Читать книгу A Family Affair - Nancy Carson - Страница 7

It had been some time since her mother’s wedding when Clover walked to the Coneygree Iron Foundry in Tividale early one sunny morning in May. It would be her twentieth birthday next week and she wondered what present her mother might afford her. A new summer dress for best would be nice if she were allowed to choose it herself. As she walked on, past St John’s church and over Brewery Fields to the Birmingham Road, she pondered how her life had surprisingly changed for the better since Jake and Ramona had become a part of it. Clover had always lived in the shadow of her mother’s dominance, had accepted it with resignation, but now she felt a new freedom. Jake was in charge and, if nothing else, he was even-handed where she and Ramona were concerned – so far, at least. Mary Ann could no longer impose her restraining and often unfair moral and social code on Clover any more than she could on Ramona. It allowed for a certain latitude she had never enjoyed before. She was even allowed to visit Ned Brisco’s workshop some nights, where she helped him construct his new flying machine. And she did not have to return till ten o’ clock.

She clambered over the stile where the stubbly field met the highway. Three young beaux on bicycles wished her flirtatious good mornings before she stepped, smiling in response, onto the cobbles to reach the other side of Birmingham Road. A carter hauling sacks of coal steadied his horse while a tram rattled past and she caught up with it while the conductor alighted to change the points. She walked on, not heeding the passengers who turned their heads to look at her. In the middle distance, the black, foreboding headgear of the vast Coneygree Collieries loomed like the artificial skeletons of huge automatons. As she passed the grim Coneygree Brickworks and its great marl-hole like a giant pockmark on the landscape, she wondered whether working as a brickmaker might be cleaner than coremaking. She dearly wished she could get away from coremaking. She felt she was worthy of work more dignified, cleaner; a job where she did not have to wash her hair every other night because of the filthy atmosphere. Maybe, now Jake was in charge and they no longer seemed impoverished, she would be allowed to find a job working in a nice shop. Even working in the brewery with all its steam would be better than the foundry.

As she reached the gates of the Coneygree Iron Foundry the familiar, acrid smell of scorched sand and burning metal filled her nostrils. She headed for the time office and had her time-card stamped. In the ablutions block where she donned her headwear and her dusty brown coverall she greeted other girls who worked alongside her with a chummy smile. Conversation was generally robust and Clover indeed learned much more about life in their company than she would if she’d stayed at home helping her mother. Despite the overtly strict moral conventions that were supposed to inhibit sexual activity outside of and before marriage, it never ceased to amaze Clover just how many young women she knew who were manifestly flouting it. Ramona’s confessions had only served to confirm the notion. But where did all these girls find out about such things? Who coached them?

‘Have you and that Ned Brisco started courting then?’ one of her friends, Selina, asked.

Clover was changing her boots, for it would not do to be seen walking in public in unsightly working boots. She smiled reticently and tugged at the laces. ‘We’re just friends, Selina.’

‘You seem to spend enough time with your heads together. I wonder as you ai’ wed the chap a’ready.’

‘He hasn’t asked me. Besides, he’s too preoccupied with his own interests to worry about the likes of me,’ Clover answered tactfully.

Selina’s expression suggested she did not believe her. ‘Would you marry him if he asked you?’

‘He’s not likely to ask…Hey, come on. Look at the time. Old Ratface Mason will be docking us a quarter-hour if we don’t hurry.’

So Clover, Selina and the others trooped across the dusty yard to the core shop. Their machines were already set up to produce the cores that were required later for insertion into moulds that were to fashion gear casings, electric motor housings and the like. The atmosphere was dense and smoky and the constant roar of the blast furnace, that melted the concoction of iron ore, scrap, coke and limestone ready for casting, meant they had to shout to each other to be heard.

Clover pressed a foot pedal and the two halves of the corebox that bore the impression of the core she was making closed together with a sibilant hiss of compressed air.

‘Me and Charlie have decided to go to the seaside at Whitsun, Clover,’ Selina shouted over the din.

