about it?’

  ‘How do you think I feel?’ She sobbed again. ‘I love Tom. He was going to marry me. But now he’s marrying my stepsister. Oh, Ned, I’m so miserable, I wish I was dead…’ Another flood of tears streamed down her face. Never in her life had she cried so much. Where were all the tears coming from? Her eyes were sore from so much crying.

  The grief of losing Tom was taking its toll in other ways. She had lost her appetite, couldn’t face food, and lost weight in consequence. Sometimes she felt faint. Her complexion was wan, despite the sunshine of these summer days. Her eyes, puffed up now with crying, were developing dark rings under them.

  ‘Well, now you can see what he’s truly like. He’s a philanderer. That’s all he is. You know it better than anybody. How can you love a man like that?’

  ‘You’re making him out to be a cad, Ned, and he’s not.’ She reached out and picked a daisy from amongst the grass. ‘Believe me, he’s not. I know him better than anybody. I know what he’s like.’

  ‘You think you know,’ he said disdainfully. ‘You see a knight in shining armour. I see him as nothing but a scoundrel.’

  She sniffed and split the stem of the daisy with her nail, then picked another to thread through it. ‘It makes no difference to me what you think, Ned. I can’t help the way I feel. Maybe you should try to understand that.’

  ‘I understand this, Clover. I’m in love with you and I always have been. I hate to see you suffering like this just because you’ve been taken for a fool…by a fool. Someday you’ll see things as they really are.’

  ‘You think so, do you?’

  ‘I know so. Anyway, what shall you wear for the wedding?’

  She looked at him in wet-eyed disbelief. ‘Are you kidding? Do you seriously think I’m going to see him marry her?’

  The wedding took place as planned on Friday 21st August 1908
by special licence. The bride, who was anxious to be wed as soon as possible lest her groom changed his mind, wore a blue dress that complemented the colour of her hair, while he wore a navy-blue suit and white shirt with a thin navy stripe. His parents did not show up and neither did Mary Ann. Jake appeared as witness with Dorcas, while Elijah remained at work in the brewery. Afterwards, the couple returned to the groom’s family home in Stafford Street.

  Tom’s parents resented the marriage as much as Mary Ann. The shame of having to get married carried a stigma that was hard to bear and, whilst they condescended to allow the couple to lodge with them until they could find a house to rent, they were not made welcome.

  Having chosen this week as a time for holidays, Clover decided she would be relieved to get back to work on Monday. Every day she’d avoided staying in. She had no desire to see Ramona, nor to remain in the awful atmosphere that prevailed for those tense days before the wedding. Yet that oppressive environment did improve after Jake returned from the civil ceremony that afternoon. He seemed relieved that it was over, that Ramona was no longer his responsibility. Mary Ann in turn, seemed to quickly react and became altogether less intense and more relaxed. Clover, too, felt more at ease when she knew Ramona was gone.

  Elijah came in for tea and the four of them sat in the scullery that afternoon while Zillah Bache tended to customers in the taproom.

  ‘Well, I hope they’ll mek the best of it,’ Jake remarked and wiped tea from his moustache with the back of his hand. ‘But I would never have believed it of our Ramona, to be took advantage of by any bloke.’

  ‘Nor me,’ Elijah said, shaking his head, but in agreement. ‘It just goes to show…with women, you never can tell.’

  ‘Well, let this be a lesson to thee, our Clover,’ Mary Ann proclaimed. ‘And be thankful. There but for the grace of God…’

  Clover blushed and looked down, trying to hide her face.

  ‘I always had me doubts about him,’ Mary Ann continued. ‘I reckon you had a lucky escape. Count your blessings as you never fell prey to his damned sinful ways.’