A Family Affair

by Nancy Carson

  ‘Jesus, look who’s here,’ he exclaimed in astonishment. ‘Well, I’m buggered, if it ain’t Clover and Tom. And who’s this pretty little madam here?’

  Elijah made a great fuss of Posy. Dorcas fussed around Clover, took a kiss on the cheek from Tom and introduced herself to Posy. Elijah and Dorcas also had to have the latest news and developments and duly congratulated Clover and Tom on their imminent marriage. Jake fetched some glasses from the taproom, poured the champagne and several different, separate, animated conversations developed, during which time Clover found herself conversing alone with Elijah. He wanted to know all about Ned and what had gone wrong with her marriage and she told him, all the time conscious that here was the real father of Ramona’s son, conscious that everything that had occurred since the child’s conception had been a direct consequence of it.

  ‘And what about you and Dorcas?’ she said evenly. ‘No children yet?’

  ‘There’s no sign, Clover,’ Elijah answered. ‘Nor is there likely to be.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’ve been to see the doctor a few times. I mean, when you’ve been married more than seven years and there’s no sign of e’er a babby, you begin to wonder, especially when you do your bedtime duty regular. He had me in and did some probing about in me nether regions. He reckons there’s some congenital defect. He told me I’m not capable of fathering a child…’

  Clover tried to conceal her utter astonishment. ‘Does Dorcas know this?’ she asked stupidly. Suddenly, she thought of Ramona believing she’d had his child, and her mind was in a whirl of confusion. If Elijah was incapable of fathering a child, which of them was Daniel’s father?

  ‘Oh, ’course she knows. But what can we do? She gets ever so broody. She’d love a child.’

  ‘I’m flabbergasted, Elijah,’ she proclaimed. ‘Is there no cure? Can’t you have surgery to rectify the problem?’

  ‘The doctor said I could, but it’d be bloody uncomfortable and there’d be no guarantee as it’d work.’

  ‘I would have thought it more likely that the problem lies with Dorcas,’ Clover suggested, unconvinced. ‘You’ll just have to keep trying. The doctor might be wrong.’

  ‘I hope he is.’

  Clover Brisco, née Beckitt, was married on Sunday 7th November 1915 for the second time and realised her one true ambition, that at one time looked as though it would elude her for ever, in taking the name Doubleday. The ceremony was held at St John’s Parish Church on Kates Hill and the bride, statuesque in a beautiful cream brocade dress diligently made by Bessie Roberts of Brown Street, was given away by her stepfather, Jake Tandy. James Doubleday, the groom’s brother, was best man. The stark contrast between the two bridesmaids – Posy in a tiny red dress, Zillah Bache in a huge one – was regarded with benign amusement among the guests and elicited even greater affection for both. Daniel, fair-haired and looking innately more angelic than his mother had ever contrived to, was pageboy. Mary Ann, once the indifferent mother and now the doting grandmother was moved to tears.

  The celebrations afterwards were naturally held at the Jolly Collier, where drinks flowed freely and Lil Bowater, the recently acquired barmaid, demonstrated unanticipated catering skills by preparing a fine beef dinner for all the guests. Clover sat with the new husband she adored on one side and Jake occupied the other. While Zillah and the children occupied Tom, Jake engaged Clover in conversation and, the more he drank, the more he seemed inclined towards sentimentality.

  ‘I love your mother, you know, Clover,’ he said sincerely. ‘She’s a fine woman – principled, and as honest as the day is long.’

  ‘I know,’ Clover responded cheerfully. ‘But she’s a funny woman as well, Jake. And yet you can’t help loving her, for all her little quirks.’

  Jake smiled, acknowledging it as the truth, and turned his glass around pensively on the table cloth in front of him. ‘It broke her heart when you left us, you know. But you know Mary Ann. She wouldn’t bend…Although she regretted it after. It was a relief to her when Zillah told her you was living with her.’