Clover pulled on a lever and black sand, like a sudden fall of soot, was forced into the iron corebox under air pressure, filling the precisely machined space inside it. Black sand these days was a mixture of Bromsgrove red loam sand and fish oil, and smelt none too savoury. It was soft and easy to work and, by the time the cores came to be used, they would be cured hard and dry. In any case, oil sand was eminently preferable to muck sand, a mixture of coal dust and sand, with strands of hemp and horse manure to bind it together. When Clover opened the corebox again, the sand would have taken on the shape of the intricately engineered recess. The result was called a core. The molten iron would be poured into the mould at an exact, predetermined position, and would solidify around the core. By the time the iron cooled, the core would have disintegrated leaving its impression; a hole through the casting that its design and purpose ordained.

‘Where to?’ Clover asked. ‘Which seaside town?’

‘We thought about New Brighton. There’s a train early from Dudley Port.’

Clover carefully eased the fragile core from its mould, inspected it and set it down gently on the table behind her. Then she began the whole process again. In a day, she would produce up to a thousand such cores.

‘Let’s hope the weather holds, Selina,’ she called.

‘Why don’t you come with us, Clover, you and Ned?’

‘I doubt if he’ll have time. Besides, I’m supposed to be helping him with some work. I’ll ask him though.’

‘Yes, ask him. Too much work’s no good for nobody. Going to the seaside would be a nice change.’

At half-past twelve they had a half-hour break. Clover spent it with Ned outside in the warm sunshine, eating sandwiches as they sat on a crate of castings that were destined for Indian Railways, Lahore. She asked him if he fancied accompanying her to New Brighton with Selina and Charlie.

‘If the weather’s fine I’d rather try out the model of my new flying machine,’ he replied predictably. ‘I’ve done some wing-load calculations, Clover, and I reckon I need to increase the wingspan a bit.’

Clover took a crunching bite out of a rosy apple.

‘I’m making some changes to the tail as well.’

‘Oh?’

‘I’m incorporating hinged flaps.’

‘I see.’ She didn’t. She never did when he launched into his technicalities.

‘I’ve been going over and over everything I’ve ever read about flying machines and one thing’s struck me, Clover.’

‘What’s that, Ned?’ She bit into her apple again.

‘The Wright Brothers have a patent for controlling direction and height by warping the wings in flight. All it does is induce drag – and it’s drag that gives you control. After four years of knowing about it, none of the Continental aviators have taken any notice at all and that’s why they can only get their machines to hop a few yards at a time. But I reckon I can get the same effect by incorporating flaps in the wings and the tail wings. Something a bloke called Sir George Cayley suggested a hundred years ago.’

‘A hundred years ago?’ Clover repeated, incredulous.

‘Oh, Sir George Cayley dedicated his life to the pursuit of flying. As long ago as 1809 he flew a full-size glider, unmanned at first but later with a young lad on board. Everybody seems to have forgotten the work he did. But I haven’t.’

‘Does that mean all my good work covering the wings was for nothing if you’re increasing the wingspan?’ she asked.

‘No, not all of it. Just bits. I need to test it all first on my new model, though. I’m certain it’ll work. I’m modifying the rudder as well.’

‘I hope all this will be worth it in the long run,’ Clover said. ‘Mind you, I have to admire your patience, Ned. And your determination.’

He smiled warmly. ‘It’ll be worth it, Clover. I’ll be rich one day from making and flying these machines. You’ll see. Then I might even ask you to marry me.’ He said it as if in jest but Clover knew that this attempt at flippancy was merely a device to disguise how earnestly he meant it.

She laughed dismissively. ‘Is there any fear of you achieving it in this century then?’

‘Well if I don’t, it won’t be for want of trying.’

The hooter sounded and Clover picked up her lunchbox and the empty bottle that had contained her tea. ‘See you later, Ned. Shall I come and help you tonight?’

‘If you want. It’d be nice to see you.’

Clover returned home to the Jolly Collier just after six o’ clock that evening. Although she had had a good wash in the ablutions block at the foundry and thoroughly brushed her hair, she felt she did not look her best. So when she popped her head round the door from the passage that led into the taproom and saw Ramona talking to none other than Tom Doubleday, she found herself in a dilemma: whether to stop and say hello and risk Tom’s silent disapproval of the way she looked in her working clothes, or allow Ramona, who looked delightful in a clean, pale-blue cotton dress, to have him to herself.

