‘That’ll be the day.’ Clover scrutinised her mother’s expression, looking in her eyes for a clue as to her true feelings. ‘I just wondered. It’s all so sudden. It’s such a shock.’
Mary Ann pulled a chair from under the scrubbed wooden table. She sat down opposite her daughter and sighed. ‘Ever since your father passed away fifteen years ago next November I’ve run this place on me own, pub and brewery. I’ve tried to bring you up to the best of me ability and all, but it ain’t bin easy. I had to take Zillah on to help in the house and look after you. But folk cost money to employ and money’s scarce, Clover. It’s always bin scarce.’
‘Our beer’s still as good as ever it was,’ Clover encouraged.
‘Because I know what I’m a-doing when I brew it and because it has to be, else we’d sell none. By this time last year though, our Clover, I’d had enough. I know I never said nothing to you but I was ready to pack it all in. I’d been working me fingers to the bone eighteen hours a day. And for what? What with a mortgage on this place to pay off, bills for malt and hops, for coal to heat the copper and the mash tun, the excise man to pay, as well as Zillah and Job Smith, that bone-idle cellarman. And God knows who else. It’s no wonder I insisted you went out to work. We’ve needed the money, Clover.’
‘And it’s not every girl’s dream, working in a foundry,’ Clover commented as one of the cats, Malcolm, came in and rubbed itself gently against her shins, a sensation she enjoyed.
‘Anyway, when I thought about it hard, our Clover, I had to admit to meself that the only way we could live in anything like comfort and peace of mind would be for me to marry, cause there’s no sign of you getting wed.’
Clover peered through the window onto the back yard and saw that it was raining. ‘Well, that’s not my fault. When have I ever been given the chance to do any courting?’ she said, throwing right back in her mother’s face the prejudice she instinctively held against any of Clover’s likely suitors. ‘You’ve never allowed me to go out with lads.’
‘It’s been for your own good,’ Mary Ann said soberly, picking her fingernails. ‘I never wanted you getting mixed up with any damned scruff. I always wanted you to wait till the right chap came along.’
Clover shrugged off the subject. Her mother knew her feelings well enough. ‘So did you ask Jake Tandy to marry you?’
‘Me ask him? As if I would.’ A hint of a smile teetered on the brink of Mary Ann’s eyes at that. ‘I didn’t have to, thank the Lord. He asked me. I’ve got to know him over the six months he’s been a regular here. He’s had a stall on Dudley Market and he ain’t short of a bob or two. He’ll have a house to sell as well. He wants to put money into the brewing, to expand that side of the business. He reckons we can sell our beer to free houses and off-licences. Not only that, he reckons them as owns the pits and the ironworks will buy barrels of the stuff off us. As he says, a hammer driver in a forge can sink twenty pints or more on a hot day. For every worker that amounts to a tidy lot of beer, our Clover.’
‘So tell me about Jake, Mother. I hardly know him.’
‘He’s younger than me – by four years…’
‘So he’s what? Thirty-eight?’
Mary Ann nodded, either ignoring or failing to recognise the trace of disapproval in Clover’s voice.
‘And he’s never been married?’
‘Oh, he’s been married afore, Clover. He’s a widower.’
‘A widower? Does he have children then? Children who are coming to live here?’
‘Just a daughter. Seventeen. Two years younger than you.’
‘Mmm…’ Clover mused. ‘Does she work?’
‘She’ll work here – serving, helping out in the brewery.’
‘While I have to work in a foundry.’
The main room of the Jolly Collier was the taproom, but it also boasted a snug with a fireplace where the women were more likely to congregate on Saturday and Sunday nights. The taproom was devoid of a bar counter; the beer pumps were built into a wooden construction that hugged one wall. So, when you wanted your glass refilled you hailed Mary Ann, or Clover, or Job Smith or whoever was serving, ordered your drink and they would deliver it to your table. A low, cast-iron fireplace framed a hearty coal fire at one end of the room, around which the older men huddled for warmth in winter.
Clover realised that running a busy public house and brewing sometimes in excess of thirty barrels of beer each week had indeed tended to keep Mary Ann at full stretch. But Clover did her bit to help despite her day job. By five each morning she would be up, lighting the fire in the taproom ready to receive the first ironworkers and miners when they called for their threepenny rum and coffee on their way to their morning shift. They would yawn and gossip like old biddies with their colleagues who also called in for a drink when returning home, tired from the night shift.
That evening, Jake Tandy turned up in the taproom with his younger brother, Elijah.
‘How am yer, my flower?’ he greeted.
Mary Ann smiled with pleasure at seeing him. ‘Rushed off me feet, as ever. But all the better for seeing you, Jacob,’ she replied. ‘Usual?’
Jake nodded. ‘And a pint of pale for our Elijah. Here, I’ve bought our Elijah to meet you, Mary Ann, seeing as how he’s gunna be me best man.’
Elijah stood erect and held out his hand formally. ‘I’ve been looking forward to meeting you, Mrs Beckitt. Jake’s said some fine things about you.’
‘Well, that’s just as well in the circumstances.’ Mary Ann replied. She turned to Jake. ‘And now is as good a time as any for you to meet our Clover properly. She’s always gone to bed by the time we’ve finished serving, so there’s never been a chance for her to get to know you.’
So Mary Ann issued them with a pint of beer each and led them into the living quarters, leaving Job Smith, the part-time bartender, to serve the customers.
‘How do you do, Clover,’ Jake said agreeably when he saw her.
Clover smiled back and blushed. ‘Nice to see you again, Mr Tandy.’
‘Hey, Mister Tandy, eh? Now that’s summat as’ll have to change. It’ll be no good calling me Mr Tandy when me and your mother am wed. Why not call me Pop and start right off? Sounds better than papa, I always reckon.’
Clover continued to smile politely.
‘I bet you’m wondering what sort of a chap I am, eh, Clover?’
‘I’m bound to wonder, Mr Tandy. I hope we can all live together contentedly.’
Clover had been aware of Jake Tandy for months, serving him pints of bitter in the taproom of the Jolly Collier. He had started loitering after closing time, collecting glasses, washing up, sweeping up the old sawdust and putting the spittoons out to wash – generally currying favour, by which time Clover had usually gone to bed ready for her early start next day. It galled her that she had not known he was to be her stepfather till today. Even though the banns must have been read, nobody had thought to mention the fact to her. Typical. Still, Clover couldn’t help wondering what Jake saw in Mary Ann and her stone-faced demeanour.
‘I’ve got a daughter meself, you know,’ he said and took a swig from his glass.
‘Mother said.’
‘Ramona. You’ll like her. There ain’t that much difference in your ages.’
‘I’m sure it’ll be very nice having a stepsister,’ Clover said equably. ‘Especially if she’s of an age.’
‘Well, she’s a nice lass, though I say so meself…And this is me brother, Elijah…’ Jacob turned