  ‘I wish I’d known that, Jake,’ she said wistfully. ‘I’d have come back home if she’d asked me. I wouldn’t have taken much persuading, especially the state I was in – carrying Posy, I mean. Not that I didn’t like being with Zillah…but if I’d had Mother’s support I wouldn’t have felt the need to marry Ned when he asked me. I’d have been happy to bring Posy up by myself, without a husband. I could have put up with the snubs and finger pointing of others. I just needed that bit of security being here would have brought.’

  Jake nodded solemnly then took another quaff of beer. ‘It’s easy to see all these things with the benefit of hindsight,’ he commented, wiping his luxuriant moustache that was showing streaks of grey these days. ‘I must admit, I was surprised when they said as it was Ned Brisco’s child you was expecting. I didn’t need hindsight to see as he was never your type, Clover.’

  ‘God rest his soul,’ Clover remarked.

  ‘Yes, God rest his soul…Funny chap…I never thought he was Ramona’s type either, but there you are…’

  Clover looked at him, curiously. ‘What do you mean, Jake, he wasn’t Ramona’s type either?’

  He took another swig of beer and licked his lips. ‘Well, I know as she used to see him occasionally – when there was nobody else about. He took her out once a long time ago. Nothing come of it o’ course. Then, after he bought that motor car of his, he started to tek her out again. Oh, only for a few weeks, mind.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’

  Jake chuckled. ‘I know you didn’t. When I found out I was sworn to secrecy not to tell you. He never called here for her. She always met him on Dixon’s Green by the Shoulder of Mutton. So as you wouldn’t see ’em.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ Clover repeated, astonished.

  ‘Well, it don’t hurt to tell you now they’m both gone. There was no love there. Leastwise, I’d be surprised if there was. At that time Ramona was in love with somebody else. She never said, but I could tell. Moping about and distant, she was…clinging. You know what I mean? I never knew who it was she was pining for but it certainly wasn’t Ned Brisco. It was somebody who was giving her a hard time, I reckon, and she used Ned to get her revenge, I suppose you could call it, by going out with him. Well, let’s face it, having a chap with a motor car was a bit of a novelty for her, and one in the eye for the other bloke I suppose.’

  ‘I never knew that, Jake,’ Clover said again, rapt in this momentous piece of information. ‘Well, I never…’

  ‘Ned always seemed happy to let anybody walk all over him. Our Ramona included. That’s why I never imagined him to be your type. Then, when you fell out with Tom, and our Ramona and Tom started courting and you started courting Ned, nobody was more flabbergasted than me.’

  ‘But I wasn’t courting Ned, Jake. He was just company.’

  ‘Like he was for Ramona I reckon. When she was pining.’

  Oh, like as not, Clover thought dubiously, knowing her late stepsister as she did.

  That night, the Doubledays were staying the night at the Jolly Collier. The children had been allowed to stay up late, enjoying the attention of their grandparents and the wedding guests, and the games they contrived to play in the back yard. But, by half past midnight they were seriously flagging. The last lingerers had drifted away in a haze of alcohol, good wishes and good humour, so Clover nudged Tom, who had also drunk more than he was used to, to retire to bed. While Tom undressed in the bedroom that used to be Clover’s where they were to sleep, Clover supervised Posy, who was in Elijah’s old room, and Daniel, who was to sleep in Ramona’s.

  She could see with satisfaction that they were both capable of performing the necessary bedtime routine, interrupted only by fits of giggling and teasing each other, as all young children do, before they parted for the night. So she went to her old bedroom and prepared herself for her ‘first’ night with her new husband, and told the children she would
be along to tuck them in presently.

  ‘Well, we made it to the altar at last,’ Clover said, unpinning her hair.

  ‘And we got a ready-made family to start with,’ he replied with a benign smile. ‘Let’s see if we can’t add to their number.’

  She smiled happily and shook out her hair as she sat on the stool at her dressing-table. ‘Oh, I’m sure we shall. Another two, at least.’

  ‘I’d like daughters, I think. I’ve got a son.’

  ‘You’ve got a daughter as well.’

  ‘I know,’ he said proudly and grinned. ‘But I’d like more. I always wanted daughters, don’t you remember?’