But before she could escape, Tom had already spotted her. He smiled over Ramona’s shoulder and hailed her to join them.

‘Oh, I daren’t. I’m filthy. I must have a decent wash down and change before tea. And my hair…’ Clover rolled her eyes.

‘It’s lovely to see you,’ Tom assured her, seeing nothing untoward in her appearance at all. ‘Let me buy you a drink.’

‘He’s brought the pictures of the wedding, Clover,’ Ramona chipped in. ‘Come and have a gander. They’re ever so good.’

Self-consciously, Clover stepped into the taproom and sat next to Tom. There were possibly a dozen other men in there, smoking, drinking, cursing, some playing crib. At one table a group were playing shove-ha’penny and beneath their table a mangy German shepherd dog lay, keeping a weather eye on the begrimed boot of one the more animated players whose foot shot out unwittingly from time to time in his excitement.

Tom picked up the album from his lap and handed it to Clover. Smiling with anticipation she opened it and looked at the first photograph.

‘God! Look at Mother. She’s actually laughing,’ she said, delighted. She flipped over to another. ‘Oh, ’struth, look at me. I look awful.’

Tom craned his neck to see the offending photograph. ‘To tell you the truth, Clover, I thought how nice you looked.’

With a glow of satisfaction, she looked first at Tom then at her stepsister. ‘Has he been flannelling you like this, Ramona?’

‘He says I look like Ellen Terry,’ Ramona answered flatly.

‘Ellen Terry?’ Clover pulled a face of disapproval.

‘I said you look more glamorous than Ellen Terry, Ramona.’

‘I should hope so,’ Ramona said, her voice characteristically croaky. ‘She’s older than a flippin’ conker tree. She’s older than Mother.’

‘I only meant,’ Tom explained, ‘that you have similar poise. You must admit that Ellen Terry has poise. She’s very elegant.’

Ramona smiled and looked at Tom warmly. ‘I believe you. Thousands wouldn’t.’

‘This is a good one of you, Ramona,’ Clover said generously and held a photograph up for her stepsister to see. Ramona agreed that she liked it.

‘Let me buy you a drink, Clover. May I?’

‘Thank you, Tom. A glass of lemonade wouldn’t come amiss. It’s thirsty work I’ve been doing all day.’

Mary Ann appeared at the door from the passage, in stern mode. ‘Clover. Come and help me with the tea now you’m back,’ she said curtly.

‘Have you seen the photographs, Mother?’ Clover waved the thin album at her to buy more time with Tom.

‘Yes, I’ve seen them,’ was the terse reply. ‘Now I could do with some help in the scullery.’

Clover looked disappointedly at Tom and then at Ramona. ‘I’d better go. Shame about the drink.’

‘Another time,’ Tom suggested, his face manifesting equal disappointment.

‘Yes, another time.’ She smiled her apology. ‘Coming, Mother.’

Tom Doubleday appeared again in the taproom of the Jolly Collier a couple of days later. Clover spotted him as she returned home from work. Self-conscious about her dowdy working clothes, she flitted past the door hoping to be unseen, but Tom caught sight of her and waved. She waved back but scurried out of sight into the security of the scullery. Later, as she was peeling potatoes at the stone sink, she peered through the window and saw Tom Doubleday talking and laughing with Ramona outside. A pang of jealousy seared through her. Never in her life before had she experienced jealousy and it was not a pleasant feeling. Suddenly, her heart was beating fast and she felt hot; she hated Ramona for being in Tom Doubleday’s company, for luring him away. Just as suddenly she hated Tom Doubleday for spurning her by being so obviously taken with her stepsister. She’d hankered for Tom Doubleday since the day she met him and Ramona must have known that. Ramona surely didn’t want him; she’d got this Sammy she’d talked about. Could the girl really be so thoughtless, so selfish as to take the man she wanted?

At tea Clover hardly spoke and didn’t even acknowledge Ramona. But nobody seemed to miss her contribution to the conversation that was growing more intense by the minute.

‘Six more free houses will take our ale, Mary Ann,’ Jake announced. ‘And an off-licence in Castle Street. As soon as we can brew the extra beer they’ll start selling it. Things am really looking up.’

Mary Ann sighed and swallowed a mouthful of rabbit stew. ‘It’s all well and good finding places what’ll take the stuff, Jacob, but can we brew it fast enough? That lot in the taproom can soak it up as quick as ever I can brew it.’

Jake picked a small piece of bone from between his teeth and set it on the side of his plate. ‘We need a bigger copper boiler. Six hundred and fifty gallon capacity wouldn’t be amiss. That’s eighteen barrels a brew, Mary Ann. Brewing six days a week, that’s one hundred and eight barrels. ’Course, we’d need half a dozen new fermenting vessels and all. And that grist mill we’ve got is buggered.’

‘And where d’you suppose the money’s coming from, Jacob?’ Mary Ann asked astutely. ‘’Cause I don’t suppose for a minute as it’ll stop at a new boiler and fermenting vessels. I daresay we’ll need an extension to the brewery, eh? Then we’m gonna need a new horse and dray and somebody to drive it.’

Jake dipped a piece of bread into his stew and popped it, dripping, into his mouth thoughtfully. ‘Well, we’ve made a start,’ he said. ‘You see, Mary Ann, what you’ve gorra consider is the potential. In five years, if everything goes according to plan, we could own six or seven licensed premises besides this’n. You only have to see what Hanson’s have done to see as there’s money to be made.’

Clover displayed little interest in the schemes and aspirations of her new stepfather. Let him get on with it. It was a different world to the one she inhabited. She was more concerned about Tom Doubleday and how he now seemed out of her reach. She excused herself from the table and went to her room sullenly. There, she sat on her new bed and sighed, full of frustration, full of animosity over Ramona. She gazed at the wash-stand with its ewer and bowl set and saw her face reflected in the mirror at the back of it. She was frowning. Yet she was not given to frowning. She must be in love with Tom Doubleday, else why would she feel like this? Her inborn common sense, however, suggested she had no prior claim over him. Ramona had just as much right to him.

She stood up and rummaged through her wardrobe for a frock that would be suitable attire for sewing canvas pieces onto wing sections. A home-made one presented itself and she changed into it. If Tom Doubleday fancied Ramona who was she to complain? She could hardly blame him. After all, Ramona was a fine-looking, vivacious young woman. Doubtless, in no time, they would be doing together eagerly what Ramona had been doing with Sammy. Naturally, the thought did not please her. It did not please her at all. Deftly, she buttoned up the dress, then shook out her long dark hair, brushed it thoroughly and tied it up again. At least Ned would be glad to see her. At least she could rely on Ned.

When she called for Ned at his home in Watson’s Street his mother, as usual, made a huge fuss of Clover. No, he’d gone half an hour since to Springfield House. He’d had another idea and couldn’t wait to get cracking on it. He’d said to send her over when she arrived, but would she like a cup of tea first? Clover replied that she’d not long had one and another would ensure she’d be dying to pee in an hour, when there was nowhere for a woman to pee at the stables of Springfield House since they’d demolished the old earth closet. She didn’t like to bother Mr Mantle, either, when he was so good anyway about them using the old stables to construct Ned’s flying machine.

So Clover bid goodbye to Florrie Brisco and carried on down Watson’s Street, turning right at Percy Collins’s greengrocery store. When she reached the top of Hill Street where it levelled out, she could see the blue slate roofs of Springfield House in Tansley Hill Road, a narrow, descending lane that was overhung like a grotto with tall trees.

Now that Joseph Mantle had bought a Sunbeam motor car and housed it in a newly constructed garage on the other side of Springfield House the old stables were redundant and the horses and carriage long since gone. The stables comprised one building that used to be sectioned into stalls on one side and was long enough to accommodate a forty-foot wingspan. Ned realised he was lucky to have such a fine facility, and with no outlay. His mother had been instrumental in arranging for him to use the stables through her connection with the Mantles; she had been in service there for years before she married, and was highly thought of. She still called regularly and the Mantles welcomed her like any old friend. Indeed, Joseph Mantle took a keen interest in Ned’s project and often put his head round the stable door to check on progress.