  She stood up and, with her slender fingers, unfastened the dress she’d changed into for the party. ‘I’ll see what I can do…’ She smiled knowingly. ‘When the time comes.’

  ‘I love you, Clover…By God, I do.’

  ‘I love you, Tom.’ She looked at him with all her affection in her eyes. Funny how drink made him so sentimental.

  ‘I love our kids as well, Clover. And they love one another…’

  ‘They do,’ she said, stepping out of her dress. ‘There’s no doubt.’

  ‘We all love one another…You do love Daniel, don’t you?’ It was as if he needed her reassurance.

  ‘‘Course I do,’ she affirmed, and took off her chemise. ‘As if he was my own.’

  ‘Good,’ he whispered. ‘I’m glad…Are you coming to bed now?’

  ‘In a minute. I must go and tuck the children in. I promised I would.’ She peeled off her stockings and pulled on her nightgown, then she brushed her hair by the light of the oil lamp while Tom watched her admiringly.

  All was quiet and Clover tiptoed barefoot across the landing, first to Posy. She was settled but not asleep. Her lush, dark hair was spread over the pillow and she looked heartbreakingly beautiful with blue eyes that were clear and bright with juvenile contentment. She bent over and kissed her daughter and, as the child told her what a lovely time they’d had, Clover, in one fleeting second, saw Tom in her expression, unmistakably. ‘Goodnight, sweetheart,’ she whispered softly. ‘Sleep tight.’

  She blew out the candle and tiptoed across the landing to Daniel’s room. His mop of soft, curly hair gave him a look so cherubic. Poignantly, he held his arms up to Clover, appealing to be loved, and she leaned over and hugged him generously.

  ‘I’ve got a mommy to love as well now,’ he whispered as he flung his arms around her neck readily and squeezed her with uninhibited affection. ‘I’m glad you and my daddy are married now.’

  At this unbidden show of affinity, a tear fell from Clover’s eyes in response and was mopped up by his pillow. ‘I’m glad as well,’ she said, almost choking with emotion on the words. ‘I’m glad I’ve got a son now, as well as a daughter.’

  She blotted up her tears on Daniel’s pillow and looked at him, only then realising just how much he must have missed a mother’s tenderness. At the same time, she tried to discern a likeness to his father in the same way she’d seen Tom’s likeness in Posy. But all she saw was Ramona. Ramona’s features were too strongly represented in her son, overwhelming those of his father. Long may it remain so. But what did it matter whose child he was? He was delightful and she was not sorry he was in her own tender care now. She would cherish him, like she cherished Posy. She felt she had a duty to, irrespective of Tom, especially after what she had learned tonight. And Tom need never know the truth of it.

  The End

  Be swept away by THE BLACK COUNTRY CHRONICLES

  Gutsy heroines, epic love affairs and page-turning intrigue…

  Romantic dreams, snatched by war…

  1906. Lizzie Bishop’s humble beginnings as a dressmaker’s daughter see her hope for nothing more than a simple offer of marriage. Love, passion and romance are reserved for daydreams.When the jazz clubs of New York beckon, along with the sultry world of wayward musician Brent Shackleton, Maxine leaves safety and propriety behind.

  But then into Lizzie’s quiet world comes two men – one reliable and kind-hearted, the other heartbreakingly handsome. Just as Lizzie’s made her choice, the ominous call of war sounds, and her life changes again.

  Will Lizzie get her chance at happiness, or has it gone forever?

  1936 will be Maxine Kite’s year!

  Plucked from obscurity, young cellist Maxine Kite is thankful for the chance given to her by Birmingham’s esteemed orchestra, but a part of her is still unfulfilled. Music has always been her passion but she has dreams far too big for a girl from a simple family.

  When the jazz clubs of New York beckon, along with the sultry world of wayward musician Brent Shackleton, Maxine leaves safety and propriety behind.

  But a girl’s good name can be all she has in the world… and once lost, is almost impossible, to reclaim…

  About the Author

  Nancy Carson lives in Staffordshire and is a keen student of local history. All her novels are based around real events, and focus on the lives and loves of the people of the Black Country.

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