Ned smiled when he saw Clover. He had already taken off the sailcloth coverings at the wing-tips, ready for extending the wingspan.

‘So what do you want me to do, Ned?’

‘I want you to cover in the fuselage behind where I sit,’ he told her. ‘There’s no advantage in leaving it open like a frame. Enclosing it can provide storage space and protect the control wires to the tail and rudder.’

‘All right.’ She set about measuring up for the first piece.

‘Look, here’s the model. It’s nearly finished already. What do you think?’

‘It looks a bit different to the first flying machine you made,’ she said fingering the tail. ‘It’s less like a box kite.’

He grinned with satisfaction. ‘And it’ll perform better than any box kite design.’

She smiled at him with admiration. He was so engrossed in his machine and how he could make it fly. His determination was formidable. Nothing would deter him from his goal. Oh, he would succeed, of that she was certain. He read every scrap of information there was to read about the progress of other aviators all over the world and utilised their best ideas.

Clover moved to the trestle table and rolled out the expensive canvas sailcloth. She measured it and marked it out with a piece of blue chalk, then began cutting with a huge pair of scissors. Meanwhile Ned sawed and sanded the lath of wood that was to become an extended spar on one of the wings and offered it up to the construction. They worked companionably, speaking little, while Clover’s thoughts were about Tom Doubleday and whether he was supposed to be meeting Ramona that evening.

It depressed her to think about it. Ramona and Tom Doubleday…What if she got pregnant and he had to marry her?

If only he had asked her, Clover, to be his, she would be the happiest girl in the world. Oh, she was not without admirers, that much was obvious. Often she caught men looking at her covetously in the Jolly Collier when she was helping to serve. Men looked at her in church on a Sunday, they ogled her at the foundry. When she was walking to work she would attract many a wolf whistle. Yet no other man had really appealed. Nobody had ever made her stomach churn like Tom Doubleday. She’d never looked at a man’s lips before and known she wanted, more than anything, to be kissed by them. She’d never looked at a man’s hands and wondered what sensations they would elicit if they explored her body. She’d lain in bed at night imagining it and all sorts of other very private things, and could not sleep for ages after because of it.

The nearest thing she’d experienced to romance was Ned Brisco, but that was too one-sided to be any good for him. It was time to be honest with Ned, time to make him realise there could never be anything more than that which already existed between them. Some day, she would meet a man and fall head over heels in love; somebody other than Tom Doubleday who was occupying her thoughts now. Ned had to be prepared for that. It was only fair.

‘Why is it that you like me to spend my time here with you, Ned?’ she asked, breaking the concentration.

Ned stopped what he was doing and turned round to face her. ‘That’s a funny question, Clover.’

‘But I’d really like to know.’

‘Well, because I enjoy your company, I suppose. It’s nice being with you. And because you help me a lot.’

‘You enjoy my company, you said. But you hardly ever speak while I’m here.’

‘I still enjoy your company, Clover. I feel comfortable with you. We don’t have to talk all the while.’

‘No, I suppose not,’ she answered softly.

‘What’s the matter, Clover? You sound real fed up.’ He sounded uneasy. ‘Aren’t you interested in the flying machine any more?’

‘’Course I am,’ she admitted. ‘I still want to see you succeed. I want to see the thing fly and know that I had a hand in it. But, as regards anything else…I mean us…you and me…we see each other here, yet we don’t talk much, you have to admit.’

He sighed with dejection. ‘I admit I’m not such a brilliant conversationalist, Clover.’

She smiled affectionately. She couldn’t help but like him. ‘Well you do seem to be limited to one topic…’

‘Yes, I know I’m a bit preoccupied with it. Sorry. It doesn’t mean I’m not interested in you, Clover. I think the world—’

‘So how would you feel if you saw me with another man?’ she asked straightforwardly. ‘Because if another man I liked asked me out and I liked him, I’d most likely go. I mean, it’s not as if you and me are courting or anything like that.’

‘No,’ he said and she perceived his dejection. ‘I agree, it’s not as if we’re courting. I had hoped though, when—’

‘So it would be a mistake for you to regard me as anything other than a friend –wouldn’t it? Even though plenty folk think we’re more than just friends.’

He shrugged again disappointedly. ‘So have you met somebody you like, Clover? Is that why you mention it?’

‘No, no. I haven’t met anybody, Ned. But I might. And if I do, I don’t want you to think that I…I don’t want you to think you have any claim on me. On the other hand, I’d hate you to think I don’t care anything for our friendship, ’cause I do. ’Cause that’s what we are – friends.’

‘Yes, we are friends, Clover. I’d like us to be more than that but…Dammit, I might as well say it, since we’re talking about it…I’m in love with you, Clover. Always have been. All right, I know you’re not in love with me, so…’ He shrugged again and turned back to the wing he was modifying. ‘Well, at least we work well together, don’t we?’

Clover’s twentieth birthday came and went and no great fuss made. She was privately delighted when she received a birthday card from Tom Doubleday which she secreted away in her bedroom away from Ramona’s prying eyes. She had a lovely new white two-piece summer dress made at Bessie Roberts’s. It had a high-necked bodice and pouched in front; she chose the style and paid for it herself. Mary Ann gave her a new prayer book, Jake handed her a sovereign to spend as she wished, and Ramona bought her a new parasol for the summer.

The new dress re-exposed a recent bone of contention that Clover had hoped was buried for good: to Mary Ann’s reaffirmed dismay, Clover still refused to wear a corset to pull in her waist. She insisted that her waist was small enough at twenty-four inches, so she didn’t need a corset. ‘Brazen faggot,’ her mother called her. ‘Wait till you’ve had kids and you’m my age and it all starts to puff out like a bladder full of wind,’ she told her. But Clover perceived some humour in her mother’s eyes. Perhaps envy, too, that she herself could not be so brazen as to face the world corsetless, especially as her younger husband was fond of patting her rock-hard backside, when he might well have preferred patting untrussed feminine flesh that yielded more temptingly to the touch. Ramona, too, embraced Clover’s attitude to corsets. It made perfect sense not to constrict your movements and make yourself uncomfortable and hot, especially now that summer was coming. In any case, at work she was bending down so much, reaching for bottles on low shelves, stretching up for glasses and spirit bottles. It was bad enough having to wear all the uncomfortable things a woman was expected to wear, let alone corsets. Besides, Ramona’s waist measured only twenty-three inches, so she needed a corset even less than Clover, being so petite. So corsets they did not wear and, since corsets were not a fit topic for discussion at the meal table in any case, the subject was finally abandoned.

Whitsun came and went in days of perpetual sunshine and the scaled-down model of Ned’s flying machine proved to be a big attraction in Buffery Park on the Sunday, watched by a gathering clutch of highly curious Sunday afternoon walkers. He carried out the modifications he deemed necessary the same evening and put them to the test next day, to the delight of a chattering of children who were astonished, and a group of grey old men whom nothing would surprise. It only remained to incorporate these changes into the full-scale biplane he had almost finished constructing.

Tom Doubleday, Clover knew, called in at the Jolly Collier two or three times a week nowadays, but since it always coincided with her return from work when she looked her shabbiest she seldom spoke to him. Occasionally, he would spot her drifting through the passage but there was no opportunity for conversation. And besides, she did not want to antagonise Ramona.

Apart from one or two days of squally rain early in June that left the uneven cobbled streets of Kates Hill dotted with inky puddles, the weather became more settled again. Ramona enjoyed her eighteenth birthday and she, too, had a card from Tom Doubleday which she kept in her room away from Clover’s prying eyes. Her father bought her a new accordion.

A new copper boiler with a capacity of six hundred and fifty gallons was installed in the brewery along with a larger mash tun. But Jake could make full use of neither yet; three more fermentation vessels were required to give them the capacity they needed. Lack of capital was proving to be the problem and his house remained unsold, making matters worse. Mary Ann seriously distrusted all banks so, out of respect for his new wife’s wishes, Jake was reluctant to apply to one for a loan. However, some progress had been made, inasmuch as several outlets had signed up to take deliveries of Beckitt’s Beers, as the products were being branded.

It was time for Jake to implement his back-up plan.

On the evening of Wednesday, 5th June, he left the Jolly Collier’s customers in the care of Mary Ann, Ramona and Clover while he headed for the Dudley Arms Hotel in the Market Place. The Dudley Arms was where Elijah Tandy lived, enjoying his wealth in lordly fashion, in a fine room that offered him easy access to all the card schools in the town. As a soldier Elijah had served unscathed under Kitchener, first in the Boer War from 1899 to 1902, and in India during 1903 and 1904 and had seen something of life. He had returned from India somewhat better off than when he’d departed, thanks to a skill he had acquired during countless off-duty hours playing poker. Nowadays, Jake often referred to him as the Nabob. Since his soldiering, he had done little other than gamble successfully. Jake considered that the time had come for Elijah to make himself useful and be a more responsible citizen.

He found him in his room, fastening a collar to his shirt in front of the mirror.

‘Off out, our Elijah?’

‘A spot of courting.’

‘Can you spare me half an hour before you go? I doubt if Dorcas will mind.’

‘Why, what’s up?’

‘The brewery, Elijah. I was counting on having sold the house by now and the money from that subsidising the expansion of the business a bit further. Well, it ain’t sold, as you know and we need money for more fermentation squares. Otherwise we can’t get no further forward. I wondered if you’d got a few hundred I could borrow meanwhile.’

Elijah struggled with his collar stud but managed to attach the collar at the back. ‘This brewing business, Jake…Is it sound? I mean, is there money to be made?’

‘Sound? I should say it’s bloody sound. Already I’ve got off-licences and free houses clamouring to buy our stuff. You know what Mary Ann’s beer’s like – it’s beautiful. The blokes love it. Then there’s the ironworks we could supply. Have no fear, Elijah, your money would be safe enough.’

Elijah pondered while he tied his necktie. ‘I ain’t so sure as I want to lend you money, Jake,’ he said at last and noted the disappointment that registered on his brother’s face. ‘But I’ll come into the business as a partner, if you’ll have me. And I’ll put money in.’

Jake’s face lit up. ‘And you’re welcome, our Elijah. Do you fancy getting stuck in with the graft like the rest of us then?’

‘I don’t mind getting me hands dirty, our Jake. Anyroad, it’s time I did something worthwhile instead of farting about in card schools.’

‘Then it makes sense to come and live at the Jolly Collier, eh? After all, you couldn’t live here still when the place belongs to a rival brewery. And we’ve got a spare bedroom. We could soon get it ready for you.’

Elijah adjusted his necktie in the mirror, but looked thoughtful. ‘There’s just one small consideration, Jake…’

‘Which is?’

‘Dorcas.’

‘Oh. Are you getting wed at last then?’

‘Me wed? You’re kidding, mate. I ain’t about to get wed. But I do like to claim me conjugal rights from time to time.’

‘Oh, I see…’ Jake looked pensive.

‘There is one way we could solve it, Jake…’

Jake looked up at him hopefully. ‘How?’

‘By you allowing me to use your house a couple of nights a week for me courting. They turn a blind eye here when Dorcas comes back to me room at night, but I can’t see Mary Ann turning a blind eye at the Jolly Collier, can you?’

Jake shook his head. ‘Not likely. Besides, there’s the two girls…’

‘As you say, there’s the two girls,’ Elijah agreed.

‘Well, I’ve got no objection to you using my old bed to get your wicked away a couple of nights a week, our Elijah. Far be it from me to get in the way of that. In fact, I’ll call in meself and get it all made up for you.’

Elijah smiled. ‘Let’s go down to the bar and have a drink on it then, eh?’

‘It’s all settled then?’

‘It’s all settled. How much money do you want off me, our Jake?’

‘Let’s say a thousand for now if you can spare it. We’ll have a deed of partnership drawn up, legal like, and agree later the final figure. Wait till I tell Mary Ann. She’ll be beside herself.’

‘With joy or despair?’

Jake laughed. ‘You can never tell just by looking. But she’s all right. I wouldn’t swap her for crock of gold.’